"I appreciate it. I just prefer not to be out in the dark, you know, lest I get myself into trouble and need to call for help and ruin my experiment."

"There's not really any wildlife this close to the city," he says, not even thinking of any threats other than that, and then explains his wagon-repairing.

Mhalir continues to be IN AWE of how Carissa can somehow manage to play this part so perfectly. 

<...We should maybe try to ask him more difficult questions about the gods> he thinks to her. <Or other things where we specifically want information. But - carefully, I suppose, I would not want to ruin the character you are playing here.> 

"I hear Ulmo makes himself known in Birthombar sometimes."

"I don't think recently. He keeps an eye out for the ships that go all the way around the world."

"And a good thing! That's a dangerous journey.

You know, the orcs say that Melkor's going to come back."

"I heard that! I don't know if the Valar will allow it. Obviously we shouldn't punish someone forever for crimes thousands of years ago, but, you know, he seems like trouble."

"Melkor? Yeah. He created orcs, that doesn't seem like a very Good thing to do."

"He created orcs and he killed so many people and he did horrible things to their souls and I know he's sorry but I think he ought to be sorry in Valinor where there are gods to keep an eye on him."

"Are they going to be any good at keeping an eye on him?"

"I'd expect being a god is a leg up, there. They didn't have any trouble with keeping him a prisoner."

"Do you think it might mean a war with the orcs, if he came back?"

"A ...war? Like between the gods? I...how would that even work, we're not gods. I haven't a grievance with any specific orcs and they haven't one with me."

Do countries here not call it war.

"I mean, they might want our territory, once they've filled up theirs."

"They can't do that. Ours is ours and theirs is theirs, and if they want to have lots of children and fill theirs up, that's up to them, but it doesn't give them the right to ours, that'd be very silly."

"What would stop them."

"....what stops people from taking each others' things normally! That it's a very rude thing to do!"

"I would have answered that question with 'the city guards!'"

"I have never heard of the city guards stopping someone from taking something that wasn't theirs!" Pause. "Apparently they do it occasionally but it's usually a confusion, or a chlld, or someone is hungry or something."

"The orcs will be hungry, when they run out of land."

"...they wouldn't have children if the children were going to be hungry."

"I mean, there might be a good year, and they have lots of children, and then a few years later there's a bad year, and they can't feed them."

"...well, I guess we'd have to let them have some farmland, then."

"Do you think Ulmo would allow that?"

"I don't think he pays much attention to what's happening on land."