And now Leareth is drained again, but he really ought to save his remaining spells for an actual emergency. Instead he sits down and rests for ten minutes. 

Ma'ar takes the opportunity to extend his Thoughtsensing, looking for the nearest people to approach, and skimming their thoughts to get some context on where they are right now. 

This is orc, not Elf, territory, apparently. The fishing villages are full of orcs; this land is too rocky and marginal for anyone to live on it, but inland along a river there are farms, also with orcs.

What are the orcs thinking about? Any indication that approaching them would get a hostile reaction? 

The orcs are thinking about the weather - an important thing to be on top of in a coastal fishing village - and about where the material for new clothes for their oldest child can be found, and about whether to say anything to the neighbor, who's being rude and moody again for no apparent reason, and (in the case of the neighbor) about who she suspects of having stolen her cutlery. They don't seem hostile but they seem a bit more - normal, than Elves, like the kind of people who've in fact encountered hostility and reasons for it.

Ma'ar relates this to Leareth and Urtho. :I think it seems safe to approach some of them? If it goes badly I don't think they can actually hurt us, they don't seem to have magic and we're shielded, and we could get out: 

:Yes, I agree: 

Leareth scrambles up and they can start walking over. 

The orc men are mostly out fishing; the orc women are mostly cooking and mending and paying not very much but nonzero mind to the large number of orc children, who are racing around fighting with sticks and climbing the houses and building rock towers. The children spot them first, and then all gather around to gawk - they are identifying the strangers as Elves, or maybe Dwarves, neither of which they've ever seen.

:Hello?: Leareth tries to say to them. They're cute, he thinks; well, they are sort of ugly by human standards, but still. He appreciates children a lot more since having his own. 

:Hello!: they say cheerfully back - he must be an Elf not a Dwarf, everyone knows Dwarves can't talk telepathically.

:We are aliens from another world: Leareth explains, hoping to correct that misapprehension early on. :We are here looking for different aliens, and also hoping to learn more of your people in general: 

These orcs do not have any context with which to interpret any of those claims. From Valinor? one of them offers.

:We are not from Valinor originally, though we did just come from there. Can we talk to your parents as well?: 

The mothers are heading over to see what the fuss is already. Are you lost? Elves cannot bear to look at orcs, in general, and don't visit orc territory.

:Not lost exactly, though we have questions about where we are. We are not Elves: And Leareth repeats the bit about being aliens from another world, having just finished visiting Valinor. 

The orcs call the planet Erdek, though Elves call it something else. There are orc cities, down the coast from here, at the mouth of the river, and an orc King off somewhere faraway. Elves are even farther than that, the ones who didn't go to Valinor in the sky.

Leareth nods, thanks them. :What do you know about Valinor?: he asks. 

Elves are very fragile and can only live if nothing around them offends their sensibilities. Many of them went off to live in Valinor about this. It's in the sky. It has the Elf gods. Some people say orcs go there when they die but the Elf gods hate orcs so Melkor means to fix that, and have them go to Him instead.

:I see. I did not hear anything about orcs going to Valinor, while we were there, but we did not visit for all that long: He does not push them on the matter of Melkor and Melkor's very dubious priorities; he asks a few more questions, about how the orcs here feel about the Elves, whether they have any contact with each other. 

They mostly don't, because Elves can't stand the sight of orcs. Orcs don't like Elves but they can go do their own thing in faraway Elf cities, that's well enough. Elves have very few children and want to make it harder for orcs to have children. It's very rude of them. Luckily no one cares what Elves think.

Leareth makes a sympathetic sound and agrees that this is rude, and expresses that he can stand the sight of orcs just fine although he did already notices that the Elves in Valinor were more particular than his species. 

He asks, courteously, if the orcs would be willing to let them stay here for a little while before they travel onward. Ma'ar and Urtho will be happy to do some simple magic for them in payment; they've heard this world doesn't have magic at all. 

It does not and the orcs are fascinated! And sure, they can accommodate a couple more mouths to feed for a day or two.

The children want lots of demonstrations of magic. What does it do. Can they learn it. Can you FLY with magic. 

They'll stay for a day at the longest, Leareth promises; he just needs to rest because he did a lot of magic already, to get them here. 

Urtho explains, with Ma'ar relaying in Mindspeech, that you can fly with some kinds of magic, and Leareth can if he's asked his god for the spell, but he didn't on this trip because he prioritized the other god-magic that helps him do more other magic without getting too tired; he needs to make it last because he's too far away to get more spells from the god right now. Flying with mage-gift, the other magic they all have, is very very hard, but you can do lights and invisible heat-sources and pretty illusions and you can make shields like this... 

The orc children gather around delightedly to watch. The orc parents think to one another that this all seems very odd, and they relocate their activities to keep the children in view.

The men come back at sunset with fish.