Strange is thinking that it's kinda weird there are human Masters of the Mystic Arts on a planet he'd never heard of. He's also a little unsure of the "collect every possible ally from everywhere" strategy. At this point new people are just as likely to get in his way as anything. He doesn't begrudge them their desire to fight, though.

To Leareth's magic-sensing he will show up as...maybe a mage? Definitely something similar, but not exactly the same.

:Let's get your people off this ship, and then we can compare situations and resources. Also, what's with the horses? We have slightly faster methods of transport here.:

Most of the Avengers are feeling a familiar deep grief mixed with powerful determination. It's a familiar set of feelings to anyone who's been around Leareth recently. Most of them didn't have close loved ones besides each other, but they grieve for the entire world.

There are also some people inside the building who are...not human. Magical, somehow, but not Gifted in the familiar sense.

Nayoki is - wow - mostly what she feels right now is gratitude. It’s going to be so good for Leareth, to be around people who are…on his level, like him, can understand why when Captain Marvel arrived, a week later he had solved half a dozen novel technical problems just to get them here, now…

Shavri doesn’t have much room for emotions at all. She doesn’t trust these people yet. She thinks this ‘Doctor Strange’ seems confident in himself to the degree of arrogance and is probably a bit of a jerk. She knows the type; she can work with that. She wonders vaguely what this world’s medical knowledge is like.

Leareth would be curious about the nonhuman not-mages, but instead he’s busy riding out a wash of overwhelming emotional distress because, stupidly, he had the thought that Vanyel would have wanted so badly to be here…

:Of course: He gestures for the others to start existing the capsule.

:We’re people actually: Yfandes throws in as she ambles past Strange. :We volunteered as well:

Okay, intelligent horses probably rank under intelligent raccoons on the weirdness index.

He leads them all to the largest conference room for the briefing. Everything in the facility is metal and glass and a style of architecture that probably feels both incredibly cool and disconcertingly alien to Velgarth people.

:Thirty-three days ago, this guy came to Earth,: he says, projecting an illusion of Thanos. :Name of Thanos. Obsessed with 'balancing' the universe, which apparently means murdering half the population. Was looking for these—: he adds the Infinity Stones. :Infinity Stones. No one knows where they came from, they've been around since the beginning of time. Make you basically God, if you get all six and they don't kill you. Anyway, I had one, before Thanos took it.: (He leaves out the part about giving it to him voluntarily, that's a little high-context.) :The Time Stone. I used it to look into the future. There wasn't any way to stop him then and there, but we could undo it. This—isn't the one good future I saw, but it's not any of the bad ones either.

:So he got all of the Stones. Snapped his fingers, half of everyone died. Including me. I ended up in the afterlife and the god of death, who was kind of pissed off by all of this—his wife got Snapped, among other problems—sent me back to finish Thanos off. I woke up in a paradise populated by other gods and this semi-magical immortal species called elves, who are featured in a popular fantasy novel here that none of us knew was actually true. We discovered the existence of another set of super-powerful magic shiny rocks—: he adds the Silmarils to the illusion—:and we collected them. Brought back the elf who made them from the dead, and eventually his sons as well. Tried to use one to kill Thanos, but it failed, so one of the goddesses took matters into her own hands and supernova'd his entire solar system. He escaped with the help of an evil minor god who snuck out of god prison when we rescued the guy who made the other shiny rocks. We don't currently know where either of them are.

:The original plan involved traveling back in time to retrieve alternate versions of the Infinity Stones, so we're currently working on that, alongside various tasks in making sure this whole damned world doesn't fall apart. If you give me a brief summary of your magic I'll see how you can fit into our various efforts.:

Well, that explains the supernova. Good to know whoever did it is at least plausibly friendly.

She has galactic peacekeeping to get back to. She says a quick goodbye to Leareth and the Avengers, and is on her way.

Leareth is having so many thoughts.

Each thread he tries to start, keeps getting disrupted midstream by an ENTIRELY NEW set of thoughts. 

No one knows where they came from, they've been around since the beginning of time.

Someone has been failing SO INCREDIBLY HARD at being curious - which would be understandable, if their only opportunity had arrived after the Snap, but one, he's fairly sure that isn't the case, and two, that would be an indictment in itself - 

Make you basically God, if you get all six and they don't kill you.

What. 

(There are half a dozen layers of emotional reaction that Leareth COULD have, here, if there were space for it, which there isn't -)

Anyway, I had one, before Thanos took it.

What.

He leaves out the part about giving it to him voluntarily, that's a little high-context.

(Leareth sees this thought, of course, and leaves it aside for the moment. More importantly, so does Nayoki, who - understands "high context" and reads as much as she can and then moves on.)

The Time Stone. I used it to look into the future. There wasn't any way to stop him then and there, but we could undo it. 

That's...understandable? Good strategy, given their constraints. Also. WHAT.

So he got all of the Stones. Snapped his fingers, half of everyone died.

....Vanyel, dissolving into dust no he has to NOT think about that right now, there's work to do - 

Including me.

What. What. WHAT.

I ended up in the afterlife and the god of death, who was kind of pissed off by all of this—his wife got Snapped, among other problems—sent me back to finish Thanos off.

Leareth....is so confused about what the locals even mean by 'gods'. 

I woke up in a paradise populated by other gods and this semi-magical immortal species called elves, who are featured in a popular fantasy novel here that none of us knew was actually true.

....He has officially given up at making sense of anything, anymore. 

Leareth can, operating almost entirely on automatic, give a summary of what mage-gift and all the other Gifts represented here can do. It doesn't take much thought. His mind is mostly elsewhere. 

The moment Leareth mentions Thoughtsensing, he throws up a shield to block unauthorized access to the inside of his head, leaving open only deliberate communication. And then he does the same thing to the rest of the team's, with alerts if anyone tries to breach them.

:I realize that you have probably been reading our minds. I understand this, given the unfamiliarity of the situation, but you will find yourself unable to continue. If you have questions, please ask.

:Your 'mage-gift' appears similar to my own abilities, although its internal workings may be different. We should conduct experiments to determine if I can learn your spells and vice versa.: He demonstrates a portal and a shield. :However, your world's mind-manipulation magic is more powerful than anything we have. It might be useful for incapacitating Thanos before he can use the Infinity Stones, which render him invincible but do require deliberate effort to use.

:Our current hope for time travel involves a technology which allows a person to be shrunk to a scale where the structure of space-time is no longer smooth. However, the creator of this technology is dead and we are dependent on a very limited supply of a necessary resource. If your magic could replicate this shrinking effect, that would also be extremely useful.:

Then, as an afterthought—:If you have Mindhealers to spare, there are a lot of civilians on this planet who need help processing what's going on. No more than those on your own world, of course, and more than you can hope to help, but we would nonetheless appreciate it.:

Shavri is startled by the sudden shields! She backs off immediately, though, and shows very little reaction. 

Leareth is unsurprised by Doctor Strange's reaction to the Thoughtsensing revelation; he just nods in quiet acknowledgement. He's already prodded Nayoki to back off. By this point, she knows what she needs to. 

He nods, again, at the proposal of conducting experiments. His eyelids flicker at the mention of their world's mind-manipulating magic being unprecedented -  

- and he goes completely still, for a few seconds, when the shrinking technology is mentioned. 

Well. The stranger seems to be done with his speech and Leareth doesn't seem to be answering so Melody might as well go ahead. 

:I'm, er, a Mindhealer. I assume your world has never heard of the Gift for it and the thing you mean is - different in some way - but I wouldn't mind helping people process what happened. As long as it's people here and not back in Velgarth: 

:One moment: Leareth interrupts, lifting a hand. 

His mind is spinning, trying to follow half a dozen trails at once, all equally useless because he's still lacking almost all of what he would need to make sense of this. 

The ability to shrink someone. How? 

A scale where spacetime is...no longer smooth? What. 

A mechanism for time travel - a limited resource... 

(It's not like it takes a lot of insight, here, to notice how desperately curious Urtho would be, if he were here, if he were still alive - if he hadn't died two thousand years ago in a desperate final effort to stop his former student - 

- Vanyel, speaking against a backdrop of ice and snow. You were his best student - because you cared too much -)

Leareth is not going to think about EITHER OF THEM right now. 

:- Until this moment, I would have placed very low odds that time travel were possible, or - this shrinking you mention... I cannot help directly. But our mage-gift comes with a sense for magic, and I would be happy to examine the 'resource' you use for this, and see if I can help: 

:Leareth explained your world's various Gifts to me,: he tells Melody. :I wouldn't know where you should begin, but your Gift would definitely be helpful.:

Then to Leareth—:I'm sure time travel is possible. Certainly with the Time Stone, but we don't have that. I saw the shrinking thing work in one of the futures I visited. The limited resource is called Pym Particles, they power the shrinking tech. I have no idea how they work—I'm not a physicist, but I'm pretty sure they don't work on my magic, anyway. The researchers are in the lab, which is down the hall that way—: he gestures. :I realize a lot of this is very confusing for you, given your world's limited knowledge, but they'll do their best to bring you up to speed.:

:I am following just fine so far, actually: 

Leareth is not deliberately being snappy but it's slipping through a bit anyway. 

:I will go talk to the researchers. ...Oh, speaking of our world's mind-Gifts. Nayoki, my second-in-command, is a Mindhealer as Melody is, but - substantially more experienced at using the Gift in combat. It is rather flexible that way. You two ought speak: 

And he turns and heads off in the direction that Strange pointed. 

....At some point later - much later, probably, once it has a chance of being funny again - Nayoki is going to slap him for dumping this on her. 

She nods to Doctor Strange. 

If Leareth is following this just fine he's doing much better than Strange is. (He lets his shield falter as he thinks this, in such a way that Leareth, if he's still paying attention, might think he didn't actually intend that thought to be heard. He really didn't mean to be condescending—it's just the reality of the situation that Leareth and his people are missing a lot of context here and failing to acknowledge that is going to cause a problem.)

:Could you—incapacitate someone nonviolently in such a way that they couldn't take any action to deflect it?: he asks Nayoki. :This may prove to be critical to our eventual fight with Thanos.:

When Leareth reaches the lab he'll find it occupied by two men and three of the nonhumans with foreign magic that he sensed earlier. One of the nonhumans appears to have a non-organic body.

One of the men, who's wearing tight-fitting red-and-gold armor from the neck down, greets him in a language he can't understand, though he can read just enough of his thoughts to get the meaning of the words.

"Hey. So you're the new wizard. I'm Tony Stark." He holds out his hand to shake.

Leareth tenses slightly - he's been generally on edge, and thus especially isn't in the mood to touch strangers who he's just met - but he follows Tony's lead and shakes his hand. 

:To clarify, I do not actually speak your language. Yet. If you deliberately think words at me then I will pick them up: 

He would normally be so curious about the nonhumans and their alien magic, but curiosity is very tiring right now. 

Tony recognizes Leareth's discomfort with the handshake, and makes it a short one.

"I know. I'm saying things aloud while thinking them at you to help you learn English," he says-and-broadcasts. "It worked really well for the elves. Don't let them know you speak a new language, though, they're easily distracted enough as is.

"By the way, I didn't catch your name—I can't just call you 'wizard' now that there's more than one of you—"

It's too late; the elf with the non-organic body hears "new language" and his attention is immediately caught. He turns toward Leareth, and Leareth notices—he doesn't know why he didn't notice this before—that the elf has three extremely powerful magical artifacts apparently—embedded in his chest?

"I promise not to annoy you with questions about your language if you'll speak it aloud while thinking things at me like I'm doing now, instead of just saying everything over osanwë," he says-and-thinks the same way Tony did. (The last word carries a mental connotation of basically-but-not-quite-Mindspeech.)

"I'm Curufinwë Fëanáro, by the way; Fëanor for short," he adds. He doesn't bother attempting a handshake. "This is my son Curufinwë Atarinkë, and Calanáro Imbírtan, who isn't related but probably wishes he was." He gestures to the other two elves as he introduces them.

The other elves look briefly at Leareth as their names are mentioned, then go back to their work.