Back in the clear-ceilinged dome, Leareth stares at devastated worlds, one after another. At destruction and heartbreak and unbearable costs - and at hope, shimmering through a veil of tears. 

He made a VOW. 

He's never going to stop fighting until this is fixed. 

Tony remembers the last time he was here, and realizes something.

"Can you—can you see Thanos?" he asks Varda.

NO. SAURON, WITH THE POWER OF THE RING, HAS VEILED THEM BOTH FROM ME.

Disappointing but he supposes if she did know where he was she would have killed him by now.

"Alright then, let's head out," he says to everyone remaining.

ERU'S GRACE BE WITH YOU, AVENGERS.

I WISH YOU WELL.

They leave Taniquetil and fly eastward, through the mid-ocean portal, then turn around and head back to the Avengers headquarters.

"I'm going to check in with Cap, see if we have any more of a plan now," says Tony when they land. "Leareth, I'm sure you'll want to check in with your people; talk to Strange as well and find out how the magic experiments went. Elves, get all the time travel stuff set up where we had it before."

Leareth's mind is still mostly elsewhere, caught by the flickers glimpsed of hundreds, thousands, of worlds - 

"Of course. Vanyel, come with me?" 

He checks in with Nayoki via Mindspeech while they look for Strange. 

Everything has been going well! Leareth should get a report from Strange himself on the magic experiments, but he's studied examples of nearly every Velgarth Gift at this point. With the exception of Bardic, they didn't bring a Bard on this trip. 

:Fortunately, we can address that now! I have Vanyel with me: 

:What: 

:Mandos had him, and agreed to send him back. Valdemar's King as well. Things ought go better there, now: 

Yfandes stays back, listening in through Vanyel's senses. Earth architecture isn't very Companion-friendly. 

Strange finds the two of them soon after. Looks a bit sideways at Vanyel.

:Leareth. And, uh—I'm afraid I didn't catch your name. In fact I'm pretty sure you weren't here when they left. Did he pull you out of the past, or Mandos, or what?

:How'd the time travel go? Based on my original vision it seemed like you were at the point where there wasn't much left to do, so after the sixth day of you being gone we started to assume things had gone horribly wrong.:

:...They figured it out on the first day of work, and the initial trial - succeeded at the time travel part. It turns out that it is fatal for Elves, which made us more reluctant to test on humans, though it did prove to work fine for me. It also turned out that Mandos has all of Velgarth's dead as well as Earth's. This is Herald-Mage Vanyel, of Valdemar: 

Vanyel nods and smiles and tries not to look like someone who finds meeting new people incredibly draining. 

:Vanyel is - a long-time friend: Leareth feels that at this point, he can leave out the other...complications, there. :Also, an extremely powerful mage, and possessing eight other Velgarth Gifts as well: 

That doesn't seem like it would take a week—oh, yeah, the time-warp effect.

:I didn't know there were that many Gifts, to be honest. We've been studying them—my magic seems to do basically the same things as your mages', and I can imitate most of their spells, and vice versa, though it's a lot of work and we both already have most things that are going to be useful in combat. I haven't been able to get hardly anywhere imitating the other Gifts. There are some, ah, implementation differences too—I'm pretty sure both your species and your planet have been heavily modified by whatever it is you're calling gods, because I don't have an unusual region in my brain—I used to be a neurosurgeon, I've definitely checked—and this planet doesn't have ley lines unless you just mean the magnetic field. I do most of my magic via this:—he points out his Sling Ring—:and am not limited by my own internal energy reserve, although the continuous power I can use isn't much greater than your people's—maybe less than yours, Vanyel, if you're as great as Leareth says. I'm fairly sure I can't do the suicide-bombing thing, although I don't plan to try.

:There's going to be a planning session for the time travel expedition in the main conference room in a few minutes. You should join us.:

:I can channel five times as much power as Savil: Vanyel offers quietly. :More, for short bursts, though I - prefer not to push it that hard: 

:The other Gifts involve...a great deal of hidden complexity, I think: Leareth acknowledges. :Especially in the sensory elements. It is possible to crudely imitate Mindspeech with a communication-spell, and Mindhealing with compulsions, but even with centuries of research, I have not made progress on replicating their Sight. Anyway, we will be happy to join your planning meeting: 

Five times as much as Savil is way more than he can produce with the Sling Ring alone. If he still had an Infinity Stone, it would be a different story.

He leads them to the conference room, where the rest of the Avengers, Fëanor, Savil, and Nayoki are gathered.

Steve and Tony are at the front of the room.

"So nearly everyone in this room—well, all of the Avengers, at least—have had an encounter with at least one of the six Infinity Stones," he's saying.

"Or, substitute the word 'encounter' for damn near been killed by one of the six Infinity Stones."

"So, we've identified several points in time and space when multiple stones were in a known location that would be—relatively—easy for a team of us to go in and grab. Point number one: six years ago, in New York City—for the off-world people, there's a city of approximately ten million about fifty miles south of here—during Loki's, ah, attempt to conquer the planet. He had the Mind and Space Stones, and the Time Stone was nearby, in the Sanctum Sanctorum that's run by Strange's people. The plan there is to slip in right as the battle is winding down and grab the Stones in the chaos."

"I wasn't practicing magic yet at the time. However, the previous Sorcerer Supreme could see the future, so she'll know me."

Leareth is listening attentively.