"Uh, to kill Sauron we need to get his magic ring into a very specific volcano. Follow me. It would help if we were invisible."

He flies to Mount Doom.

:Huh, that's really not a subtle name for it at all:

Vanyel follows him. He's never been any good at illusions, unfortunately, but it's a lot easier if he only needs to do it from one angle - below - and the thing he needs to illusion them to look like is "sky". 

He's also never spent this long incredibly high in the air, but he's not especially afraid of heights, and he's done plenty of more terrifying things. It doesn't take long to get used to it. 

Tony lands at the edge of the Cracks of Doom and gestures to them. "You can do portals based on memories, right? Remember this place."

:- Right. Just give me a minute: 

Vanyel looks around for something that vaguely resembles a doorway. Or even a hole in the ground... 

:Um, how big does it have to be? I need something to build the threshold on: And once this is over, he really does need to track down Nayoki and get her to teach him the unscaffolded Gate-technique. 

"Ah, shit. It only needs to be ring-sized, but needing a scaffold will be a problem on the other end. I was hoping to do this without touching the damn thing. Wherever you pick here, though, it needs to be somewhere where it'll fall directly into the lava once it goes through."

(There are some appropriately positioned holes in the ground at the Cracks of Doom, though.)

:...Right: Vanyel stares intently at the ground for fifteen seconds, memorizing it. :I'll do my best with whatever's on the other side. Um, where are we going next, to find it?: 

"Uh, follow me." He flies about a thousand miles northwest, and hovers high over a picturesque country village.

"It's here somewhere—uh, you can probably find it with your magic powers, right? It's got to be very magic."

(The One Ring is extremely visible to Othersenses. It's in a desk drawer in a house delved into the side of a hill, about half a mile away. It's also—whispering to Vanyel, and when he looks at it, he sees himself using it to accomplish everything he's ever desired. It can destroy Thanos, utterly and forever, and bring back all his victims. Forget the Infinity Stones, this is the One Ring to rule them all, and a Gauntlet is basically the same thing as a Ring, right? It can end sickness and want and death, in Velgarth and all the worlds, make the resources that Thanos was so concerned about for everyone. It could also let him rule the world, it adds, almost as an afterthought, because it knows Vanyel doesn't want that.)

(It says all this plainly, without any hint of seduction in its mindvoice. It is just giving him information, and all information is worth having, right?)

- what. 

Vanyel was NOT expecting that! 

He starts to instinctively raise his shields, and then...doesn't do this. Instead he keeps listening to what the Ring is saying, still hovering motionless next to Tony. 

He wishes Leareth were here, Leareth would– 

No, on reflection, he's very glad Leareth isn't here. 

(Why? Because Leareth would want the omnipotent magical artifact for himself? Because Leareth would - what - he's so confused...) 

Ten seconds pass, then twenty, without Vanyel moving or saying anything. 

Tony can't feel the Ring, and he doesn't realize that Vanyel can. (For non-Gifted people its effects usually only kick in when they get in sight of it, although Tony has no reason to know this.)

"Well?" he asks Vanyel. "Can you find it?"

He starts to consider that it might have been a bad idea to bring the super-powerful wizard near the even-more-powerful evil magic ring of doom, but it's too late to turn back now.

He can't tell Tony. Tony shouldn't know what the Ring is saying, what it's capable of -

- what. 

...Focus. What does he expect to happen if he tells Tony the Ring is talking to him? That Tony will think he's lost his mind? That Tony will try to get to it first? Something else? 

It feels like 'something else' is the answer but he's not succeeding at naming it and pinning it down; it's all slippery in his head, it just feels like - something bad, something wrong - he doesn't know what's going to happen and he has to stay in control of the situation - 

- taking from him what should be his– what?  

Focus. 

It feels true, that the Ring is the most important thing in the world, here, that he's just learned something huge, that there's - another way - that the future of the world is salvageable after all...

Does that - actually make sense - as a reason not to tell his ally?

He doesn't trust Tony. Not really, not fully. It would be stupid to. They've just met. But Tony is the one who has context here, and Vanyel needs that context, to make sense of this, and he can't ask without - 

Something is wrong. His mind is behaving in ways that make no sense; it was harder to notice at first because he's not suffering, but just because he isn't in pain, doesn't mean he's thinking clearly. 

The Ring is still going to be there in two minutes. 

Even reminding himself of that, it still takes a confusingly massive effort of will to raise his shields and fold away his Othersenses, and for some reason he's trembling a little once that's done. Not that Tony can tell, through the suit. 

He doesn't feel any less confused, but he's more capable of forming words. 

:- Yes. It's there. It - you didn't say, before, but - is it intelligent?: 

"It has, like, a piece of Sauron's soul in it. I didn't know it could talk, especially from this far away, but if you can hear it you should definitely not be listening to anything it's saying. In fact, if you can do it from here, you should open a Gate right below it and portal it straight into Mount Doom."

:It has what? How does that even work? I don't - I feel like this is a bad idea...: 

"I don't know how it works and if you want to you should ask an elf. I do know that it will corrupt you if you're around it too long and you should treat anything it's saying to you as though it were coming from Sauron himself. Now if you're not going to destroy it we should wink out of here now, the natives managed to handle it in the original timeline even if the solution wasn't ideal." He was just trying to help but it's starting to seem like he's no longer doing that.

:I've never tried to distance-cast a Gate before, I'd have to - be closer than this -: 

Which feels like a perfectly sensible idea, but Vanyel is suddenly VERY dubious of his feelings on things. 

:I - maybe I can do it with Farsight, without going any closer?:

"A little closer is fine. Preferably not close enough that anyone sees through the invisibility, and definitely not close enough to be in range to physically take the Ring."

He could probably get the Ring with Fetching from here, but he's not going to tell Tony– okay. Stop. 

Why does he keep feeling like it's a bad idea to tell Tony? Because he'll want them to leave and that means scrapping the mission? Because he has information Tony doesn't, about what the Ring could help him do - what the universe would be giving up on, by destroying it - and it's not like he has evidence other than words from other people, not even under Truth Spell, that Sauron isn't to be trusted - 

- wait, is that true at all? He knows Sauron imprisoned Loki by switching places with him in Mandos' realm. He knows Sauron is working with Thanos, or at least, he can't see why the others would have had any reason to lie about that, and it's...awfully hard to believe that everyone is lying or confused about Thanos being someone they have to fight...

Why is it so damned hard to finish his thoughts, right now, he keeps getting distracted by - impatience, no-time-to-waste, something - 

He's shielding, he can't See the Ring anymore, or hear it - but somehow he can still feel it. Or - feel its attention on him, maybe. It knows he's here, now. 

Vanyel takes a deep breath. 

:- All right. I'm going to go in just a little closer, to make this easier on my mage-gift, and then I'm going to look with Farsight. I don't - think it can talk to me, that way - but if it looks like I'm going to do something stupid, I guess you should stop me?: 

He flies in closer, to about a quarter-mile's distance directly above the house in question. The illusion of sky should still be covering them well enough, from here. 

He extends his Farsight. Can he get enough of an image of the Ring's surroundings to do a Gate off - the bottom of the drawer is probably workable as a threshold to build on - 

He can see the Ring. It's a simple golden band, alone in the drawer it's in. It's hard to believe that so small a thing could have such power.

....Okay. Focus. He's going to try to do this without using mage-sight at all, which is a terrible way to have to distance-cast a Gate, but he's worried that opening his shields at all will let the thing talk to him - 

- why is he even trying to avoid that, all information is worth having - 

He takes a slow deep breath. Lets it out. Reminds himself that he can't trust the Ring, or assume that it's not still affecting his mind in some way. 

He grits his teeth, summons all his concentration, and builds a Gate-threshold from the bottom of the drawer, and then reaches - searches - it's taking all of his strength and focus and it hurts and he keeps not being sure why he's even doing this at all... 

The search finds its destination, the hole in the ground by Mount Doom. The Gate snaps into place. 

The Ring was designed to be immune to all forms of spatial non-locality. Normally, absolutely nothing would happen. But it can still pass through a Gate if it wants to, and right now, it actually does want to be Gated. Just not into Mount Doom.

The other end of the Gate appears three feet in front of Vanyel's face. The Ring falls out, and hangs in midair for longer than it ought to before it drops.

Vanyel doesn't move. It's taking every ounce of control he has. He is not going to catch it. Catching it is the sort of thing that if this were a ballad would end in disaster. He's so confused but he doesn't even have the spare attention to notice that, let alone to Mindspeak Tony and clarify that he didn't mean to do that - 

Th Ring falls, unimpeded by Vanyel.