Instead they appear to be fleeing him. He's landed among some tents along a wide river, and a few minutes ago there were fishing nets stretched across the river and some kind of children's game being played with the robes dangling from the nearby pine trees. Everyone has abandoned their possessions and grabbed their babies (is the place a daycare? more than half its residents appear to be under the age of five) and now they are fleeing.

Well, shit.

"... Sorry!" he calls after them, wincing. Yeah, he bets he was scary, weird shadow man appears out of nowhere, of course he's scary.

He stands, and holds up his empty hands in an attempt at a gesture of nonharm. Wait, are they going to think he's a spellcaster? They might think he's a spellcaster. He puts his hands down. "Not going to hurt any of you, that was an accident, I am very sorry."

- they keep fleeing. They might not speak the language. One of the kids stumbles into the river and one of the adults sets down the two she's carrying to desperately lunge after him - misses - glances back at the scary shadow person and picks up the babies and runs again -

Well, the answer to that is just obvious, isn't it.

Shadowstep. Dash to the riverbank, dive into the river, grab the child, and then end the shadowstep so he can drag the kid out of the river.

It's a really ugly kid. Folds and folds of veiny greyish skin, flattened nose, little tusks. He clings and gasps for air and then coughs for a bit and then lies very still and watches Veron silently. 

Everyone else is out of sight by now. 

He's really not going to judge this kid based on his looks.

"Sorry," he repeats, depositing the kid on the riverbank and backing away, looking apologetic. His boots make unpleasant squelching noises as he walks. He really shouldn't be focusing on that.

Kid continues to not move and watch him warily.

Yeah, fair enough.

He continues backing away, looking as nonthreatening and apologetic as possible, holding up his empty hands to attempt to show how so not filled with weaponry they are. He has weapons on him, many of them visible, but he is keeping carefully away from them.

After a little while the kid seems to decide that he is not going to be murdered. He gets up off the ground and bows.

Excellent! Progress.

Veron bows back, then finds a rock a respectable distance away to sit down at, visible but away from the camp, and away from the kid. He needs to get his boots off to get the water out of them so they stop squelching.

- kid shoots glances at the woods where everyone else ran off and watches Veron take his boots off.

Once most of the water's out, he puts his boots back on and glances at the kid. He points at the kid, then the woods where everyone ran off, then tilts his head questioningly.

Kid says something in a language Veron doesn't recognize.

"Sorry, I'm afraid I don't speak that. Do you speak Dethek, or Sssaktsth?"

That second one didn't sound like a sound a human could make. Veron made it anyway. The perks of being part shadow monster.

Headshake.

Veron makes another apologetic look.

He stands. He points at himself, then in the opposite direction everyone fled. Then, he makes a hand gesture that probably means 'or,' and points at the kid, himself, and after where everyone else ran.

- he walks a little into the forest, pretends to wander around calling for them, shakes his head.

About what he expected, really.

He points at himself, mimes looking for them, then nods. He tilts his head at the kid questioningly.

- headshake.

Veron nods, and makes no move to follow after them. Even to put the kid back.

He makes an opening hand motion that probably means 'What would you like me to do?'

The kid looks puzzled by this. Then he goes over to the river and starts folding up all the fishing nets. 

Well he doesn't want to just abandon this kid in the woods.

Is the kid okay with getting help with the nets?

Smiles shyly at him. Directs him in how to fold them up properly so they'll dry overnight. Gets some crickets out of a box and eats them and offers Veron one.

Veron follows directions and folds nets properly! And smiles back.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, he has known people that kept spiders for pets. So crickets being offered as food doesn't incite him to make a face, he just shakes his head and motions towards his pack.

Kid nods, goes into one of the tents, curls up. Then pops back out of the tent to emphatically pantomime that Veron should not make a fire.

Okay. Maybe the smoke would freak someone out? That's fine. He nods. He won't be making a fire.

It's not cold, anyway, and he can tolerate having a cold meal for a night or two. Or more than two, if he has to. He has eaten some strange things, in his day, he is not going to get prissy about food temperature. Instead of making a fire, he finds a suitably out of the way place to change out of his wet clothes and armor, and hangs them up to dry. He's got a spare set of clothes, and a spare set of armor after the mimic debacle. He's not in danger of walking around indecent. His boots are magic and lasted through Hell itself without damage, and so are not in danger of being ruined by the dive in a river. He has some non-cricket food.

Then he sits down somewhere scenic, pulls out his journal, and starts writing about his day. Lesson of today: make sure nothing is stacked precariously before looting. Explosions are bad. Avoid them in the future...

The sun sets. Someone can be heard cautiously approaching the camp.

...

Veron continues writing, pretending not to have noticed.

Adult who tried to grab the kid earlier pokes her head out from behind a tree. Kid darts out of the tent and into her arms.

Veron cannot suppress the smile, though he tries. He stays where he is.

They vanish into the forest.

That's his job done, then. He closes his journal, stands up, and walks back to where his things are drying.

"Ksxksskrth?" he calls, retracing the familiar hand gesture that'll get his steward's attention. "You there?"

There's a pause of worrying length. Veron wonders if he's further from home than he thought, and if this is about to be another adventure where he has to figure out how to get back to Toril. Then the nearby shadows draw together and darken in a familiar fashion, and Ksxksskrth rises into form.

"Alwaysssss. Farrr from homeee, aren't you?" hisses the shadow monster, in Common, not Sssaktsth. He's practicing his accent. Still pretty hissy and creepy, but definitely more intelligible now, and improving little by little.

"Have you ever known me to be anything but?" wonders Veron, dry.

Ksxksskrth laughs, low and guttural. "Ss sss, no."

"Yeah, story of my life. Speaking of, do you know where I am?"

Another pause. "I do nnot. It isss farrr."

"Awesome. Stranded in another weird place. Yay."

"It issss not ssso far assss Caniaa." He leaves the statement 'You could get to the Plane of Shadow' unsaid, out of courtesy. Veron hears it all the same. It is an escape route, if he wants it. If he wants to risk being stuck on the Plane of Shadow for another year, seeing how much further he'll progress into becoming a shadow monster. Maybe he'll get to the stage where his skin starts peeling off. Wouldn't that be exciting.

"Yeah. That's something. Thanks, Ksxksskrth. Sorry to bother you over my latest mess."

"It isss no trouble. I amm at your ssssservice. Whaaat can I do forrr you?"

Veron hesitates to actually ask Ksxksskrth if he'll do his laundry, but his eyes slide to the still damp clothes where they hang, and his friend guesses all the same.

"Ittt will beee done."

"Thanks, I appreciate it."

Ksxksskrth departs with an armful of clothes, and Veron only feels a little bit bad about it.

Well. Time to wander, he guesses. Standard adventurer reaction. Wander around in the woods until you trip over something interesting.

Another tent town, downriver. This one appears to have been found by people less friendly than him. The tents have been torched and the residents butchered. Including the children. 

Ah.

He's had a strong stomach for a while. He barely even reacts. Just a subtle expression of dismay. First time he saw butchery like this, he recalls throwing up. Now he just feels - not even angry. Empty, but for the hollow pang in his chest that swells with every heartbeat. Oh. Yes. This still exists in the world, doesn't it.

Right. Much as he wants to stay and pay respects to the dead, he probably doesn't have the time. Who did this, are there tracks? He's not much of a tracker, but he can follow some footprints.

Looks like they were on horseback, actually. Left the same direction they came from, along the river.

Hm.

Implies they're a distance away, and that he can't catch up with them without doing something unwise and showing up exhausted and strained and with one foot practically in the Plane of Shadow.

He can spend a little while to handle the dead. He won't bury or burn them, but he can move them from where they died and drape unburned bits of tent over them. Some kind of respect. Pity he doesn't have a cleric to do any of this properly.

They are mostly still holding their babies. Some of them were clearly trying to run away, and none of the ones trying to run away were carrying fewer than two children.

Maybe there's something wrong with him, because he doesn't cry, or scream, or throw up, or even need a minute to compose himself. Yep. This is horrible. But they're not coming back to life to fight and kill their friends, and they were obviously killed quickly. It would be incorrect to say that they didn't suffer, but they weren't tortured to death by a drow matriarch or turned into a mindless thrall by illithid or used as food for monsters or as a sacrifice to a dark god or any number of horrible things that Veron has seen or surmised from adjacency.

Without knowing who was related to whom, he leaves the children in the arms of what he presumes to be their parents, arranged so they look peaceful. But for the blood.

He's done in record time. He's very efficient.

No one else comes by.

He washes the blood off of his hands in the river, and then follows the tracks.

They eventually meet a well-kept road, which winds ahead of him up to a mountain pass where there's a dazzlingly pretty stone city.

That looks like it might be it. If it isn't, it's something, anyway.

He walks to the city, thinking of Drogan's patient lessons and Deekin's eclectic songs and Valen's tentative smile, until the thoughts of slaughter are as small as he can make them. Anger has never helped him, only made a bigger mess to clean up. He will do no one any good if he storms into the city seething with anger and out for blood.

The city's gates are open! It's got spiraling levels, cut into the mountain, and the ground level is some kind of bustling market with short hairy people and humans and people taller and prettier and glitterier than humans. There is a notable absence of the slaughtered species. There are a few guards at the city gates, talking with merchants and looking through incoming and outgoing wagons. Lots of people are singing. 

Pretty.

But pretty doesn't mean good. Good can be pretty, but it can be also be small and scaly or pale with horns and a tail or large and made of metal or slight with skin as dark as charcoal and hair like starlight. And evil can be pretty, too.

He walks to one of the less busy guards at the gate, then says, "Hello, my name is Veron, do you understand anything I'm saying?"

Guard shakes his head. If you don't have any Thindarin or Eastwalk you'll have a hard time here -  I think there's a booth to hire a translator?

There's a brief spasm of panic before he slams his mental protections into place. Like the Seer showed him, disciplined and practiced and damned hard to get past. No stray thought for anyone to grab onto a pull, everything tucked into a tidy and ever-shifting little ball under his control.

Was that just sending or were they receiving, too? He understood context, but maybe it could have been guessed. He should carry himself like he's surrounded by mind readers, though, why didn't he practice this more when he had the time it's obviously useful -

Meanwhile, he stands there, eyes shut, completely still.

- the guard blinks at him, says something in a local language he doesn't speak, moves on to talk to someone else.

Veron stops thinking worst cases and instead runs through the Seer's lessons again. Mind like water, will like steel, whatever that means. Maybe he should have spent some more time in the Underdark, gotten better lessons for this sort of thing. Learned how to protect himself while still able to communicate by mental contact.

Then once it's up to his satisfaction, smooth and strong and impermeable, he's confused at how to proceed. The ability to speak with the telepathic people would be damned useful, but not at the cost of leaving himself at the mercy of whoever feels like reading him.

He needs a better solution. He - turns himself right around and walks away from the city. Away from the mind readers.

No one bothers him. That afternoon a group of soldiers on horses rides past him down the road.

He has found himself a seat on the side of the road, journal open, brainstorming how he could stay protected while also communicating. He understands a little bit of the theory, and half of how minds work is based on how they believe they work, so a novice theorizing on the side of the road isn't as useless as it sounds. Probably. He hears hoofbeats, and looks up, and represses a scowl.

Yep, this is kind of stupid, doing it anyway.

"Excuse me!" he calls, standing up, attempting to echo the impression of the words out of the bubble of safety that is his mind without disturbing the shields. "Do you have a minute...?"

They halt. They perhaps attempt to telepathically communicate something back, but he doesn't hear it.

Fuck. Uh.

The words they send are like paintings on the outside of his shield that he can perceive but ignore...?

"Sorry, I'm trying to get the hang of, uh, the telepathy thing, can you repeat that. I'm - probably the most lost person ever. Professional lost person."

How can we help you?

"Where am I, who can I learn the language from, how does this telepathy thing work?"

This is Mount Rerir, the easternmost of the fortresses on the northern front. You could - probably hire someone in the city. Osanwë allows sending and receiving thoughts, senses, and memories; if you distinguish mentally you can send some while withholding others, as you seem to be doing presently.

Okay. He might not actually be safe, he has long since lost the luxury of not being paranoid, he's probably fucking everything up by attempting to communicate at all but he really wants to talk about things.

"All right, thank you. Uh. Do you mind if I preface my second set of questions with mental imagery you might find disturbing?"

Because these might not be the same group that butchered the camp. Horses don't condemn them.

- go ahead.

Here you go, have an image of the slaughtered camp.

"Do you know who did this and why?"

They look entirely unbothered. Patrol yesterday, presumably. They're orcs.

"And why does their species equate to being slaughtered to the man, woman, and child?"

They serve the Enemy, don't give you a choice about it really. And they're better off dead - they're in pain all the time, it's what makes them ugly. If you want to help orcs you have to stop the Enemy, then maybe we could spare the babies.

As a rule he does not trust people that declare their enemy 'The Enemy' and then slaughters everyone that serves them wholesale. Silly, really. Not based on much at all.

"'The Enemy'?"

Morgoth. Gesture northwest.

"Professional lost person, mate, I am from ridiculously far away. Who's Morgoth, what has earned the title 'The Enemy'?"

Disbelieving blink. He is a Vala, one of the agents of Creation, and all evil and suffering in the world is his invention, and he bred orcs from tortured Elven prisoners and he killed the King and he means to rule the whole world.

I don't think all evil and suffering's his invention, considering that you people casually slaughter children all on your own while fighting him, he doesn't say. Or send.

"... Is there maybe someone I can talk to that has the time and attention to tell me this plane's creation mythology and set of deities. Because uh." He attempts to send the impression of how far from home he is, and how many places he's been. Professional lost person. The most lost person you will ever meet. "I am very lost."

...I am sure that if you go up to the city and pay for a translator they'd be as happy to teach you history as to haggle for you.

"I do not think I have any money in your currency. Do you accept gold?" He doesn't have the precious gems anymore. He sold them.

They'll be delighted to.

"Excellent. Thank you very much, I'm sorry to have bothered you."

Have a good day. 

And off they go.

Awesome. Probably off to go slaughter some people. He could stop this group, probably, but this sounds like an overall organizational problem, and that will be easier to solve if he has not made enemies of everyone involved. He doesn't have an army to hide behind this time. This seems like flimsy justification to him, but he doesn't know what else to do. If he's doing the wrong thing by not reacting immediately, he guesses that he'll get to see another level of Hell when he dies. Maybe that one won't be paradoxically freezing, wouldn't he love that.

"... Hey, Ksxksskrth," he says to the air, "if you get the chance, and if it's not too far out of your way, can you get me a book on protections from psychics or something? These people all seem to be telepaths and my brain is feeling pretty exposed right now. Something that'll let me talk while keeping me safe, please. Again, if you get the chance."

A pause, then a nearby shadow murmurs: "Ittt will be done."

"You are the absolute best and I do not deserve you."

The nearby shadow chuckles, softly, but otherwise doesn't comment.

Veron does not go to the city. Veron goes looking for some orcs.

There are none to be found! The orcs in this area probably have incentive to hide very thoroughly. He could retrace his steps back to where he first encountered orcs.

Yep, retracing his steps sounds like a good idea to him.

Whee, orc finding.

They came back to the camp after he left, it happens! They are fishing again. They freeze up when he approaches but this time do not flee.

He approaches with his hands far away from his weapons, attempting to look as harmless as possible, and stops a ways away.

Would anyone like to come attempt to communicate with him?

After a while someone comes over and tries to do that. 

He has a book! They can draw pictures!

Veron thinks he'd like to get a starting vocabulary set up. Is the orc willing to help him do that, by giving words to pictures that Veron draws?

The orc would be delighted. The orc has a baby and feeds the baby mashed-up crickets while they talk.

Aw. That's cute. In an eating crickets kind of way, anyway. Which is a valid way to be cute, just. Crickets.

Nouns are pretty easy when you can draw pictures. Fish! River! Tent! Sun! Tree! Orc, elf, human! (represented by stick figures with tusks, pointy ears, and round ears, respectively.)

They make faces when they give the word for Elf.

Yeah, no wonder.

He makes a sympathetic face and does not linger there.

Vocabulary continues. He takes careful, methodical notes. This is going to be his fourth language, and it's more approachable than Sssaktsth by, approximately, a fuckton. He's not fluent in either it or Dethek, but he's conversational. That can happen with a fourth language.

He's slowly moving away from simple concepts to more complex ones. Numbers, measurements of time, terms for groups of people, male, female, adult, child, happy, sad, safe, in danger...

The orc is very cooperative! The fishers catch some fish and offer him some.

... Yeah, okay. He's a little sick of travelling food, anyway. He can have some fish. Would any of the orcs like to try his travelling food?

Sure!

It is kind of dry and some of it is a bit tasteless, but not all of it's tasteless! And it's probably very novel.

LIttle bit! They share it around and nod politely and mix it with crickets and practice vocabulary.

Cool. That works out, then.

More vocabulary!

... One of his collar's shadows whispers, "It'ssssss done. Iiiii have tthem."

Veron touches his collar, and nods, as if to himself.

He points at himself, then at the woods. "I'm going to go," he explains, in slow, easy to parse tones.

Orcs agreeably wish him well.

He bows politely, and then off he goes, to find a dark and out of the way place.

Ksxksskrth rises out of the ground, Veron's clothes and armor neatly folded under one elongated arm, a set of books folded under the other. "Heeere you arre."

"Thank you so much, I appreciate it. I know you've got more important things to do than, uh." He considers a good way to word the phrase 'do my laundry and bring me books.' Yes, with his unparalleled charisma and wit, he can surely string together an impressive phrasing that truly encapsulates how his friend's work is ultimately meaningful, important, and valued. "Doing my laundry and bringing me books."

The shadow nods, gravely. "Ittt wasssss little tttrouble. Aaanything elssse?"

"No, thank you."

Another nod, and Ksxksskrth dissipates, departing for the Plane of Shadow, leaving Veron alone.

He changes back into the newly laundered armor, then sits down and starts poking through books on mental protections. He clearly could get something that successfully communicated with Elves, but he's only got their word for it over if it'll keep everything else from them, too. Maybe if he were new at this, he'd take their word for it, but he's not. Maybe they're like formians - always in close mental contact with one another, for benign cooperation and unnerving coordination. It could be a tool, not a weapon. Then again, maybe they're like illithid, weaving twisted webs of thought and ensnaring and dominating innocent victims until they have their perfect slaves. If he had to wager a guess, he'd categorize the Elves as more of the former than the latter, but if there's anything he's learned from his years of being a professional lost person, it's that preparation is really not a bad thing.

The books are good ones, as far as he can tell, but the contained concepts are - hard to wrap one's head around. If he hadn't had training with the Seer, he'd find it impossible to visualize any of it. As it is, he just has a lot of trouble with it. He soon gives up on just reading it, and breaks out his journal to rephrase and draw diagrams and slowly claw his way to understanding the theories at play. Shortly after that, he starts to get an idea of why people will sincerely lose themselves in studying this; it's damned complicated, and there's a lot of nuance. The tricks the Seer taught him had seemed so complex at the time, but it's becoming more and more obvious how simple they were. How little they scratched the surface of a very deep, very hard to define, very subtle and downright tricky art.

Suffice to say, he's not going to grasp it with a brief crash course. Even if that brief crash course lasts for hours, heedless of the darkening sky. He doesn't actually notice night's fallen, thinking thoughtlessly that he's glad the sun's not so bright now. Cloud cover, or something, if he had brain to devote to things that weren't about protections against telepaths. Until he wonders if the likely cloud cover means that it might rain, and looks up to check, only to see stars and a moon. Oh. Right. Day and night cycles: a thing, in places that aren't the Plane of Shadow or the Underdark or Hell or the various dungeons he always seems to find himself in. And he has perfect vision even in pitch darkness - especially in pitch darkness, even. He doesn't have as strong of an aversion to light as proper denizens of the Plane of Shadow, but he has some. It's harder to read in bright light than it is in pitch black.

But most species have a diurnal sleep schedule, especially the ones he'll fit in with. So he closes his books and wraps them in a spare cloak and packs them away in his bag, and then sets up his tent so he can go to sleep.

The next morning, he spends another hour or two trying to piece together something that will keep him mostly safe. Except there's no real concept of 'mostly' safe, not unless he devotes literal years of his life to psionics, training his will and his intellect to sharpened points and practicing with them like one would practice with a sword. He doesn't have time for that. He cannot learn all of the ins and outs of mind to mind combat in the hopes of keeping it safe. Instead, he focuses on keeping the things he needs to keep safe as safe as possible. The set of tricks he has to throw off a telepath long enough to skewer them, all of the tricks Veron would have to skewer someone, and, more importantly than everything else combined - his True Name.

If anyone gets a hold of that, he's quite literally at their mercy.

He gets the important parts of his head as protected as he thinks he can get them in a reasonable amount of time. Then, shoving the echoing hum of the syllables of his True Name into the back of his mind, he packs up his camp. Time to go visit the Elves.

He doesn't cross paths with another patrol. 

The city will do fine, then. The guards at the gate were Elves. He can just go say hi to one of those.

Is the one he spoke to before there again?

He is.

Excellent! Veron will just wait until he's not busy, then go say hi.

"Hello again," he says, attempting to recreate the earlier method that seemed to work okay with the patrol. On top of his attempts to keep certain things very very protected. Ugh. He's going to give himself a headache. "Sorry to bother you again after I uh. Freaked out and ran off immediately. You mentioned a translation booth? Do you know where I could find it?"

On your left down that street.

"Thank you!"

Off he goes, down that street, looking for anything suitably translation-booth shaped. ... Is there anything suitably translation booth shaped or is he going to need to start playing charades with passing citizens?

This one has signs in six different languages and three different alphabets!

He recognizes none of them! He's going to be so novel!

"Hello!" says Veron, unfortunately very practiced at being a novelty. "I am from very far away and do not speak the local language at all."

One of the Elves at the booth says this aloud in one of those languages, for the benefit presumably of the short hairy people. Are you familiar with osanwë? We can translate for you.

"I am aware that it exists, and sort of have a feel for how it works, but no one's explained it to me and I don't know many specifics. Translating for me would be wonderful, thank you very much - do you accept payment in gold...?"

Yes, that's fine - they do currency conversion across the way. Elves and Ainur have innate osanwë with a range of approximately here down to the fork of the river - half a day's walk off - and more to speak to someone familiar. With practice you can selectively send thoughts - to only some people, or while withholding some things - but we have some practice with only reading what a human is deliberately sending even if they don't know how to do privacy properly.

"Okay, thank you. I hope I'm not bleeding all of my thoughts to Elves and Ainur in the area? That seems like it'd be rude."

He shouldn't be. He doesn't mean to be.

I haven't checked, do you want me to check?

"If it's not too much trouble, yes please."

Pause. You're good.

"Good to know, thank you."

Of course. Currency conversion is this way -

He trails after dutifully. Are the nice currency people willing to accept his golden coins? ... He has a lot of them. He's not exchanging everything, or even 'most' of his coin, but even a small fraction of his accrued wealth is, uh. Significant.

Bags of holding. Marvelous things.

They are delighted! They weigh them and talk for a minute and trade him out for different gold coins.

Excellent. These new coins can even get their own special pouch, because he's very organized.

"Thank you very much," he says pleasantly. He looks at his Elven translator buddy. "How much do I owe you, exactly? If I can, I'd like to learn the language itself, could I get lessons?"

We charge hourly - one of those covers two hours. Which language, Thindarin?

"Is it the most common one spoken in the area?"

We're on a mountain pass. West of here it's all Thindarin, if you're crossing Eastwalk'll serve you longer.

"I, uh. Do not know any significance of any geography, I'm afraid. Very, very far away. If I learned Eastwalk, would people to the west be able to understand me?"

Dwarves would, Elves have osanwë, the humans speak a dozen different languages anyway. All the non-Dwarven cities are west of here, everyone east is nomadic. How did you get here?

"There was a magical explosion. I woke up in the woods."

What do you want to do here - settle in and live somewhere, or get back home, or get involved in the war -

"Probably that last one."

Then you want Thindarin.

"All right. Can we set up a schedule for Thindarin lessons, then?"

"Sure. I'm busiest early in the mornings and when the protected caravans get in, which is mid-afternoon. Any other time would work well." He says this in Thindarin and sends the meaning.

"Around noon, then?" He can come by and eat his lunch in the city while he has some language lessons, and then he's free to wander the city and watch how people treat him, or go interact with the orcs. Whichever he thinks would be best to do at the time.

"Sure!"

"Do you want to learn my language as I learn Thindarin, in case anyone ever needs to know it for some reason, or just focus on teaching me as fast as possible?"

" - I think there's someone who tries to pick up Mannish languages? There are so many of them and they haven't many speakers each, and I don't have a particular gift for it. I'd be delighted to learn a few phrases."

That sure is some casual cultural dismissal that's going on there. Almost makes him feel like he's in the Plane of Shadow again. Or maybe Hell. Or the Underdark. Or anywhere he's been, really. 'Weak, short lived, frail, and stupid,' is the general opinion of humans, as far as he can tell. Which is unfair, but then, the general opinion of kobolds is that they're filthy thieving vermin, and that's even less fair. So maybe humans don't have it so bad.

"It's called Common, which - you got the meaning of that along with the word, right? It's pretty much the best language I know of for talking to as many different groups of people, where I come from. Not going to be a problem of not enough speakers of it, just that they're all very far away and you might not meet any of them."

"Where are you from exactly?"

"Place called Hilltop." He sends a visual of a cute, sleepy little town located in the foothills of the Nether Mountains. It's a nice quiet place to live, except for the figuratively biting cold and the more literally biting wildlife.

"It's pretty far away," he says, sagely. He is aware of how much of an understatement this is. He doesn't really see a reason to expand on it right now.

"I didn't know there were proper human towns east of here. I can find someone who'll be delighted to learn the language and then make songs so everyone else can pick it up."

"I'm not sure it's to the east, exactly, but - yeah, if it wouldn't be too much trouble. It's meant to be an easy language to pick up."

"If we do make it over there in a couple centuries they'll probably be speaking something completely different, but I bet the lord Curufin'll be annoyed if we missed getting a record all the same."

"Sure, whichever you'd like. If I have time and paper I could maybe write up something on it. The alphabet, at least."

"- you're literate? Humans usually aren't."

"Oh, yeah. I am. My teacher made sure of that. In Common, anyway. Dethek's a bit more hit and miss with me. Dethek being a language I'm sort of conversational in, but haven't used in years."

"Well, I'll find someone who can take useful notes."

"All right. Thank you very much."

"Sure. Thindarin's alphabet is easy to pick up, everything's spelled how it sounds and the letters are designed to show how it's spoken, too."

Nod. "That'll make it easier. Do you want to have the first study session now? I have writing utensils and paper with me, I can get Thindarin's alphabet written down so I can study it."

"Sure." He gestures at the pretty swoopy letters on the signs on the translation booth. "It looks like that, written."

"Pretty," says Veron, sincerely. He retrieves a book from his pack - one of the blank ones, not the journal that includes orc language translations - and a pen.

....nice stuff, for a human. He's sort of absurdly suspicious of this human but whatever, if he's a disguised agent of the Enemy there's nothing to be lost by teaching him the language. 

And he teaches him the letters and how you modify them to indicate where they're articulated and whether they're voiced, and the four sounds which this does not characterize well, and that's all there is to written Thindarin. 

Veron isn't trying to be actively unsuspicious - he doesn't think he could pull off 'innocuous ordinary human' from 'complete stranger to this entire plane of existence,' or that he even wants to. Too close to directly lying to them, and frankly, he'd rather not.

Written Thindarin is really straightforward! He appreciates it. He catches on to the rules quickly enough, and spends a few minutes to write his full name in Tengwar, to test his ability to apply concepts. His handwriting isn't up to Elven standards, but it's neat enough for a human.

And the Elf will talk in Thindarin and send interpretations as they go. Then he pulls out a map. Here they are; here's the territory they control (it's a lot), here's where the humans live, here's where various persons of importance live (the King is way west of here), up north is Angband.

Veron takes notes on Thindarin grammar and vocabulary! In Common.

"What's in Angband?" he wonders, when Angband is pointed at.

"The Enemy."

"Okay, and what's that, and what earned the eponymous title?"

"This world was created by the Ainur - gods of various strength - under the direction of Eru, and the fifteen most powerful Ainur are called the Valar, and one of them is the Enemy, and he is the god of evil, and he earned the title by introducing evil to the world and then committing it in great abundance, and all free peoples of the world are united to war against him."

Blink.

"When you say committing it in great abundance, what did he do? And by what mechanism did he introduce evil, what did the world look like before he did that?"

"He captured Elves and tortured them to breed the race of orcs and enslaved them all to serve his evil goals. Before he introduced evil the only people in the world were Elves and we all lived together in harmony and there was no violence and no fraud and no cruelty and no fear."

"What did he use to enslave them, what are his evil goals, and how do humans fit into this narrative?"

"Humans came after the first sunrise and while the Enemy manipulates and beguiles them where he can they're not all in his thrall like orcs. He enslaves the orcs in early childhood as soon as they can talk, by having them swear themselves to his service and swear to similarly enslave their own children once they're old enough to speak."

"... So, cultural indoctrination from childhood?"

"They're all sworn to hate Elves, too."

He frowns.

"I think we're speaking at cross purposes here somewhere. When you say sworn, what do you mean?"

"A magically binding compulsion put into effect by speaking the right words out loud."

"Ah. A geas." He suppresses a shudder. He has been under a geas, and it was distinctly unpleasant. "Binding them to service, and to bind their children to service, and to - hate Elves? These compulsions can control their opinions as well?"

"Yes. I think there are other details to it but you'll forgive me for being reluctant to specify to an outsider."

"I understand. So how do the orcs fit into this, if they're forced to work for an evil god and forced to hate your species?"

"They mostly live in Angband. Sometimes the Enemy sends them out in small numbers for us to slaughter - or ignore, in which case he sets them to sabotaging the water supply and sacking undefended villages and so on until we do - and sometimes he sends them out in force and then there's a battle. Angband runs faster than the outside world, and orcs are designed to want children and have them all the time, so their numbers grow very very quickly, into the millions, and then that's as many as he can feed so he sends them out for battle and we cut them all down and he starts again."

"... I see," says Veron, very quietly, disturbed.

"Like I said, he's very evil."

"Those all definitely sound like very evil things to do. And you're fighting to defeat him? Do you have the help of the other - what was the word, uh. Valar?"

"The Valar think very slowly. They will probably eventually decide to intervene but it took centuries last time and it's been centuries this time with no signs they're inclined to help."

"And how goes fighting a god without their help?"

He gestures at the map. Most of the territory is Elven-controlled. "We've made space for people to live free and safe. If we had a secret plan to destroy him we wouldn't tell strangers about it."

"I understand," he agrees. Except even if the situation is exactly as they say, that's still millions of people that are regularly raised in forced slavery to be killed, mostly by Elves. This seems like it could be better.

More vocabulary lessons!

So much vocabulary! It's a good thing he's taking notes, or he wouldn't be able to absorb it all. Hearing the translation over the words in conversation certainly helps, he'll pick this language up faster than he picked up Sssaktsth, but it doesn't mean he's going to be fluent in a week.

And eventually armed caravans arrive and his translator wishes him well. "Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," agrees Veron, as he pays the translator for his work. "Thank you very much!"

"My pleasure."

Veron nods pleasantly, and off he goes. He stumbles his way through purchasing a late lunch in the city, and then eats his prize on his way to go visit some orcs and hear their side of the story.

The orc camp he was at previously has been burned to the ground and its inhabitants massacred.

Oh.

They did a slightly neater job of it; maybe they were in less of a hurry. Used the tents for a sort of makeshift pyre.

Yes, because cleaning up after your massacres somehow makes it so much better.

... That was unfair. He doesn't mean that. Respect for the dead is better than nothing, but ultimately what matters is respect for the living. He's feeling upset and helpless and like he didn't do enough soon enough, like this is somehow his fault, for not jumping to the correct conclusions fast enough. For not immediately knowing the answer to what sounds like a twisted situation. For verifying before doing anything rash or pushing for one side over another.

He turns around and finds a place to sit, far away from the massacred camp. Clearly, he needs to collect his thoughts. This is perhaps not the only reason he keeps a journal, but it's certainly one of the reasons. It had been his teacher's idea to start one, as a way for Veron to regularly practice writing. Another reason to thank Drogan, he guesses. First for practically raising him, educating a petty thief on the street when it would have been easy to toss him to the guards. Then for sacrificing himself to save Veron's life. Now, for having given him at least one coping mechanism to deal with things no one should rightly have to deal with. He quietly worships Tymora, Lady Luck, for good reason. He was very lucky.

'Lucky' isn't what he feels right now. Angry, that he wasn't able to stop this. Horrified, that slaughter is conducted so casually. Sick, because he should feel more than he does, should scream or cry or swear vengeance upon the world. Is he broken? He might be broken. He wouldn't know where it happened. Cania, when he had to slaughter his way through the Blood Wars on the ghost of a chance that he'd be able to get out of Hell. The Underdark, where he helped lead an army against the Val'Sharess's forces, a merciless shadow war that he was driven to take part in by a geas forced upon him, and loyalty to a cause that was all his own. The Undermountain, where his dreams of being able to walk away from this kind of bloodshed were dashed by a fucking wizard. The Plane of Shadow, where he was scared and alone and unable to get home, trapped in a foreign plane that was changing him into something else and surrounded by shadows that wanted him dead. The list goes on. It could be any of them. It could be all of them.

Maybe Tymora knows, but he doesn't. He writes his confused and contradictory feelings into his book. For a few minutes, he stares at the words on the page, until everything he feels seems almost far away. Self contained. Simple. Then, when he's quite done, he rips the pages out and sets them on fire. He watches them shrivel away to alchemist's fire, and wonders if he wishes his own feelings would shrivel away, too. No, he doesn't. They suck, but they're his.

"I'm sorry," he says to the ashes. "I'm doing my best."

That's really all he can say, to the dead. He stands, takes a deep breath, and then goes looking for another set of orcs to talk to.

He runs into three survivors after a few hours of searching. Kids. They're hiding, but not well, and when they see him they tentatively do not run away. 

He sits, searching through his pack for something for them to eat.

"Hello," he says, in badly accented orcish-or-whatever-it's-called. He offers the food.

Oldest one comes cautiously out, takes it. "Did you -" unfamiliar word that might mean 'tell' or 'warn' or 'bring' - "the Elves?"

He shakes his head.

"Elves" long angry string of unfamiliar words.

"It seems like they are not solving things in the way they should be solved, yeah," he says, in Common. For lack of the proper vocabulary.

She starts crying.

Ah, Hells.

He opens his arms in an offer of a hug.

Hug. Cling. 

The other kids creep out of the undergrowth and take some food also.

Hug.

There's enough food for three kids here. Maybe they're really tough problems to solve and under magical compulsion to do terrible things, but they should not therefore starve in the woods.

They hang out and periodically quietly cry and eat the food and then watch him for direction.

He has approximately no idea what to do with these children. Maybe he could find some orcs to drop them off with, but then they're just under the Elven chopping block again. Then they're potentially still being controlled by a god whose level of evil is still waiting on proper verification.

After some consideration, mostly done while they're crying, he asks in his broken orcish-or-whatever, "Why, live -" and then he points in the direction of their camp. "Elves," he adds, as explanation. Clearly they should not be near Elves.

The oldest girl giggles weakly, points in most directions. "Elves. Elves. Elves." And then, pausing thoughtfully, "Angband." And then, between Angband and them, "Elves."

He nods, thoughtfully. He - doesn't think he wants to go near the evil god just yet, that sounds like a bad plan, so taking them to Angband is a little bit difficult to do. And he's not going to point them in Angband's direction and send them on their way.

"I can't," he mimes walking with his fingers, "Angband. Can," he points at the children, repeats the mimed finger walking, "no-Elves."

"Even Elves can go to Angband if they want. They don't because they're horrible but they could, we'd let them in. We take them there if we capture any."

Yeah, he caught about a fourth of that. If he does his fractions very generously.

He points at the child, then holds up the finger he used for pointing to communicate location. He holds up his other hand's index finger. "Angband," he says, wiggling it demonstrably.

Then he moves his second hand to point at the space between them. "Elves."

He could certainly get past them all on his own, but with three children, the prospect is much more dicey. Not to mention, god that may or may not be evil. Not delivering children to him until that is more certain, thanks.

Kid nods. Yep, there are Elves between them and Angband.

"Elves," he points at his eyes, then points at the kids, then shakes his head. "Can't. Elves -" he motions camp-ward.

"They'll find us? Yes. And kill us. Because they're Elves and Elves are terrible."

... He's going to need to draw this in order to communicate it.

He gets his journal, and opens it to the page with the elf/orc/human drawings. He adds another - this one taller, the stick figure given a thinner head and colored completely black but for the eyes.

"Vassrith," he says, pointing at the drawing, which is of course the name the shadow monsters call themselves in Sssaktsth. Mercifully slightly more pronounceable than most of the rest of their language.

"Vassrith," they repeat.

"Vassrith live no-Elves. Can't Angband. Live vassrith?"

Why is he suggesting the small children go live in the Plane of Shadow. Why.

(They'd be safer than he was, they won't have the Lord of Shadow title hanging around their neck like a noose, they'd become something else but they'd be alive...)

They look at each other. They nod. 

"... I live vassrith." He draws another drawing, this one of a stick figure that is half human, half vassrith. "I human. I vassrith. Live vassrith," he points at the orcs, then at the picture of the vassrith. "Vassrith." He pauses to let that sink in.

"Live vassrith?" he repeats, so they can understand the gravity of the choice.

Eager nods.

He's a little concerned about the eagerness of those nods, but it is better than dying or living in slavery.

He nods, gravely.

"Ksxksskrth?" he says, softly. Then, in Sssaktsth: "I have the biggest of favors to ask of you." It doesn't sound like a sound a human can make, that whispering echoing near-hiss of a language, and yet he makes it all the same. Badly accented, but they don't know that.

There's a long pause, then the shadows of the trees around them twist, darken, and pool together. The black pool bubbles and swells unnaturally, and then rises into the shape of a thin, transparent, shadowy humanoid approximately ten feet tall, that blinks at them with glowing white eyes. For a moment, Ksxksskrth is at a loss for words.

"Yeah I know I'm sorry," winces Veron.

"You want to. What? Adopt them?" says a disbelieving Ksxksskrth, forgoing Common in favor of a tongue more naturally spoken by a shadow.

"Mostly I want them to not die in the wilderness?"

"So you want me to take them to your estate and see to their welfare?"

"If you think they'd be safe there."

There's a pause. A long one.

"Yes."

"Vassrith," says Veron, waving demonstrably at Ksxksskrth. "Live vassrith?"

Littlest one is shaking violently and crying but they all nod again. "Yes."

He really doesn't like the shaking and violently crying, but they are consenting and they have a right to consent to scary things in order to live -

Veron offers the littlest one a hug, anyway.

Hug. Cling.

Hug.

He murmurs an explanation to Ksxksskrth about the situation of the orcs and the Elves while there are hugs.

Has the kid had enough hug yet?

Yep, kid is ready to become a shadow monster. Apparently. He looks a bit internally conflicted about it. The older girl holds him.

He confirms again that this is definitely what they want to do.

They repeat that this is definitely what they want to do.

Okay.

He nods at Ksxksskrth, who lowers himself regally to their level and offers a bone-thin arm.

After a minute's hesitation trembling children take it.

Ksxksskrth's arm is cold to the touch, and strangely delicate. Like touching soft, frigid cloth.

There is a pause, and then darkness swallows them whole, and they're taken with Ksxksskrth to the Plane of Shadow.

Veron lets out his breath in a hiss. He halfheartedly kicks a rock. As expected, it doesn't help. His foot just kind of hurts. There's a scuff mark, on his boot. He sighs, leans down, and eradicates the scuff mark with a sleeve.

He needs to verify the evilness of the god, which means finding more orcs to talk to. But also that was an emotional vortex and instead of in depth moral quandaries, he wants to deal with something simple. Straightforward.

He goes back to the Elven city.

It's nighttime, which changes surprisingly little though there are no humans out and about. Elves continue singing. It looks like a very large guarded delegation, with fancier armor than usual, just arrived, and the market is appropriately bustling.

He solicits food, pays for it, then he takes his acquired sustenance and goes and finds a dark corner of the city to sit in. Somewhere scenic, where he can listen to people bustling in the market. The city's strange, foreign, and so is he. He used to prefer the daytime, when he was fully human. Now - night's nicer. Less bright. The perks of being part shadow monster.

(He wonders how the orc kids are going to handle the part of the transformation when their skin starts peeling off.)

Ugh. No. No angsting, he's done enough of that today. He's the master of his own head, damn it, and he's not going to sit here feeling sorry for himself. Instead, he is going to sit here, eat his food, and he is going to listen to the bustling market, and he's going to pretend that he's not very far from home.

It's comforting.

So is the singing. It really is beautiful singing. He can catch some of the words by now.

He can! He starts making a game of it. How many words can he pick out, does he have the right ones?

After a little while, he pulls out the book on Thindarin and starts trying to catch more.

At some point a guard walks by, does a double-take, frowns at him. Do you have a place to stay?

Uh.

"Yeah. Sorry, am I bothering anyone?"

His eyes are glowing. The guard does not say this. No, just checking on you.

"Oh. Thank you. I'm fine, just. Had kind of a shit day. The singing helps."

The guard nods, moves on.

He lingers a while longer, with his book of Thindarin, listening to the singing.

They might slaughter children, but they can make pretty things. So. That's nice, he guesses.

They show no signs of stopping. The songs of glorious triumphs in battle are maybe less soothing than the wistful ones about peacetime.

Yeah, those glorious triumphs are not helping, as he picks out more and more understanding from each verse.

Eventually he gets tired of them, closes his book, and departs, giving a little wave to the guards as he goes.

... It's in the middle of the night. He finds it easier to do a number of things in the darkness, the absence of light bringing him metaphysically closer to the Plane of Shadow. Like shadowstepping. It is easier to shadowstep in the dark. Like absently flexing a hand in a manner you do all the time.

He only notices he's doing it the third time it happens, that the world's gone grey and still. He loudly swears where no one can hear him, and drops it immediately.

"We talked about this," he mutters, to himself. "You are not in the Underdark, mate, it is not normal for you to bloody teleport like a creepy shadow person. Stop it. Normal. Be normal."

(Guards at an Elf-sense distance watch and worry).

"Ugh." He rubs his temples. "I swear, I almost envy the ones that die young. They don't have to deal with the baggage." Pause. "Veron, you're talking to yourself in the woods. This is how the crazy starts. You'll be monologing to innocent victims in no time at all, good job."

Except he does not seem to want to stop talking. Is he about to have a meltdown in the middle of the woods? It looks like he's about to have a meltdown in the middle of the woods. Awesome. Okay. At least no one can see him.

"I mean, honestly, why do you have to damn well get involved. You're a mess on legs with a trauma list half a mile long, the ball in a bloody sports game, thrown back and forth between this plane and that for everyone else's shits and giggles. And what do you do the minute you finally stop? You get involved! Again! You go investigating the weird thing in the woods and then you start investigating another fucking war, because you need another of those in your life, right, you just can't get enough of the death and the pain and the misery. Just makes your fucking day, huh? Teleporting around like a creepy shadow person, sticking your nose into everyone else's business 'cause you can? Where does it stop? You twisted an archdevil into a pretzel 'cause he pissed you off and you want an encore? What's next, you go fight the fucking evil god for shits and giggles?!"

He lets out his breath in a hiss.

"No, I'm going to fight the fucking evil god because I'm a bloody bleeding heart that compulsively saves kittens from trees," he sighs. "Aren't I. If he's even evil. Tymora save me because I am fucked."

(This gets bounced up a chain of command.)

He grumpily sits.

"What's your endgame, mate? A shallow grave? Wait 'til you snap from the stress and start monologing? See if you become the biggest, baddest person on the block, until the whole multiverse stops being terrible?" Sigh.

No one bothers him. 

The next day someone has been found who is very eager to learn his language!

He's feeling better, after having his meltdown in the woods. A good night of sleep helps.

The enthusiasm is honestly kind of adorable. Veron is very helpful with teaching Common, it's a pretty straightforward language, here's the alphabet, it doesn't condense like Tengwar but everything's spelled how it sounds...

Who developed the language? The alphabet? What are all these vocabulary words? Is there a controlled way of travelling between here and there?

No idea, no idea, it's kind of an old language and he's not a linguist, sorry. These are those vocabulary words, here are some associated vocabulary words that display the inherent rules at play.

There are a few ways to travel between here and there, depending on where you mean by 'there.' Some of them controlled, some of them aren't. If you want control, you want a wizard. Veron is not a wizard. Veron got here via a wizard-based explosion that he can't recreate.

...how does someone become a wizard?

Studying magical theory, apparently. Veron doesn't know the specifics. He's not a wizard.

Does he know a way people here could study magical theory. It sounds like it'd be useful for the war.

Maybe, but while he thinks Elves are very polite, he doesn't really know them well enough to try to help them unlock ultimate arcane power. Which he's not even sure he can do, actually, see: not a wizard.

The war's really important, they should really get some people on ultimate arcane power immediately. He could also teach Dwarves and Men if he's worried about Elves uniquely possessing it.

"It's not so much that one species would be possessing it, though that is kind of alarming, it's that I am new to the world, don't know how legitimate your claims of fighting an evil god are, and you're saying 'Teach us, and maybe also our allies if you're worried about us having this super powerful thing that can and absolutely has literally broken worlds.' Trust has not been established here."

" - all right. But millions of people are suffering for the lack of a means to breach the walls of Angband - what do you need to know -"

Veron does not make a face at the intended guilt trip there, nor does he reply, And billions of people might die if I help the wrong people, but he does frown. Slightly.

"How powerful is the god you want to kill, in concrete terms. What does he have at his disposal, what other horrible things has he done, since he allegedly started all evil, preferably explanations that don't conveniently justify your own atrocities. When you say millions of people are suffering, who are you referring to, precisely. And frankly, I need to know second opinions."

"- I'm not really the person for this but I can tell them - do you want to talk to Lord Caranthir while he's here - it's the orcs, they're all in constant pain because that's the only way to make them orcs at all, the orcs and the prisoners but there're far more orcs than prisoners -"

"I would love to talk to Lord Caranthir, it's looking like my time of being weird but relatively innocuous has passed."

He pauses for a minute, perhaps checking telepathically - "upstairs, if you please, sir."

Upstairs he goes.

He is not looking forward to this conversation.

Elf. Elf looking vaguely annoyed, truth be told. Thank you, he says to the linguist, who leaves.

"Caranthir," he says. 

"Pleasure to make your acquaintance. Veron Chandler. Hi."

"Hi. I apologize if we interrupted your day's planned shopping. Prospects of ending this bloody mess don't cross our way very often."

"... Wow, starting off with barbs and dismissing my priorities straight out of the gate, this is going to be one of those conversations, okay. Nice to meet you, too. I am all for ending bloody messes, I don't mind the interrupted shopping, I do mind helping the wrong set of people and I think my caution is both justified and highly beneficial to your interests."

"Calm down, I agree. I assume you had a reason for the shopping and therefore regret interrupting it. Your priorities seem eminently sensible."

"I wanted to see what you guys acted like when you didn't realize I was, uh. Myself. And thank you, I apologize for jumping to conclusions. Usually people yell at me for not immediately joining their cause without anything more than flimsy explanations."

"We don't even yell at the gods much and they've had five hundred years to make up their minds - I suppose we'd do some yelling if it might possibly help, to be fair - this is a trading post, the King's halfway across the continent from here, if you want to run the experiment again you could -"

"I don't think there's very much to be gained from rerunning the experiment, honestly. I'd wanted to get a second opinion from the orcs and see if I could piece together the whole picture, and uh." Pause. "That did not go as planned."

"We try not to have orcs in our territory. Could bring you captives if you'd like."

"Better than nothing, not likely to give me a good picture of the overall situation, though. Hard to see what a government's like from one captured, terrified prisoner. Do you usually take captives?"

"No. Long enough to interrogate them occasionally. Usually we send them to Mandos fast as we can."

"Mandos being the local afterlife?"

"You're sending slightly the wrong concept? Mandos is where the dead go but it's just a place on the western continent where there's a god who'll give them new bodies."

"Huh. Neat. Even though they served someone bad enough to get called the Enemy, they can get a do over?" He sounds faintly cheered by this idea.

"The oaths are a problem. Were not a solved problem, five hundred years ago, but that was before they were a priority. If they're not sworn to anything horrible then yes, they're back alive already. Your dead must not go to Mandos, he'd have mentioned -"

"When you say 'my dead,' do you mean humans, or? Because I know some afterlife situations, but I don't know if it works here the same way it does back home."

"Humans - well, humans here - don't get an afterlife at all as far as we know, it's horrible. Some people say Eru has a plan but - I've never thought much of Eru's planning."

"They might get hooked into my home's afterlife situation, I know it catches the humans back home and from a few other planes. Whether that's a good thing is up for debate." He considers Cania, and represses a shiver. "But I think we're digressing."

"Right. Sorry. We kill all orcs who enter our territory. We tried not doing that. Tried sending them home, they had orders not to go. Tried taking them prisoner and keeping them contained somewhere, and the Enemy sent ten times the numbers, determined to see just how much of our army we'd tie up in guarding what could only amount to a prison camp. We tried sparing the kids, Enemy talked to them in their heads and gave them instructions and they were not charitably inclined towards those who'd murdered their parents. And always, always, if we put extra effort into managing it, then the Enemy has a costless-to-him means of wasting our time and resources - send more innocents at our doors. So we kill all orcs who enter our territory."

"Ah."

Thoughtful pause.

"... How much personal attention does he pay to individual orcs."

"Gods here have somewhere between a hundred and a thousand times the attention that we have. He can be paying attention to any of them, is probably paying at least passing attention to one in any group, but will miss plenty."

"Yeah, I don't think he missed me, I thought that was strange -" mutters Veron. "One moment, please."

"Ksxksskrth," he hisses, in an unnatural echoing tone. He continues translating. "I have the suspicion that the kids I asked you to watch were under magical compulsion to accept and probably have others. Keep an eye out, would you?"

There's a pause, then the collar of his shirt hisses back.

"Really."

Wince. "I know I'm sorry I suck you deserve so much better."

"Are they still in contact with whatever's compelling them?"

"... Think he could reach to another plane and change orders? You know the mechanism better than I." Directed at Caranthir.

"It's just osanwë, if I can't he can't. Know someone on another plane I should try to talk to?"

"Yep. Do you need a name or like, a person concept?" ... He sends both. Ksxksskrth, concept of a right hand man that puts up with so much shit you have no idea.

Can you hear me?

"Did you have a freaky voice in your head just now?"

"Besides yours? No."

"No contact there - try again, let me try something to make sure there aren't holes it can leak through occasionally. Tell me when you start."

"Starting -" Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me -

And Veron shadowsteps across the room.

"There?"

"No."

"Looks like we're good on new orders, less good on whatever orders may or may not be there but probably are because that's how my life works -"

"Have they been doing anything in particular that you can -"

"This speaking arrangement is completely ridiculous. May I simply show up."

"... Uh. Hey can Ksxksskrth freakily appear out of your floor here so he can talk normally, he thinks this speaking arrangement is stupid and I think I agree."

"By all means."

Veron nods, makes a subtle hand gesture, and here is a freaky shadow person, rising ominously out of the floor!

"Hi yes I'm sorry I'll buy you a gift basket?"

"You have already given me full access to your treasury." says the slightly annoyed shadow person. Veron sends a translation to Caranthir, because that just seems polite.

"... It's the thought that counts?"

"I will buy myself something nice, and acknowledge the intention of buying me a useless basket filled with things I do not want. Are you translating or am I to practice my Common in front of strangers."

"I am translating for you."

"Hello."

He likes these people!

"Hello."

"What behaviors do those compelled by this type of magical compulsion exhibit, what methods can be used to mitigate these behaviors, and what set of compulsions do you think your enemy would use, with what likely priorities?" says Ksxksskrth.

"'Attempt to renew contact' seems like it'd be first up there."

"Yep. And pick up this magic of yours, if they can."

"They have been very inquisitive about both the subject of magic, and how they might travel back or speak with anyone on this plane."

"Great. Okay." Veron pinches the bridge of his nose. "So probably under magical compulsion, but not conclusively. This is not how I wanted to figure out which side to help. Thoughts on how to handle three kids under orders that are slowly turning into shadow monsters. Because three kids under orders that are slowly turning into shadow monsters. Against their will."

Sigh. "Do they have meaningful information about magic. Do they stop being shadow monsters back here."

"They do not stop being shadow monsters, but the change takes time. Won't actually start getting underway for, oh. Months."

"I thought it best to keep recently bereaved children away from dangerous magic."

"It's kind of hard to put them back, it's easier to put things into the Plane of Shadow than it is to go to other places from it, but not - outright impossible."

"Then we can imprison them not in the Plane of Shadow, if you like."

"... Getting them back here wouldn't be doable, not in time, it took me a year to figure a way out of that place, but - the path to Toril I found's still open, right?"

"Yes."

"So we could get them to my home plane. With no one to take care of them, probably, though I could ask some people I know."

"They'd have to be warned that they have orders to learn magic and get back here somehow. But if you can prevent that then that sounds wise."

"Yeah, okay. Who do I know that would both accept and be good with innocent kids under magical compulsion. ... You can figure out how to contact The Seer in a month or two, right?"

"More than likely, yes."

"Well. That sounds like a plan, then."

"Glad to, uh, be able to make you aware of a problem."

"Yep. Thank you very much. Bright side: verified evil. If uh, Ksxksskrth verifies that they're being controlled?"

"I do not expect it will be difficult to verify now that I know to watch for it. I suspect it is so from blind observation, but I acknowledge that children might want to both learn new magic and go home on their own merits."

"Right. Okay. So uh. How powerful's the probably-evil god you want to kill?"

"The Valar are extraordinarily powerful - they made the world, they can reembody the dead, they can build enormous highly magical self-sustaining works on a scale to affect the whole world - uh, this whole plane - but they're slow, it takes them centuries to accomplish things in that vein. They usually have bodies but don't need them and destroying their bodies will not destroy them - it can, if done right, set them back a while. We don't even know for sure that they can be killed but Maiar can and supposedly the Valar are the same thing only bigger. Maiar are usually killed with overwhelming force and magical weaponry."

"But his power base is localized, not spread out over multiple planes, and stabbing him is not a pointless waste of time. Okay. I can work with that."

"All on this plane as far as we know but we didn't even know there were other ones."

"Is there a Vala or Maia consultant available for that?"

"There are Maiar around but Maiar are - very high-variance, lots of them have motives that don't make much sense to incarnate species. I don't know if they'd be able to help or not."

"Better than nothing - is there a powerful friendly-ish one I could talk to about killing the evil one? I can almost guarantee that I have talked to weirder people."

"You are welcome to go to Doriath and try to talk to Melian, their Queen, she's a Maia - doesn't like us, and doesn't like humans, but rules a country and is thereby probably the Maia most talkable-to."

Nod.

"Have you ever been somewhere where humans are actively liked?"

"We're an acquired taste," sniffs Veron. "Don't you have a Plane of Shadow to get back to."

"If there is nothing else, yes."

"My cousins out west adore humans. Sometimes more as pets than as allies, admittedly, but still, if that's what you're looking for."

"... I think I'll pass on being adored as someone's, uh, pet. Thanks. Bye, Ksxksskrth."

"Farewell."

And then the shadow monster sinks into the floor and dissipates.

He shakes his head. "What an interesting meeting. Are there other questions I can answer for you-"

"That's me, haver of interesting meetings. Uh, any weird cultural things I should be aware of with Elves, so I can avoid gravely insulting anyone? And what caused the Maia-queen to dislike you?"

"Don't touch Elves' hair or go around with yours loose if you grow it out, assume Elves are not flirting with you even if they say things that in human societies would be most easily parsed that way - we don't marry in wartime, and don't have dalliances ever - Dwarves'll teach you their language if they want you to know it and otherwise will know all the trading languages and prefer you speak those... Melian dislikes us because of some war crimes. Not the one that's the reason our cousins out west dislike us and not the thing with the orcs."

"Okay, thanks. Should I ask about the specifics of the war crimes, or...?"

"I don't object to explaining but it was five hundred years ago under circumstances unlikely to recur."

"All right, then I'd appreciate knowing, to get a better idea of who I'm going to be working with."

"Enemy had planted misinformation and staged interactions between witnesses to suggest a treasonous conspiracy of some kind, then sacked our hometown and killed the King, hoping the subsequent succession dispute would prevent us from organizing rapidly enough to prevent the conquest of Endorë. He was wrong; we marched off under two banners but we got moving in time. Valinor, the western continent, didn't formally have a rule against emigration bur was designed to be impossible to safely leave. There was a land bridge, way up north, six hundred miles of sheer cliffs and unstable ice and eternal darkness. And there was a port city that had boats. We asked to buy or borrow the boats. They refused. They thought Valinor should stay out of the whole thing, and that we'd just get ourselves killed. Orcs marched on Endorë, sent all the Elven nomads fleeing, slaughtered or captured most of them, surrounded the cities, started starving them out. We asked the port city for help building our own boats. They refused. We asked them for information about boatmaking so we wouldn't have to start from scratch. They refused. 

We stole the boats. They fought back. It escalated. We made it out with a shipgoing fleet, ten thousand people dead - evenly across both sides, mostly - and the gods really really furious with us."

"Sounds like a mess. I'm sorry."

"Thank you. Anyway, Elu Thingol is Melian's husband, and his brother was the King of the port city in question, and they're on less than friendly terms with us accordingly. That's why everyone here speaks Thindarin, actually - Thingol banned my native language when he learned of the battle."

"Vindictive language banning. That's a new one. All right, thanks, sorry to have to bring up what sounds like a shit time for everyone involved."

"Not among the most pleasant of memories, but the war has hardly been any better and now there's a prospect of ending it. Don't worry about it."

"Fair enough. I think that's everything, then. I'll see about importing resources and knowledge from the rest of the multiverse. It's not just wizardry. I just - I don't know what things would hurt the evil god the most yet, which makes importing the right things a little hard. I don't have infinite resources, and everything I might import is not necessarily safe. Not to mention how I'm not a wizard, or a sorcerer, or a druid, or anything else that involves most of the weird magic shit I know of."

"Thank you."

He shrugs, a bit awkwardly.

"Well, I wasn't going to just go, 'Oh, look. Evil god. Guess I'll just go home and have a nap,' you know?"

Even if this sort of thing will definitely get him killed one day.

"It sounds like you had cause enough to go 'evil everybody! I will start my own polity' and I appreciate that you didn't do that either."

"Eh. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. And I have enough to be in charge of already, I'm not going to pick something else up unless I really have to."

Nod. "Let me know if you need anything else from us."

"Supplies to get to Doriath, but I don't think I need to waste your time for that one. Thanks for seeing me."

"Of course. Let me know if you need an introduction anywhere other than Doriath. Do you care if I inform the King of this meeting?"

"I will, thanks. Feel free, I think it's safe to say I have completely wrecked all plausible deniability that I'm not, uh. Still don't have a better description than 'myself.'"

"A well-resourced adversary of evil gods. Are you any harder than most humans to kill, should we be afraid that the Enemy will make an assassination attempt."

"Yes. Though not infallibly so. What sorts of assassination attempts would the evil god make?"

"Send one of the shapeshifting Maiar, maybe, or if you have a known weakness for tiny innocent orcs some of those but rigged to explode or ordered to poison you or something."

"I'll. Tone down the weakness for tiny innocent orcs. A shapeshifter could catch me off guard and might manage something, is there a method for catching them?"

"We've got defenses in the cities but not so much on the road. I can see if Huan can travel with you - a Maia who takes the form of a dog, and could warn if others were coming -"

"If Huan's okay with it, then I'd be happy to have him along. I do have personal defenses though, and uh. Am used to powerful people wanting to kill me. One of my best qualities is 'surprisingly hard to kill.' So I don't think you or he should drop everything on my account, if he's somewhere he needs to be."

"I'll ask. Death isn't even the greatest risk."

"Is the greatest risk getting captured and tortured. 'Cause I'm used to that one, too."

"It would surprise me very much if you are used to the Enemy's handling of prisoners."

"I have so far been able to dodge all of the people that have wanted to torture me, I'll do my best to keep doing that."

"He might actually find it more strategically useful to edit your memories and feed you new ones until you're willing to work for him. But yes, please do avoid that."

"If the evil god can get far enough into my head, we are all going to be in a lot of trouble, memory editing or no. So uh. Yes. Going to avoid that."

"He can, yes."

"Really, really going to avoid that," mutters Veron.

"We carry poison."

"Wouldn't work. I'll arrange something that will."

"Thank you."

"Sure. I mean, my plan A is going to be 'run to the Plane of Shadow,' I won't be able to get back but I'll be alive and in control of myself. But conceivably that might not be available for some reason, so."

"Are there resources you can leave with us such that your flight or death might not be a total loss-"

"Probably, I just don't keep a kit for murdering evil gods on me, all neatly packaged up and ready to be dropped off. Some of the things I might want to leave are one of a kind, and I would then not have them anymore. I'll set something up."

"Thank you. My brother says Huan would be happy to play guard dog."

Adventuring with a magic dog honestly sounds amazing. He does not suppress the smile.

"All right. Happy to have Huan along, then."

"They'll probably be here by the end of the day."

"Okay. Thank you."

"You are very welcome."

"Is there a, a Maia-dog courtesy checklist or something? How to treat a demigod who is also a dog without causing offense?"

"If he didn't want to be treated like a dog, he wouldn't be a dog - but, uh, that does assume a society where people are respectful of dogs, I suppose. Don't expect him to talk, he can but if he wanted to he would've picked a form with vocal cords. He used to be a Maia of Oromë, the Vala of hunting, before he befriended my brother."

"I was mostly wondering if he'd get offended if I asked to pet him and called him a good boy," says Veron, absolutely seriously. "Take it that's a no, then."

"That should be fine. You could teach him the shadow monster language, I have no idea how to pronounce those words but he wouldn't have a problem."

"If he wants to learn it, sure, I guess."

"My father had a passion for languages. It rubbed off at least a little on all of us."

"Oh. All right. My teacher taught me a bit of Dethek, too, but that one should maybe wait for after the evil god's dead. I don't think figuring out a lesson plan for another language would help with the actual killing itself."

"Then it can wait, yes. Thanks for your time; I'll have Huan sent to you when he gets here."

"Thanks."

Veron prepares for a journey to Doriath. Which is to say, he purchases travelling food, and then spends the rest of his free time investigating all of the things available in the market. Any neat baubles? Do they sell potions here? (He suspects not, and will not ask specifically for potions.)

They have neat baubles aplenty, some magic. No potions.

What sorts of baubles are available? Anything useful for a guy that regularly has people trying to kill him?

They're expensive, but local magic items apparently do things like improve reflexes and endurance and reaction time and working memory!