"Long as you need."

He takes a minute. 

He opens the door. 

There, sure enough, is another identical Elf playing some sort of card game with a redheaded kid of ten or so. He blinks at them. 

"Hey," the fork says, "long story I'm filling in the Valar right now - uh, someone figured out how to fork us from right before they implemented the protection -"

" - what -"

" - worth it - there're other worlds, most of their Melkors are loose -"

" - I see. Why don't we talk in a bit -" and he picks up the kid -

"Yeah."

If they're talking they are doing so over the chips. 

Reasonable of them.

And after a while - "you should check your mail -"

Letters for Cam?

Campbell Mark Swan,

This is a request for an audience to discuss what can be done to fix the Arda you recently spent time in. We would prefer to meet you in our world or if that is infeasible send a representative to meet with you in person, but we can also exchange messages over text. We were not previously aware of the existence of worlds beyond our own, and do not yet have a unified policy for handling them, but there are some principles we are comfortable committing to in advance: 

 It is possible that at some point in the future we will develop a procedure for prosecution of war crimes committed in other dimensions. By default the contents of this and future conversations about how to fix your world will be impermisslble to introduce as evidence at such a trial. You have the right to change this default, or to independently record and publicize these interactions.

We will attempt to arrive at agreement on any handling of your world beyond imprisoning Melkor and his associates, restoring everyone to life and ending involuntary permanent death, and rolling out changes to oaths at least for orcs and persons not actively constrained by their oaths into conscionable conduct (you can read the Oath Reform Act of 1400 for the standards we used for this change in our own world). If we are not in agreement with you about how to implement other changes, they will wait for independent review by citizens of the dimension that will be affected.

It is standard for investigatory work of this kind to take place under a magic effect which makes it apparent when either party is lying. This effect is non-invasive and does not provide any other information; you have the right to know when this effect is in place, to ask for it to be turned off, or to request confirmation of our own statements under such an effect. Refusing to interact with truth effects is a choice protected by law.

Thank you for reaching out to us. 

Manwë, High King of Arda

Ingwë, HIgh King of the Eldar

Cam conjures up the Oath Reform Act of 1400.

"They want me to go in. Somebody'll have to hold the door for me to do that without being stuck. Ideally with another person from the world in the bar for in case they drop it."

"Okay - I'll ask a couple people in - everything look okay?"

"I don't hardly feel in imminent danger of summary execution. Not even inclined to insist that they send a representative here instead."

"You continue to have appallingly low standards but okay." Weak smile.

And a couple people come on in. One of them is an alt of someone assigned to Cam's resurrection help team.

"- oh, a Larya. Hi."

She is confused. "- hi?"

"I know a version of you from another world."

Deep breath. Out he goes. "Which way?"

"Train station or do you want to make yourself some other form of travel?"

"Too far to just fly it?" He waves a wing. "I can do fifty miles an hour and expect to be puzzled by unfamiliar public transit. I could make a little shuttle if it's a long way."

"Yeah we settled on the opposite end of the planet from Taniquetil in case all that divine interference got overbearing. I can recommend you a map?"

All that divine interference. Right. "Assuming Taniquetil looks the same I can find it from orbit in a shuttle in like a couple hours."

So he exits the house and makes a little shuttle and hops into it and goes halfway around the world.

It looks the same.

He lands near it and flies up.

These Valar don't do the static thing. They do give off a persistent and powerful impression that This Person Is A God. There's a conference table. Varda waves.

"Hello."

"Varda, this is Aulë, and this is Nienna. Everyone else didn't take physical form - we didn't want to overwhelm you - but they are also paying attention. Thank you for coming. Can we get you anything?"

"I'm fine. Uh, how does the truth thing work, I sometimes get sarcastic when I'm nervous."