They recommend some more sightseeing destinations! They go to different museums and have been to most of the old temples.

Cam writes everything down. "These are delicious, by the way," he says of the dumplings.

"Thank you! We don't usually get tourists here."

"In this neighborhood?"

"Yes, I think downtown gets plenty."

"We're actually curious about the local religion."

They all perk up. "Oh? What about it?"

"Don't know yet, start us with an overview?"

"Long ago there were two forces in the world, Eru and Melkor. Melkor is the creative force: nature is his work, the stars are his work, fire is his work. Eru was supposed to be the - targeting force. Think of a writer and their editor. Melkor creates, Eru gives creation meaning. But Eru did not understand what meaning was; he thought the only things with meaning were suffering, and he tapered all Melkor's creations to self-contained tragedies, rather than allowing them paths to thrive and grow. And they were equals in power, and Melkor could counter him but not defeat him, and so Melkor tricked him.  Melkor saw how Eru's fated end to the world could be averted: a people, the orcs, who could understand his will and multiply until they were strong enough to achieve it. Melkor could only achieve this with Eru's leave, it was too great a work to do otherwise. And Eru would only accept orcs if he thought we were a finished story, our existence the tragedy. So Melkor made orcs from Elves, who are designed to Eru's sensibilities, and Eru permitted it, though he made it so all orcs everywhere were born and lived forever in pain, and he made it so when they died their souls would go to the Elf-gods who would torture them forever. But still orcs are glad to exist, because we are the instrument by which the balance can be upset, and creation triumph forever over Eru's vision for the world."

Cam politely takes notes.

"Then the Elf-gods, created to be Eru's servants, warred with Melkor, and imprisoned him, and he is still imprisoned, and his work and his teachings he left to us and to the Maiar who would help us. The Elf-gods came and arrested them too, and most of them too are imprisoned forever."

"Thuringwethil still helps out sometimes!" someone says brightly.

"Yes, she does. She talked her way free of the Elf-gods. And the orcs are still free, and permitted to grow and multiply, and the Elf-gods learned of the horror of Eru's work and even they rejected him and now sometimes they will help us too, but they cannot be trusted; Eru could bend them to his will again."

"So is the idea that the Elf-gods are approximately Eru's gaslighting victims or that they are independently inclined to be bad news?"

"They are - independently inclined to be the gods of the Elves, and do whatever serves the Elves. But also we are the only creatures in creation who Eru cannot bend to his will if he pleases."

Someone mutters something.

"Well, that's a theologically disputed point," she amends. "Some people think that the reformed oaths made us vulnerable to Eru again - see, we used to swear ourselves to Melkor, and then Eru could not bend our wills, but now we can't swear to Melkor anymore, so a lot of people think he can, but other people think Melkor made orcs inherently safe from Eru controlling our wills."

"What about Dwarves?"

"Dwarves think their Maker made them safe against Eru too but if so he did it a different way, Dwarves don't have oaths."

Nod. "...where do the black outfits come in?"

"Oh, so, after Sauron was imprisoned by the Elf-gods there was a lot of debate over - how seriously to take our obligations, and what they were, and the stricter interpretation includes that there is an obligation to set yourselves apart from those who abandon the path - not to bother them, or anything, and separately there's a thing where you are supposed to be accessible to them so you can explain - so all the great scholars went up the mountain and asked Thuringwethil to shield them from Eru's presence and came up with rules for how to navigate that obligation, and the rule they came up with was that we should all dress the same way, and in a way that was visually distinct from how the rest of the world dresses, so we know who we are and we are not striving to blend in and keep our heads down and forget our role in the world but we also impose no obligation on any other person and it's not hard to join or to leave."

"Nobody else ever just feels like wearing all black?"

" - it'd be sort of a strange thing to do since everyone would assume you'd become religious. I suppose maybe some people do it anyway."

"Are any of the points of theological dispute disputed to the point of schism?"

" - people disagreed on how much to resist when the Elf-gods came to strip the oaths away, there was one at the time. Now - well, no matter what you think there's nothing we can do."

Nod.

"Except maybe with technology," one of the children offers, and gets a stern look. 

"...is there something controversial about the possibility?"

"Seems likely that if it came to the attention of the Elf-gods they would interfere."