I'm glad you think so. My father invented it. "I are writing. You are writing. You are writing a list of vocab?"

"- 'I'm glad you think so, my father invented it,'" repeats Cor. "That would be a more efficient way to get specific words you wanted - I am not writing anything, I don't have any paper. And I have no idea what in particular you're taking down there but it's probably a vocabulary list."

"I have paper. I am writing -" the grammatical principles and some theories about related word roots - "and a vocabulary list."

"The grammatical principles and some theories about related word roots. Are the related word roots very useful or is that just for fun?"

"Probably just for fun. Useful for vocabulary if you don't have any paper."

"I suppose they could be if you were of a linguistic turn of mind, which you must be since you're the guy who they call to learn languages from suddenly appearing strangers who are fussy about mindreading. I don't suppose you can selectively mindread enough for useful telepathy and not enough for nightmarish privacy violation."

"Probably. The selectively mindreading works off how you -" structure your thoughts - "for some people meanings of words and other thoughts would be separate, some people they might be close enough selective would be imperfectly selective. Still mostly selective."

"Structure your thoughts," echoes Cor. "You want 'selective' there not 'selectively'."

"Telepathy is not nightmarish privacy violation for Quendi, we structure the thoughts so we send only what we mean. You can learn different structures of thoughts and then use telepathy for communication but it is not efficient and we are not reading your mind."

"Communicative telepathy sounds grand. Why isn't it efficient?"

It takes months of practice to pick up. "Communicative telepathy is very useful." Humans don't have it and it makes military logistics significantly more complicated.

He repeats the telepathed phrases. "I did notice this place looks fortressy. How come this house has no windows?"

If there's fighting in the city it's better for people inside the houses to be relatively protected. There are slits to fire through.

Repeat. "Who're you fighting?"

He's called Melkor, or Morgoth. He doesn't leave Angband himself, he sends orcs, which are magically bound to his servitude and ordered to war.

Translation. "Charming."

"Yes. If you were looking for a good world you have not found one. Yet."

"I was looking for a world that could gradually cease to exist without anybody minding, actually."

"Ah. We would mind. Why are you looking for that?"

"Nothingness is a magical waste product."

"Not our magic."

"Cool. What's yours like?"

Two kinds. Magic songs work for everybody, including your species, and composing them involves direct I think pseudo-sensory interaction with things best described as ambient magic fields - in the sense of 'magnetic field' not 'corn field'. Magic artifacts Elves make with telepathy and Dwarves make with special equipment made from magic ores their god planted for them and you write very long detailed instructions and then inscribe them and then the object obeys them. Song effects are temporary; artifact ones need not be.

Cor murmurs along to this - "You have my species here? We don't have yours. Or Dwarves."

"We have humans and Dwarves and Quendi and orcs and Maiar and Valar."