No one really knows how the parties get to yes

I think anyone would.

The one I can do is also more hostile than I'd like. I haven't used it against you or your people, but have relied on being able to do it.

We'll continue not trying to follow you. We're also happy to do other things to provide good conditions for spirit capturing. Was there anything else?

The Ice is being handled with a repurposed major ritual. A practitioner can claim a place and it becomes theirs. One of the limits is that it can't claim more than your voice can reach, so we used a combination of an amplifying song and the fact that Elves have impossibly good hearing to try for a corridor all the way across. The explanation the host got is that we met a friendly ice Power and that's why the path is warmer and less treacherous. I don't expect anything that large-scale to be repeatable for a couple of reasons, usually it's the size of a room or maybe a house.

And there are more than zero Others around. That's the term for magical people and animals, usually monsters. That's where the danger to you is, by the way; they're more likely to come after you than a randomly chosen uninformed person. So far we've only met one sentient one here, it hated both orcs and Elves and was pretty easy to direct. I don't know how to summon more or force them to follow orders, but if more turn up it is an ability of practitioners to make deals with them.

One thing I've considered doing is looking for any ghosts of orcs—ghosts aren't sentient; they're more like an experience of dying violently, caught on repeat—and using them to make magic weapons. There are a lot of orcs that got killed, there could be a lot of ghosts. But I don't like the idea and it probably wouldn't work except against Elves. Maybe Maiar, almost certainly not orcs.

Maybe the Enemy. Orcs are said to hate the Enemy. And we had a lot of people die violently, here, in the fight that met us when we first reached that shore, would that work?

It might. It'd be, it'd be like seeing them die all over again, maybe feeling what it was like for them to die, and then if it worked there'd be an object that could recall that death to help repeat things that happened. Everything would have to relate back to what they were thinking or feeling or doing at the time.

It's not the nicest kind of magic.

Everyone here is risking more than their life for this cause.

I'm not saying I won't do it.

I'd need a list of names, preferably with information on how they died, and personal descriptions wouldn't hurt. I don't know how possible privacy is, but if anyone asks it fits well with the other cover story about me having a weird human religion. And I'd need things to store the ghosts in. Weapons of the kind that killed them are the obvious, they'd just be better at killing people, but it doesn't have to be that. I could maybe do things like a twig where whoever breaks it gets a stab wound.

Of course there's no way to know who left a ghost and who didn't. Most deaths don't, even most violent ones.

I can give you names and personal descriptions and information; right now?

Now? Okay. I should do it as close as possible to where a lot of people died. I think it might have to be somewhere that hasn't been built on since then, not sure. That would give up soundproofing but I can do it in English so no one understands.

Findekáno, would you want to join? You don't have the same excuse about a weird religion that I do, but it might work better if they were people you knew. And be uglier for the same reason.

Fingon

neither-power-nor-glory

I would, I think, he says to Amber. He's been sitting there entirely silently. You should ask my cousin if he can write the names and stories down for you, we'll have a hard time remembering them all.

Nod. (The silence is less weird since they're all telepathic. There could be any number of conversations going on that don't include Maitimo.)

If there are a lot of them—and there'd have to be, since I don't know the success rate beyond 'pretty low'—we'll need it in writing. Or something to write with might be better in my case, since I'm still slow at your alphabet.

He hands her a pen and starts speaking. He knows all the names and deaths and details, because of course he does.

Of course he does.

Subsequently, so do Amber and Findekáno. Or at least enough that it adds up to "a lot." Probably can't realistically be "all."

I can show you the place, it's just outside the walls.

How audible is it, should I be assuming everyone hears?

I can ask Macalaure to throw an imprompt concert but I've asked a lot of him lately.

We could wait. How often do you fight?

Hopefully not again. We won. It was twelve days of nonstop fighting, and before we'd even had time to build defenses or homes, and it was awful and pointless and unsatisfying but at the end of it as far as we can tell eight hundred thousand orcs were dead and we had the run of the continent. We're helping the locals as much as we can, now. There might be some of them you should get in touch with.

Eight hundred thousand in twelve days.

If it's not urgent on a scale of however often concerts happen, we can just coincide with the next planned one.
Who are the locals, and what are you thinking I could do?

The Mithrim tribes are mostly nomadic and were in desperate straits when we arrived; some of them have tentatively expressed interest in our protection, and people will die if my cousin or people acting on his behalf contact them and give enough hint the Noldor are at odds that they stop trusting us. Farther south there are walled cities, competently governed. We broke the siege - we seem to be the only people on this continent with cavalry, I am trying really hard to figure out how to give you some once you cross - and are on good terms, but they were days from losing several cities and they're hungry.

There's also apparently a well-protected kingdom somewhere east of here, so well protected no one knows where.

I expect they'd be interested in your magic and less inclined than us to leverage it in ways that will rack up a tremendous karma score good or bad.

The Noldor are in fact at odds. We could just not mention anything about why. Probably a good idea for the others too.

The only one of those who want something I could give are the hidden one. But if it's that hidden I'm skeptical of how accurate your expectation can be.

I mean, location is harder to get from people than anecdotes about the leadership. The King of the hidden kingdom is paranoid, aggressively xenophobic, but well-intentioned and with a tendency to be talked down from his initial judgments which are frequently rash and unwise. Capable politically and adored by his people, though. His wife is a Maia.

And from that you get that they'd want magic and play it safe if they got it?