The Council of Treetown met in a large hall built high up in the trees. Through the open windows, the sounds of innocent laughter came from down below where children were chasing fireflies. Volunteer hosts and hostesses  (Treetown had nothing like a servant class in its society) were clearing away the meal that the council members and guests had just eaten. Ophelia had explained to Espino that the Treetowners believed that full stomachs made for better meetings. People were less likely to be irritable and more likely to get along with each other, more likely to listen to different points of view, when they weren't hungry.

Espino looked around the Council Room. The hall was large and rectangular. It was well-ventilated. The windows were large. There were a few bird nests in the rafters. The room was filled with long tables, enough to seat at least fifty people comfortably, possibly a hundred or more at a crowded event with people sitting on the floor or standing. This event was not crowded. The young elf mage and the rest of D.R. & Associates were seated at a long table along the east side of the hall. He was close enough to the window to feel the temperature of the outside air change since the Sun had set a short time ago.

Everyone in the room must know that with the dinner dishes being carried away, business was soon to begin. Espino could see the various groupings in the hall talking amongst themselves quietly. Ophelia sat at the south end of the hall. The Hierophant would be conducting the meeting. Next to her on the table was a large basket covered with a blanket. Seated to her right and left were the regular Treetown Council members, most of them humans of both sexes, mostly middle aged but a few elderly. Across from D.R. & Associates, on the west side of the hall, sat a few people like Daegon the blue dragonkin who were adventurers or travelers strongly associated with Treetown though they were not residents, along with a goblin and red dragonkin who were newcomers Rave and Daegon had found earlier that day in the jungle. Finally, on the north side of the hall were seated a party of Harmonizers from Paradise City who had just arrived before the meal was served. Fortunately, in Treetown, abundance reigned and there was more than enough food. After eating, the Harmonizers seemed remarkably mellowed out to Espino, at least as mellowed out as Harmonizers ever got. So, perhaps there was something to the eat-before-a-meeting idea after all, Espino thought.

As some of the volunteer hosts and hostesses were leaving with the last of the dinner dishes, two others entered carrying a small table made of the same kind of wood as the larger tables. They set the new, short table in the center of the room where it instantly became the focus of attention. Espino could see three wooden boxes with lids on the table. One of the men who had brought it stayed next to the table and began putting on a set of thick gloves such as a blacksmith might wear for working with fiery heat.

Ophelia stood up on her chair and called the meeting to order. Espino knew that, to humans, she looked about ten years old. He noticed how she could do something childlike, standing up on her chair because she was so short, and yet, at the same time, have a very adult commanding presence as all gazes in the room fixed on her very somberly.

“I would like to thank you all for coming,” the young Hierophant began, “especially our guests from Paradise City, who have come the furthest, and apparently, the fastest with their grave news. Please, Captain Icebreaker, we would be honored if you would begin our discussions today by telling the story of what prompted you to journey here to Treetown.”

Ophelia suddenly plopped down in one motion onto her chair’s enormous pile of cushions, another contrast between childlikeness and adultness in her mannerisms. Espino wondered at the girl’s ability to live simultaneously as a child and as an adult. The last several days, when she had insisted, by her authority as ruler of Treetown, that Espino live like a child for the duration of his visit to her domain, he had felt an excitement and a zest for life that he’d hardly ever felt since entering the Great School of the Magocracy. He hadn’t really related to the other children at first. They knew nothing of higher planar geometry, nothing of sociopolitical theory, nothing of the advanced sciences or philosophies, but they knew how to find joys in things in ways Espino had forgotten.

When the other children caught pretty butterflies or lightning bugs, they enjoyed them for their own beauty. Espino had started explaining to the children the various mythological and philosophical symbologies of butterflies and the various alchemical uses to which lightning bug goo could be put in a magical laboratory. Many of the children started at him blankly. Ophelia had been there and gently chided him that not everything was a lesson in school and not everything had to be analyzed, some things in the universes and some experiences were just…beautiful.

A loud, booming voice brought Espino back from his thoughts to the council meeting. Icebreaker, who did indeed wear a captain’s emblem of the Harmonizers on his breastplate, was a large, red-bearded man who looked like he hailed from a very cold place on a world whose gods included Odin and Thor. In some worlds peoples such as his were known as Norsemen. A large double-bladed axe was on his back, a short sword at his waist, and hanging from a strap opposite the sword was a battle horn.

“Thank you, Hierophant Oakwillow. Paradise City has experienced a very large increase in dino attacks over the past several months. While we have been able to handle them, it concerned us greatly that the great frequency of attacks was unprecedented in the entire twelve years since Paradise City was founded. Our greatest sages, scholars, and such were confounded to come up with an explanation. Then, we started finding these…things…such as we have brought you an example of.”

The Norse Harmonizer captain motioned toward the short center table with its mysterious boxes.

Ophelia didn’t stand again, but leaned on the table in front of her and projected her voice seemingly effortlessly such that all could hear. “Lorman, please show us the sample creatures,” she requested of the gloved man next to the boxes.

One by one, Lorman opened the lids of the boxes and produced from each one the dead remains of the type of brain parasite that D.R. & Associates had discovered in Newtown. They were in varying phases of decay that Espino supposed indicated how long ago each one had been harvested. One of them looked particularly fresh, almost as fresh as the ones D.R. & Associates had found on the days they had found them.

Lorman picked up one of the parasites in his gloved hands and placed it on the lid of one of the wooden boxes. Then he brought the lid with its grisly display to each table in turn, so all who wished could get a closer look. Espino hardly glanced at it, but others in the room had never seen one and took in huge eyefulls of the thing with looks on their faces of mixed curiosity and disgust.

Captain Icebreaker broke the silence. “My companions and I were sent to seek your knowledge and expertise, Hierophant Oakwillow. Since you are in tune with many lifeforms, we were hoping you could help us understand these things.”

Ophelia stood up again. “They are not natural life. They are twistings of life, aberrations created and bred by cthullids.”

The druid girl paused. Though the settlers on Jasmia had originally come from many different worlds, there was hardly a world where cthullids were unknown. Everyone present at the council meeting knew the terrible danger those beings represented. Espino knew something of their history. Once, they had ruled a vast empire spanning many worlds and dimensions. That empire had fallen because of multiple, well-coordinated slave rebellions. The foul things were always seeking to reestablish that empire.

“There is a cthullid presence on Jasmia?” asked one of the regular Treetown resident council members seated near Ophelia.

“It would seem so.”

*******

Espino thought the deliberations on what to do were especially efficient in Treetown. Meeting of similarly ranked officials in the Great Magocracy over matters no more or less serious could take days, even more than a week, as all egos present seeked stroking, all proposed actions were weighed against the effects they might have on the long-term schemes and goals of the mages present, political favor was curried and granted or denied, etc

 By contrast, the Council of Treetown decided what to do with relative ease and harmony. Treetown just didn’t have the same value system of the Great Magocracy. The citizens were less selfish and self-focused. There weren’t so many egos demanding stroking. The concern was mutual survival and the best way to handle issues for everyone.

In the end, the Harmonizers decided to leave to  return to Paradise City the next day. They explained that they had no authority to assign themselves to either of the two adventuring parties formed by the council that night, though they wished them the best and said prayers for them to gods revered by the Harmonizers, mostly Good-oriented gods of Law.

The first party would consist of him, Don Espino, as the arcane expert, Ophelia as the healer, Hiln and Gayle as warriors, and Natasha and the so-called “stealth-specialist”. They would travel to Dreadcastle, to check it out. The council had been very interested in the message that D.R. & Associates had found in Lunchmeat and in learning who this Sir Rictor Mortisse was.

The second party would consist of Deldric as the arcane expert, Ravenwood as the healer, Daegon and Ukan as the warriors, and Solomon as the “stealth specialist”. They would travel to teh Caverns of Thoom, where it was believed that there was access to Jasmia’s Underworld. Cthullids, when they inhabited (some would say infested) a world, built (or had their slaves build) huge cities in the largest caverns of a world’s Underworld. Deldric’s party would seek to determine if Jasmia had a cthullid presence.

Epsino found himself really happy that Ophelia would be in his party. He thought that was weird since she was, after all, an icky girl.

*******

“Rise, my servant, my old friend.”

Razkal heard the words in his dead ears as he felt a pressure leave his chest. He was awake, after how long he knew not, in his coffin, looking up at his liege Sir Rictor Mortisse, the Death Knight, The Butcher of Belnar, the Slayer of Aurumsage the Golden, the Ruler of the Domain of Dreadcastle.

“How long has it been?”

“Even I know not. Our world has ended. I don’t know why, but if we are to rule the ashes of what’s left, we must make haste. Come. Rouse yourself. I shall awaken your wife to assist you. It is time for all of Dreadcastle to awaken once more.”