"I would like to return eventually if I can! We love our home, too, and have have obligations there. And I would gladly help you travel between the worlds - if it were up to me." She sighs. "But in truth, I do not even know how to begin trying."

"The accident - or trap - that sent us here was a magic mirror; we touched it and were transported, while it stayed behind in Golarion." At least Tora can confirm that. "Maybe it will transport more people here; we ought to go back to the place we arrived and check, at some point."

"Teleport is a wizard spell and plane shift a cleric spell, and the strongest wizards and clerics can cast both, and summon outsiders from other planes to send messages. Druids can't do anything similar; I won't be able to return under my own power, no matter how powerful I grow. I suppose the natural next step is to ask the local gods, but Gandalf said they don't like interfering much, and don't take any clerics. And I don't have anything to offer them in exchange, unless the knowledge of another world qualifies, or bringing druids to Arda."

"I could pray to the gods of Golarion; perhaps they can still hear me here. But I am not very well aligned with any one of them, and particularly not with Desna, patroness of travel, for - complicated reasons. I could try praying to Abadar, the god of trade whose domain includes travel for the purpose of trading with distant strangers, but if all it took was someone on another world praying to Him about a wonderful opportunity to trade with another world I expect someone would have done it long before now... It wouldn't cost me anything but time to try, but I do not expect it to work, and even if it did work I don't expect any god to invest the power to talk to me or send me a messenger, let alone make me a fifth-circle cleric so I could plane shift."

"Can't you awaken a tree... a female tree, to make new treants?" This is slightly a druidic secret, but they're friendly treants, the secrets do have a little latitude.

Aria has been considering that, but mainly in the vein of how desperate she would have to be to try such a crazy scheme all by herself!

"Not exactly. I can awaken a normal plant or animal, to be as smart as you or me and to have similar senses and talk in language and so on. It requires a complex, expensive spell, and has some ethical issues, but let's ignore those for the moment."

"If I did that, it wouldn't be a treant; it would be a - different kind of creature, depending on the species of tree that awakened. There's no tree that's already exactly a treant except for its animating intelligence."

"There's a different spell that calls a spirit into a tree to animate it into the semblance of a treant, but it only lasts a few days. And I can't cast it right now anyway."

"Theoretically, a druid - I would really prefer a group of much more senior and powerful druids, with a few decades to research and prepare - might be able to make a ritual, or a new spell, that combined awakening with liveoak, to create a treant. On my own? At best, I wouldn't know what to expect, and you may well not want me to try given that. I wouldn't want to try, but I'm not the one most affected."

She avoids mentioning the other option for now. She is a fifth-circle druid; with some more work and study she can probably turn into a treant, a true one, and keep that form long enough to bear acorns. But she's not going to tell them about it (and will very emphatically warn Tora not to tell them about it) until she's had time to process the idea of potentially becoming mother to an entire race.

Treebeard nods.  "Yes.  We can awaken trees too, over years and years.  Huorns, we call them when speaking hastily - their full name would be much longer, about as long as the full name of this forest.  There are many of them around here - they can be friendly, if you know how to be friendly with them."

"We passed by some of them earlier," Quickbeam says.  "They were sleeping, though - many of them sleep a lot these days, with so few of us Ents left."

Treebeard nods, and frowns.

"Calling a spirit to take the semblance of an Ent...  That strikes me as very dark and dangerous.  It could be done; I don't doubt the old Great Enemy did just that when he created the trolls in the mockery of Ents.  Fortunately, there are not so many trolls in the world these days; but they are still dark and dangerous to anyone who's foolish or hapless enough to be near them.

"Of traveling to other worlds... hoom...  I suppose you could go to ask the gods, if they would let you into their country to speak with them...  I am told they do not allow in humans, but I have not heard anything of tigers.  First I might try asking Master Gandalf, though I suppose you have spoken already... or if not him, then the Lady Galadriel of Laurelindórenan*... or before the present troubles I would have suggested Master Saruman..."

He shakes his head.  "If only you had come at a happier time."

* Treebeard is using the literal Sindarin name; Aria is unlikely to connect it to the "Golden Wood" Gandalf spoke of.

Aria can't be sure why he thinks it's a dark and dangerous spell, but she has plenty of reasons of her own, starting with "how do I tell them that they, a person, were created to be irrevocably destroyed in two weeks' time for my convenience" and continuing straight to "what if they hate me for it and I have to force them to help me?" She won't touch liveoak unless she's being Evil, which to be fair is almost a quarter of the time, but still.

"Gandalf also suggested consulting some other people, but that can wait until your forest is made safe. We who are not born in happy times must make them happier, for -" she almost says for our children before catching herself - "for tomorrow, and those who will come after us."

"What can you tell me of Saruman? His magic and defenses, both personal and those of his tower, and any powerful servants or allies he has. I cannot guess at what he can and cannot do from hearing him named a wizard; the word clearly means a different kind of mage than on Golarion."

"Gandalf said that neither Saruman nor anyone else in Arda can see magic, to tell in an instant that I am not an ordinary tiger if I pretend otherwise, or to notice that, say, Tora's belt is not simply decorative. Is that certain enough to take some risks, do you think?"

"And how exactly he would stop me from biting his head off," Tora still wants to know.

Treebeard does have his reasons:  it's dark because you're forming your own sort of creature in a mockery of the life-web of Middle-Earth, and it's dangerous because the spirits who will answer your summons are evil.  But Aria doesn't ask, so he's not going to say that.

Instead, he nods to her saying the questions about traveling to Golarion can wait.  "Indeed, first we must make the forest safe.  I have been idle for far too long.  Far too many things have slipped.  Saruman and his orcs must be stopped!"

"We have all been idle," Quickbeam interjects.

"And so, I was thinking it would be good to summon an Entmoot, though Aria wants to fight for the forest herself even before we are ready to join her."

"Oh!"  Treebeard laughs, shaking himself.  "You are hasty, little tiger-druid!  But still slow enough to ask wise questions.  Let me think...

"Hoom, hoom...  It has been long years since Saruman was walking about these woods.  He was always polite in those days, and eager to listen, and gave no trouble to his neighbors.  He was chosen to be Head of the White Council, in fact - by Master Gandalf and Lady Galadriel and Masters Elrond and Radagast and some others.  Though now, I wonder if even then he was not turning to evil ways.  Even then, I remember now, he told me very little...

"No, I have never heard of anyone except the gods who can simply see magic.  Saruman...  He told me little, though I know he could never tell whether a tree was a sleeping Huorn.  I saw the Elf-fathers of old once in great doubt over how much of the treasure they had seized was magical - such doubt that they delayed, and they lost the treasure to others, though the most magical jewel had never come into their hands in the first place.  A sad story, though I do not regret my own part in it.  And if I tell you the whole story, we would be here till the sun sets and rises again."

Treebeard had never liked the Sons of Feanor... and he and his fellow Ents had needed little invitation to make sure they left Ossiriand without the treasure of Doriath that they'd stolen from the Dwarves, and with somewhat fewer Elves than they'd come with.

"As for Saruman's powers... He can control the weather in some ways - I would not be surprised if this dry summer was his doing.  He may be able to see at a distance, if he cares to look, and if he were not merely bragging that one time.  But his greatest power is his voice.  He can make you think he is the wisest friend you have ever had - while he is speaking to you, and for some people perhaps afterwards.

"I do not know if you would be safe from his voice, Tora, since you do not speak any languages he would know from Middle-Earth - but even so, he has stayed in his tower for many a year, so he would likely not risk himself within the range of your teeth."

"We're wondering if this tower is not as well defended as a real wizard's! Maybe I can bring my teeth to him."

"When you say he might see at a distance, do you mean he can see very far from the top of his tower, tens or hundreds of miles until the mountains block his sight, and perceive the smallest details? Or do you mean that he has magic that shows him distant placeseven across barriers, and people whose location he doesn't know? There is a Golarion spell called scrying which does the latter, and can even track down people from their belongings, or using body parts like a few hairs."

Treebeard nods.  "Hroom, some magic, if he wasn't bragging about seeing the Elves of Laurelindórenan... that would be behind the mountains from his tower, let alone behind the trees.

"And the walls of his tower are unbreakable.  Perhaps you could sneak in the windows?  Though he might have closed those too with spells.  It would have been slow work if so, but I am sure he could if he wanted to."

"Numenorian stonework is good," Quickbeam adds.  "I tried to break it once, with some friends, in my younger days...  we tried for a whole night, but couldn't make a single crack in it.  But that is just the tower of Orthanc itself... I'm sure he hasn't set up his forges and Orc-camps in there with him."

"How are wizard towers defended in your world?"

"I don't really know; I'm not a wizard! And there are hundreds or thousands of spells, including I assume many secret ones."

"The greatest wizards can create demiplanes - little bits of space that aren't in our world at all, and can only be gotten to by a spell, and you need a key to get into a specific one. The ones who are not so strong, and build towers - they could have spells to tell them whenever a creature enter or leaves, or sound alarms. Spells that harm those who enter, or put them to sleep or teleport them elsewhere. Spirits and summoned outsiders watching for intruders, some of them invisible and sleepless, and of course ordinary guards. Doors and walls that can only be passed by spell, or with a magical key. Traps that kill the unwary, and spells set ready to kill those the wizard notices, beyond the ones he can cast himself on a moment's notice."

"I'm sure there are many things I haven't thought of, or that I never heard of. Attacking a wizard in his tower is a proverb for being silly or suicidal, unless you're a much stronger wizard. I'm only considering attacking this one because I don't think he's a proper wizard at all."

"Does he never come out? Doesn't anyone else go in?"  Gandalf said he's raising an army; Tora thinks these usually need a commander who isn't shut away in a tower, but she's admittedly not an expert.

"Demiplanes! Hoom!"  Treebeard stares in shock.  "I have never heard of things like that.

"The other things you talk about... Maybe?  I have heard travelers' stories of many things like them, but very few of them have I heard reliable word of..."  He strokes his beard.  "And I have heard even less of what Saruman has done in his tower.  I would be surprised if he has any of them, but not astonished if he has, say, spells to sound an alarm.  Though he has been busy building his dark army of orcs."  He shrugs.  "Master Gandalf might know more; Lady Galadriel would at least know more of what could be done.

"And I am sure people come out and go in - but I have not been around Isengard recently to see what is going on there."

"How big is this army? I am curious how he's feeding it; does he have his own farmland, or trade in food? Perhaps if we can prevent Saruman from raising an army or keeping it mustered, he will stop trying to destroy the forest to arm it."

Treebeard rustles his branches.  "He has some farmland, but I know he used to trade for many things."

"I think he has at least a few thousand Orcs."

"Hmm. The men I met in Rohan heard he turned hostile; is there someone else he trades with?"

"In any case, my first step would be to fly high over Orthanc as a bird for a day or two and see what I can see. I'll look at this farmland too, and the army. We can kill the logging parties before we do that, as Quickbeam proposed earlier."

"Thank you!"  Quickbeam nods so deeply it's almost a bow.

"Treebeard, shall you summon an Entmoot in the meantime?"

Treebeard nods.  "Yes.  I still need to think more about what we might best do here... but we can discuss it together.  And perhaps it will change based on what you see, Aria.

"The Moot always meets at Derndingle; we can show you where that is?  I will be around the Forest most of today and tomorrow, I suspect, gathering Ents for the Moot... but if we can talk there when you have seen enough, it would be a great help."