She's still in a grassland, but dryer grass - not brittle, but at the point where it's clearly been feeling the heat and could use some rain.

To one side of her are some snow-capped mountains in the distance, and (closer) some farms and a village.  If she's got good hearing, she can hear some cows lowing; if she's got good eyesight she can see more villages in the distance, following the range of the mountains.

To the other side, on the grasslands - a little ways away; they haven't sensed her yet - is a herd of horses.

Aria has excellent senses in her smilodon shape, but they only serve to deepen the mystery! Was the mirror a teleport trap? It did look magical, but it hadn't done anything to the snake except stick in its mouth, so she'd assumed it was safe to touch...

She sniffs the grass. It doesn't match any kind she's familiar with, at least not precisely, but she'd be the first to admit she neglected her studies of flowering grasses in the past century, and it might well be some rare variant that's actually quite common somewhere out east.

The problem with this theory is that no matter how far east, it should still be winter. It might be late summer somewhere in the far south of Garund, or in south of any of the great continents for that matter. Did she just get greater teleport-trapped? That sounds like a ridiculous proposition for a mirror she found in the middle of nowhere but, if there existed a resettable greater-teleport trap, it might well land the poor snake that tried to eat it in the metaphorical middle of nowhere!

She has to find someone she can pay for a couple of plane shifts back home; poor Tora will be going mad with worry!

Who, of course, chooses that moment to appear behind her. She looks a little worried, but mostly smug.

This is in fact very reassuring!

"What happened? I was transported here when I touched the mirror - the reflective side. What did you see?"

(She can only talk to Tora for a few minutes each day without using a spell, but she has the spell and so she never tries to conserve the ability.)

"You disappeared. And I only saw myself in the mirror. So I deduced you did it by touching the mirror, and I touched it too and followed you, because I am clever."

"You are!" She doesn't quite want to hug and wrestle Tora about it while they're in an unfamiliar place and it's remotely possible they're in danger, but she is definitely going to rub against her flank contentendly for half a minute.

"We don't know where we are," she says eventually. "Let's explore."

This place is quite pretty, and she's in no particular hurry, but she does want to find out where they are. Random villagers may or may not know the name of a kingdom big enough to find on a map, but they'll point her towards the nearest bigger settlement, and eventually she'll find someone who's heard about continents.

She'll get close enough to be able to see people, and then, if they look basically unthreatening, she'll shift human to be less threatening herself and go for a chat.

Sveyn is trying to decide just how many of his sheep to sell this fall.  Ordinarily, he'd only sell one or two for money for the winter, but there's disturbing news this year.  The White Wizard has turned evil, the Dunlendings are threatening to invade, and the Dark Lord of the East has been raiding horses.  And as if that isn't enough, they say the king is looking like he'll be on his deathbed soon.

With all that, maybe it'd be wiser to sell more sheep now rather than risk them dying in a war?

(Maybe right after harvest, which's looking like it'll be soon?)

He's still throwing the matter back and forth in his mind when he looks up and sees two huge cats approaching from the north.  He stares dumbfounded.  They're bigger than anything he's seen - one of them looks like it might be even bigger than the beasts from the old songs - and they're coming straight toward the village!

He calls for his dog, and then checks an order to round up the sheep - they'll be less of a target scattered - and blows his horn.

Then he stands, spear in hand, trembling.  If these cats want to take just one or two of the sheep and go, he doesn't think he'll be able to do anything.  But if they're after more, or after the village, he'll do what he can while the others are coming.

That's really very brave of him! (Not to say suicidal; even an ordinary wild dire tiger wouldn't be deterred by one man with a spear, if it had reason to attack). She doesn't want to scare him needlessly, though; she shifts human at a good distance, and asks Tora to stay behind before she gets anywhere close to him (or to the sheep).

Human-shaped, Aria looks like a fairly ordinary adventurer; likely to be a ranger or a druid or something in that vein, to the discerning eye, but an adventurer regardless. She has no metal on her; she wears a coat of leather stitched in layers from leaf-shaped pieces over a green-and-brown robe, a circlet of green threads tying back her hair, and carries a gnarled blackwood staff, along with various rings, pouches, pendants, and other mainstays of the adventuring lifestyle. (This is much like the backpacking lifestyle, but graduated to bags of holding.)

"Hello!" she calls out, once in loud-voice-but-not-yelling range. "I come in peace, and would ask some questions!"

Her tongues tells her that the language the man hears isn't one she's familiar with.

Was that just skinchanging?

Sveyn boggles.  Things are walking out of legends now.  He blows the horn again while he still can.

Now the skinchanger - wizard or Elf or wolfman or something even stranger - is looking like something halfway between a Rider and the sort of herdsman who stays out too long and goes strange.  "Hello, sir," he says.  And then he takes another look and corrects, "Er, ma'am.  Who are you and what brings you here to Aldsdale?"

"I am called Aria," she says, coming closer. "And my companion is Tora. I am unsure myself how I came to be here; it appears I am rather lost. So I would ask of you the name of this land, its people and settlements and powerful mages and the gods that you worship, and then probably directions somewhere where my questions would be better answered. And anything else that I should know but do not know to ask, being a stranger in this land."

She doesn't know the name of the country?  Well, Sveyn isn't sure whether Elves care about countries.

"... This's Rohan.  If you're looking for the king, he's in Edoras.  You can follow the road there, if you want."  He points east, along the mountains.  "Or the Marshal Erkenbrand is at Helm's Deep."  He points the other way along the mountains.  "If you're looking for a... powerful wizard?... the White Wizard's in Isengard, but he's gone evil.  They say the Lady of the Wood is up north in the forest?"

He isn't quite sure what she means by "people who do wizardly things", if she isn't just asking about wizards?  And he's going to try to dodge her question about the Powers; he doesn't really remember much about them himself.

Some more people are now running through the fields toward them, in answer to Sveyn's horn-call, so he dares to ask a few questions himself.

"Er, where are you from?  And how can you skinchange?"

"I am from the Verduran Forest, which is on the continent of Avistan, in the human nations of Taldor and Andoran. I could draw you a map of the world if you think you can find Rohan on it. And I can shapechange because I'm a druid." That the word translates is encouraging.

"An evil, or" - wait, what? What kind of (human) language doesn't have a word for Evil? Food for thought.

"...an evil wizard does sound troubling, to those who live nearby; you have my sympathies. Who is the Lady of the Forest?"

She can skinchange because she's a skinchanger?  ... All right, she doesn't want to explain.

"She's an Elf.  They say she can send out mists to blind you, and she just look at you and know everything you're thinking and you're never the same again... but I don't know much about her, ma'am."

Just then, some other men from the village run up - Osbald and Little Tam and Gunnar - with their work-axes in hand.  Their alarm turns to cautious surprise on seeing Aria.  Osbald nods politely.  "Welcome, lady, to our humble village in these unsettled times."

That's two out of two locally-known spellcasters who are feared by the common folk. Not terribly unusual, but the lack of mention of any local clerics is troubling.

Aria greets the newcomers, and repeats her introduction. "What makes the times unsettled?" 

Sveyn waits to let Osbald answer - he's more respected in the village.

"Lady, the king is old and ill, and the White Wizard isn't speaking to us anymore, and the orcs and Dunlendings have been raiding.  They say there'll be war soon."  And the weather has been too dry - he's thinking that might be the Wizard's doing too - but he's not going to trouble this strange foreign Rider-lady about that.

"War with the Dunlendings? Who are they?" War with orcs is a given.

"They live the other side of the Gap."  He points west.  "They've hated us since our grandfathers' grandfathers' time.  Call us strawheads" - he touches his blond hair - "and robbers, but they're the ones who rob us!  And they mark up their own faces."

Osbald saw some Dunlendings twice - once several years ago when an embassy was going to Edoras, and again last month when some prisoners had been taken from a raid - and he doesn't know much more about them.

Sigh. Humans are almost always at war, and joining into bigger nations just makes the wars bigger and more destructive. These Dunlendings probably know as much of the men of Rohan - strangers who have always hated us, robbers and enemies.

It's natural for humans but that doesn't mean she has to like it, just that she won't interfere without a reason.

"I see. Do you have a" - she stumbles again. Why wouldn't cleric translate? "An empowered priest here, a servant of a god who uses their magic on your behalf?" Clerics are often better informed, and a local cleric might be her best bet for information-gathering before she leaves, but she's also curious now about their situation with the gods not meriting an answer and 'cleric' not translating at all.

They look at each other, confused.

After a moment, Sveyn offers, "Maybe that's what the Elves are?  They say some of them came from the Powers?"

Little Tam interjects, "But they don't ever use magic for us!"

"At the capital, then? Or do you mean there are none in all your lands?" That would be - well, definitely not true, but for random villagers to think so is extremely suspicious. 

...unless she landed somewhere specific, and these people are not random villagers at all. She'll be on her guard. If it's a trap, though, it's probably not one where telling people she knows about clerics is what makes them hostile.

"Where I come from, and in all the lands I have been to, the gods choose people who are - aligned with the particular god and their ideals and goals, and grant them magic. Healing, of course, and many other spells besides. Humans, as well as elves and dwarves and other races. In many lands, most towns have an empowered cleric within a day's ride. I have never been anywhere with no clerics at all."

Again, they look at each other confused - and also wistful, this time.  Sveyn is remembering his brothers who died of the fever, and his love who died of the cough... it's been a long time since he thought of it as anything but a distant ache and a fact of life.   But if there's somewhere in this world where the Powers give people the power to fix things like that -

"That sounds wonderful, lady."  (Sveyn is echoing Osbald's form of address for her now, even though she doesn't seem to have minded either one.)  "But - where have you been where people can do that?"

"Most of Avistan, northern Garund, a few places in Tian Xia. That doesn't mean anything to you, does it." She sighs. Considers offering her own limited healing resources before she moves on. She's not pressed for time, it's just that - healing sick and injured animals by the roadside is slightly frowned upon, because it goes against nature. A druid isn't supposed to help people who are in balance with their surroundings, and death is a natural and inescapable part of life. And she's not Good right now.

On the other hand, people are normally healed by clerics. Humans sighing wistfully about the clerics they've never had is not natural. And she is Chaotic right now, and not obeying any hard and fast rules.

"If you truly have no clerics, I might be able heal those of you who need it before I go," she offers. "I am no cleric, and my powers are limited, but if you are in need I may be able to help."

It doesn't feel natural to anyone else either - but that's because they'd never seriously considered any other possibility.  They're all stunned by her offer.  Osbald - whose daughter is currently in bed with a fever - staggers back almost collapsing.

"Thank you!  Please, come - the village isn't far!"

Sveyn whistles for his dog to round up the sheep.  He's not going to stay out here while this's happening.

As the dog happily leaps to work, Sveyn glances at the tiger with a little concern - is Aria going to bring it into the village too?

Aria is glad to see the humans have good relations and some communications with their working dogs! She waves for Tora to come up.

"I've decided to spend an hour in the village. Do you want to come with me or stay here? We'll keep travelling later, I think."

Speaking to Tora with her human mouth and face doesn't produce anything the other humans can understand, but it should be clear enough that it's communication.

Up close, a tiger is majestic. Fearsome. The beauty and lethality of the jungle; nature's killing machine adorned with magic items; a duality incarnate.

She doesn't overwhelm them with her size; a war-horse stands taller and masses twice as much, while Tora's head barely comes up to their shoulders. But she has presence, and when she looks you in the eye and demands respect, the unleveled human blinks first.

(In Oppara, they billed her kind as 'the second least of the dangerous beasts'. Aria disabused them of that.)

"They're afraid, as always," she pronounces after a sniff. "I'll be around, maybe catch a nap." And she saunters off, tail waving hypnotically behind her.

"See you later, dear." And to the humans: "let's go."

Sveyn is glad that the toothy big cat isn't coming into the village.  But he's definitely going to round up his sheep now that it'll be staying out here away from its mistress.

The sheep come quickly at Nosy the dog's nudges; they're used to Nosy and know what to do.  He'll bring them into the pen early, following the others toward the village, happier than he's been for... months at least, if not years.

To start with, they walk through fields of tall waving wheat that looks almost ready for harvest.  Well, there's mostly wheat; there's a little barley too, and a few fields closer in that've been harvested already that look like they'd been planted with something else.  Some farmers come out as they go past; Osbald quickly explains "She's a foreign wizard!  Come to heal people!  Come see!"

Aldsdale isn't the smallest village as villages go.  There're maybe forty wooden houses, most of them with a loft above and two or three rooms below, and holes in the ceiling for smoke from the fire in the center.  In the winter, the windows would be closed and sealed with straw and mud; now in the heat of summer, they're wide open for anyone on the street to look in.   Almost all the houses have a kitchen-garden outside, bordered by wood and built up from the streets to between knee- and waist-high, as if they're large boxes.  (Or rather, the gardens are closer to the original ground level; the streets sink down a little as they enter the town.)

Osbald blows his own horn as they enter, a happy call.  Dozens of people pour out from the houses and yards and gardens to meet them.

(Aria might notice there're a lot more scars and pale faces from sicknesses than she's used to.)

Aria wasn't really expecting an audience but that's her own fault, she should have thought ahead. Of course a village with no cleric and no memory of clerics would turn out to see a healer! She wants to caution them that she can't channel or even spontaneously cure wounds, and can't spare more than one or two slots for curing disease. A druid is a poor substitute for the cleric of Erastil this village ought to have... but they don't know to expect any more than that.

The village itself looks as good as she could expect in the circumstance. The plants and animals look well-cared for; the humans carrying obvious signs of past disease and trauma but not, for the most part, of hunger. The people don't seem afraid of each other. They're not even afraid of a strange mage showing up and proposing to cast spells on their sick, which is a frankly unusual degree of trust for people who claim to have no access to healing!

Detect magic detects nothing at all, not even lingering auras.

She smiles and nods to the people (this is approximately her entire repertoire for strange human cultures) and follows where they lead her.

They stop in an open space near the other end of the village, with people hanging back somewhat and whispering to each other about who she is and where she's from.  Several of the warier people are guessing she's an Elf from the Golden Wood.  One person is thinking she must be the Queen of Gondor ("they say they have hands of healing!")

But that doesn't go on too long before two women bring up their sick babies and look at her pleadingly.  Behind the crowd, she can catch glimpses of a few more people coming, being supported by relatives.

Aria is beginning to regret, not her spur-of-the-moment decision to heal a few people, but that she didn't set their expectations appropriately. These people don't know what to expect from a cleric, which also means they probably don't know that healing disease is much, much harder than physical injuries.

The problem isn't healing some people, which is a strict improvement. The problem is choosing which people to heal, while still leaving the rest happy. They might noe understand triage, either, the way those lightly injured can be left to heal on their own while those too severely injured, the youngest and oldest and sickest, are left to die when resources are spare.

"Physical injuries are easier to heal. Disease is much harder, and I can cure only a very few at once. So I will wait for everyone who might need it to gather before starting." Let's see what they make of that on their own.

"Also, I am currently human, and never a queen." The Queen of Gondor, who can heal people, goes on her list of vague rumours to maybe ask about later.

Several people's faces fall, including Osbald's, and a few more move away - some to the back of the crowd, and some more to bring their relatives.

(Meanwhile, there're whispers - "Currently human?  Can she turn into an Elf?")

One man comes forward with a visibly-bloodstained sling and bandage on his arm.  "I hurt this in the fields - can you do anything?"

She inspects his arm to see if it needs bonesetting or anything else before being healed.

The bone already got set, and the really large gash has only just started to heal over.  It's already been swelling up, though.

At least the first case is easy! She takes out her oldest bag of goodberries (she has a daily rotation) and gives him one. "Eat it," she instructs, while watching his arm closely to determine if more will be needed.

He takes a cautious nibble, and then eats the whole thing.

Suddenly, with something like a huge itching, the gash closes.  He flexes his arm in shock to see it work, and then bows to Aria.  "Thank you, ma'am!"

"Be careful with the arm for a while," she instructs him. "It's freshly healed, and the bone is likely still weak. Treat it as you would if it had healed naturally."

He nods, weeping with joy.  "Yes, ma'am, thank you!"

A young woman comes forward with her hand covered with blistered burns, and a man limping with an old scar on his leg.  Also, five visibly sick people are hanging back, along with mothers holding several babies.

(Osbald is standing next to the group of sick people, holding a half-asleep girl who looks maybe seven years old.)

The woman can have a berry, and a second one if the first isn't enough.

Aria isn't going to cure more than two people of disease, and that's already more than most village clerics could manage. There are five diseased people in every village in the country; even if she spends all her high-level slots on it, disease will spread faster than she can remove it.

And that is the natural order of things. How convenient that she is Chaotic at present, and not Good; she's not even going to feel bad about it.

But she is long experienced in non-magical medicine. Can she tell what kind of disease they suffer from? Is it the same one for all of them, should they be quarantined away from the rest of the village? Are their lives in danger, has anyone already died of this disease or suffered long-term effects that won't go away? Or is it something that they are almost certain to recover from if they are healthy and strong enough?

As for the babies, being sick is natural for them; do they suffer from the same disease as the adults, are they likely to get better or to die of it?

She can prepare diagnose disease but it only affects one person; there are likely to be enough clearly-diseased people here to make further diagnosis pointless. It would better to spend the first-circle slot on remove sickness to give someone a better fighting chance.

It's two different diseases - two babies and three older people (including Osbald's daughter) have a bad intestinal fever, but the others just have a rash... which, for the babies, has gotten worse from their scratching at it.

Well, you could say three... one older woman with the fever also has a cough that's been getting worse.  Her daughter's brought her here; she weakly raises her hand to thank Aria but says she's had a long life already.

Aria nods solemnly. One way to be in tune in nature is to know when your time comes to go; for the old to make room for their young. She hopes it helps the woman make her way to an afterlife she likes.

The rash isn't debilitating or fatal; healthy people will overcome it on their own. A cleric's daily channel might help clear it quicker, but alas.

The fever calls for a spell, but of course she doesn't have enough for everyone. And even in this small community, others may have been infected but don't show symptoms yet, or have recovered but still be infectious. The best way to stop the fever sweeping through the population is to isolate the sick, but that is often impractical or insufficient.

She chooses two people to heal of the disease. Osbald's daughter, and someone else who is at risk: a child, or a particularly ill person. For the others, the best she can (cheaply) do is delay the disease for a day's span, restore them to health with a berry, and so give them the best fighting chance when it comes back.

She tells them what she has decided to do; it would be cruel, she thinks, to burden them with the decision of who to heal, and she is not particularly in the mood for a drawn-out discussion. The babies will remain the most at risk of dying, as is nature's way; Aria sees nothing unusual or surprising in this.

They nod eagerly.

(Yes, they know the rash very well; it'll usually go away on its own as long as you haven't scratched yourself too much in the meantime.)

(If she'd asked about afterlives, she would've had even more questions, but...)

One mother asks "Can babies eat your berries?  I didn't get to start Brand on solid food yet..."

"Babies will benefit from eating the berries; the only problem is making them do it. Wait until he's hungry and feed it to him in two or three pieces, make sure he swallows and try not to let any of the juice be lost." Some will inevitably be lost, and the berry will be less effective for it, but babies are tiny creatures that require very little healing to make them as strong as they can be.

"I need a quiet place to sit and meditate, for a quarter or half an hour, to prepare the disease-removing spells," she tells them after dispensing the berries.

(The mother nods.  She'll try.)

Osbald doesn't want to leave everyone right now.  "Of course... Somewhere in those strips there?"  He points at a field of wheat nearby.

"That will do."

Aria finds a place where the villagers' excited babble is balanced by the wind hissing in the ears of corn, without either overwhelming the other, sits down cross-legged with her staff laid across her knees, and considers the fundamental duality of Creation.

Presence and absence, sickness and health, law and chaos, gods and mortals, eating and being eaten. Concepts defined by their counterparts, existing only in pairs. 

The life-actions that bring them into balance: creation and destruction, hurting and healing, obedience and freedom, prayer and clerics, predators and prey.

There are endless more. The concept-pairs are not the Way. The Way is the Balance between them, and the Balance is called Nature.

The druid at the center, trying always to bring the world back towards Balance.

Why did she decide to help these people?

She called it Chaos, the freedom to so decide, but a druid's performance of Chaos must not disturb the Balance. She was offended that they had never heard of clerics, but playing at being a cleric does not help that.

Healing a few villagers changes little. But actions rarely appear grand enough to disturb the Balance; it is their sum that counts. And freedom to choose does not mean the choices are random, or meaningless.

Aria suspects her true motivation was not towards Chaos, but towards Good.

This presents a problem.

Aria is too Chaotic at present to become Good. She would have to be Lawful first, perhaps for several years, or to carefully balance Good with Evil, and these people have done nothing to deserve either.

And she would need a cleric to confirm her alignment, which is rather the problem here. 

She will travel, and learn more, and keep a careful eye on her tendency towards Good.

She doesn't make analytical observations and plans; meditation is not like that. It is a series of ideas, concepts, observations, barely formed in words.

The plants are ripe, ready to seed its future, ready to be eaten, part of a cycle. The people are sick, they heal but the sickness spreads, a cycle at balance with itself. 

Aria is too Chaotic to risk doing Good; she has let herself drift out of balance. Meditation will help with that. A year spent meditating in a secluded location might do, but Tora would be bored.

Her actions are at one with the Chaotic freedom of inaction. Her healing, at one with the disease. Her magic, at one with its targets.

Herself, at one with the world around her.

Aria emerges from the field of corn mentally refreshed and centered and, incidentally, able to cast remove disease twice and delay disease once, and a few other useful spells for the day besides.

She walks back towards the sound of voices.

A lot of the people get antsy while Aria's away meditating; some of them leave; some others bring over their work, whether carding wool or carving things.

Osbald's sudden hope subsides into sick doubt.

Sveyn is reminding himself that he saw her skinchange.  He's pulled out a stick and knife to whittle something that could be a new handle.  His dog has come over, and perks up sniffing when Aria is coming back.

Casting spells is a much less involved affair than preparing them. She strides up to Osbald, touches the girl in his arms (who is much more alert after eating her berry) and says a few words in a language he does not recognize. There's no visible effect, but any remaining nausea will pass in a few rounds.

"You're cured of the disease," she tells the child. "Unlike natural healing, because your body did not fight off the disease on its own, it has not grown stronger against it. Avoid close contact with those still sick, if you can, or you may fall ill again."

Where are the other two she chose to help?

The girl jumps up and twirls in glee.

The other two are nearby, too.

Soon, people are crying and shouting with joy, and Aria is deluged in thanks and praise.

After the clamor of thanks has died down a bit, if Aria lets Osbald beckon her a bit away from the crowd, he asks her quietly, "Thank you, lady.  Where are you from?  You said... 'Avistan,' but I've never heard of anywhere like what you've been talking about?  And - where will you be going?"

(He glances behind himself to see his newly-healed daughter eavesdropping.  Oh well; he doesn't really mind if Aria doesn't.)

"They say the King might need some healing too."

(One of the other two received only a delay disease; Aria explained to him the consequences. He'll have a much better chance at throwing it off, come the morrow.)

"Avistan is the name of a continent, in some of the languages spoken there. It might have another name in your language." Tongues doesn't always translate proper names, but the more likely explanation is that no-one in his village knows the word for it and so the spell has nothing to go off. 

She sketches the rough outlines of the seven continents in the dirt with her staff. "All the lands of the world," she says, "and this one is Avistan. But I don't know where we are now. I will travel, and seek answers. Perhaps in Edoras, where you said your king dwells, or perhaps with this wizard, if I judge him safe to approach."

"Can you draw me a map of this land?" Landmarks and rough distances (in travel-days, not miles) will still be better than nothing. And she'd like to know the local names for the mountains she can see, and the nearby rivers and forests.

Osbald blinks at the world map.  He's never seen a map like that before.  "Maybe we're here?  Or here?"  He points to the western coasts of Vudra or Arcadia.

"They say the sea's off west, and there're more mountains to the north; the White Wizard lives at the end of them..."  He bends down and starts drawing in the dirt.  "... and the King's here in Edoras down the road, three days or so; and follow it more and you'll come to Mundburg in Gondor..."

(It's not a good map at all, or anywhere to scale once you get off the Road.  But it's a sketch of Rohan with the mountains and Great River on its edges, and little points on the edges for things like the Golden Wood, Dunland, Gondor, "they say the Black Land's off this way," and "they say the Sea's off this way.")

After a moment, his daughter comes up and starts dividing her stares between the maps and Aria herself.  "They say you're a skinchanger!" she bursts out.  "What do you change skin to?"

Every continent has a western coast, and every sea an eastern one; it is useless to speculate that way. Aria commits the map and the names to memory. 

Tongues renders the girl's question as 'what do you druid to?', which she doesn't care to take a guess at. "I don't know your language; I'm using a translation spell and it isn't perfect. What do you mean?"

(Osbald relaxes when Aria answers in a friendly way.)

"They say you turn into an animal?  Which animal?  Show me?"

She was going to do it anyway when she left, so she turns into a dire tiger again. She is half again as big as a normal tiger and much heavier, and has two huge fangs jutting out of her mouth.

"Druids learn to turn into animals by understanding them," she explains. "Living with them, talking to them, knowing who they are as well as we know humans or elves. I have lived a long life and met many animals, so I can turn into many kinds."

Osbald and his daughter both jump back from the dire tiger with a flash of fear.  She recovers first; he does a moment later on hearing Aria's human voice coming out of the beast's mouth.

"So if I learn to really understand dogs or cats, can I turn into them too!?" she asks with excitement.

A moment later, Osbald realizes that's actually a good question.  He squeezes her hand in approval.

"It requires years of training with other druids, in a druidic circle, to set one's feet on the path. And the druids refuse those who do not share their goals and beliefs. It is not a life undertaken lightly or easily, and wanting to turn into an animal is far from reason enough." She could say much more on the subject, but the child is unlikely to appreciate a discussion of the way druidic shapeshifting is almost the opposite of a polymorph spell.

"But do not let that dissuade you from understanding animals. Respecting them, caring for them, talking to them, learning their needs and wants if they live and work with you or if you hunt them, those are excellent things to desire for their own sake."

"The first truth one must learn to become a druid is that animals are people. Dogs, cats, humans, elves, we are different in many ways but we all think, feel, want, hurt, love, live, die. If you would be kind, be kind to all alike. When you favor your own over strangers - family, friends, neighbours, people - do it because they are yours, not because they are human."

"When you desire to understand dogs and cats for their own sake, as you do your human friends, and not for the sake of learning an art, then you will have taken the very first step towards understanding druids."

Her eyes go wide.  So that's how skinchanging works; you just need to make friends with the animals!  "Making friends with animals?  That sounds so fun!  I'm gonna watch the cats and dogs so well!"

(The part about needing a circle of skinchangers who turn away most people is totally lost on her.)

Osbald, on the other hand, is pondering the picture.  It does line up with some of the stories he's heard about them.  "I don't think we have any of those skinchanger circles here...  unless there're some of them among the Elves?  But the king's men would know more.  Or the White Wizard if he's willing to talk with you."

It's a pity the child isn't bright enough to appreciate her words, or wise enough to care, but her ambition and resolution aren't bad ones, for a child's life. Aria gives her a little nod.

And she will definitely chase up any rumours of a local druid circle! Not only would they be an excellent source of information, it is discourteous to act in another circle's lands without notice. She'll keep a metaphorical ear out.

"I will go to one of those next," she agrees. "If there is nothing else, I will take my leave of you."

"Farewell.  These are troubled times" -

He pauses, looking again at the giant tiger in front of him.  There's not much warning she actually needs, even aside from her magic.

"May you make them less troubled."

He and his daughter stand watching as she leaves.

Beyond the fields around the village, the Road runs through the lush grasslands of Rohan.  The horse herd that she saw in the distance before has moved away now, but she can still smell some smaller animals, and a hint of horses to the east.

There's also, of course, the Road running east toward the king's house, or west toward Dunland.

Aria intends to head east. Edoras is the nearest of the landmarks she was told about, and the people there should know more of the places she'd go next, even if they know little of the wider world. Before approaching a possibly-hostile wizard in his tower, she'd like to know if their trouble with him is merely a matter of local politics.

But first, of course, she'll catch up with Tora.

Tora's relaxing in a meadow, but perks up when she hears Aria approach.

"It's nice here," she remarks. "We should travel south for the winter more often."

"There's a sea and a desert in the way, dear, and you don't like being a goose. Anyway, experiencing all the seasons is good for us."

"Of course I don't like being a silly little goose! If I am to be a bird, I ought to be a majestic one, like a roc!"

"Well, we're here now, so we can enjoy our vacation while we figure out where 'here' is!"

"I am! What did you find out?"

"The humans claim there are no clerics in this land - no human clerics, at least, of any gods. It's very odd, and suspicious. I want to talk to someone better informed."

"Good riddance," Tora grumbles. "They should have more druids instead."

Tora's upset with clerics and their gods and very legitimately so, but, well. "It doesn't work that way," Aria sighs. "I can't just put a druid in every tribe and village..."

"Well it should!" Tora's more passionate than resigned about this. "You can do anything you set your mind to. This could be your big chance!"

A land run by druids, without clerics... it's a nice fantasy, but ultimately just that.

"Clerics are like an invasive species. You can't have people without gods clericking them, and they give them enough power to shape the societies they're in." By healing, yes, and by tyranny and passing laws and interfering with others' work, but above all by teaching people to follow their gods. "So I want to know what's stopping them here." 

'Here' might still turn out to be just one or a few villages of seriously deluded humans, even if they didn't seem enchanted to her.

"Alright." Tora nods, a habit she picked up from human-shaped Aria and thinks is hilarious because it used to vaguely embarrass Aria in the company of other druids. "Then you'll find out."

Indeed she will, and she'll start by casting another spell - a very limited one, only a few miles in range, but she'd like to make sure she didn't miss anything. She settles down comfortably, and slips back into meditation.

Presence and absence, light and shadow. Hearing and sound, the hunter and the hunted. Spells and spell-slots, for another quarter-hour.

Then she shifts into a different, lighter trance. She is more aware of the world around her; indeed she is hyper-aware, letting herself be subsumed into it, wind and scent and sound and light carrying news to her. She is this part of the world, right here, and so she knows (she is, she cannot be without knowing) about everything else that is here. The plants and animals, the rocks and clouds, the streams of water. 

Who lives here, walking and growing and flowing downhill? Does anything powerful or unnatural trouble them? 

Did she miss anything, with her merely mortal eyes and ears?

In ten minutes, she will know the answer.

The grass (and, closer to the village, wheat and barley) is rippling in a slight west wind.  The grass and clover and bushes did well earlier in the spring, but now they've started to dry out.  It isn't yet to the point where a fire would be threatening... but if it were earlier in the season, it might be.

Several brooks and streams are scattered nearby - a few have run dry in the summer, but many of them are still running with snowmelt from the mountains to the south, running north and then west to flow eventually into the Isen River.  Both the mountains and river are outside the span of her spell - but inside it, the fish are lazing happily.

Many of the small animals are underground now against the summer heat.  Aria is only a few yards from a rabbit warren, with a dozen rabbits curled up grooming each other.

On the Road, she can feel a few riders - two humans trotting west on horseback - and an ox tiredly lumbering east unhappy at the heavy cart it's pulling.

Further to the northwest, the herd of horses she'd seen before is galloping back west toward her.

Those horses have been doing a lot of running today! Are they just full of energy, or easily spooked, or are they being pursued? Aria is curious what animals prey on horses in these lands, besides presumably humans.

She rises, and stretches. "Tora, dear? Would you like horse for dinner?"

"Hard to ambush them in this flat land," Tora remarks. "And we're upwind."

"They're unlikely to fall for it," Aria agrees. "But it's worth trying. Go for that tall grass, I'll spook them towards you."

It's normal for most hunts to end in failure. Aria isn't going to tip the scales with her magic; if they can't make a living catching prey, with all their supposed wisdom and experience, they might as well eat berries.

The lead stallion of the herd, Shadowfax, is galloping at the side of the herd now, veering back and forth to keep the younger colts in line.

It's a good day for a gallop.  Well, most days are good.  When it's dry.  And when there aren't any Humans or other Two-Legs interfering.  But this's a good day, and the herd agrees it's a good day.

He can't hear the strange Grey Wandering Two-Legs behind him anymore - maybe the Grey Wandering Two-Legs has finally gone away?  Or maybe he'll show up again in a bit.  But Shadowfax won't worry about him now.

Suddenly, Shadowfax gets a sniff of Danger!  Two big Cats, coming right for his herd!

They're still a ways off now, but he won't stay to judge how fast they're coming.  He rears, whinnies, and starts turning the herd north away from the Cats.

A few of the mares and colts are confused; they haven't smelled the Cats yet.  But most of them trust Shadowfax and quickly make the turn.

... leaving a rather confused Gandalf waiting, hidden, a little ways ahead of where the horses had been going.

Has Shadowfax decided he really won't let himself be tamed after all?

Or has something else interfered...

... ah, there is something else moving on the plains of Rohan.

It looks like some big predators?

Is this some new devilry of Saruman's?

Gandalf starts heading over to get a closer look.

That was an interesting-looking horse! It looked like it might be of a different subrace from the others, though it smelt ordinary. Unfortunately she didn't get a very close look.

"Oh well. We can start walking east, there's still daylight left. There's no other prey near us" - no suitably large prey, that is - "but maybe we'll find something farther afield."

Large plains often have big herds of grazers with huge empty spaces between them, with the only way to catch someone is to follow their trail a long way, which would be inconvenient. Horses are better than bison, in that sense; the herds are smaller and more numerous.

Also, she'll detour a bit to harvest some berries for her daily goodberry casting, replacing the ones she gave the villagers in the rotation. (And hope she won't be asking Tora to eat any. There's a mystery afoot, but no hurry.)

Before too long, and before they see another herd of suitably-large animals, Gandalf comes into sight.  He's walking with his stick, but surprisingly quickly even for someone who doesn't look as old as he does.

He's keeping one eye out for Shadowfax (he expects he hasn't gone too far), but mostly studying these new creatures.

... They're tigers.  How in the world did two tigers get to Rohan?  Did Sauron bring one all the way from Far Harad or Far Rhun?

And one of them is a surprisingly large tiger!  He wouldn't have thought there were any tigers that large this side of the Sea!

What's that surprisingly large tiger doing sniffing at a berry bush?

She's checking if the berries are ripe! The spell has exacting requirements, and she's not familiar with this exact variety of bilberry.

The berries can keep, though; she'll need to shift human to harvest them, and she wants to talk to the man first. She walks towards him, and Tora follows.

Most people out on their own would give two great tigers a wide berth, but he's looking straight at her and might have followed her trail. He seems to be old, and isn't conspicuously armed. That makes him potentially of interest.

She'll hail him when she's in a comfortable loud-voice range, which is (for good and for bad) much greater than detect magic range. Unless he chooses to run away after all when he sees two tigers start heading towards him.

Gandalf doesn't run away; but he shifts into a position that looks clearly ready to fight.  He doesn't want to fight some tigers with Saruman suddenly a traitor and Frodo hopefully on the road to Rivendell, but he's not going to just run away with all these questions unanswered.

(Aria can see he's treating his staff like a weapon.)

And then - she talks.

He didn't think there were any skinchangers in Rohan?

"Good afternoon!" he answers.  "Are you also travelers in Rohan?"

"We are. In fact, we recently arrived here in a teleportation accident. Are you a traveler yourself, and familiar with other lands?" This is encouraging!

His bushy eyebrows go up at her strange answer.

"A... magic quick-flying accident?  That sounds like an interesting story I haven't heard!  I'm not sure what that would look like, unless the Eagles count you enough of a friend to give you a ride?  But I haven't heard of them having accidents in a long time."

(No need to mention now just how long that time is.)

"I don't believe I've met any speaking tigers before.  Where are you from?"

"Not flying. Perhaps the translation is wrong? Teleportation is - the class of magic that instantaneously transports creatures elsewhere, usually practised by wizards."

"Which is all I can tell you about it, as I'm not a wizard, I'm a druid. Aria, at your service, and this is my friend Tora. I'm not familiar with the local eagles, but I could turn into one myself if I wanted to fly the ordinary way. Although, if these Eagles are big enough to give a dire tiger a ride, I would very much like to meet them!" A roc could do it, but rocs aren't traditionally called eagles; another translation issue, perhaps?

"We're from the Verduran forest on the continent of Avistan, north of the Inner Sea. You may have heard of the country of Taldor which borders it, or the city of Absalom to its south."

"And I would like to include Tora in the conversation, but she only knows Taldane and Sylvan, not whatever the local languages are called. Do you have a way to bridge this? I can prepare share language, but it would take me a quarter-hour."

"I'd be happy to include Tora if I can!  Given she speaks a language...  Are you, and she, comfortable with osanwe?  Or perhaps I should explain, given your doubts about translation - speaking words into each other's minds, or perhaps concepts to someone you know well?  With all of us standing right next to each other, I think I could osanwe words with both of you even though we've just met."

It's been a while since he's done it with anyone except Elves.  Most humans speak Westron or some other language he knows, so it wouldn't do anything except make them more shocked at his magic, and that doesn't help anything.  Here it might help.  But he still won't actually do it unless one of them says they're fine.

"We call it telepathy. And we don't mind; I've met some telepathic creatures before." She does tell Tora to expect it before he goes ahead.

(On Golarion, telepathy has nothing in common with detect thoughts.)

<Well-met, I hope,> Gandalf osanwe's to both of them.  He's sending words as well as the wordless thoughts - Tora won't understand them, and Aria only through her language spell, but it might help.  At least, he wants them to hear names as well as the concepts behind them.  Besides, words are the less-unusual form of osanwe; most Elves consider the wordless version to be inelegant.  <I am Gandalf, a visitor to these parts myself - and a wizard, but I don't believe I've encountered any instant-transport magic for those of us who have bodies.>

(And he's rather surprised that other wizards are able to do it.  Even in places that aren't in Arda, as he's starting to suspect these visitors might be from.)

<Also, I've never heard of any of those places Aria names.  And this surprises me, as I've traveled a long ways, and spoken with my cousins who've traveled farther still.>

("Cousins," of course, is the usual term he uses for his fellow wizards.  The languages of Middle-Earth don't have better words for their relationship.)

<Hello! It's nice to be included. Usually Aria can let me speak to people, but I have to know their language!>

He's sending words mentally along with his more native Telepathy, and Tongues translates the words for her (but not for Tora). This lets Aria start noticing places where the translation is slightly inaccurate; where Gandalf says 'wizard', he thinks merely 'mage', or at least she is unfamiliar with the more specific concept he is using. This is not very surprising; people on other continents practice different traditions of arcane magic. She has heard it said wizardry was invented by the ancient Azlanti, who brought it to Avistan.

<Teleporting is far more widespread among wizards than telepathy, where we come from! But I know people on different continents have very different magical traditions. And wizards do have to be quite powerful before they can teleport. If I draw you a rough map of the world, could you point out where we are?>

At the same time, Aria is a bit confused, because she didn't notice him cast a spell! Is he really a wizard, or is he some manner of innately telepathic creature? (Or both?) He looks and smells like a human, but for a mage that may only mean he wishes to pass as a locally-common person.

So she casts detect magic. This requires both words and gestures, but in her dire tiger form few non-druids would recognize them - unless he has his own magic sight, in which case it should be obvious what she's doing. After a few rounds, she can see three auras about his person:

- Something under his cloak (moderate divination and conjuration)

- His staff (moderate, universal)

- A ring (strong abjuration)

...well! Those seem to be quite powerful magic items! She can well believe he's a wizard, or at least some sort of mage. The odd thing is that he doesn't have many more, weaker ones, or any kind of headband. Unless they're shielded from her sight, and those are his weakest items that he doesn't bother hiding?

Aria resolves to be cautious and to avoid antagonizing this Gandalf until she knows better what's going on.

Gandalf is also surprised!  Tora and Aria's thoughts both feel strange - and, strange in ways he hasn't seen before in any Speaking Peoples or animals of Middle-Earth.  Strange - not dangerous or evil, but strange.  He's now even more sure they aren't from Arda.

<Yes, if you're from this world that we are now in... but it seems to me you are from farther away.  Eä holds many worlds, it has been said.  It surprises me greatly that people from another world should come here to this world, Arda, but it would surprise me more if there were another place in Arda where teleportation of people with bodies were common.>

He's implying they're on a different planet? How is that remotely possible? No-one has an interplanetary-capable teleport, and if they did they wouldn't put it on a mirror in a snake's mouth!

<Then perhaps we might go home by plane shifting. What gods have clerics on this world, and which of them are powerful enough to plane shift?>

Meanwhile, she shifts human again, and takes out a bit of paper and charcoal to draw a rough sketch of the continents of Golarion.

Gandalf watches, intrigued, as she turns human - not just with his eyes, but with his other senses and his Ring.  It looks like she's not just putting off the tiger's skin, but she's actually shifting her body as well as skin.  He can't quite bring to his mind's eye what it looked like to watch one of his cousins in Valinor taking on a body or shifting it around - that's one of the things that was shrouded when he accepted this mission to Middle-Earth - but he can believe it might have been like this.

<Amazing!> he says.  <I have seen several skinchangers in my time, but none of them changed with as deep a shifting as you!>

<But I would be very careful before shifting planes...  The plane most easy to reach from here is the wraith-world(*), and it is very easy for the Dark Lord to see people who have shifted themselves there, and if he sees you it is hard to escape his gaze.  Unless of course you are dead and giving yourself over to the Judge(*), but the Judge only summons the dead.>

Gandalf is more confused by what she's saying about clerics.  It sounds something like the Maiar associated with a Vala?  Or how the Valar or Maiar sometimes individually teach Elves they're particularly close to?  Except more organized and much more common?  What are the Gods or Powers of her world like?

<I'm not sure we have exactly what you mean by clerics...  I know some people who might be?  And they know more than most about other planes" (he's thinking of Galadriel and Elrond, particularly, and until recently he would've added Saruman) "- but I am not sure any of us could safely shift you into another plane besides the wraith-world, and surely none of us could do it safely and quickly.

<And the Dark Lord is moving even now, so I fear we would not have time for a lengthy study.>

*(or, "spirit-plain")
*(If Gandalf were speaking in a language, he might use the Quenya name "Námo" or title "Mandos," but with non-language-based osanwe, what comes through is the meaning of the name:  "Judge.")

That comment is well calibrated to flatter her and draw her interest!

<Many mages can polymorph - that is, shape-shift - but they keep their mind and soul separate from the body. It is, as you say, only skin-deep. When people are given spells that do all the hard work, they see no reason to spend time and effort understanding what is being done.>

<We druids do it by understanding the animal so fully that we can become the animal. When I am a tiger, there is no part of me that is human. I'm not an ordinary tiger; I can talk and reason and cast spells; but I do it as a tiger would who had grown up to be smarter, not as a human who happens to look like a tiger.>

<Our animal companions are not usually druids in their own right, though some are, but they take some steps along a similar road. Tora was born a tiger, and I helped her grow smarter and to learn some human languages, and in the process she came closer to understanding humans.>

Tora sees it a little differently. <The first human I met were very evil. I would never have learned that some are different without speaking to them.>

The matter of the planes is much more troubling. <I would not claim to know anything about other planets,> she thinks at him. <I never studied them, or been to one, and all I know is what I heard in passing. But I believe the major planes, and the greatest gods, are universal. Nirvana and Abaddon, Axis and Maelstrom, they are some of the cornerstones of reality. Perhaps they are hard to reach from here, as you say, but more likely it is the lack of clerics with plane shift that is the matter; the spell is a tool made for a precise purpose. And the caster shifts themselves first of all, and takes others along; someone who has not visited the other planes could not send me there that way.>

<If the gods choose not to grant this spell to their followers on this world, then - I fear we are unlikely to find a way despite them. Only the mightiest wizards on Golarion can travel to other planes by their own power, and druids cannot do even that. Our business is with the world, not elsewhere.>

<We know the Judge of the Dead as Pharasma. I am not sure how one might bodily follow the souls' path to reach Her; She resides on a plane known to us, but the place of judgement is separate from that, I think.>

Gandalf strokes his beard.  <And I do not know of these planes you speak of... except perhaps the Maelstrom?  The Everlasting Darkness?... and I would certainly not call them the cornerstones of reality.  Are those not the Music and the Secret Fire?  Perhaps there is some even deeper disagreement here?  Are the gods of your planet perhaps less communicative than ours were?...>

(He pronounces "Everlasting Darkness," "Music," and "Secret Fire" in Westron, as well as sending the concepts through wordless osanwe.  The Darkness is void, chaos, what is outside the metered bounds of ordered reality.  The Music is what gives pattern and beauty; the Fire is life and life-givingness; both also have faint half-remembered memories of love and beauty which cannot be put into words.)

He also briefly wonders - does Aria's world have a different Judge, or are they conflating Mandos and Nienna?  For not the first time, he wishes he remembered more of his time in Valinor before taking this mission.

<But as intriguing as this may be, we are in this world, so yes, our business at present is here.  I fear there is much urgent business ere the Dark Lord strikes - do you have plans as yet?>

And his own urgent business has just gotten more urgent, but he doesn't yet trust Aria enough to say that he's about to ride away to the north as fast as he can.  Much less to breathe a word of the One Ring.

<The near Maelstrom is inhabited, but deeper in it gradually becomes total Chaos, until the very laws that link past, present and future are gone. It cannot support life and thought as we know them. Some people say it is the primordial state of the cosmos before Creation, and going into the Maelstrom merely means to go outside it.>

<The source of life is the Plane of Positive Energy. Souls grow there before moving to the Material and lodging in bodies. It is not a place where anyone can easily go, and the gods do not dwell there. And it has a counterpart, the Plane of Negative Energy, which I suppose you could call eternally dark, since its fundamental property is to destroy all things... (*)>

<But it seems to me that you are describing a very different cosmology (**) from that which we know. Patterns are the element of Law; love and beauty most would assign to the element of Good; they are orthogonal. Pure Law is not beautiful; pure selfless love is not rule-bound.>

<And, with respect, I would think the world with plentiful clerics, the strongest of whom can commune with their deities to ask questions, and summon lesser servants of the gods who can also answer questions, and a great many who have visited the other planes and spoken with the people there, and a major goddess of Travel who includes interplanar travel in Her remit - I think our world stands better informed of greater Creation, than a world where even reaching Nirvana seems outside any mage's abilities.>

(*) Aria's mental concept of 'all things' is closer to 'all natural and proper things' than 'everything that can possibly exist'.

(**) lit. 'planology'.

Tora's sure this is all very fascinating to human-shaped Aria, but she's focused on more important things.

<Our next plan was to find dinner. Who is the Dark Lord and can we eat him?> 

She is aware that most of the time, the answer to that kind of question is 'no' or at least 'not easily', but it pays to ask! Keep your head in the game, as the humans say, and the game in your mouth. Aria has helped her hunt and take down (and, sometimes, eat) some very interesting things over the years.

<Many people from your world have visited these planes?  Then yes, you would be well-informed...  The Maelstrom does sound like the Everlasting Darkness, and it might be telling of the relation between our worlds that it is the only plane that sounds similar?>

He strokes his beard.

And then he turns to Tora.

<A good question!  You could eat the Dark Lord's body, and that would help - it would take perhaps some centuries, but he would come back and build a new body, as he did before.  Though I would not be surprised if his body proved poisonous to you.>

<Though, given all the defenses between here and the Dark Tower, I am hoping for a more permanent solution.>

Destroying the Ring, but he's still not going to mention that.

<A Dark Lord with a Dark Tower is a big name for someone who can just be eaten by a tiger every few centuries>, Tora says dubiously. <Why does he scare you so much?> 

Aria's posture indicated some deference towards this wizard, and powerful wizards aren't much weaker than even quite magical tigers.

<Because he has learned deceit, and turned his enemies against each other while gathering many armies of Orcs* and Men and others who worship him as a god, with powerful magic to strengthen them...>  He shakes his head.

<Once, a large dog did kill his body.> A brief smile at the story.  <But that was long ago, and he has learned since, and invested more power.  The last time, it took all the armies of the Last Alliance.>

* The concept Gandalf sends for "orcs" is... not quite off for the sort of orcs Aria's familiar with, but surprising - "twisted, evil, chaos," and a sense of sadness about it.

What happened to the local orcs? She'll mentally add it to her growing list of questions, along with 'how did orcs and humans spread to multiple planets' and the much more pressing 'why do all the animals and plants here look like those at home???'

<What is he, then? A wizard? And what is his name?>

Aria is also a little dubious at this story of an immortal mage (a lich, perhaps?) who is 'worshipped as a god' in a world with no clerics and has 'powerful magic' in a world without teleports and was once eaten killed by a large dog (how large, exactly?)

<A Maia*, similar to the gods** themselves but with less power.  In this era he is called Sauron.***>

* The meaning that comes through is "spirit", with connotations of "immortal, ancient, older than the world."  Gandalf isn't thinking at all of the literal Quenya meaning, "beautiful."
** Gandalf says "Valar", but the term has been mapping almost exactly throughout this conversation.
*** Gandalf sends the exact word as well.  The meaning is "The Abhorred," which maps pretty exactly onto the connotations.

<We call some lesser gods demigods (*). They have a physical body that can be destroyed and takes them some time to regenerate; to truly destroy them one must slay them twice within a year, or slay them in their own domain of power, and perhaps neither of these would suffice for some.>

<To be perfectly clear, even the least of the demigods would be far beyond our power to contest, and beyond any but the greatest wizards and clerics in the history of the world.> Single-handedly, that is, without teams of paladins on griffons lying in ambush. <But I suppose nothing rules out the existence of lesser demigods than those we know of.>

<Or perhaps you mean something else when you say Maia are similar to the gods. Does he grant his followers divine magic? Does he hear their prayers, and is he empowered through them? Do their souls come to him when they die? Also, our gods are not said to be older than Creation, but there is no consensus in our world about how Creation came to be.>

<What true gods are active in this world, and what they do if they do not grant magic to clerics?>

(*) Lit. 'halfway-gods' in their power and abilities, though not 'half-gods' in parentage.

Gandalf feels reflexively she's asking perilous questions.  Not many people ask questions like this about Sauron, and even fewer ask them without planning to serve him and pray to him in hopes of magic.  But Aria is new to Arda; she seems to be asking them in full innocence...

(And it's truer than she thinks that Sauron is beyond their power to contest.)

<To some of his followers, he does grant magic.  I do not know how many; they shroud it in boastings and lies.  Some souls, he does bring to him - again, I do not know how many.  I suspect it is most of the Orcs and few of the Men - it requires special dark arts to divert Men's souls from their natural course - but I do not know and would not ask.>

<The gods - it is a long story, but they do not intervene much in this world anymore.  It is best to lay our plans in hope, but without expecting more intervention.>

Aria did not know the souls of humans to be different from those of orcs, but she is not normally concerned with people after they die; this conversation is already coming close to exhausting her knowledge on the subject. Perhaps Gandalf means this Sauron is a Chaotic or Chaotic Evil demigod, and the local orcs tend to those alignments, like the ones in Belkzen.

<You have told us much, and yet we still know little, because this world is new to us.>

<You asked of our plans. I want to learn about this world, and how to - relate to it, to place myself in it, to promote the same values I did on Golarion. And how to find our way back, if it is possible. I did not expect to find answers very quickly, and now that I know we are in another world entirely> (or so he claims) <it might take years, or decades.>

<I was going to travel to Edoras, and if I learned nothing there, perhaps to seek out the White Wizard I was told lives nearby, or the elves in the forest farther to the north. But you are clearly knowledgeable,> and not just in comparison with some random villagers. <Do you have better advice for me? And is there anything you would ask of us, in return for your advice or in general?> 

She is also very curious (and suspicious) how he found out about them and arrived so quickly to question them if he cannot even teleport, but she's not going to press him on the subject. It has not escaped her notice that this Gandalf has said absolutely nothing about himself.

And Gandalf is keeping in mind that she's said little about herself, either.  She seems to be holding herself out as something like an Ent... but she's had a lot of questions about the larger world.  She might just be trying to place herself in it, like she says; but she might be hiding something else.  Her mind and background are too strange for him to be at all confident right now.

<Do not go to Saruman the White - I just escaped from his tower.  He used to be my friend and ally, but he recently betrayed us, saying that we - or, he - should defeat Sauron only to rule in his stead.  He tried to convince me to join him in his scheme, and when I refused, imprisoned me.  After escaping, I visited the king in Edoras, to warn him and seek aid.  The king is sick, and would not hear my warnings.  His advisor Grima is - either in Saruman's pay, or deceived by him.  He bade me take a horse and be gone.  Which I would have done anyway, for I have urgent business in the North - allies to warn and protect before Sauron strikes there, as he may have already done.>

He peers at Tora, and then Aria.

<So I came to befriend* a horse, when you met me.  But they could use good counsel in Edoras, if one could win their trust; I fear they may shortly be embroiled in war.  The Elves** in the Golden Wood*** would also, I think, be friends - and their Lady is in fact one of those who might know something of the planes.>

* Other people might have heard this word as "tame," but Gandalf is thinking of it as more "befriend," so that's what Aria hears through his osanwe.
** The sense that comes through with this word is close to "Speakers; singers; elder kindred."
*** Gandalf has too high respect for Lorien to think to himself of anything in Middle-Earth by that name.

Aria is well aware that different human cultures have different customs; it is a wonder that she can talk so easily to humans from another planet (if indeed she is). So she takes this grayscale palette of White and Gray and Black-maybe-lich wizards in her stride, while noting she does not yet know what the locals mean by those colors. Likewise, she does not know why he associates elves with speaking and singing; at least the reference to their long life-spans seems clear.

That Gandalf expects to be able to befriend a wild horse, to the point of riding it, is - well. It is certainly possible for some people to do as much; it is just that in her world, those people can summon or conjure or Call their own steeds, or become horses in their own right, and so they do not normally bother the wild ones. (Although that white stallion was an impressive specimen!)

That Gandalf prefers to do so rather than 'taking' (or buying, loaning, stealing, etc.) a tame horse from the local king is surely important, but what does it mean? Does he dislike tame animals, as some druids do? Does he think to befriend one would be like befriending a slave, without yet freeing it of its burden? That he won't ride a horse being ordered into it? Perhaps she should think of him as closer to a ranger than a wizard - an old man with no powerful spells, but enough animal empathy to befriend and ride a wild horse a long way. 

If so, it speaks very highly of him - or perhaps of his ability to judge her. Does his proclivity for telepathy indicate he is reading her thoughts, or perhaps her emotions and desires?

<Why do you prefer to befriend a wild horse and not take one from the king? Is it for the horse's benefit, or your own?> Tora is thinking along the same lines, but is rather less cautious in what she says.

<I need a horse I can trust, and who can trust me - and if I can, one who can outrace all Sauron's riders.  And when I saw Shadowfax, I knew no horse would be his equal if I can befriend him.>

This man is definitely presenting as a ranger, and not a wizard at all, whatever he may call himself. She'll be more frank, then.

<Who are these 'we' you speak of? How do this Saruman's plans reflect on his hypothetical attitude to me, a stranger, were I to visit him? We druids do not involve ourselves in most mortal wars; there are never enough of us to tend to the tasks only we truly care about, and we must not squander our strength or make ourselves a target for other powers.>

<You say the king of Rohan may soon be at war. The villagers I spoke to said Rohan might be at war with other humans called the Dunlendings. I am not powerful enough to impose eternal peace, not without dedicating my life to this border between two countries, and I would need a very good reason to pick a side to help defeat the other.>

<In the past thousand years in Avistan - the continent we come from - only twice have all druids agreed on a cause to fight for, and in both cases most druids could not afford to join the effort.> The Shining Crusade was won without them; the fight at the Worldwound is still ongoing. No druid wants Urgathoa or Deskari to rule the planet, but they are not willing to let their forests burn, plundered by greedy humans while they are away.

<You have made it clear you and others are Sauron's enemies, but why should I care about your war?>

Ah, she is used to standing back out of conflicts like the Ents or Entwives.

(And yet the Entwives and their gardens were destroyed ere the end.)

<No one is powerful enough to impose eternal peace,> he sighs, <even if it were good to impose it from outside.  The gods tried, once, but it did not turn out well.>

(faint memories of Feanor drawing his sword on his brother - and all the hoarded treasures of Formenos which vanished in a single hour) -

<You are a stranger to Saruman; if you visited, I fear he would not believe that you would stay out of his war; or he might try to force you to join him anyway.  Or, perhaps, try to discover the secret of your shape-changing...  What are the tasks you care for?>

<Everyone asks druids that, and almost everyone walks away unsatisfied. Not because it is a secret, but because we find it so hard to explain without the years of training that candidate druids receive. It is a philosophy, a set of beliefs, as much as knowledge and a goal.>

<Of course I will try.>

<We want the best for all people. We recognize all sentient beings as people, equally deserving of our care: humanoids, animals, sentient plants and many other creatures. We value the diversity of species. And we attend to people's lives, rather than their afterlives.> Not that the afterlives aren't important, but they have more than enough attention already. <These principles are simple; the way to promote them is very complex.>

<All people are at war against each other. Not just human tribes, or predator and prey; people compete for territory, for the very air and sunlight, and of course they compete to breed. Life is a struggle. It is almost impossible to help people without hurting their rivals, and so we rarely try. But we recognize that that life, with all its pain and struggle, with everyone's profit coming at someone's expense, is still an enormously good thing, worth fighting to help and preserve however we can. Not to help any one individual or tribe, but to help the web of life itself, which we call Nature.>

<The world is a vast and intricate network of - connections. Chains of causality, webs of food and energy, ways of life that create room for more life to flourish instead of devouring it. Ways in which a forest supports a million kinds of life, instead of a million individuals of the same species, or just one that eats all others and grows a million times bigger.>

<It is perhaps impossible to convey in a few words the beauty and the incredible complexity of nature. We spend all our lives studying it... And it is very hard, to improve on what nature has built over the history of the world. So for the most part, we work to prevent others from tearing it down, and unfortunately that work is never done.>

<In Golarion, other people think of druids as protectors of the forests. It is not that we wish to see the entire world one great forest; but there are far fewer forests now than there used to be, and humans want to destroy what is left, so we fight them, just as we would the turning of land into a desert, or the drying of a lake. Because what exists is worth preserving, and what people want to put in its stead is clearly worse. So when we do take a side, it is often the side of the forest.>

<At the same time, a druid might spend years helping a rare kind of insect flourish, or bring in predators to control a foreign species that is breeding too fast, or fight a blight attacking the humans' crops. There are so many things to attend to, in peacetime, and never enough hands. In the Verduran Forest, my first home, the druids signed a treaty with a human Emperor long ago that protects the forest, and so we are freer than most to attend to less urgent matters. But not being urgent does not make them less important.>

<You always overthink things,> Tora grumbles. <You rescued me, when I was being hurt and being made to hurt others. You took me away, and killed some of them, and made the rest afraid to do it to others. You do help individual people.>

<I do>, Aria acknowledges. <Because I am my own person, as well as a druid. I did it because it was Good, but I do not wish to present it as a central druidic concern.>

<I often find value in helping humans talk to the animals they live with. To let both understand what the others want, to build a better life together. And to stop humans who mistreat animals. I do not spend most of my time doing that, it just - happens that I travel a lot, and meet many people, and it is convenient to do that along the way.> 

Also, it was politically useful to remind the humans in Oppara they had powerful neighbours, and the arena provided her with an audience. Not that she wouldn't have done it anyway, but normally she'd have done it quietly, without putting on a show.

<If only more were like you!  Both as your own person, and as a Druid.>

Gandalf isn't Radagast or an Ent; he himself has a mission.  He was sent primarily for the Speaking Peoples of Middle-Earth, the Children of Illuvatar.  But the beasts and plants of Middle-Earth are also valuable.  And, someone who values them will do little ill and perhaps much good.

<What you say of druids reminds me of my cousin Radagast.  He lives on the eaves of Mirkwood, though he was traveling further west when I last saw him...  Or perhaps an old friend of mine, Treebeard the Ent.  Have you seen Ents where you are from?  They call themselves shepherds of the trees, and tend to the forests.>

He frowns.  He didn't plan to bring up Treebeard as a lead-in to the war, and he hopes Aria doesn't take it that way.  But, the segue is obvious.

<Or more specifically, these days, Fangorn Forest... which Saruman is even now felling, to fuel his forges.  I saw it when I was held in his tower.>

As Gandalf is speaking, Shadowfax pokes his head over a nearby shallow hill.  He's circled back to see what the Grey Wandering Two-Legs is doing with the big Cats.  He can't smell one of the Cats anymore... and now he can't see her either...

<We do have treants!> The mental image he sent is quite clear. <I am very glad to hear they exist here, too. Druids and treants often work together; I would be glad to visit them. And I will certainly not go to an enemy of the forests for advice or help when the forest has caretakers in need of help.> Aria definitely does not miss the implication, and whether or not it is wholly true or a device to turn her away from Saruman, she will check it in dead seriousness. 

<In truth, I would have expected another planet to be much more... alien. The animals and plants I have seen are all familiar; I may not recognize the exact species, but the web of relationships between them seems more familiar to me than even some of the remote regions of my own world, like life in the great underground caverns, or in the far north. We do not know the true origins of almost any of the races on Golarion; who created them and why, and how they might have changed over the aeons. Do you know it, for yours?>

Checking on dangerous predators instead of running away is unusual behaviour for horses. (Perhaps she should not assume she knows animals as well as she thinks she does, on an alien world!) Can she hear or smell the rest of his herd behind him, or did he come here alone?

No, Shadowfax came by himself.

And there's still one Cat here, so - after quickly checking if she seems interested in him - he ducks back behind the hill and trots back toward the rest of his herd.  Or gallops, if she does seem interested.

<The gods formed Arda and most of the life here, but not by themselves; they worked trying to follow a pattern that was Sung by the All-Father* before He made Eä**.>

It's convenient now that he can't actually remember any of this very well, because even if he did, he couldn't say much more about it without hinting too closely at his true nature.  And there's a reason he doesn't do that - otherwise people might treat him with reverence.

<We know very little about the Song, except what we see from Arda following its model; the gods have said they could not communicate it well to us even if they tried.  Perhaps your gods were also trying to follow the Song in part?  Or perhaps - we do not know.>

He doesn't think Ilúvatar had modeled the Song off some other world elsewhere, but he doesn't want to speculate too much about Him - especially not now with his memories clouded.

<It was the goddess Yavanna who took the lead in forming most of the beasts and plants; and the Ents as well.  Though...> (He glances up after Shadowfax) <Some others added to some beasts.  But of the Speaking Peoples - it is said the Elves and Men were made by the All-Father Himself, without any of the gods taking part.>

* Gandalf speaks the Quenya name "Ilúvatar", but the meaning comes through in the nonverbal osanwe.
** again, "universe"

<There a simpler explanation. Tigers are a very good idea, and the gods are smart, so they all had the same good idea without having to copy! And to have tigers, you need to have all the other things tigers like, like forests and plains and prey and druids. Like you always say, it's hard to change a part without changing the whole.>

Aria grins. <I certainly can't prove you wrong! And tigers really are a good idea, I would put some on a world I was designing.>

<We do know some other worlds are different from ours. The elves and gnomes on Golarion both originally came from other worlds> - not to mention the alghollthus, not a subject for casual conversation - <and there are also stories about the other worlds around our own sun that say some of them are very different from Golarion. But we don't know how or why we were transported to this world, so perhaps the process - or the caster - chose a world that would suit us, or chose us to suit the world.>

<There used to be prophecy on Golarion. The goddess Pharasma, who oversees the soul-cycle of birth and death, and who is said to have created Creation itself, the... underlying laws of space and nature and magic and so on, without doing the detailed work - She had prophecy as one of Her domains. It let Her and all the gods plan the future in great detail. But then, for reasons I'm not entirely sure about, prophecy apparently stopped working - on Golarion, not in the rest of Creation.> Aria has heard it said, variously, that Aroden's death broke prophecy, or that the breaking of prophecy caused his death, or that it had been broken long ago by Rovagug and wasn't put properly back together. <That seems - at least vaguely similar to your story of Ilúvatar, and the Song that prophesied Creation?>

<The god most closely associated with plants and animals on Golarion is Gozreh, whose domain is all natural life and also the winds and the waves, but They don't claim to have created them. Although I'm not sure we have thought to ask. Some of the mortal races who speak have acknowledged creators: Torag for the dwarves, Apsu and Dahak for the dragons... But none for humans or elves or orcs, so far as I know. Although the elves often keep such secrets from outsiders. In any case it would have been far beyond the reach of the oldest preserved histories, which are at best ten to twelve thousand years long; I have not heard even estimates of how long life has existed on Golarion, and none of the trustworthy gods have spoken about it in public.>

When Aria mentions orcs, Gandalf might notice that her mental orc-concept is more centrally Chaotic than Evil, and does not have a property of being 'twisted' or unnatural.

<That could be,> Gandalf says to Tora with a nod and slight grin.

<Twelve thousand years in your oldest histories?  It has been about seven thousand years here since the first rising of the Sun, and... maybe twelve thousand* since the Stars first rose and the Elves first awakened?  'Tis curious they happened at the same time; I wonder if they might be related.  You say your world's Elves came from another world, and do not attribute their creation to any of your world's gods?  I wonder, could they have perchance come from Arda?>

He couldn't guess how some ancient Elves might have gone beyond Arda, let alone Ea - Morgoth could have sent some of his captives beyond Arda, but why? - but it's not impossible.

<And perhaps Orcs too - do you know if they came from elsewhere?>

If orcs have left Arda for Golarion and turned less evil there - if it's not just that Aria has noticed their evil less - then that would be a very good thing.  Unlikely, but very good if so.

Gandalf pauses a moment, chewing on the notion of prophecy abruptly stopping.  He hasn't thought much about prophecy and the Song in detail lately.

<Some people say that Arda will eventually continue beyond the Song, though I doubt that.> he eventually says.  He doesn't remember enough about the Song to guess that, but he doesn't think it would.  <Others say that humans in general are beyond its guidance, though I doubt that.>  He's fairly sure that isn't the case, but he's not going to say more than "doubt" at least while his memories are clouded.  <Though, I believe it is different from the sort of prophecy you describe - I think the gods were never able to clearly plan the future in detail, even with what they know of the Song.>

If so, why would they have made so many missteps with Melkor, and then with Feanor and the Numenorians?  Though, he's not going to criticize the Powers without need, especially to a stranger he's just met.

* About five hundred Years of the Trees between these events, which is equal to about five thousand Years of the Sun.

<What do you mean, the sun first rose five thousand years after the stars? This world had no star, and then one - appeared? Did this world exist before the other stars as well?> This is sufficiently deeply confusing that she's going to ignore his other comments until this one is cleared up. 

Gandalf is deeply confused too!

<The stars... appeared twelve thousand years ago... because the goddess Elbereth created them.  There were technically other stars before then... which you could say existed before Arda, depending on what you mean by "Arda"... but they're so dim they can scarcely be seen even by the Elves.>

("You could say" depending on whether you consider a mass of nearly-formless dust to be "Arda" given that it's going to become that eventually.)

<And then the sun was created five thousand years after the stars.>

Gandalf is rather relieved the subject's changed away from what the Valar and Maiar know about the Song.  He doesn't want to give Aria the wrong impression of Arda's Valar (when he doesn't know what these other Valar of her planet are like...), but he also doesn't want to let anyone realize that he's a Maia himself.

There's a reason the Valar sent him and his cousins secretly.  He's told a very few people he trusts not to treat him differently because of it, and not let the word slip to others; and a few more have realized it themselves and fortunately not let it slip... but only a few.

<So gods can make stars?>

<That's not the problem; I can easily believe a greater god can make stars, or remove them for that matter.>

A star, including Golarion's own Sun, is a permanent portal to the Plane of Positive Energy. It shines with life-giving energy and provides a location for new souls to enter the Material close to the populated planets that need them.

Creating a permanent portal between planes, on a model copied many times all over Creation, doesn't sound very hard for a god to do, as far as her ability to estimate such things goes. At least, not unless other gods object.

<It's the sudden appearance of a sun on a planet where life existed without it that confuses me. Golarion has ecosystems (*) in networks of great underground caves, inhabited by many races that live well enough without the sun. But they do not venture aboveground, and those who live above do not go below. Neither is well suited to the other's conditions. Similarly, there are many creatures that live in the deep seas where the sun's light does not reach, and they do not usually mingle with those that live in the upper sun-lit waters.>

There's also the fact that creatures on Arda were getting souls somehow before there was a sun, but she doesn't actually know that a far-away star wouldn't suffice for that; this doesn't seem important enough to divert the conversation again.

<Everything I have seen so far - admittedly, in only one place on the planet - is, well, normal to me. I have already commented on that, but one particular way in which it's normal is that everything here is adapted to the sun; most of the plants depend on it, and the animals on the plants. If the sun stopped rising, most of this life would be dead in a decade.>

<Likewise, if Arda was full of life suited to the darkness and the sun rose on it, and now there is no sign of that life... I can only imagine such an event as - cataclysmic.> Like Earthfall in reverse, or worse.

(*) Lit. lifewebs; a concept with the overtones of complexity and above all interconnectdness, like a tower where removing one brick too many might suddenly cause it to collapse.

Gandalf rubs his beard thoughtfully.  He's feeling a little bit uncomfortable about this question again - not that he's showing it; he's got a lot of practice at hiding his discomfort from everyone except Galadriel and maybe Elrond and Arwen.  Not for the first time, he wishes Saruman hadn't stolen all of his pipeweed.

He doesn't remember the plants and animals of the Elder Days before the sun very well.  He's not sure he ever studied them very well; he thinks he was paying more attention to the Elves.

On the other hand, that makes it easier to answer honestly...

<I fear I can only nod and agree.  We have deep cave lifewebs* here too; though I know little about them besides brief glimpses - but those glimpses are indeed very different from the sunlit world.  The Naugrim** would know more, though there are few of them if any near here.  There are still a few Elves in Middle-Earth who lived before the first Sunrise... Lord Celeborn of the Golden Wood, and Cirdan of the Grey Havens... I have heard them sing of the times before the Sun, and some of the plants they name are strange to me, but they also name some of the trees and bushes that are around us today.>

He holds out his hands mutely.

<I know there were chaotic times around the rising of the Sun, at least in the western coastlands - but there was a war then, against the evil Vala Morgoth; perhaps that was why.  Celeborn or Cirdan could tell you more, or perhaps my cousin Radagast - he has studied lifewebs more than me.> ***

* Gandalf recognizes this concept because Radagast has expostulated about it at length.
** Aria might not recognize this as equivalent to "Dwarves" - Gandalf is thinking of them as "famous smiths who live underground" but also "secret people" and "adopted people."
*** If Gandalf were reminded of Tom Bombadil, he might name him too.  But Gandalf doesn't think of him much except when reminded.

<If it happened seven thousand years ago, it is likely over by now, with the world settled to a new balance... I'd like to learn more, but I must keep my focus on the problems of today. And I have not forgotten your warning that a nearby forest is in danger from this Saruman's desire for firewood. Do you think that is a problem one druid and her companion are likely to make a difference to? I would want to visit the treants eventually in any case, and you have also mentioned the elves in the Golden Wood farther north...>

<Speaking of the problems of today>, Tora interjects, <should we avoid hunting one of that stallion's mares, because you're trying to make friends with him, and he has seen us together?>

Gandalf gives a shallow bow to Tora.

<I would take it as a favor if you did avoid it for the next week or two, noble tiger.  He would try hard to protect his herd, and I would not want to be in the position of trying to take him away from that calling.  There are other herds further east, if you wish.>

And then he turns to Aria.  <I know not, but it may well be.  The Ents are slow to rouse by themselves, as trees are slow to grow by themselves... but sometimes one of us hastier folk can move them to action.>

He thinks Aria's likeliest contribution would be to help organize the treants. This is plausible, but he has no idea what she can and cannot do on her own.

<Can you tell me more of Saruman's power? You have said he has a tower; what magic is Saruman capable of, and what are his tower's defenses? Why does he need so much firewood for forges that a whole forest is at stake?>

<As for the firewood - He is raising an army and forging new weapons for all of them, which might well demand a forest in itself.  And he is likely doing more as well - I know he has been forging magical rings; they in themselves would probably not demand much more wood than nonmagical rings, but that is merely the trifle he has let me learn.>

Gandalf sighs.

<I have not been in his counsels for... I do not know how long anymore.  I know the walls of his tower are impregnable to any material force, and he has fortified walls and moats outside them.  I am sure he has other defenses beyond those - including now from the air, after he has seen me escape on an eagle's wings.  But especially beware his voice; he will make his words seem wise and reasonable to those who hear him, and often lure them into agreeing with him without their better judgment.>

This description doesn't slot neatly into her preconception of what wizards of different power levels are capable of, but she knows by now that the local 'wizards' are better understood as some new kind of mage. Gandalf (and his cousin Radagast) remind her of rangers; Saruman might be a song-sorcerer for all she knows.

Making a tower literally impregnable to all but magic certainly sounds very impressive to someone from Avistan. Only the grandest and most storied fortresses boast such defenses; wizard towers usually don't, because any wizard powerful to do that uses private demiplanes instead. The local 'wizards' can't even teleport, but that doesn't mean they're not formidable in other ways; she'll be sure to stay on her guard.

Nevertheless, when a wizard is raising an army, one naturally tries to bypass the army and assassinate the wizard. <What of his personal defenses? Does he leave his tower, can he be lured out of it? Is he vulnerable to poison or disease, in this strange world without clerics? Is he vulnerable to physical attack from an ambush, since local wizards cannot teleport away? Would he notice immediately if a creature was imbued with magic, and at what range? How good is he at throwing off spells that attack his body - I assume he is good at throwing off those that attack his mind ->

Gandalf will remain blissfully ignorant that she's assuming Saruman built Orthanc himself.

<He does not leave it often.  In theory he could be lured out, but I do not know anymore what could lure him, save> - the briefest pause - <something he feared his servants would steal if he sent them for it.  He can be physically attacked, and in theory I believe he could be taken ill or a spell cast on his body - as could I, but it has been many years since the last time I was in fact ill, and I am very good at throwing off spells and Saruman also did it well.>

<What about noticing magical creatures? On Golarion there is a trivial spell every mage knows that detects magic, within sixty feet after looking at something for a round (*), but it requires concentration. So you cannot cast other spells while using it, and few people use it constantly if they do not expect danger. And there is another, much stronger spell, which powerful wizards can make permanent, which lets them always see magic, with much greater detail and at greater range as well.>

(*) A round is a small unit of time, equal to twice the casting time of most well-formed spells known on Golarion. The word's origins are obscure; ritual casting, with a group of mages standing in a circle, is a form of magic that does not happen in an small, exact number of half-rounds.

<Strange... We do not have any such spell to detect magic.  Sometimes I've wished I've known one.>  That would have made it much easier to identify Bilbo's magic ring.  Or at least it would have if the spell had been precise enough.  <... And I sometimes I am glad we do not know such a spell; Saruman would scarce have left me as much as he did if he had been able to notice everything I had.>  Such as the Ring of Fire.

<How much does your spell tell you about the magic you're seeing?  I would be curious to watch it on, say, my sword?>

Assuming she agrees, he'll draw Glamdring to show it to her.

(Saruman had declined to take Glamdring or his staff.  A sword forged with spells against Orcs was little use to a leader of an army of Orcs, and Gandalf could only guess that Saruman hadn't taken his staff in hopes that he'd eventually join him if not left completely bereft.  But Narya the Ring of Fire, he'd hidden.  That, Saruman would have taken had he been able to.)

This, more than anything else, convinces Aria that Gandalf isn't lying. 

She can imagine a country without clerics, like Rahadoum or a more radical Razmiran. She can imagine peasants from a random (or, perhaps, a carefully selected) village in that country having no idea that clerics even exist. Something like that could easily exist in Arcadia or Tian Xia without her knowledge.

She cannot imagine any part of Golarion being without detect magic, at least not stably so without being promptly overwhelmed by foreign mages. It changes the rules of the game completely. As Gandalf just told her, being in possession of a very powerful magic ring that his jailer could not find. (She had assumed he'd swallowed it in captivity.) 

She has a feeling she might soon find out for herself how true that is, because the only thing that lies between a druid and some powerful people dying in their sleep is said druid's lack of a permanent mind blank.

<If I were a trained and capable wizard, it might tell me a lot. It clearly shows what is magic, and its strength, and separates different spell effects, but I do not have the knowledge or training to tell what they do, other than recognizing very common spells that I have seen many times before. It also sometimes assigns a spell to one of eight magical schools, but that division comes from a tradition of magic that is not universal even on Golarion, so I do not expect it to be of much help here.>

<Your sword has two spells on it, both of moderate strength. One is divination, the school for finding out or understanding things. And one is conjuration, which is a broad school that covers teleportation, summoning creatures from other planes, and healing, and I have no idea how those are related.>

<I can also see that your staff is magic, with no school identified. And you have a very powerfully magic ring, with an abjuration effect, which is the school of - protection and warding.>

(Aria has not yet fully internalized the fact that, without detect magic, Gandalf might not have intended to test her on finding his ring. To her, it's just obviously there.)

Gandalf notices Aria's surprise and her brief appraising expression - and then she describes his ring.

He doesn't bother hiding his shock.

<Protection and warding indeed!  Maybe a dozen people in Middle-Earth know I wear this ring.  Now you are one of them - and I would ask that you spread it no further; Saruman is among them, but the Dark Lord may not yet know it.  It was made by the Elven-smiths of Eregion almost five thousand years ago, to ward off the decay of time...  There are few like it.>

Hopefully she won't ask about the other Rings, but if she does, there are some things he can safely tell her.

(Someone who appears to be calculating her power - no matter how deserved it is - should probably not find out about the One Ring just now.)

<The sword was forged by the Elves of Gondolin, mere centuries after the Sun first rose.  It bears spells for the bane of orcs.  I found it in the hoard of some Trolls, though I know not how it came to them.>

A 'wizard' bearing an orc-bane sword? This man is clearly a ranger. 'Sword and staff' normally refers to two different people, not a combination... whatever he is.

(It is perhaps a curious coincidence that both magic items were made by elves.)

<I will keep your secret,> she tells him, <so long as I have no reason to call you enemy.>

<I am inclined to go straight to Fangorn Forest, to offer my aid.> And to ask the treants a lot of questions, so she has a second source of information to compare to Gandalf's story before she does anything drastic. <Do you think there is anything else I would regret not doing first, or along the way?>

If this whole story is a ploy to set a druid on his enemy then Gandalf has succeeded, but as long as it's true that Saruman is felling a forest, Aria considers it a favor to have been told about it. Unless an even greater tragedy is unfolding somewhere nearby, in which case she might be quite cross with Gandalf for not telling her about it.

<And I have urgent business in the North as well, once I befriend Shadowfax.>

Anything she'd regret not doing first...

<That is a dangerous question you have asked - and I can scarce guess how to answer it.  One person might regret not speaking to Saruman first - a foolish regret, I would say, but a regret.  Another might regret not speaking with the Men of Rohan.  But with what I have seen of you, I cannot place any particular regret.>

<Perhaps I will yet speak with Saruman, if it seems prudent, but I certainly will speak with the treants of Fangorn Forest first. But I have not heard anything about the men of Rohan that would interest me, and that would not still be true a year from now.>

<I had wondered at first how you intended to befriend a wild horse without suitable magic; but with telepathy, it is clear you can at least talk to him. You are not like any wizard I have ever met; in Golarion we would name you a new and different kind of mage, I think. I hope there has been no other misleading translation between us.>

<You recognized us as tigers. The humans here seem normal, and you seem human too, or something very close to it.> Unfamiliar races can be very hard to tell apart; Gandalf might be mentally rounding 'dire tiger' to 'tiger with longer fangs' for all she knows. <An army is cutting down a forest; that is easy to understand. Maybe there are mistakes, but probably not as important as that.>

<Indeed; I am sure there have been many misunderstandings here.  This is one reason the Elves rarely use this form of osanwe when they can use words instead.>

And their delight in the beauty of words - he can remember bright eager Feanor -

<But I am sure none as important as Saruman felling the forest and his other ill-deeds.  Farewell; may we meet again in a less worried time.>

<Farewell, then. I also hope we meet again, and that the times become less troubled. And I am glad we met this once.> Greetings and goodbyes are very important to humans, which means they differ wildly between cultures, so her best bet here is 'bland repetition'.

<May you find good fortune on your hunts and in your friends,> adds Tora, who cares much less about local cultural norms and more about just saying what she feels.

Sometimes things are simple. If Gandalf hasn't lied, then he's a ranger who was imprisoned by an evil traitor wizard to stop him from helping his treant friends whose forest the wizard is cutting down -

(- not that Gandalf has said all of this, precisely, but it's the simplest story that fits, and so, why not assume the best of people you like, because she's been getting seriously Good vibes from Gandalf -)

- anyway, if that's all true, then she wishes him all the best and will help his treant friends in his absence! It's what Aria would do.

(And it's what Aria will do, since Aria is here, but Tora would do it anyway, so.)

This doesn't even mostly fit into even a wordless telepathy message, because explaining chains of thought is harder than just following them on her own, but some overtones probably leak across.

<And you as well,> Gandalf replies to the tiger with a deep nod.

Sometimes things are simple for Gandalf too, but not today.

As he walks over the hill following Shadowfax, he glances back at Aria and Tora.  They seem to be something like the Ents, but their concerns - at least, Aria's - are broader.  And, he doesn't think he's gotten his head around them yet.  She was asking all sorts of questions (sensibly enough), and she has magic he's never seen before in Middle-Earth...  Hopefully he won't come back to see her as the new mistress of Isengard?

... well, even if Aria does that, she'll have a lot of groundwork to catch up with Rohan and Dunland and orcs before she's as dangerous as Saruman.  Probably.

If he sees an Eagle again, maybe he can send a message about her to... Galadriel, probably.

And the One Ring is more important.  Where are the Nazgul?  Where has Frodo gotten to by now?

Oh, there's the Grey Wandering Two-Legs again!  Smelling just a little of Cat!

Maybe he warned them away?  That'd be friendly!  He can come closer this time!

As promised, they do not follow and spook off the horse. They'll find another herd; it's often better to hunt at night. For now, they'll head north.

Aria and Tora do not hurry terribly, but neither do they dally. They observe the land and its inhabitants as they go, and try to learn a little about the new world they find themselves in.

Aria talks to animals and asks questions of the birds; and she can turn into a bird herself, and an eagle's eyesight is proverbial.

Will they come to Fangorn Forest if they head straight north, or are they closer to the Isen river and Isengard itself?

The rolling plains of Rohan are largely deserted of men and elves; Aria can occasionally see a herdsman in the distance.  There are lots of animals, though if they don't care to steal from a human's herd, it might take a couple days before they find a meal big enough to be worth the chasing.  But snacks are available.

Up ahead, the hills grow larger until they turn into the tail end of a mountain range.  It looks like this's the east arm of the mountain valley Gandalf drew on his map - in which case the wizard's tower is in that valley, and further east is Fangorn Forest.

But before they reach the mountains - they come across a stretch of ground where the animals are terribly frightened!  Some dreadful creatures galloped west just a little while ago!  They looked maybe like horses?  Maybe someone was on them?  But all the animals were too terrified to give a clear description!

Huh. That sounds almost like - a fear aura? But one that extended much farther than usual; the reports do not come from a neat track one or two hundred feet wide.

Most animals do not care much about, or even notice, those who are not their predators or prey or competitors or mates. It is unusual for an animal to be scared of something and not be able to give a clear description why they're scared.

Aria turns into an eagle, and flies up to try to catch sight of these creatures. On the plains, when the weather is good, one can see until the curve of the world, and that is far away indeed as the eagle flies.

She can see a lone horseman coming south from the valley with the wizard's tower.  He looks like an ordinary rider.

There're some other horsemen to the southwest who also look like ordinary horsemen, not moving in any definite direction.

And there're also a group of what might be orcs north of them, carting felled trees around the shoulder of the mountains.

Aria supposes 'horsemen with a large-radius fear aura' would fit the facts, except why. Also, they're not galloping away from where she started.

Anyway, she's not going to fly near some horsemen just in case they turn out to be supernaturally scary up close; that sounds like a self-defeating enterprise.

Her search frustrated, she flies back down.

Meanwhile, Tora has been sniffing around for any trail the scary creatures may have left! What can she find?

The trail looks like some galloping horses!  Not that many; maybe nine of them?  They were headed west, toward the river or the wizard's tower or somewhere around there.

What horses? She's sure she couldn't have missed a group of horses in these plains! Were they invisible except for an enormous aura of fear?

Now she's annoyed; it irks the tracker in her, the woman who lives and breathes and knows the land she moves in, to whom nothing is unfamiliar except the utterly unnatural and often not even that.

But she squashes the feeling ruthlessly. However familiar and friendly this world looks, it is alien. She must expect the unfamiliar - must suspect herself of missing it when she does not see it, even - and she also must grow used to feeling that way for decades to come.

And she can't go chasing down every unfamiliar trail, even though she'd love to do just that for those long decades to come, while a forest in danger has no druids to protect it.

Tora would like to reassure the nearby animals that they have nothing to fear while she's around, but this presents as many as several difficulties!

They'll press on to the forest, then, and give the wizard's tower a wide berth for now. They pass without trace, and stay out of sight of the humans and orcs, to discourage them from following her exactly; but she does not make their approach entirely undetectable. If sharp-eyed scouts report to Saruman that a pair of tigers entered the forest, well, let him worry. He will not see her coming if she truly takes to the warpath; until then, they will not live a life of fugitives.

(A real wizard might see her coming; but real wizards do not need to fell a forest to fuel their forges - they use bound fire elementals instead.)

Fangorn Forest feels instantly cooler and slower-paced and less eventful than the plains around it.  Birds peer down at them from the branches above.

The trees seem to lean in toward them inquisitively.  It might be a wind they can't feel among the trees... or maybe something more.

"We seek the guardians of the forest," Aria calls out. "We come in peace, and hopefully with aid." What was the name Gandalf gave her - "we were sent by a friend to find the treant Treebeard."

Unfortunately she can only speak the human tongue of Rohan, without someone to target with her tongues, but hopefully the treants might know it? She repeats herself in Sylvan, which is said to be a universal tongue, although she really doesn't expect that to hold off-planet. (Then again, this place has humans and tigers and treants...)

If no reply is forthcoming quickly, she will ask the local birds if they know of any local trees that walk around. She hopes that one of these straightforward approaches will work, because the treants really should be keeping a close watch on the edge of their forest that is being killed, even if they are not yet ready to fight an all-out war. Finding treants that are trying to hide could take her a long time.

The trees might be nodding, but if they recognize either of those languages, they aren't answering anything more.

But when she asks the birds, one crow jumps down to a lower branch, looks at her, and nods before flittering off northwards further into the forest.

They follow carefully, watching out for any danger; a forest generally hostile to outsiders is a place to step lightly.

Will the crow let them keep up with it on foot? Aria can fly after it but Tora can't (easily) do the same.

Oh yes, the crow keeps looking back and alighting on branches to wait for them to catch up.

It's some ways (with rabbits and other small ground animals scurrying out of their way), over stretched-out tree roots reaching out to little rivulets or patches of sunlight.  The wood is getting richer and browner now as they're deeper in the forest.

Before too long, they come to a sharp slope, with a set of rocks leading up it that almost look like steps... but uneven steps, so uneven they might be natural.

Something relaxes minutely inside her at the sight of a healthy forest, well-cared for and well-lived in.

She wants to go home eventually. After she has helped this forest and grown to know it and the lands and world around it. If she had to be transported to another world then this one, with its forests and birds and tigers, and rangers instead of wizards - it is not a bad world to live in, for a while.

Tora is so glad to see Aria relaxed and happy(er)!

She thinks it's not just the sense of clear mission, either. It's probably some little sign of the forest that a foreign tiger can't quite smell, some tuft of cloud speaking of the rains and the rainbow to come.

All of Aria's stories about a part inseparable from the whole, a race that can only live in a life-web of a myriad others, are really metaphors about herself. Aria can't thrive and be happy without the world she loves, the tangled web of relationships that only she is wise enough to grasp. 

Tora is very simple. She just needs Aria, and needs her to be happy; everything else she needs, prey and meadows and sunshine and friendly people, follows from that, part of Aria's life-web. She'll follow where she leads, and do anything for her, because Aria is the world she swims in.

Right now that means following a crow up a hill, which is a very ordinary kind of experience really. Later she might need to bite off an evil wizard's head in his tower. Whatever it takes, for the world to be healthy and thriving and with enough space to be Good.

The forest is a little thinner at the top of the steps, with fewer oaks and more rowans.  Their plump fruit dangles from thick grey branches covered with green leaves.  A rivulet is babbling not far away.

After not too long, the crow perches in a lower branch of a rowan and starts preening itself.

Next to the rowan the bird is perched in is another rowan tree that looks sparser than most, without any fruit.  Its bark is smooth, with fine grey-green covering its crown.

After a minute, it sways toward Aria and Tora, even though they can't feel any wind.

... Or at least, he looks like a rowan tree.

The tree doesn't, exactly, look like a treant. But this is a strange forest; it might be another plant creature, or a treant's animated servant.

Aria turns towards it, and repeats her message. If that gets no reply, she'll cast speak with plants and try talking to the tree that way; unfortunately that spell only lasts a few minutes, so she can't exactly canvass the forest with it, while her permanent tongues should get across to any plant creature.

The ent bends down to look at her.  She can see his eyes now, amid his leaf-like hair and beard.

He bends a branch - arm - over to scratch at his beard, and replies - to her tongues statement - in what she might be able to tell is a different language* than what Gandalf or the villagers spoke.

"Humm, humm, it has been long since a friend came in peace to the forest.  Too long, perhaps.  And even longer since we saw any speaking cats...  Where do you come from?"

* Sindarin

A treant after all! Excellent.

"I greet you, treant of Fangorn forest," she replies formally in the same language, and makes a gesture of respect (*). "I am Aria, a druid of the Verduran Forest circle." (Does it handle the term 'druid' as well as Rohirric did?) 

"With me is Tora. She cannot speak your language; I have tongues, a translation spell, but I can only use it on myself. With your permission, I would like to cast share language on you, a spell to let you speak our language for a day, so she can join the conversation." 

"The Verduran forest is on the continent we call Avistan, on the planet we call Golarion. We came here in a teleport (**) accident a few days ago. One of the first people we met was a human mage -" she's not going to call him a 'wizard' in yet another unknown language, that sounds like it would just complicate and confuse matters - "who called himself Gandalf. He thinks this is another world than Golarion entirely."

"He also told us about the danger to your forest from Saruman's tree-logging, which is why we came straight here. On Golarion, druid circles serve as the protectors of forests, and logging is one of the most common threats from human neighbours. We hope to be able to help." Logging is, in fact, the threat to the Verduran, because of its blackwood trees. If Gandalf had wanted to distract her, he'd chosen the best possible call for action to set her immediate course.

"And we would love to learn more, of your forest and these lands and this world, if you will teach us about them, and if time permits." (In her experience, treants love to talk.)

(*) Like bowing, but with your forelimbs and your tail.

(**) instantenous-translocation. What a a good language this is! (Although, 'an accidental translocation out of The Cage' might sound a bit problematic...)

The spell renders "druid" as "friend of plants and animals", unlike in the other language.

"Humm, humm, so many new places you have come from!"

Quickbeam nods deeply with interest to this strange... Elf in tiger shape?

"And yes, that rascally traitorous smoke-blowing orc-gathering little wizard Saruman is causing so many problems with the Forest.  I have been thinking it would be good to do something about him, if something can be done...  Ah, that is the question.  If something can be done, and if any of us Ents will still be left after doing it...

"But that can wait.  Come, first, show me this translation spell!  I would be happy to wrap my tongue around this new language of yours, and speak with you of all the beautiful places you have come from!  This world called 'cage'?  And this forest you call the Verduran in the short-language - what is it like?"

Aria casts share language (Sylvan) on the treant, and beastspeak on Tora.

And now they can finally have a proper conversation, in a language they all share, about the shared things they all care about.

And Tora can finally contribute!!

She likes treants. Unlike many creatures, they don't see tigers as either threat or competition (or prey). They can take their time, lying together in the sun, telling stories of the forests they've known and the animals they've met (Tora is admittedly a bit weak on the plants side, at least when the plants aren't talking to her).

Also, they're most often Good, and are dedicated to the protection of others. A whole race naturally born - or, well, sprouted - with the values that take most druids painstaking decades to fully appreciate; that's something she really admires.

In druids' defence, treants have a rather easier job! They are Good, and protect the forests, and foremost the trees. Druids care about all life, and all (Neutral) alignments, and that forces them into contact with much more unpleasant parts of the world. 

(Not that she would dream of telling a treant as much, or Tora for that matter. Being committed to Good and to trees is, well, good, and some druids are Good too. It's just not what druids, in general, are for.)

Anyway, she'll happily tell the treant as much as he wants to hear about the Verduran Forest! 

...well, for a few days anyway. She's well aware he could listen (and she could talk) for a year, but they are on a bit of a schedule here, unfortunately.

(And she would enjoy hearing about Fangorn Forest as well.)

Quickbeam can indeed listen and talk for ages!  He'll happily listen about the Verduran Forest, and how the druids convinced the humans to leave it alone; and share about Fangorn as well, pointing out each grove of trees around them and its state.  He'll break into song -

- well, he'll look like he's about to break into song, but instead just stand in a beam of sunlight through the leaves and break out laughing for joy.

There's a background sorrow that comes out at some times, especially in references to felled trees and lost old friends who it's not clear whether they're the same or different.  The Forest was much bigger in older times, and Quickbeam is perhaps resigned to it but still hasn't forgotten.

Tora will be disappointed to find Quickbeam weaker on the animals side, though least weak with the birds who nest in the branches of trees and the squirrels who bury seeds.

At first, he'll roll the words of Sylvan over his lips in a contemplative sort of way.  But it's a while before he brings that up, remarking this language seems less beautiful than a language should.  "Not that it's bad at talking; it has maybe fewer words but we can build words up from each other like a tree builds layers of wood upon wood.  But here, the Elves want each word of their language to be beautiful.  I thought for a while - while we were speaking - that you were an Elf; is that not so?"

"I'm not."

"I'm not an elf, but - the druid ideal is to take on our shapes fully. I am technically, by some laws of magic, a human, but I don't think of myself as a human in dire tiger form; I am simply what I am. A druid, who favours the shape of the tiger among four-legged animals, the eagle among birds, and the human among the two-legged humanoids.(*)"

She has been technically-an-elf in the past, but that's a druidic secret not revealed even to close allies. And her present, temporary inability to take on the form of an elf is neither here nor there.

"This language, Sylvan, is spoken by most animals and plants on Golarion who can speak, sometimes in addition to their own languages. I could share with you the language spoken by Golarion elves, but Tora doesn't speak it; relatively few non-elves do. I visited Kyonin several times, the original elven settlement on Golarion and still the biggest one in Avistan, but I was focused on the local fauna. They have a very complex culture, and I know the language is an ancient one..."

"I could also share the human language of the countries around our forest, which Tora does speak, but I don't think it's particularly more beautiful than Sylvan."

(*) Unlike in Taldane, the Sylvan word for humanoids does not stem from 'human'.

"Tigers don't have our own language. I learned Sylvan and Taldane-human to talk to most people I meet. Learning new languages is hard! Of course I can always talk to Aria, even before I knew any language. And other druids."

"Humm, humm, I see your order of Druids goes deeper than I thought in your love for nature!  'Lovers of plants and animals' I heard you say in Sindarin when you first spoke to me, and indeed that you are.  I have heard Elves sing wishing for wings, or for leaves that can take in the light of the sun...

"I know some Elves have been able to change shape, though I have never talked with any of them myself..."  He shakes his head, with a rustling of leaves.  "Indeed, I have not seen with any elves lately.  The Elves have been seen traveling less, and the forests have been dwindling, and I believe the humans fear us.  Which has at least quieted their hunger for felling trees, except that of late we have had even less friendly visitors, those ravaging consuming chopping orcs..."

He shakes his head and turns to run his hand over a nearby rowan tree.

"Myself, I am content with my current form, as the ages might grow and mold it.  And that could be much more than most humans or Elves - these arms of mine have completely changed their joints in the last hundred years.  But you say you care for more things than just the forests, at your home?"

"There are several ways to change one's shape that are known on Golarion. Wizards (*) can do it with spells which temporarily change the body, but leave the mind unaltered. They study magic, and learn to understand the spell, but they don't need to understand anything about the shape they assume... and it only lasts for a short time. Anyone can learn to be a wizard, in theory, if they're very smart and spend a lot of time and of course have the right tutors."

"I actually know a similar spell; it makes me look like a tree, but it doesn't make me a tree, or an intelligent plant creature like yourself. It's used for camouflage, to hide, not to - understand trees. The feeling of sunlight on leaves is beyond my reach, and any but the very greatest of druids."

"I wonder if the local elves change shape as a wizard does, or as a druid?" Quickbeam had not heard of druids before, but the local 'wizard' she met was actually a ranger, so perhaps the local shapeshifters follow a tradition she would feel some kinship with.

(*) Lit. cunning-mages.

"As for caring... we care about all living things. I confess we do not care for them, as caretakers, nearly as much outside the great forests." She sighs. "On Golarion, too, the forests used to be much larger before humans arrived and began farming. And so most of us retreated to the remaining forests, to protect them and to keep them from shrinking any further."

"The Verduran is in a better position than most forests in Avistan. Centuries ago, the human ruler who claims most of the lands around it signed a treaty with the druids. They do not fell trees or encroach on the forest, and in return we allow a settlement to grow and log trees in a carefully controlled area. The forest neither shrinks nor grows, and most of it remains untouched."

"It is far from perfect. You would probably be right in saying it is not Good. But we judged it better than eternal war, and one which we were not winning. And with the peace - or armistice - I have been free to spend more time outside the forest, and help more people."

"So I travel. I let humans talk to the animals they live and work with, so both can understand each other and lead better lives. I teach them about the plants they grow, help them increase their harvests so they need not plow more land to feed their people. And when I find someone harming others too much, or disrupting the life-web around them, I stop them, and teach others to avoid their errors." This is often best done by stopping them in a way which no others want to experience for themselves.

Some treants, and even some druids, see little difference between the managed logging of the Verduran and Awaiting Consumption. An evil done for the greater good, and the triumph of Law which imposes it. The true achievement of the treaty did not lie in convincing the human emperor; it lay in convincing most of the factions to turn their efforts against Andor.

Others left to Ravounel, never to return. And now Ravounel forbids all humans entry, and maintains itself even against the forces of Hell. Which is the better approach? Aria has gone back and forth on the subject, over the years. Perhaps it is best for both to be tried.

But for now, the uneasy peace of the Verduran with Taldor enables her own lifestyle.

"How the Elves change shape?"  Quickbeam shakes his head.  "Hooommm, it would be interesting to see one.  I reckon it is more like what you say of wizards, or at least that is how the other Elves sang about it.  I would wish even more to talk to those greatest druids you mentioned... but I am sure they have their own cares; both of our worlds have many cares.

"And you did say you came only by accident?  If I could, I might like to visit Golarion, if merely to visit the Treants there.  And maybe find a wife..."

He trails off wistfully for a moment, and then shakes his head again, more vigorously, with a rustling of his hair.  He has never had a wife of his own; before he had grown enough and grown enough trees to court an Entwife, they had all vanished.

"The peace-pact you name an armistice - alas!  Not good, I would say.  Alas for the trees that are felled.  But here too, we can do little but mourn... and many more of our trees are felled, 'tis likely, than yours; and many of ours awake enough to answer us back when we speak to them.  I trust that the pact at least has spared those in your land."

Quickbeam is a Shepherd of the Trees.  But he is a Shepherd who has seen much of his flock stolen and devoured, and his elders have seen even more, and he has learned harsh wisdom from the stealing.

He stares down at the earth for a time before continuing.

"Perhaps if we had made a similar pact long ago, the Forest would be larger today - or perhaps, even if the Men had not felled much of it when I was a mere sapling and felled more thereafter, the Dark Lord would have burnt and felled it nonetheless.  He might have sworn to the pact too, but we would have been fools to even trust him long enough to let him swear.  But regardless - it would be a dark day before I would swear away my power to take vengeance if a time came when I could win the fight.  An oath barring that is not good.

"Whether it is Good..."  He holds out his hands.  "I cannot say.  All your Language-spell tells me of that word is that it relates to how a god... perhaps the more friendly gods?... deem it.  And there, we are told that the gods disagree.  The Lady of Trees and Beasts and the Growing World is wife to the Lord of Forges - I know not how they speak with each other.  I was told they argued much in the days before the Sun first rose, but that much I could know without being told; and whether they have come to some pact of their own, or whether they still argue, I have not heard."

He pauses again.  "And even if I thought seeking out that hearing would have a chance of being rewarded - I would not seek it, if it might take me from my trees.  Though if someone like Master Gandalf came and told me he had spoken with the Lady of Trees and the Lord of Forges, I suppose I would ask him what they had said of each other."

"We don't Awaken trees that would be felled," she confirms. "We do not let leshy-spirits settle in them, or dryads. A few druids still come and speak to them on occasion, those who are still opposed to the treaty, who think preserving the forest does not justify - this. There is some debate regarding how much plants can sense and understand, even when no-one has spoken to them in their lifetime."

"But most druids who think as they do left when the treaty was signed. They joined their friends in Ravounel Forest, to the west, and helped defend it so fiercely that it stands untouched to this day, and not for lack of trying on behalf of the surrounding people."

"To do this they had to make the forest hostile, full of beasts and plants that attack on sight, traps and spells for the unwary. They have shut it off from the wider world, perhaps for good. And for those who only wish to defend one forest, that is probably a better choice than compromise. But most of us still care about the whole world. We will stay part of it, so we can help to shape a better future."

"As for the gods... Gozreh is patron of all nature and all life, and many druids do worship Gozreh. But they are a god as much of creation as of destruction. They raise forests, and they bring the storm that tears them down. They are the god of the great cycle of Nature, promoting life over death in the long term; but they are not a god of prosperity, of safety, or stability."

"And there is a god, Erastil, who is the patron of farming. He empowers most of the healing clerics in little villages, he teaches his followers Good and Law. He is my favourite god for humans to follow! He doesn't tell his followers to leave forests and Nature alone, but he doesn't tell them to hew down the forests either."

"And the god of forges and smithing is probably Torag, who is also Lawful Good, and a patron of the dwarves in particular. Erastil is married to someone else, though. I think smiths mostly use coal when they can, not charwood."

"I have no idea if Gozreh debated the other gods, or has an agreement with them. But it's sadly true that, over the past ten thousand years of recorded history, nature - and forests - have receded greatly, and the humanoid races - mostly humans and orcs - have cleared most land for farming or pasture."

"I do not advise you to make a tree-felling pact with Saruman! Not until all other ways have failed you, in the last extremity. And it could only be done by agreement of all the forest's dwellers, treants and others; it is not my place to promote it."

"For now, though, I think you have not yet tried war. Killing or driving away those who come to the forest for wood, making it too costly for them even if not impossible; or threatening Saruman himself. With our help, something might be possible that you have not managed on your own."

Ugh, forest politics. Tora was born long after the treaty with Taldor, and doesn't appreciate the constant background tension over what is to her established fact.

And she doesn't really see the difference between gnomes growing trees for wood and humans raising sheep for the slaughter, and Neutral Good druids don't make war on followers of Erastil in every village in the land. Is it really so much worse for the sheep to be raised by humans than to live wild and be hunted by tigers? Of course the humans have to take good care of their animals, but Erastilians advised by druids actually do pretty well on that score!

"You'd want to take a wife from Golarion?" she interjects, trying to steer the conversation away. "Because of, uh, hybrid vigour?"

"You have not heard... well, of course you have not heard."  He shakes his head again sadly.  "The Entwives disappeared long ago.  Their gardens were despoiled by the Dark Lord, and if they were not all slain, we do not know where they might have gone.  I went searching for them, and others too, but we did not find them.

"But yes, hybrid vigor."  He laughs a hollow laugh.  "That would not be all I had to offer a wife from Golarion, but I would have that.

"... if I survive the war.  For yes, if you know how to make a forest hostile like your fellow-druids did, and if you would be willing to help... I think many of us would agree to a war."

"Your females... wives... all disappeared? What happened?" Tora is horrified. "Why were they separated from all the other treants?"

"That is another long story."  He sighs.  "We loved the wilder forests, but they loved the tame and ordered fields.  We... the Ents and Entwives, I mean; I was too young at the time... tried to live in harmony, but eventually we decided to live separately for a time; they in their fields and we in our forest.  It worked well... until they vanished, and none of us had been there to know what happened."

Aria is pretty horrified too! Golarion has no shortage of evils and horrors, but this one seems particularly vicious, as if designed to offend a druid's sensibilities. It is not merely selfish, like logging or hunting; it stinks of strategic cruelty.

The treants of Golarion don't have garden-tending sects, to her knowledge, whatever may count as a garden, and if they did she doesn't expect they'd separate by gender. Ultimately, though, none of that matters.

"To remove all the females of a long-lived race and leave the males to a slow death, prolonging the pain and the struggle, gradually withering the life-web that depends on them, not even clearing the space for new life to replace the old... This is a very great evil that was done to you, and a great crime against Nature." She looks Quickbeam in the eye. "Any one who does such a thing I hold an enemy, and so would any druid. And if I can do anything to repair it, I will. If they might still be found, I will help search for them. I can turn into a bird, and talk to other birds, and visit many lands over a few years."

"If it was long ago, though, we should probably handle Saruman and his loggers first." Also, Aria would very much appreciate someone on whom to take out her rage. If she was too Chaotic before, this is a ripe opportunity to be Lawful, as long as she proves to be stronger than a man who calls himself a wizard but who is probably a ranger with a fancy tower.

"I do know how to make a forest hostile, though knowing is far from enough with only one druid doing the work. And some of the dangerous creatures imported or encouraged to breed more on Golarion might not exist here, or we might not know where to find them."

"I can also fight the loggers directly; this will drive them off, at least until Saruman sends many more people, and I could still harass them at little danger to myself. I don't know what he might deem a worthwhile tradeoff of lives for trees, or what force he might send of more than ordinary archers and spearmen, or how long it might buy us."

"When I spoke with Gandalf, he did not seem to me like a wizard from Golarion. He had few of the same skills and magics. And he could not detect magic at all, and was sure Saruman cannot either. It may be that I can strike at him directly, without going through his army. What do you know of his personal abilities, and his most powerful servants?"

Quickbeam bends down - almost a bow - and smiles at Aria.  "Thank you.  It has been many years - but that would be the most anyone has helped us in many years."

Straightening, he strokes his beard thoughtfully.  "If making the forest hostile means introducing new animals, not just spells or traps... then we should definitely bring this to an Entmoot.  I would want to talk with Skinbark, perhaps, to gather one... or Treebeard...  And Treebeard would know better than me about Saruman's powers and his servants.  They used to talk, years ago."

He nods and takes a couple long Ent-strides eastward, before looking back to Aria and Tora.  "Shall we visit Treebeard?"

Gladly! Aria can describe some ways of making a forest hostile as they walk. 

It is easy, relatively speaking, to make the inside of a forest hostile to intruders. Animals and plant creatures can both be asked to attack them; traps can be planted; the trees can shift to make them lose their way and never come back out; even ordinary plants can become poisonously deadly.

The problem with loggers is that they attack the trees on the very edge of the forest, just as a predator attacks the vulnerable members of a herd. They don't have to come into the forest to do it, and they can use fire to cut off sections or to clear the undebrush (is there a dry season here?). So the forest's defenders must go out to meet them.

Creatures of the forest can be asked to do it. This approach can be attractive, because it has the simplest mechanism of action - it doesn't get any more obvious than 'owlbears eat all the woodcutters' - and it only amplifies a side that any forest already has to some degree. Actually applying it, though, requires very deep understanding of the forest and its existing inhabitants, to avoid disrupting anything and to make the creatures self-sustaining and happy in their new role, and of course to pick out creatures that would not just get themselves killed by a bunch of orcs. She wouldn't dream of trying it in an unfamiliar forest without local help. (Also, it requires some owlbears.)

Traps, including magical ones, can also be left outside the forest proper to achieve a similar effect. Aria isn't an expert trapper, but one doesn't have to be very proficient to trap people who cannot detect magic. The only limit here is that it takes time to create traps; over a few years she could make the forest almost unreachable on foot, but this probably isn't the optimal use of her time.

Attacking the loggers makes them concentrate their forces; they begin to move in larger groups under guard, which in turn makes them vulnerable to retaliation from the forest's heavy strikers. A druid attacking people who don't have any magic-users is a one-sided slaughter that only ends when the druid runs out of spells, and often not even then. Depending on the forces Saruman sends out, a few treants might be enough on their own, considering that she can heal them afterwards so long as they come back alive.

With just one druid, though, who can't be everywhere at once (although she can find intruders and chase them down very quickly indeed), they do need to know the strength of Saruman's forces, and being the forest's primary defender would tie her down in an essentially reactive role.

There's a dryer season.  Fortunately, it's the winter, so fire isn't as much a danger as it would be otherwise.  Saruman's orcs haven't used fire or magic yet, as far as he knows.  He'd be surprised to see orcs using magic; he hasn't seen any of them doing magic, and he's heard hardly any of them can.  It sounds like it's different in Golarion?

So perhaps, even if the Entmoot can't decide anything, Aria could attack the next logging party?  Or does she think that would make them escalate to fire?...  Quickbeam isn't used to fighting armies of orcs with a wizard behind them; he'd appreciate Aria's advice there.

... And if this long fast walk is getting too much for tiger legs, Quickbeam would be happy to carry them?  Or at least Tora?

She has lesser restoration for when they get tired, but they can walk at a reasonable pace for many hours between castings! They are, in fact, rather stronger than ordinary, non-magical tigers. (Well, Tora is; Aria isn't as strong as a normal dire tiger even with her belt on.)

They could definitely attack the next logging party. She's not sure if it's better to make it vanish altogether, or to leave survivors to tell the story; they might want to keep her presence and abilities secret, if they're going to strike at Saruman more directly.

Quickbeam doesn't want to leave any survivors, and it sounds like that's wiser as well.

They're getting into lower parts of the forest now, with wider streams and thicker trees.  There're few rowans, and more moss-covered oaks, and broader streams.  A rabbit runs across their path.  A faint bellow can be heard in the distance - perhaps something like Quickbeam's "hoom"?  With her Permanencied tongues, she can make out a faint "Hello" and "here".

After some time, they pause by a pool, and Quickbeam throws back his head and calls out "Hoom, hoom!  Treebeard!  Come-stride to the sharp-cool-Wellingpool; there is a surprising-of-many-years refreshing-invigorating friend-of-us-and-the-Forest here you must-you-and-I-both-want-to see-and-share-refreshment from strange-of-many-years lands far-not-by-walk away!"

(He's speaking in a different language now from the Sindarin he was first using with Aria, one that takes far more time to say a given word.)

A faint call answers:  "I come-by-stride when-soon I have completed-all tending-shepherding-helping this sick-but-unsurprising tree-of-mine."

Quickbeam nods, and switches back to Sylvan.  "Ah, Treebeard is coming.  But it may take him some time - he is still tending to some trees, and I am hasty as Ents go."

They can wait! Tora is going to bathe in the pool - oooh, that water is surprisingly cold!

And then she'll take a nap. She can walk all day, but it doesn't come very naturally to a cat; her mind gets more tired than her body, so to speak.

Quickbeam is wetting his toes in the pool, and softly chanting to himself some of the "Song of the Ent and Entwife":  "When wind is in the deadly East, then in the bitter rain, I'll look to thee, and call to thee; I'll come to thee again..."

He's happy, happier than he's been for many a year.  His trees are soon going to be safe, or at least defended; he has a new friend who loves the Forest almost as much as he does and has promised to find the Entwives; and now he knows there are other Ents and Entwives in another world!

In a couple hours, they can hear Ent-strides and see moving leaves behind a small hummock lined with oak trees, and a voice a little deeper than Quickbeam's booms like a low woodwind in the same language, "Hroom, hroom!  Hello-and-well-met-again, my friend-longlasting-comrade Quickbeam!  And I wonder-with-good-humor-and-eagerness what is this surprise-of-many-years you have-and-come-with-bringing here-to-me-in-the-Forest!"

With the last booming long Entish word, his head comes into sight.  He has a sweeping grey beard even longer than Quickbeam's, and deep piercing slow and solemn eyes, brown but shot with green light like the sun shimmering on the ripples of a deep lake.

He looks down and gives a slow appraising look to the two tigers Tora and Aria.  After a bit, he speaks, now not in Entish or in Sindarin like Quickbeam had used when greeting Aria, but in the same language the humans of Rohan used.

"Hroom, hoom, what have we here?  Two large cats - but no, I will not be hasty; you are acting like more than just cats, even beyond what my friend has said of you.  Very odd indeed, leaf and twig!  But uncommonly kind, to come into the forest in the forms of forest beasts!"

The treants' language suits them. It is slow, but not because it conveys things slowly; they say a great deal, because to say less would lessen them. Tongues will probably struggle to produce anything remotely idiomatic in it; it requires not just knowledge of words and rules but the right mindset, a little like learning to become a treant yourself. 

Aria has studied the treants of Golarion until she can become one - a smallish one - but these are clearly of a different race. She won't pretend to assume their shape when she can't even speak their language well.

"Greetings, Treebeard," she says in Rohirric first. And then, in careful but probably horribly broken treantish, "Hello-and-well-met sought-out-new-friends, protectors-shepherds-healers of the Forest-trees-lifeweb. I am Aria -" she has to pause to stop the spell's attempt translate or explain her name, that can't end well "- originally-once-from a strange-distant-Forest called the Verduran. I regret... apologize-seek-improvement that I speak your-treant language badly-ugly-wrongly." Ugh, this doesn't flow at all, not like when they speak it.

In Rohirric again, then: "I am sorry for mangling your beautiful language. I have a spell that lets me understand and speak any language - it's better at understanding, in this case - and I didn't want you to mislead you into thinking your conversation was private."

"I can also share knowledge of a language I actually know with you, using another spell. I've done it to Quickbeam and I would like to do it to you as well, Treebeard, so we can speak in it. Tora doesn't have a translation spell and can't talk to you otherwise."

"Ah," Treebeard says (in Rohirric) with a smile, "do not feel bad.  You reminded me of a little Entling just starting to speak.

"Hoom, I have never heard of this Verduran Forest.  Perhaps I know it under some other name in some other tongue, or if not, it must be far away indeed!  But then, there are many surprising things in this world, and a tiger that can speak and cast spells is already a surprise such as I have not seen in many years.

"But yes, cast this spell on me?"

Share Language (Sylvan) on Treebeard! It's a good thing it lasts a day and night.

"I am Aria, and this is my friend and companion Tora. As for the Verduran Forest... I met Gandalf earlier - he told me to seek you out - and he thought we were from another world entirely. We did not come here deliberately; we were teleported - a trap, or perhaps an accident. At first we thought we were in some distant part of our own world, because so much seems familiar and I expected other worlds to be more alien. But the more we talk to people here and find no common knowledge, about the landmasses or peoples or gods or the magic known in each world or its history, the more it seems Gandalf was right."

"We would have come to talk to you anyway! Because Aria's a druid, and this is the nearest proper forest, with treants even if there are no druids here. We hurried, because Gandalf said the forest is being logged, and we want to help protect it." Tora knows that when treants (at least her treants) want to emphasize something is deadly urgent, they say it's worth hurrying for.

"From another world, you think, and Master Gandalf agrees!  And here to help protect the Forest!  Hroom, that's uncommonly good of you!  I would love to hear more about a forest on another world?"

Quickbeam answers first.  "They have spoken about it some with me, and little about the trees surprises me, but many of the animals are different - not just from this forest, but as far as I know anywhere in Middle-Earth.  But, there are Ents there too - and Entwives."

"Oh!"

Treebeard's eyes widen, and he strokes his beard.

"Why, that is indeed the best news I have heard in many years!  Thank you!  Even just knowing there are still Ents and Entwives and little Entings somewhere brightens up all my leaves.  You say you came here by accident... do you think you can go back and return here?  With others?"

He strokes his beard.  He's not going to visit this other world himself; he is too old and too tied to this forest.  There's a reason the Elves named the forest after him.  But others would... perhaps not many now, while the forest is under threat, but later...

"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."

"I can help summon the Ents.  Unless, Aria, you can use my help?  No doubt you can see as a bird where the Orcs are scarring the forest?"

"I could look for the orcs, but if you want to direct me somewhere more urgent or just save me a few hours of searching, I would welcome the help. Do they always come to the edge of the forest closest to Isengard, or have they attacked other places? And do you want to show us to Derndingle first, or afterwards - how far is it?"

"Usually the side closer to Isengard.  I can show you to Derndingle if you want?"

"Yes, thank you. And then we'll go to the edge of the forest facing Isengard, kill any loggers we find, and probably rest for the night, and in the morning I will fly out." She looks a question at Tora.

"I don't really want to fly around all day. You're not going to decide it's suddenly time to attack, right? If Saruman comes out of his tower on the first day you're there, he probably does it all the time. I think I should stay behind and guard the forest."

Aria knows Tora hates flying! She was just making sure Tora feels alright about separating, and maybe trying to convince herself that she feels alright about it. This is a friendly forest and she trusts the treants, but - they're still in a new and unfamiliar world, and they are about to make some enemies whose capabilities are not entirely known, and - it's natural to be a bit stressed about leaving your companion behind.

"That should be fine," she agrees. "Shall we go?"

"Yes; farewell!  May the earth be soft beneath your feet - or the wind be in your wings, as may be."

Treebeard nods, shakes himself, and strides silently away to the north, mumbling names to himself.

Quickbeam is in a more hasty and angry mood as he leads them toward Derndingle.  If Aria doesn't bring up other topics, he'll be mourning the trees - many individual trees - felled by the Orcs.

He'll also tell the story of how, in his younger days, he and some other Ents went to destroy a logging settlement of Men from across the sea.  "Numenorians, they were," he says.  "The ancestors of the people who built Saruman's tower, Orthanc - and founded the realm of Gondor to the south.  They built well, with magic, we found to our cost.  We drove the surviving men out of the forest and broke their axes, but we could not break their fortress wall.  And so they came back in the end, or others did from across the Sea, and soon there were no trees within a day's walk of the River Greyflood..."

Soon they reach Derndingle.

It looks like an impenetrable wall of dark evergreen fir trees, at first - but Quickbeam turns to the left along the wall, and comes to a narrow entrance where a worn path plunges down a long steep slope into a smooth grass-clad bowl.  The hollow is crowned at the rim by the evergreen hedge, with three paths leading down into it.

Here, Quickbeam explains, the Entmoot has always met; and will meet again soon.

Once, when Aria went for her annual checkup with a cleric of Erastil, Tora tagged along. The cleric said she was Neutral Good, with a big smile like it was a compliment. She stormed out, and refused to be checked ever again.

Good and Evil are ideas of the gods which lead people astray. Sarenites don't help animals caged and beaten and killed for sport. Shelynites don't protect a beautiful tree from being cut down, they just turn to admire the next one. Even Asmodeans disdain to tyrannize animals.

It is evil to cut down someone's friends in the prime of their lives, not to eat or to dress or even to build but to burn their bodies for fuel to make tools of war to kill others in turn. And it is no less evil to look at it and see nothing wrong. That is the world the Erastilians endorse, and she wants no part of it.

Real good is knowing that -

   (the rescuer, fighting without rescue. the mortal protector with no divinity above them. the tree of the forest and the beast of the field with only their own fangs and claws, and the druids' helping hands are far too few -)

Seeing that with your own two eyes, every instinct inside you screaming to run, and deciding to stay and help anyway, because someone should.

She listens and nods and makes the appropriate noises (there are, she has learned, appropriate words for being told about someone's friends being murdered) and she is going to protect. this. forest. 

It is a story as old as the hills. Every druid knows they are fighting the Long Defeat. Every druid has to make their own peace with the world.

Aria likes to think the future can be better. Some decades, the world deteriorates so slowly that she can almost bring herself to believe it. She doesn't have a grand plan. So many plans have been tried and found wanting over the millenia, as the forests raced the humans to retake the world after the skies cleared, spread and then retreated again - as they fought Aroden, and Aroden's empire and its desendants, and a dozen equally threats on other continents - the short-lived euphoria at the breaking of prophecy and Aroden's death and the Chelish wars, a growing realization that the Worldwound and Hell's outpost were little better -

Always, in the background, the forests' edges burn, as marauders and raiders and the occasional empire takes its toll. Always, friends die and are mourned and are gone. The cycle of life continues, predator eating prey as human hew wood, new growth replacing the old and fighting for space, and every year, little by little, the forests shrink and the grasslands and farmlands advance.

The greatest powers of the world spend their time fighting each other, but none of them are on the forests' side. If she somehow grew vastly more powerful, enough to change the balance of power, enough to truly threaten them, the gods and churches and empires would spend the power needed to squash her. She is under no illusion that she exists on their sufferance while they busy themselves with other matters.

Maybe this world will turn out to be different.

"Thank you for showing us. It is a place easily found from the air, too, if I ever need to fly here in an hurry."

Tora's mood is an open book to her. "We'll find the orcs quickest by flying. I'm going to statue you." This is both much cheaper than turning Tora into a bird and back, and has the advantage (from Tora's point of view) that she won't have to stay frustrated for long.

"We'll hunt well," Tora promises. "I'll see you tomorrow or the day after, Quickbeam."

Aria deshifts human. Carry companion shrinks Tora to a tiny (*) stone statue; into the bag of holding she goes.

"I will likely come back tomorrow night to rest, and give you an update then," she says. "If not tomorrow, then the day afterwards, as Treebeard asked."

(*) Not Tiny; so tiny that Pathfinder has no words for it.

Quickbeam stares in curiosity as Aria shifts human.  Of course she's already told him she wasn't born a tiger, but it's different actually seeing it.

(Some birds go silent for a moment, and then they take up singing again.)

"Strange.  I have never seen anyone shapeshift before.  Now I am imagining an entire forest where each animal is secretly a Druid..."  His branches rustle in laughter.

"But, good hunting!  I plan to stay near here till the Moot, if you come back early with news.

A forest full of hidden druids is sometimes the only way to keep a forest alive. Aria would much rather a forest full of druids walking about openly, whatever their shape. She's going to need to be Lawful after all, and much sooner than she expected: a familiar-looking world brings with it familiar problems.

She shifts into an eagle. Not a giant eagle, able to carry a humanoid on its back or carry it off in its claws; a medium-sized one, a carrion-eater with excellent eyesight of a kind she saw on her way to the forest; its presence should not be suspicious. And off she flies, back towards the southern edge of the forest.

What can she see?

She sees a huge scar in the forest, with felled trees and stumps and chopped-away branches lying there on the ground.

Around the edges of the scar, two large groups are even now chopping down trees and hauling them away westward!  There's an established road now, with many ox-drawn carts carrying logs away.

If she gets closer, she can see that one group is Men with darker hair than the people of Rohan, and many of them with tattoos.  The other group is Orcs, but shorter than the Orcs she's familiar with.  They're even shorter than men, and all grey-skinned not green, but they have the same sort of thick frames and scars that she's familiar with.

Whoever they are, they're not getting away with this.

...she'll admit, this is worse than she expected, or rather - the scale is bigger. Instead of one fortified group that can be cut off and overwhelmed, they're spread out, which makes it easier to pick them off one by one but harder to get all of them without even one escaping to tell the tale.

Can she cut off the flow of ox-carts? Or are there so many of them that no matter where she attacks she will be seen by the next one, all the way to Isengard?

There're a lot of ox-carts, but not too many for that.  There're several places in the forest and near the forest's edge... near what was the forest's edge... where the road winds between some hills so that she could cut it off without being seen from elsewhere on the road. She can't see any scouts or anyone else watching; except for the cart drivers, everyone's busy at the logging camps themselves.

There're probably more places further west toward Saruman's tower, too, where the road winds up among the foothills of the Misty Mountains, though she can't tell yet if there's someone watching there?

As Aria swoops lower, she can see most of the carters have spears and whips or goads, and the tree-cutters have their axes and saws, but she can't see any more arms or armor.

The cutters usually work in groups of four or six or so, and there're other groups of maybe a dozen who come around to bring the felled and stripped trees back to one of several camps for additional cutting and lowering onto the cart.  She can see several small fights broken out at the orcs' camp; the men's camp seems to have better discipline.

She can see... maybe a hundred men, and two hundred orcs?

She can't kill three hundred spread-out people quickly. They'll have to cut them off and herd them towards the forest, and make them bunch together in an attempt at defense rather than run away in every direction. (Although if any are foolish enough to run into the same forest they are cutting down, she will let them... at first.)

She has to deshift human again to let Tora out. That means she can't let her out inside the forest, because she doesn't want to use her last shape on flying back out to the carts. They'll have to start outside, and work their way in.

To work, then.

Aria lands in front of the carts passing through the hills, deshifts human, and puts Tora's statue on the ground.

Now there is an angry tiger, a hundred feet in front of the first ox-cart laden with lumber.

"Kill the drivers, break the carts so the oxen stay put. I'll set them free later. The logging camps are that way. We work our way in, make them bunch up together. Don't let any escape. They don't seem to have bows."

There's no need for buffs with such soft targets. She walks along, guarding Tora against surprise attacks and surprises in general, but she doesn't really expect any danger from cart-drivers.

To work.

Killing not for food is unpleasant, but it is necessary. A well-kept forest requires weeding, and it is the druids' role in Nature to wage war in defence of others.

Caden was excited when his clan lord announced that the Many-Colored Wizard had promised them his alliance in their feud with the Strawheads.  As he and the other men marched north, he was looking forward to winning glory in battle, and finally having the older men respect him rather than looking down on him as a youth.  Then he saw the Wizard himself, and gave him his oath (with everyone else), and things were looking even more exciting -

- and then some officer from another village that they were supposed to be listening to told Caden and some others to go off and chop wood.  Caden laughed at him, but that evening his clan lord was saying with a long face that he really should listen and go off.

And then when he finally got to the forest, some other officer told him he had to go drive an oxcart back and forth.

Several weeks later, Caden is still grumbling to himself over the inglorious oxcart, and how none of the few girls in the growing town around Isengard will give him the time of day.  The oxen know the road, so he isn't watching as they round the bend -

- and he doesn't see the tiger till it's too late.

The next carter is not quite a quarter-hour behind Caden.  He's an older man, and watching better; he throws his spear at Tora and then jumps to try to hide behind the tree-trunk.

These humans really aren't trained for fighting, are they?

(Tora's idea of humans trained for fighting is slanted towards the kind of adventurers for whom it would be remotely a good idea to challenge her. This man wouldn't have qualified even back when she was just an ordinary tiger.)

It's sad how humans must send a hundred to fight and die fruitlessly for one of them to be lucky enough to survive and grow stronger. She'd rather fight just their champions if that could decide a war. But she'll still kill them, when they come to make war on a forest.

She avoids the thrown spear by just enough that it doesn't penetrate her skin. And then she jumps on top of the man in his cart, and she makes him die as quickly and painlessly as she can.

Well, they're not trained for fighting tigers by surprise... but that amounts to the same thing at the moment.

Aria sets free the oxen and breaks the carts and worries.

Killing three hundred men is easy, in a sense, if they all attack her and are not individually particularly strong (and don't even have bows, although bows won't be nearly as useful come nightfall); only a matter of time and careful work. But it would not be be nearly as easy to track them all down if they scatter and flee in all directions. Killing all of them like she intended calls for more planning, preparing the right spells, setting traps, calling on allies.

If she wants to make sure no word makes it back to Isengard - and that includes killing any scouts or reinforcements Isengard sends out, once they notice the logging party hasn't come back on schedule - it may take several days, and a lot of care. But after several days, nobody coming back becomes its own kind of news. Once Saruman is aware that something is wrong, he might scry her - or, at least, he might scry his people, and this place, and then see her or Tora. And then she would lose the crucial element of surprise, in case she decides attacking Orthanc itself is feasible.

What are her actual goals here?

Saruman can learn that tigers are killing his people; he will probably take a few days to muster a response. He would not be afraid of tigers attacking Isengard. What he must not learn is that one of the tigers is a druid, or any kind of mage. And he shouldn't see Aria even as a tiger, to prevent him from scrying her later.

The logging of the forest must stop immediately.

Some of the loggers may escape, which is unfortunate, but there are probably many who took part and are not here today, and she wasn't going to hunt them all down. The important part is to break their organization, take out their leaders, and make sure they never dare to come back.

Scouting Isengard tomorrow morning is more urgent than spending another day or two killing everyone here, as long as they are fleeing.

She will kill as many as she can tonight, while Saruman (hopefully) isn't scrying this place yet, and not use any flashy magic that would make it clear they are more than just tigers, and then she will leave the rest to Tora and fly out to scout Orthanc.

(Aria has not reexamined her assumption that "a pair of tigers, much stronger than most, attacked us from the forest" is an ordinary kind of thing to happen to loggers, and shouldn't make anyone suspicious as long as she's not striking people with lightning bolts.)

She turns back into a tiger and tells Tora the slightly-new plan. And then they are going to walk towards the logging-camp, slightly around it, not trying to particularly hide; their goal here is to frighten the loggers and make them stop what they're doing.

They'll start with the humans actually cutting down trees, if they can make it that far without a war-party cutting them off. They can run faster than most humans or orcs, but she's not going to spend an extra hour running around unless the war-party looks scary enough that she doesn't want to fight them.

They'll kill any stragglers they can catch on the way, but they're moving with a purpose.