A fire crackled in the hearth, casting a warm glow on the polished wood furniture scattered about the room. There were two bookcases overflowing with books, a small writing desk stuffed with papers and journals, and a tea cart stocked with hot tea and jam tarts. At the center of the room stood a table, where a wooden game-board was laid out.
The burrow sitting-room was cozy, but large enough for two friends to sit comfortably, no matter their size. The two friends present did, in fact, differ wildly in size. One friend was seated upon two plush cushions that were stacked on his stool, so that his feet swung high over the floor as he peered over the edge of the table. The other friend was so tall he’d had to duck to enter the burrow, and had hit his head on the doorway when entering the sitting room. The sitting room had high ceilings, so he was comfortable enough once he’d sat. Even so, he rubbed his forehead and scowled at his diminutive companion.
One might wonder how two such different beings, an elf and a gnome, had become close friends. The two quarreled often enough- Fizzbuzz, the gnome, would sometimes complain that the elf had little practical knowledge, and that his head was full of ‘sophistry and nonsense.’ The elf, Delwyn, would sneer at Fizzbuzz’s lack of formal education, and often called his friend “a ‘dilettante’ at best, and a ‘putterer’ at worst.” Even so, the two regularly borrowed books from the others’ personal library, and they would argue over the books’ contents at the first opportunity.
Today there was an uncomfortable lull between their argument and supper. Delwyn had accepted a supper invitation earlier in the afternoon, and afterward the two friends had begun to discuss the dark rumors of a terror lurking at the edge of the forest kingdom. During the discussion, Delwyn had become agitated, and had fallen into a sullen silence. He was not agitated enough, however, to go home without the promised meal, so Fizzbuzz set up a game of strategy to fill the awkward silence.
After playing for a time, Delwyn suddenly said, “you will never admit it, Fizzbuzz, but you are a speciesist.”
“Delwyn! I took that piece fair and square. Don’t be a sore loser.”
“I’m not calling you a speciesist because you took my piece; I haven’t lost the game yet! No, I’m calling you a speciesist because you are narrow-minded. But then, I knew you’d never admit it.”
“Why should I admit to anything? Everyone knows I’m kind to all the creatures of the forest. Just the other day I freed a fox from a trap, and I’ve been feeding her kits while she recovers. And don’t you remember the she-bear from last spring?”
“You’re kind to animals, of course, but animals are quite similar to gnomes, or elves, in the grand scheme of things. No, you’re prejudiced against Grommash Gloomstrider.”
Fizzbuzz stared at Delwyn for a good thirty seconds without blinking, and then he began to laugh- his small voice growing shrill enough to rattle the teacups on the nearby cart. Delwyn crossed his arms and glowered at him.
“You got me, Delwyn. For a moment I thought you were serious.”
“I am serious.”
“Oh.” Fizzbuzz reached for a tart. “I see. There must be another Grommash Gloomstrider. I was thinking of Grommash Gloomstrider, the eldritch troll.”
“That’s the one.”
“I was thinking of Grommash Gloomstrider, the eldritch troll who built a palace in the swamp- a palace made entirely out of skulls.”
“It was quite the architectural feat.”
“I was thinking of Grommash Gloomstrider, the eldritch troll who build a palace in the swamp and is plotting to devour the entire forest kingdom.”
“Possibly. I wish him luck in whatever his endeavors may be, though he won’t need it,” Delwyn said, taking a jam tart for himself. “These are nice- red currant?”
“Raspberry, actually. And why, for the love of Glowbeard the Mighty, would you wish Grommash Gloomstrider luck? May I remind you that he wants to devour the forest kingdom.”
“We don’t really know what he wants, but I think there is a chance he will devour the forest kingdom, yes.”
“You and I both live in the forest kingdom.”
“I don’t expect him to devour the forest kingdom in our lifetime,” Delwyn said, wiping away crumbs. “It’s a rather large kingdom, after all, and he’s not a very large eldritch troll.”
“He’s growing powerful- more powerful by the day,” Fizzbuzz said with a shudder. “But let’s grant that you are right, and he doesn’t devour the forest kingdom in our lifetime. Surely, you don’t want him to devour your children, or your children’s children.”
“If you really think about it. Grommash is one of our children.”
“That’s it!” Fizzbuzz said. “You’ve gone mad. Grommash has devoured your brain already and…”
“No, Grommash hasn’t devoured my brain yet. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Grommash is known as the Devourer of dreams, is he not?”
“Yes! He devours the dreams of the innocent, and through the dreams he devours, he comes to know our darkest secrets.”
“Exactly. With each dream he devours, he becomes more intelligent, and more familiar with our world. In a sense, because he is made up of our dreams, we’ve had a hand in creating him. He’s our descendent.”
“You’re forgetting the part where he becomes more powerful with each dream he devours. And more ravenous. At one point, he will devour our minds, and the minds of all the creatures of the forest, and the entire forest itself…”
“You don’t know he’s becoming more ravenous. But in any case, children inherit from their parents; that is the way of things. The forest will be his by right, once he grows into his inheritance.”
“If that is so, then there’s every reason to believe he will squander his inheritance. Our forebears built this kingdom to keep the forest safe for generations to come, not for us to hand over to an eldritch terror that devours people’s dreams. What is the sense in that?”
“You’re imposing your own values on an intelligent being, which isn’t fair,” Delwin said firmly. “Just because you value happy forest dwellers with intact dreams and intact minds, doesn’t mean that’s an intrinsic good. If Grommash prefers something else, then who are we to say it isn’t better? After all, Grommash will grow to be the sum of all of our dreams, once he has devoured them all. He will be more intelligent and more powerful than all of us.”
“No, my friend.” Fizzbuzz leaned forward, his voice focusing into an intense whisper as he spoke the words that filled him with terror. “He is filled with our dreams, yes, but at his core he is something completely different. He is by nature an eldritch troll. He is something alien to us, and so he takes and twists our dreams into something quite alien, in turn.”
“And who’s to say that something alien is necessarily bad? He seems quite friendly to those who have dreamed of him, and who have met him- the skull castles notwithstanding.”
“He seems friendly, sure, but have you not heard of the mysterious deaths of some whose dreams he has devoured, or the madness suffered by others? There is a group of forest dwellers who have had their dreams devoured, and have fallen to worshiping him. They have filled the caves with arcane drawings of spirals- drawings that repeat over and over with no meaning.”
“No one knows the exact percentage of people go mad once their dreams have been devoured, but I suspect the number is quite low, and consists of those who were already going mad anyway- from exposure to swamp gas or the like. The same is true, I suspect, of those ‘mysterious deaths’ you mention.”
Fizzbuzz groaned in frustration. Of all the ways this conversation could have gone, he would not have anticipated it going this way. “The great wizard Etrix, who has studied Eldrich beings extensively, foretold that such madness would occur if Grommash was allowed to rise. He foretold that Gommash would seek to deceive the forest King when attempting to parlay, which Grommash has done. He foretold that Gommash would cast a veil of illusion over the swamps of despair, which Grommash has done. If Etrix has been right so far, then we would do well to heed Etrix’s warnings.”
“I thought you knew better than to appeal to authority in arguments,” Delwyn said, shaking his head.
“I’m not only appealing to authority; there’s a reason Etrix’s was able to predict what Delwyn would do ahead of time. It’s not Etrix we should listen to, but Etrix’s theory of the Eldrich way, that has proven to be sound so far.”
“You speak of mere confirmation bias,” Delwyn said with a shrug. “People went looking for things that would seem to confirm Etrix’s theories, and so they found them. For example, when the King went to parlay with Grommash, he deliberately set a trap to see if Grommash would get caught in a lie. The tea is growing cold, by the way.”
Fizzbuzz, grumbling, went to fetch the kettle, and returned with hot water for the teapot. “So it means nothing to you that Grommash was proven to be a liar?” he said distractedly as he poured.
“Who among us hasn’t told a lie when under pressure?” Delwyn added another scoop of fresh tea leaves to the pot, and then settled back while it steeped. “We won’t really know if Etrix’s warnings about Grommash were legitimate until we see an eldritch troll devour the forest kingdom. Anything before that is speculation.”
“But by then, it will be too late!” Fizzbuzz’s voice again rose into a screech, and Delwyn stuck his fingers in his own ears to block the sound.
“Are you quite finished?” Delwyn said, cautiously unplugging his ears. “There’s no need to be so alarmist. Have some more tea, I think it has steeped enough by now.”
“I can’t believe that my oldest friend is willing to sit back and watch the forest kingdom be devoured,” Fizzbuzz said, his eyes growing a little wet. “We know an eldritch troll is devouring dreams. We know that we cannot negotiate with the troll, because he has proven himself to be deceptive. We know that he grows more powerful with every dream he devours, and that he has shown no signs that he’s stopping. And yet, you refuse to admit he may be a danger to us all until you actually see him devour the forest kingdom.”
“Even if he does devour the forest kingdom, the forest kingdom may prove to be better use as fodder for a great and powerful intellect who seeks to know the forest through devouring it. Imagine, if you will, being a dream inside the eldritch troll. Imagine the wonders of his alien nature.”
“You’re trying to imagine nice things, Delwyn, because the alternative is too horrible to imagine.” Fizzbuzz took a deep breath, swallowed some tea, and tried to center himself. “Here’s my main problem, Delwyn, with your argument. The world outside the forest kingdom is vast and hostile to forest dwellers. Some of us have ventured a little beyond the forest borders, and survival there has proven difficult, dangerous, and frightening. Of all the things a great alien mind could be, there’s a very small chance it will be something forest dwellers will be able to survive or find comfort in. An alien mind would be a world of torment.”
“You’re imposing your values on Grommash, again. Even if Grommash’s mind contains what you label ‘torment,’ and that torment pleases Grommash, then why do you assume that your ‘torment’ is any more important than Grommash’s pleasure”
“Because Grommash doesn’t care about my torment or pleasure. He has proven this by lying and stealing dreams. Grommash has his own goals, the same as me. But when my goals conflict with the other creatures of the forest, I try to take their desires into account. I won’t steal the dreams of forest dwellers who would rather keep them, and I won’t trap them in a world of nightmares so terrible that they would prefer not existing at all. Grommash, by your own admission, may very well do that.”
“In that case, you aren’t giving Grommash’s goals the same consideration as those of the other forest creatures’.”
“That is only half-true. I would give Grommash leave to dream whatever nightmares he sees fit, if he would leave the rest of us out of them. I would not give him leave to destroy the dreams that others hold dear. If his nightmares matter, then so do the dreams of the forest dwellers, even if we are not as intelligent as he. We are all still creatures who can dream.
“He will destroy the future happiness of all, even beyond the borders of the forest Kingdom, if his villainy persists. I will treat him as any other villain, and protect the innocent.”
Delwyn took another sip of tea, seeming to mull this over. “It all seems like sentimentality to me. It doesn’t really seem objective.”
“Perhaps. I’ll give you time to think of your response. For now, it’s suppertime.”
So the two friends put their game away, and went to the kitchen, where a meal of hot spoo and fresh-baked bread and plenty of wine awaited them. They fell back into an easy camaraderie even as, one by one, the forest dwellers went to bed and began to dream.
A fire crackled in the hearth, casting a warm glow on the polished wood furniture scattered about the room. There were two bookcases overflowing with books, a small writing desk stuffed with papers and journals, and a tea cart stocked with hot tea and jam tarts. At the center of the room stood a table, where a wooden game-board was laid out.
The burrow sitting-room was cozy, but large enough for two friends to sit comfortably, no matter their size. The two friends present did, in fact, differ wildly in size. One friend was seated upon two plush cushions that were stacked on his stool, so that his feet swung high over the floor as he peered over the edge of the table. The other friend was so tall he’d had to duck to enter the burrow, and had hit his head on the doorway when entering the sitting room. The sitting room had high ceilings, so he was comfortable enough once he’d sat. Even so, he rubbed his forehead and scowled at his diminutive companion.
One might wonder how two such different beings, an elf and a gnome, had become close friends. The two quarreled often enough- Fizzbuzz, the gnome, would sometimes complain that the elf had little practical knowledge, and that his head was full of ‘sophistry and nonsense.’ The elf, Delwyn, would sneer at Fizzbuzz’s lack of formal education, and often called his friend “a ‘dilettante’ at best, and a ‘putterer’ at worst.” Even so, the two regularly borrowed books from the others’ personal library, and they would argue over the books’ contents at the first opportunity.
Today there was an uncomfortable lull between their argument and supper. Delwyn had accepted a supper invitation earlier in the afternoon, and afterward the two friends had begun to discuss the dark rumors of a terror lurking at the edge of the forest kingdom. During the discussion, Delwyn had become agitated, and had fallen into a sullen silence. He was not agitated enough, however, to go home without the promised meal, so Fizzbuzz set up a game of strategy to fill the awkward silence.
After playing for a time, Delwyn suddenly said, “you will never admit it, Fizzbuzz, but you are a speciesist.”
“Delwyn! I took that piece fair and square. Don’t be a sore loser.”
“I’m not calling you a speciesist because you took my piece; I haven’t lost the game yet! No, I’m calling you a speciesist because you are narrow-minded. But then, I knew you’d never admit it.”
“Why should I admit to anything? Everyone knows I’m kind to all the creatures of the forest. Just the other day I freed a fox from a trap, and I’ve been feeding her kits while she recovers. And don’t you remember the she-bear from last spring?”
“You’re kind to animals, of course, but animals are quite similar to gnomes, or elves, in the grand scheme of things. No, you’re prejudiced against Grommash Gloomstrider.”
Fizzbuzz stared at Delwyn for a good thirty seconds without blinking, and then he began to laugh- his small voice growing shrill enough to rattle the teacups on the nearby cart. Delwyn crossed his arms and glowered at him.
“You got me, Delwyn. For a moment I thought you were serious.”
“I am serious.”
“Oh.” Fizzbuzz reached for a tart. “I see. There must be another Grommash Gloomstrider. I was thinking of Grommash Gloomstrider, the eldritch troll.”
“That’s the one.”
“I was thinking of Grommash Gloomstrider, the eldritch troll who built a palace in the swamp- a palace made entirely out of skulls.”
“It was quite the architectural feat.”
“I was thinking of Grommash Gloomstrider, the eldritch troll who build a palace in the swamp and is plotting to devour the entire forest kingdom.”
“Possibly. I wish him luck in whatever his endeavors may be, though he won’t need it,” Delwyn said, taking a jam tart for himself. “These are nice- red currant?”
“Raspberry, actually. And why, for the love of Glowbeard the Mighty, would you wish Grommash Gloomstrider luck? May I remind you that he wants to devour the forest kingdom.”
“We don’t really know what he wants, but I think there is a chance he will devour the forest kingdom, yes.”
“You and I both live in the forest kingdom.”
“I don’t expect him to devour the forest kingdom in our lifetime,” Delwyn said, wiping away crumbs. “It’s a rather large kingdom, after all, and he’s not a very large eldritch troll.”
“He’s growing powerful- more powerful by the day,” Fizzbuzz said with a shudder. “But let’s grant that you are right, and he doesn’t devour the forest kingdom in our lifetime. Surely, you don’t want him to devour your children, or your children’s children.”
“If you really think about it. Grommash is one of our children.”
“That’s it!” Fizzbuzz said. “You’ve gone mad. Grommash has devoured your brain already and…”
“No, Grommash hasn’t devoured my brain yet. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Grommash is known as the Devourer of dreams, is he not?”
“Yes! He devours the dreams of the innocent, and through the dreams he devours, he comes to know our darkest secrets.”
“Exactly. With each dream he devours, he becomes more intelligent, and more familiar with our world. In a sense, because he is made up of our dreams, we’ve had a hand in creating him. He’s our descendent.”
“You’re forgetting the part where he becomes more powerful with each dream he devours. And more ravenous. At one point, he will devour our minds, and the minds of all the creatures of the forest, and the entire forest itself…”
“You don’t know he’s becoming more ravenous. But in any case, children inherit from their parents; that is the way of things. The forest will be his by right, once he grows into his inheritance.”
“If that is so, then there’s every reason to believe he will squander his inheritance. Our forebears built this kingdom to keep the forest safe for generations to come, not for us to hand over to an eldritch terror that devours people’s dreams. What is the sense in that?”
“You’re imposing your own values on an intelligent being, which isn’t fair,” Delwin said firmly. “Just because you value happy forest dwellers with intact dreams and intact minds, doesn’t mean that’s an intrinsic good. If Grommash prefers something else, then who are we to say it isn’t better? After all, Grommash will grow to be the sum of all of our dreams, once he has devoured them all. He will be more intelligent and more powerful than all of us.”
“No, my friend.” Fizzbuzz leaned forward, his voice focusing into an intense whisper as he spoke the words that filled him with terror. “He is filled with our dreams, yes, but at his core he is something completely different. He is by nature an eldritch troll. He is something alien to us, and so he takes and twists our dreams into something quite alien, in turn.”
“And who’s to say that something alien is necessarily bad? He seems quite friendly to those who have dreamed of him, and who have met him- the skull castles notwithstanding.”
“He seems friendly, sure, but have you not heard of the mysterious deaths of some whose dreams he has devoured, or the madness suffered by others? There is a group of forest dwellers who have had their dreams devoured, and have fallen to worshiping him. They have filled the caves with arcane drawings of spirals- drawings that repeat over and over with no meaning.”
“No one knows the exact percentage of people go mad once their dreams have been devoured, but I suspect the number is quite low, and consists of those who were already going mad anyway- from exposure to swamp gas or the like. The same is true, I suspect, of those ‘mysterious deaths’ you mention.”
Fizzbuzz groaned in frustration. Of all the ways this conversation could have gone, he would not have anticipated it going this way. “The great wizard Etrix, who has studied Eldrich beings extensively, foretold that such madness would occur if Grommash was allowed to rise. He foretold that Gommash would seek to deceive the forest King when attempting to parlay, which Grommash has done. He foretold that Gommash would cast a veil of illusion over the swamps of despair, which Grommash has done. If Etrix has been right so far, then we would do well to heed Etrix’s warnings.”
“I thought you knew better than to appeal to authority in arguments,” Delwyn said, shaking his head.
“I’m not only appealing to authority; there’s a reason Etrix’s was able to predict what Delwyn would do ahead of time. It’s not Etrix we should listen to, but Etrix’s theory of the Eldrich way, that has proven to be sound so far.”
“You speak of mere confirmation bias,” Delwyn said with a shrug. “People went looking for things that would seem to confirm Etrix’s theories, and so they found them. For example, when the King went to parlay with Grommash, he deliberately set a trap to see if Grommash would get caught in a lie. The tea is growing cold, by the way.”
Fizzbuzz, grumbling, went to fetch the kettle, and returned with hot water for the teapot. “So it means nothing to you that Grommash was proven to be a liar?” he said distractedly as he poured.
“Who among us hasn’t told a lie when under pressure?” Delwyn added another scoop of fresh tea leaves to the pot, and then settled back while it steeped. “We won’t really know if Etrix’s warnings about Grommash were legitimate until we see an eldritch troll devour the forest kingdom. Anything before that is speculation.”
“But by then, it will be too late!” Fizzbuzz’s voice again rose into a screech, and Delwyn stuck his fingers in his own ears to block the sound.
“Are you quite finished?” Delwyn said, cautiously unplugging his ears. “There’s no need to be so alarmist. Have some more tea, I think it has steeped enough by now.”
“I can’t believe that my oldest friend is willing to sit back and watch the forest kingdom be devoured,” Fizzbuzz said, his eyes growing a little wet. “We know an eldritch troll is devouring dreams. We know that we cannot negotiate with the troll, because he has proven himself to be deceptive. We know that he grows more powerful with every dream he devours, and that he has shown no signs that he’s stopping. And yet, you refuse to admit he may be a danger to us all until you actually see him devour the forest kingdom.”
“Even if he does devour the forest kingdom, the forest kingdom may prove to be better use as fodder for a great and powerful intellect who seeks to know the forest through devouring it. Imagine, if you will, being a dream inside the eldritch troll. Imagine the wonders of his alien nature.”
“You’re trying to imagine nice things, Delwyn, because the alternative is too horrible to imagine.” Fizzbuzz took a deep breath, swallowed some tea, and tried to center himself. “Here’s my main problem, Delwyn, with your argument. The world outside the forest kingdom is vast and hostile to forest dwellers. Some of us have ventured a little beyond the forest borders, and survival there has proven difficult, dangerous, and frightening. Of all the things a great alien mind could be, there’s a very small chance it will be something forest dwellers will be able to survive or find comfort in. An alien mind would be a world of torment.”
“You’re imposing your values on Grommash, again. Even if Grommash’s mind contains what you label ‘torment,’ and that torment pleases Grommash, then why do you assume that your ‘torment’ is any more important than Grommash’s pleasure”
“Because Grommash doesn’t care about my torment or pleasure. He has proven this by lying and stealing dreams. Grommash has his own goals, the same as me. But when my goals conflict with the other creatures of the forest, I try to take their desires into account. I won’t steal the dreams of forest dwellers who would rather keep them, and I won’t trap them in a world of nightmares so terrible that they would prefer not existing at all. Grommash, by your own admission, may very well do that.”
“In that case, you aren’t giving Grommash’s goals the same consideration as those of the other forest creatures’.”
“That is only half-true. I would give Grommash leave to dream whatever nightmares he sees fit, if he would leave the rest of us out of them. I would not give him leave to destroy the dreams that others hold dear. If his nightmares matter, then so do the dreams of the forest dwellers, even if we are not as intelligent as he. We are all still creatures who can dream.
“He will destroy the future happiness of all, even beyond the borders of the forest Kingdom, if his villainy persists. I will treat him as any other villain, and protect the innocent.”
Delwyn took another sip of tea, seeming to mull this over. “It all seems like sentimentality to me. It doesn’t really seem objective.”
“Perhaps. I’ll give you time to think of your response. For now, it’s suppertime.”
So the two friends put their game away, and went to the kitchen, where a meal of hot spoo and fresh-baked bread and plenty of wine awaited them. They fell back into an easy camaraderie even as, one by one, the forest dwellers went to bed and began to dream.
The End