The People of the Tree

Somewhere there are people, humanoids, who live inside a giant tree. In the center of the tree there is a chamber. Here the people leave their waste and corpses with religious determination. The tree uses this as a food source. In turn the people of this tree are provided with sap and fruit. They have been living in this tree for millennia. It is nearly impossible to convince one of these people to leave their home. If you attempt to harm the tree, they will surely kill you and drop your body into the bowels of their living city.

Necromancer King

There was once a very powerful necromancer, by the name Kevin. Kevin kept to himself mostly. One day, the local townspeople tried to kill him because he was different. They accidentally killed his best friend Samantha instead. Kevin was never the same after this. He stopped brushing his teeth. He stopped bathing. He grew a mad long beard in which swallows nested.

Over the next two years, Kevin amassed the largest army of zombies the world had ever known. He overthrew the entire kingdom and killed everyone who looked at him funny. The reign of King Kevin was a bloody rain indeed. The only thing he enjoyed in life was Cinnamon in his coffee.

In the year 1327, a strange woman busted into King Kevin’s court. She had beady eyes and pointy teeth. She told the King that she came with the gift of knowledge. She told him of a tree of true necromancy, a tree that could bring back a soul as well as a body. resurrection

King Kevin rallied his forces and set forth on the path that the strange woman had laid before him. After 13 years of searching, King Kevin and his army finally discovered the tree of true necromancy. When Kevin finished the ceremony to bring back Samantha, the tree asked for the soul of the sorcerer in exchange for the soul of the deceased.

Now at this point in the tale two accounts are given. In one version of the story, Kevin revives Samantha in exchange for his own life. In the other, Kevin returns to his Kingdom even more derranged and agitated than he was before. I happen to know that neither of these accounts are true.

King Kevin carved an ancient spell into the bark of the tree then split the tree in half. The soul of the old tree lived in the sap. King Kevin collected the sap and used it to finish his necromantic incantations.

He and Samantha are happily alive to this very day. They survive on a healthy diet of magical tree sap. The pencils on their desks are hundreds of years old. Their house in Finland does not have a marked address, but it does have a zombie butler.

The Brain Tree

On a planet far far away, the sunlight and seasons are so constant the vegetation thrives. In isolated areas, some plants completely dominate the landscape. In the jungles, plants are constantly struggling for superiority.

I would like to take you to a small patch of forest in the mountains. Here a single type of tree dominates. This is the brain tree.

These trees have been dominant in this part of the world for millions of years. Much like the birds of paradise in the Amazon rain forests of Earth, these trees without the pressures of other organisms progressing their natural selection have developed peculiar reproduction practices.

However, unlike the birds of paradise whose males sport fancy colors and odd shapes, the brain trees which propagate most effectively are those with the largest brains. Presumably, the purpose of the brain trees’ brains was to calculate what conditions would allow a given tree to spread the most seeds. Now, this is a completely subconscious function of the trees.

Now, the trees simply run nonsensical calculations with their brains. They are one of the only intelligences yet discovered to experience a completely internal world. For all we know, these trees may use their nonsensical calculations to imagine worlds. For all we know these worlds may actually come into being in some dimension of space time.

I wonder what a world created by a creature with no sensory receptors is like. I wonder if they might incidentally imagine something that I could sense. I wonder

Fount of Youth

Dr. Tresper is four hundred years old.

Most people are afraid of him. Others wish to steal his secret. I and I alone know where to find it.

This much, however, I am willing to tell:

There are many long lived creatures in this world. Certain tortoises and trees. The tricks for cheating death vary, but they have some  things in common. In order to live for a very long time, an organism must be good at one of these things: keeping bad things out, replacing damaged parts of itself, or doing without damaged portions of itself.

Dr. Tresper has tried all three. The mode that he prefers is replication of damaged issues. Keeping bad things out is far harder for a human than it is for a tree, and there simply is not enough body for humans to go without any portion of it that gets damaged.

The secret is hidden in the drought that Dr. Tresper always keeps close at hand. He has created a symbiotic relationship with another organism. The organism was extracted from one of the many creatures that rely on benevolent microbes for long term survival. It really is remarkable how much energy a small colony of bacteria, for example, can produce for a larger organism to use. Entire ecosystems are built on micro-organisms. The ones that live inside Dr. Tresper are, of course, very much altered from their original state. Normally the single celled organisms would go to war with the unfamiliar cells of Dr. Tresper. Nothing a little mutation doesn’t fix, though.

These creatures help Dr. Tresper to combat foreign bodies. They also provide the desperately needed service of rejuvenating genetic decay and the other handful of problems that cause human aging and eventual death.

Nobody knows exactly how long Dr. Tresper should expect to live. I would venture that he has not even as yet reached midlife. Dr. Tresper will live for a very long time indeed.

I have shared with you all that I will. May you live a long and prosperous life. Ha ha ha.