Grayport 3 was destroyed, completely wiped out by the attack of a Violet Dungeon Core created by The Apocalypse. All of its defenders, every living creature, dead and absorbed by the roaming dungeon. It wasn’t however, just the defenders who had been killed, but the attackers as well. Gremlins, a whole army of them, had been called and given power by the destruction of the Town Crystal. Most of the Old Tribe’s army to be exact.

Now, the thing to understand about Gremlins was that they could and did, in theory, work with one another. They were perfectly capable of forming tribes and alliances between tribes, but such allies were more in the vein of ‘Keep your enemies closer’ than ‘kyum-by-ya’. The Old Tribe was led by the Eldest Gremlin, so named because he was the oldest gremlin in the Overcavern Forest by far. Gremlins were blessed with the very common gift of [Immortality], which was a cheap commodity in The World. Not that it did them, or anyone else much good, but there you go.

So it was that the Eldest Gremlin remembered the last time humans had been in The World, because he’d been there, he’d seen it all already. The vast oceans of time meant nothing to him, his mind was that of a very powerful, very incomprehensible being from The Beyond, from one of the bad parts. He remembered what humans were like, and more importantly, he remembered the sorts of strange and wonderful things humans brought with them.

The animals. The plants. The Fungi.

The Eldest Gremlin took a deep breath in through his nose and exhaled it with a shudder of excitement. He snapped his fingers and several of his useless, ignorant, evil children rushed to do his bidding. They would gleefully die for his amusement, and sometimes he busied himself with the admittedly enjoyable act of reproduction just to make them-

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That wasn’t important right now. The Eldest Gremlin, without speaking, had his easily produced and highly replaceable children gather him some paper and writing utensils. He spent ten very fast minutes producing drawings of several kinds of mushrooms and plants, along with notes on each of them to aid in identification, as well as the environments the human plants liked to grow in. He sent them out, completely confident they would find what he asked them to. If they didn’t then he would dispose of them and send another batch out to complete the task.

He gathered several of his more useful children and sent them to fetch the other Elder Gremlins of the Overcavern Forest. They ran as fast as they could towards their goal, and the Eldest Gremlin shook his head. He had gremlins build him a great fire, and placed a black cauldron over it.

Then, without ceremony, remorse, or hesitation, he set up a quick and dirty altar for a soul gem extraction ritual and began sacrificing his children. They were restrained by their brothers and sisters, screaming as they died, and their bodies transformed into small blue rocks with the consistency and appearance of a bar of soap.

Useless. Dim souls, but they would have to do. He gathered up a bag of lives, of souls of his dead offspring, and tossed it into the cauldron, watching carefully as the gems melted into a goo that refused to boil. The Eldest Gremlin looked at the pitiful amount of liquid, then at the enormous size of the cauldron and sighed. The Summoners Brew, which only he knew the secret of making, required so many souls to make properly. At least, souls of the quality he had access to. A few Radiant souls. . . now that would be interesting. A Quasar? Please, where would he get one of those?

He sent off a second set of messengers, who carried a new message.

‘Bring Sacrifices. As many as you can.’