Duped again, this time by some super dupers!

Mid-afternoon June 19th May 19th Mid-afternoon

Funny thing with all that trust talk. I met someone, and I didn’t like the way her nose was shaped, it reminded me too much of a boat I got sea sick on once, so I didn’t trust her. Maybe with trust you should ‘go with your gut.’ But, then you have to make sure your gut is working well, by having a good diet, otherwise it won’t be trustworthy. Maybe that is why my bean ministry is so important. By teaching people to eat right, I am teaching them whom to trust. Okay, I definitely need to give goober a magic bean each day and see if he learns to trust Jesus.

Okay, so now that that is solved, let me collect myself. This whole expedition was one horrible scam where we trusted the wrong people over and over and over and over and over again. Long story short—I use magic to keep the death speaking spider from speaking death and we beat him up and then I kill him. I nearly kill myself in the process. Kolya, boy oh boy that guy is strong to use Shaur. After feeling like this, I’m never going to kiss my biceps again. That guy is a lunar tick.

We find some junk around there:

• a vial with a dove label on that’s red, necromantic, and will force a corpse back to live if you force it down that corpses throat.

• There is a magic bolt of cloth, Bzedubuh’s bridge, that will bridge a chasm, but only at night.

• A cup of alteration called Nartmongae. It can only be drank from by the pure of heart and the brave. If you do drink from it you’re given like a double prayer boon, but don’t drink too much. These conditions are interesting. My heart is pure, but I’m confused and never know what is going on. I also act bravely, like using Shaur, but that seems to be because i’m confused and never know what is going on. I might have hesitated using Shaur if I knew what the heck I was doing. Someone just said “go big” and I was like, sure of course I’ll go big. So, let’s say someone is too dumb to have ever known to be scared. How can you tell if that person is brave. It’s like some strange counterfactual. Would this person act bravely? Or does bravery require one to have acted bravely in the past? I mean, I guess I know what Aristotle would say about this—but that guy’s conception of divinity is totally wacko. Why would he have any better idea what Bravery is than I do? OH WAIT! This cup is a good test. You can find out if you’re brave by drinking from it. If you get a double prayer then you are, and if you don’t then you’re not. That’s probably the whole purpose of the cup. Brave people don’t need boons, they have strong character.

Anyway, there is no secret room in the bottom with some hidden she-magician guarding Solomon’s secrets. This spider was probably the one doing that, and it couldn’t tell us because I made it impossible for it to speak. We came charging in and murdered it while it couldn’t even plea for help. Who is the real monster here? Spider guy had a nice symbiotic thing going on with this town, where they fed it, and it disposed of those people that they arbitrarily found guilty based on whether the accused was recognizable or not. I guess everyone is the real monster here. If I didn’t know any better I’d think those octopus guys had the right idea. Happily I do.

So, we’re on our way out of this then, when we see that red headed murderer (abby) just on the outside of the hole we came in on. She’s called the red widow, and she’s a were-spider. We keep her there, and let ourselves up, by making an ice dome to seal us all in. Then Zombres hypnotizes this boat-sail-nosed-faced woman. She explains that she seduced chilibuk and put some eggs inside of him. Then the guy she murdered, she just didn’t like his name so she killed him (by biting his neck) and then wrote some joke on his corpse. She’s been trying to get into this place to free her god, the for all wee know innocent dude we just murdered. After a lot of quibbling about whether it is okay to murder a murderer

We decide to wrap her in adamantium and give her over to the justice of the locals. This seems insane to me. Didn’t we just see how arbitrary their justice is? Are we not just ridding our hands of the choice? Well, I guess the worst that could happen is that they decide to throw her in there, she finds out that her god is dead, and goes into some sort of mentally-broken rage and protects the place, though not half as well as the other guy did.

After we give the murderer to eldichuck and chilibuk, tell them the story, and have the story confirmed by the spider corpses falling from chilibuks body when we cure his disease they decide to tell us about the Star of the Wind. It’s an ancient item. Many years ago this dungeon was used as a prison for many things (the goddess of the winds at one point). Later a man whose name starts with a ‘w’, Wazermus or something.

Spider woman begs for her life and we take her into our custody. At least we’re not cowards, though we’re no closer to knowing how to be just. We travel back to the white snake, because we’re honest. He is extremely delighted with his friend’s wrought golden tail, but I will hate him forever for betraying us after I trusted him and gave him a bean. He gives us more dirt, and we give him his golden tail. The protections are there so that ‘this ground cannot be moved or whatever. Pekway was put there by Wazermus, and there is some ancient prophecy about some area of earth that is vulnerable to some kind of bad magic. All of these 9 fancy places guarded by 9 creatures, all of whom seem reasonable though they are considered evil, are there to protect this magically vulernable bit of earth.

Abby the red widow was visited in England that told her how to find her spider god. These same guys told the snake where his tail is. We’ve been duped by someone trying very hard to remove the protections from these places—and we even knew what we were doing! Okay—next time, let’s go to a place where the guardian doesn’t fight with it’s speaking capabilities.

[I also have a list of items at the end of my notes with no explanation. Maybe we got these, maybe they are where we’re going next? Who know!]

• the sword of pezugash, which can be used once a day to part water

• Ma-he, the sword of death. keep your eyes open for it, when it hits you, you save v. death

• hajitsas which, when put on your elbows knees and heels, permit you to hit a million times

• sword of lamina. dancing short sword.