Through blindness Diogenes sees the light of truth

Mid-morning of the 20th

So Zombres found a very unique solution to the problem of trust. If there is someone that you have reason not to trust—you can render them trustworthy by preventing their malicious activities (or, you know, their most malicious activities). Specifically, we de-poisoned the red widow. After that it was time to leave this whole horrible mess behind us. All that we got was a clue—Heleoglobus and Dahoodorus are behind this, and they did some stuff in Baha Rain—so we decide to go over there.

We show up, undisguised, on the outskirts of town and follow the tracks of assmen into town. We get the lowdown from a local rat that some strong people have been in town, and Karl decides to disguise himself as a woman by braiding his beard.

Shortly after talking to this rat a barber tells us that for some dollars he’ll point us out to a place with treasure. It’s a verdant hill where a naked invisible man sits in meditation. I say hello and he doesn’t move. Karl throws a rock at him and he screams, at which point I only remember being woken up. He’s tied up with some strong rope or something, and just as I’m collecting my bearings he screams again and I pass out.

Everyone waits around for a little while and we decend this hole in the hill, being careful not to harm any of the plants on the way down. Exploring for a little while, we find a room with a dragon corpse and a snake. I look at it and go blind.

So what can I learn from all of this? Here’s what. I went to bed so angry at everyone involved in this ill fated mission to accidentally on purpose murder the death speaking goat headed spider that I was unable to sleep well. If you look over my notes for the past little while it’s just anger anger anger. This is not like me. Sure—if you oppress the poor and corrupt the Christian faith I will get a little mad at you, but no one involved did that. I was just lied to a few times. But, for all I know everyone is always lying to me. Why should I care if anyone is telling the truth? I’m just going to go on doing the good work I learned to do sitting in that tree by myself. I learned a lot just looking at animals, and talking to myself, and then talking to Jesus when he started showing up. I know he didn’t lie to me because I put my hands in some dirt and it corroborated his story. So here’s where I stand on the question of trust. Don’t trust anyone. Why would you need to? Once you trust them, you’ve already let them get in a position where you can be mad at them if they happen to be lying to you. Always assume that everyone is just speaking nonsense that doesn’t have any bearing on reality and then you will be able to sleep well at night and not go blind when you look at snakes.

So—while I may have lost consciousness and sight, I have gained the true insight on the question of trust I’ve been looking for the past while. All in all, I think I come out ahead on this one. I’m just sorry that a powerful guardian who is protecting the planet form some nefarious dude’s plan had to get murdered for me to learn this lesson. But, I’m glad that snake who is indifferent to the future existence of the planet got his golden tale. I should have asked him to feed the poor in exchange for its return—but I was just so preoccupied. Another failing on my part. Oh well, I’ll do better next time.