Talking with old gods, old rocks, and old fuddy-duddy legalistic types in search of mystical mathematical treasure

May 15

8:00 AM to 2:00 PM

Zombres goes to fetch Tulpe while Gershom asks Jesus (in the form of his pop, because Gershom doesn’t think that the all powerful guy could have a kid) what would happen were we to go to one of three places. Since we were in C-town, land of the poor, and had an army of malnourished poor trying to transcribe this thing I think we have it down in text form pretty perfectly. As an aside (and I didn’t tell anyone in the DG I was doing this because they are so weird about that bean field)—while people were resting to get more spells I took a few of the poor kids and adults to the magic bean field and showed them how to make paste. They’ll at least be able to eat very nourishing food for free. I don’t care if some aristocratic nostrils are offended by the results. Most of them seemed to catch on quickly, though there was one dullard who kept dropping his beans. Anyway, it only takes 36 hours to attain full nutritional value so the next time we come back no one in the city should be hungry. That Arben and his bar will not be what revives this city!

Oh, yeah, and the text of those divinations was:

The first: Man’s inhumanity to man Is best shown in Kafiristan And who is brave enough to dredge Up memories of long-dead Gedge, Who fought and slew, and fought and died By the head-eating river side? There men showed valor in the war Against the arm of Zulfiqar, But valor all for gods of fear: Sa-rangee, Uh-ram, Kru-my, Wier, Are names of fire and names of blood, And not the proper names of God. Though once, a convert to the tribe Preached long to them. It did not jibe; And yet of all lands he traversed, To preach to both the damned and cursed, Of all the people who had heard, Alone do *they* recall a word— A word that hath been etched in stone Where one blood god doth stand alone.

The Second: There was a cup in Ctesiphon How knew they what to write thereon? ’Twas copied by some clever fellas From off a sword (like Methusaleh’s), The sword of Garib, Almahiq, Of whose great strengths the poets speak, (The poets who, in fair acrostics, Engarble wisdom of the Gnostics That here is clearly on stone graven). No site is this for any craven (Flee cravens! Double time! Quick march!) For there beneath the giant arch Is what the Mason sleuths forgot Or craven were, or else saw not, Sword of the father of Magog! Long wielded by a heathen dog— More properly, three heathen cats, One elephant. He wears four hats. But there is given, there we gave, What’s missing from, if you are brave, Lacunae you don’t know you have (?).

The Third: Pythagoras, of many tricks, In Cortone invented kicks (Too late for Milo, son-in-law, Who could not wrestles with a maw). Indeed, ’twas here discovered he The station Croton-Harmony, (Ha ha) and many secret lores He cooked up on Ionian shores. But much was lost that once was learned And many slain and many burned When firewood all around did pile on (I do not make this up) a Cylon. Beneath the wreckage, trampled, charred, Perused (by Plato), searched through hard, One diagram remains e’en now-- Perhaps one diagram’s enow. It’s easy, ’neath the ground, to lose Much more than a hypotenuse, But easy, once you’re underground, It is for lost things to be found Though guarded ’tis by monsters all So regular and rational (As are Pythagorean fashions). Indeed, but these be iron rations! It may not be a bad idea To bargain with Themistoclea Et al. What they know may be tricky But’s more than is now on the wiki.

I can’t make heads or tails out of this wiki jargon or croton-harmony, but I loved Pythagoras when I was a young one. I want to go there, and bend the will of the DG to mine. We first teleport to Bothrotum where Zombres talks to one of his rock buddies (after dropping me flat on my face oof!).

He said something like : Helenus the Trojan founded Buthrotum with the intent of designing it to match Troy in design. Aeneas visited it. The shrine to Asclepius became a tourist attraction. A copper snake on a pole was a local Asclepian relic. Lots of history happened. All of this I saw.

Many years later, Jews arrived, a whole tribe. Buthrotum, due to financial shenanigans in the Roman Empire, was understaffed, and if no one was ecstatic that the Jews were there, at least they were not able to kick them out. (I am uncertain of dates.) In time the temple of Asclepius was abandoned, and the Jews moved right in. They found the copper snake, and misinterpreted it as Moses’ Nehushtan (sorry, Ezekiah! they cried, again and again, for Ez. (they said) had destroyed the real Nehushtan to avoid idolatry). They gradually began to slide away from their ancient practices, as the secrets of Asclepius’ snake temple seemed more and more beguiling. Lazy and complacent, some might have called them at the point. At least we have no intention of worshipping a golden calf, they said to each other, in self-congratulation.

Then Alexander of Abonoteichus, the long-undead lich of the notorious false snake-prophet, showed up. He was eager to set up shop among the great snakes of Asclepius, and the Jews had the devil of a time driving him off. His god was not even kosher! Snakes are gross, when you think about it! The Jews felt lucky to have driven him off, since they had no particular fighting prowess; some said they only managed because the demon Semuanya had cursed Alexander (for reptile fraud).

This adventure made the Jews simultaneously nervous about false prophets and nervous about staying where they were (liches tend to crop up again and again). So it was that they were of two minds when an Arab showed up. He had a reputation as being a follower of the false prophet Muselma, the false prophet who fought Mohammed and was slain by Waxa (apparently the same guy who had slain Hamza with a two-headed spear before converting). This made Muselma a double false prophet, a splitter from a splitter, and both of them a type of the perfidious Arab. This Arab persuaded them, though, that not only was he not a follower of either false prophet, but he had with him a whole passel of Jews, who had great wisdom of their own, and skill in building. After much debate, they all joined forces, and Arap soon showed up, in his own inimitable way, and contracted them to build the palace of the Earthly Beauty. So departed the Jews of Buthrotum. What wonders of stone must they have made since then! And I never saw them again. You wanted the tale of the Jews of Buthrotum? Your wish is granite!

Afterward we take a boat, rest ,and take a boat to croton, arriving mid-afternoon on the 16th. Zombres is feeling super anti-social so Gershom finds a path to the underground dungeon. We’re about to go into it when Evelake shows up. Arben was, of course, thrilled. Evelake ‘wants help with a riddle’—and shows us some weird letter from some strange guy that I’ve never heard of. It talks about Eorl and a roc shell, and how Zombres’ oil of timelessness was swiped to preserve some roc shells. He is satisfied that the letter is non-sense (at least to us) and leaves on his less than merry way with a parting offer to exchange some sword for a roc egg.

Anyway, after some digging Arben flies into a cave and gets fired at by a law abiding tentacle circle. I dove in after, and the rest of these dopes realized it was a smart thing to do so they followed. After a bit of fighting there was a fumbling and then some dickering. I tell you truly dickering with a fumbled tongued party is difficult. This fellow has been subcontracted by the Pythagoreans to a) guard the room and b) ensure that no one uses the doors. He agrees to not harm us (and even to keep us from harm) while we are in the room (or upon our return to the room for a time of up to 1 year) if we agree to not use doors—specifically any of the 10 doors that surround us.

As this dickering was going on a huge squid showed up in my head to scream it’s a trap, but I never trust a sea bug. It turns out I shouldn’t be so judgmental, he was right truthful with me, as the doors house portals. We create all kinds of tunnels through stone only to find more stone. (The room was beginning to get crowded with rocks). Some dickering and some napping later we find a way to satisfy the letter of the law to all parties acceptance. We stone shape the doorway just large enough to remove the door, flip it around, and enter the portal on the other side without using the door only to find ourselves in a room with 9 doors and as many tentacles.