In which Diogenes stares in the mirror, recoils at what he sees, and them promptly forgets the lesson he learned

About Noon on the 19th

Okay diary, I have a question. I know that you won’t answer it, but now that i’m just burying these notes in the dirt again maybe someone will find this later on and answer it.

So, before I thought that every god was jesus, and the devil was just the pettiness in each of us. I flirted with the idea that evil was just the non-existence mixed within each of us after I read Plotinus, but I decided that that was dumb.

I have since decided that that cannot possibly be the case. Why? Well, a few reasons. First, we killed Orcus. He seemed actually evil—I mean he tried to ruin math, and without math you can’t count the number of beans you need to grow to feed the poor (without growing so many that the bean plants decide to exact their revenge against us, I still need to figure that one out). Second, because Shang-ti was talking to us about chess games inside of chess games. I used to try to play Go and Pente against myself, and I realized that was just as dumb as what Plotinus had said. Jesus doesn’t do dumb things. So, Jesus must be playing chess against some other people. Finally, Primus, Shang-ti, and Chung Quel are all pretty solid dudes, but they are not very much like Jesus. I had a whole theory for how Jesus was different in different situations, but I’ve given it up. If it were true, and then there were two groups of people that worshiped two different manifestations of Jesus, they might start fighting and killing one another over which one was better. If that’s the case, Jesus might as well be two different people.

So where does that leave me? I know the actual Jesus wants me to be with the Danger Gang, but I’m not sure why. I have noticed this, though. These guys are not very kind people. Well, let me explain what just happened, and then I’ll get to this question.

So, after the megagryphonses flew off Gwyn saw some tall scaly dude on a mountain far away. We teleported over there, and he started talking in a language no one understood until I cast tounges. Then I started talking to this guy (huge, covered in runes, standing in a charcoal circle, naked, and holding a giant spear). I greet him by telling him how highly I think of people who choose to shun the frippery of cosmopolitan living and embrace the buck—and he summons a huge hose skull to fall on Kolya and emit half a dozen angry lunatics.

He has this two-layer magic set up, but Zombres and I tag team it. He blows the charcoal away and I erase his runes. This makes the guy act really tough, he started screaming things I daren’t repeat here and did not share with the danger gang. But I could see that the toughness was just fear and pride. I understand this man’s soul and don’t want to harm him. I feel compassion for him. So, I start whaling on these weird horse skull spawn while my friends bunch that guy until he feels comfortable talking to us, which happens in due corse.

So, we get to talking at that point. First he tells us about sosrampa, these vampires that are powerful enough to take on this guy even with his skin-runes but which are so terrified of geometrically shaped charcoal that he’s safe inside a circle. Zombres and he argue about who makes better magic circles for a while, and eventually Zombres shrinks him so that he can fit into Zombres’ circle—understanding that bitter arguments over prideful things like circle drawing ability are a waste of time. So, this guy displays trust and humility.

We introduce ourselves (in this really mistrustful cagey way that we always do) and he tells us that he is a giant, there are others like him, and he learned how to write all over his skin from a white snake who himself learned from Magall, a nart mage. His name is Archon Archage (sounds greek to me), he’s about 40 years old. We tell Archon that we’re looking for Totaresh, then Zombres talks knowingly and half condescendingly Archon about how there’s one Nart left, there’s no more Chinta, etc. until he tells us something we don’t already know — that the Chinta homeland is north of the Caspian, that the white snake was friends with Maga Erda—magal, and that he worships the sun and the moon and the king of all giants. After this pretty rude conversation, he agrees to take us into the home of his teacher. which we do.

Archon tells us that it’s customary to give the white snake a gift of something to eat. Marcella objects to murdering innocent mice, and a small white snake with a silver tail pops out to say “it is not murder, it is the circle of life.” To ease any potential conflict Marcelle then cuts off a piece of her thigh and give sit to the sank.

He then tells us about how Totaresh led a raids once to beard the (tiger/lion[chinta]) in his lair. He massacred a bunch of cinta warriors, including their leader “Chaldoxton.” Warzumeg, one of the great Nart heroes was a chinta who fought for the marts. Totarech eventually went to the Nart side.

He then tells us that he’ll inform us of where we want to go, and how to get there (assuming he’s right) so long as we promise to give him this gold tail that his best friend made him. This is an innocent enough request. We ask him a couple of lawyerly questions, rude questions that make me uncomfortable, and we should agree at this point.

Okay, so this is where I get back to what I was talking about in the beginning. We scare this guy who is minding his own business half to death. We then beat him up. He agrees to get small, share information with us, take us to his teacher’s house, and then his teacher offers to tell us what we need to know. Seems very much like we should agree to do this if we’re halfway decent people, but we ask a few probing questions just to make sure. But then, my traveling companions, just bicker about the conditions of this agreement for ages. “If we find this thing, do we have to come back right away?” “What if we meet someone else you sent looking for it, do we have to beat them up and bring it to you, or can we let them bring it to you?” “Are you going to turn into the midgar serpent and devour the entire planet if you wear this tail?” It is extremely rude. It is not kind—this is a gift from the guys best friend who died.

Now, obviously Marcella is an upstanding person. She cut of her own flesh to spare the life of a mouse. Goober is a good dude, if totally misguided. I’m a personal friend of Jesus. But, the rest of this lot? I know that some of them worship Jesus the Father, but they act like jerks. Hey, my dad is a jerk and all the people who like him act like jerks, too. I’m more like Jesus than I thought. So maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m supposed to convert THESE GUYS. They’re trying to save the world, but what kind of a world would it be if you couldn’t just be kind to your neighbor, but had to beat them up and then dicker about golden tails (oh, by the way, if we make reasonable effort to get the tail to him within a few days of finding it, we’re fine. This was the agreement)? I mean, I can’t think of a better reason for me to be traveling with these cantankerous guys. They need to learn kindness and humility. Jesus used to teach these by example and by parable, so that’s what I’m going to do. I am going to just be extremely kind to everyone we meet.

Maybe I just miss Arben.

Anyway—the white snake graciously tells us everything we want to know after this big lawer-con. He tells us that we seek a place 375 Miles form here. This is where the Chinta were killed by Totaresh, and he set up his tent there as a celebratory in your face. This is directly above the cave of mikanana The cave of mikanana has no entrance, unless … there is a nearby town called cub. In that town there is a high priest possessing the star of the winds. A gem of such beauty of purity that it cannot touch the ground or bad things will happen. We can use the star of the winds to open up an entrance to the cave of mikanana by bringing it into proximity. However, we probably wish to jigger things so that the hole is small and doesn’t stay open for long. We don’t want things to come out of that cave.

The high priest will have an iron chest within which the star of winds sits. If we don’t wrangle it, it will escape. Cover it mostly in iron or lead with only a small are projected at the cave, only a small thing will open up.

This is used to sacrifice children and the slender. Well, that complicates my plan. Do I have to be kind to those who sacrifice children? I guess if a samaritan can help a Jew on the side of the road, then I can be friendly to a child murderer. Anyway…

This is the only dungeon to hack that is under there. The temple will be the only stone building in the town of kub. The people are mostly nomads that come in and out. The iron chest will be under a white hair.

He then asks us not to kill too many townsfolk while you’re there. I mean—there is no reason to ask that of us. These townspeople don’t worship him. He just can tell that we’re awful jerks based on how we treated him and Archon. I am so ashamed to be a part of some group that someone needs to actually say that too—please don’t murder people for no reason. Ugh, I feel so gross!

Okay, Okay, so anyway, inside the cave is Ho-rah. She’s been trapped there longer than I have. She has two serpents rather than the lower half of her body. She is mother of scythians, after seducing Heracles. If you go in the cave there are many dangers—the goat headed spider is the worst among them. His words are venom. The Caszars learned the language of death from that guy. His poison is so bad that even things giving immunity only give bonuses.

There is a secret door under his web, she lives under there.

Do I have to be nice to those guys too? Man, I think I learned a lot about how hard it must have been to be Jesus just now. He was really nice to everyone even if he was surrounded by jerks. What a guy!

Okay, thanks Diary. I feel better now.