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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Meloch the Pygmy" data-source="post: 1146582" data-attributes="member: 14538">Lies My Monkey Told MeWell, "lies" may be too strong.  But for someone who apparently lives in fear of being first in a long chain of Shasts, my familiar certainly hasn't hesitated to portray his human companions in an unflattering light.  (The fear is perfectly ridiculous, by the way.  Goats are for riding and for eating.  Monkeys are to teach one godlike patience and self-control).For one petty example: as we approached the fight with Aeduana, Shast claims that "all the humans utterly failed to notice the suddenly darkening skies."  Speaking only for myself, I certainly noticed that the skies were growing dark, and was no happier about being rained on than Shast.  What equally escaped my notice AND the monkey's was the fact that the clouds were rather heavier and came on slightly faster than normal -- the subtle signs of druid interference.  But storms do come on fast and hard in Britannia.  The point is, we're not idiots.  We were walking outside; of course we noticed that it was going to rain.Shast is normally a perceptive little beast.  (For example, I agreed with his observation that Marcus would be well suited for a role as chief ape).  Yet Shast quite misperceived my and Wena's motives for trying to liberate the Staff from Marcus' tent -- and our reasons were actually quite important.  It wasn't that "going to the Governor would take far too much time."  I've been known to leap without looking, but no one ever accused Wena of recklessness or over-haste.  It was that we didn't trust Romans to know what to do with the Staff.You see, the Romans have a distaste for magic that runs beyond normal fear.  Personally, I think it's a pathological response to anything they can't control.  It's why Cornelia has kept her skills so secret, and why even I can only hint at the fact that I practice sorcery.  When Romans don't understand something, when they can't build a road over it or write a law for it, their impulse is to trample it to bits.  Romans also have this distressing tendency toward mass punishment, toward lumping the innocent in with the guilty.  So everything of Druid origin is evil and must be destroyed.  Marcus is the perfect example -- a man so full of what he's been told in books that he can't see what's perfectly obvious before his face.  The very idea that we should destroy the Staff!  I mean, Mona was no joke, but it was clear that we should be seeking advice on how to safely lift the curse, and that we should at the least have the Staff around to keep our options open.  And yet Metellus seemed to be leaning toward Marcus's "solution," and there was no guarantee that the centurion wouldn't also be able to sway Cimbrus.  We were lucky, in the end, that we found out that breaking the Staff would level Londinium; otherwise, if the only consequence of destroying it would be to leave us under Aeduana's curse, I think the Romans would have snapped it in half and left us to rot our roofs, doorways, and meals forever.  Imperial road cleaners indeed!  Wena and I simply could not allow that possibility -- and it was a very real possibility, especially without Heilyn there.After Wena failed to convince Metellus of the obvious need to take the Staff to Mona, we had no other choice but to take matters out of the Romans' hands.  So we came up with our plan.  After I grabbed the staff, I was going to hand it off to Wena, who would make for Heilyn -- we knew we needed his expertise on this matter.  We hoped the rest of the party would assume Wena had run for Mona, and head to the shores of Gwynedd, where Wena and Heilyn could eventually rejoin us.  It wasn't a bad plan -- certainly the best we could come up with in a tight spot.  And I must say that if I hadn't been unlucky ten ways from the Calends, I would have been through that roof with only a few cuts to show for it.  But unfortunately, I was all but hacked in half, and thrown back once again on those quick wits for which we pygmies are known -- even among Romans.  I would note that in the hopes of deterring the immediate destruction of the Staff, I babbled that the evil Druid spirit that possessed me had told me to steal the Staff and break it.  Can't say that my credibility was terribly high at that point, but I like to think it gave Metellus further pause.This brings us to the next misunderstanding by the monkey: my relationship with Heilyn.  Far from being displeased when he rejoined the party after our fight with Aeduana, I was delighted -- he's a sarcastic fellow and can be a bit of a prig, but he knows what he's talking about, and he thought Marcus' "break the Staff" plan was every bit as idiotic as I did.  I started having second thoughts about the man when he blackmailed the entire party into joining his mad little quest to Rome (and wait until Shast gets around to relating how that turned out).  There are things you get away with doing to your traveling companions, and certain things that are beyond the pale.  The blackmail was sort of on the line of acceptability.  Particularly since it didn't really stick to me, and I hadn't seen Rome in a few years anyway.But in Duonon, Heilyn crossed the line.  He tried to curse Llyr!  I mean, curse him!  Not just harsh language, but making his vitals dry up, his sword hand wither, the whole routine.  He was so upset by our violation of his hospitality code that he ignored what I think is a far more basic rule: Don't Curse Your Friends.  Especially when they're doing the right thing.  I'm just glad the curse didn't stick.Let me back up.  When I went out there to the Druid grove and accidentally killed that poor boy, I had one thing on my mind: We need to shut down this Druid business before the Romans find out about it.  Because once it comes out, the most likely outcome is crucifixions galore.  You think the local Governor has time to distinguish between sweet elderly Chief and his malevolent Dagda-happy brother?  I can't say I even trusted Marcus and Metellus to be careful in separating the innocent and the guilty -- Marcus had that kill-em-all gleam in his eye.  It seemed fairly clear that the chief's brother Divico was Druid and anti-Roman to his guts; I figured that if we knocked out the boys and killed Divico, the outbreak of Druidism could be contained without any Roman involvement.  Wena and even Llyr had some sympathy with this goal, and I like to think the experience opened Llyr's eyes to some of the shortcomings of his precious pax Romana.So when we jumped Divico, Llyr really was trying to capture him, but I was trying to kill him.  Unfortunately, when I'm trying to kill someone... you know how it goes.  Heilyn showed up just as Llyr knocked Divico out.  Now, I understand that he'd had a trying day, and had just got Divico to accept the laws of hospitality, and wasn't too happy with us then turning the tables on the treacherous rat.  But that's no excuse for losing his temper and trying to curse a companion!  Heilyn's such a... Celt!Well, as I said earlier, nothing gets under my skin more than someone too earnest to see their own foolishness.  So Heilyn and I had our little feud on the road to Massilia, as I tried to needle him into apologizing to Llyr.  Course, I knew the man was so convinced he was right that he would never apologize.  That was half the fun.  Until he tried to curse me, too.  Of course, it just rolled off me; but I must admit it had me angry for a moment, too, and I spat a blowpipe dart into him as he walked away.  Would have served him right to fall hopelessly in lust with Wena, or his horse, for a few hours.  But he didn't.  And he didn't notice the dart either, which I suppose is just as well.  We made our peace a few weeks later, after events that gave him a bit of perspective.  But that's another story, which I'm sure the monkey will get to eventually.  If I don't find the slanderous little beast and roast it on a spit first.</blockquote>

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