Tin ran and skipped, despite his wobbly stride, all the way to Macedonia, while Nindy, Jojo, O-kakashi, and Keiler celebrated their victory. They cheered, they applauded, they re-lived every moment of their triumph, each describing their heroic exploits (okay, so they embellished) in detail to the thunderous applause of the others. Keiler was even moved to verse. However, their exultation at getting away from Germania with Cornellia's chainsaw was soon overshadowed by one terrible fact. Jot hadn't told them where in Hellas he was going to be.

"But ... she'll be right behind us! What will we do?" Nindy asked, once she realized this fact. She didn't seem to be speaking to anyone in particular.

"Do you know where in Hellas the Wizard lives, Tin?" O-kakashi asked.

"No. I'm only a statue, you know. I don't meet a lot of people. Besides, I'm from Rhodes. We're kind of isolated on our island."

"Then how will we ever find him in time?" Nindy asked.

"It's impossible," Keiler moaned. He was obviously back to his usual, cheerful self.

"No," Tin replied, slapping him on the back. Keiler flew nearly forty feet thru the air before Tin caught him in one hand and put him gently back on the ground, where he wandered around in dizzy circles. "Sorry, Keiler," Tin murmured. "It'll be difficult, but not impossible. We'll just have to go see the Oracle of Delphi. I'm sure the Pythia there can tell us something."

As everyone knows ... or everyone in Hellas, anyway ... the Pythia was the priestess of Apollo. The temple at Delphi had been built around a sacred spring that was considered the ομφαλός (omphalos) or "navel" of the world. People came from all over Greece to ask the Pythia questions. She, in turn, did a bit of navel gazing and came up with answers for them. Cryptic answers, generally, that could be interpreted almost anyway you wanted ... which was a nice way of saying she tended to ramble a bit. Some said the prophecies came from the vapors she inhaled in her secret chamber. It was debated for years what those "vapors" were, but most people lost interest after Rome declared them illegal.

"So, this woman sits around in a little room breathing illicit vapors and has visions?" O-kakashi asked.

"That's not exactly how I would have put it," Tin replied, "but, basically, yes."

"I could use some of those vapors right about now, myself," Jojo sighed.

After resting a bit and munching on a few olives, a gyro sandwich, and some baklava, the group made its way to Mount Parnassus. They waited in line for most of a decade before finally arriving at the temple entrance, where they were required to show the attendants that they did, indeed, have a gift for the Oracle. A long scroll of instructions was shoved into O-kakashi's hand and they were ushered into the presence of the Pythia.

She was a small red-haired woman. And despite the fact she seemed to be in her early thirties, she had deep laugh lines around her eyes and mouth. They found her sitting on a three legged stool, with a bowl of olives in her lap. She was trying to pick them up with a pair of chopsticks the last supplicant (a woman from Thailand) had given her as an offering—by holding one chopstick in each hand. The olives kept slipping out of her grasp and shooting around the room, which Pythia seemed to find great fun. At any rate, she was laughing.

"Whoa! What's with the crowd? Usually they only come in here one at a time," she giggled. She swayed a little as she leaned back to look up at Tin, who was placing an offering of Heraklia's ruby Falernian jug on the table next to her. "Say, you're a big one, aren't you?!" Something about this must have seemed inordinately funny to her, for she broke into peals of laughter and they had to wait a good five minutes before she became quiet enough to hear them. "Okay, okay," she said, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. "What's the question?"

"We need to know where we can find the Wizard Jot," Nindy replied.

"Angh!" Pythia honked. "All answers must be stated in the form of a question!"

Nindy glanced at O-kakashi, who fought back a smile and shrugged. "Um ... okay," she said. "Where can we find the Wizard Jot?"

"Be it ever so humble," Pythia began singing, "there's no place like .... ?" She gestured expectantly with both arms.

"Home!" Keiler said suddenly.

Pythia smiled at him broadly. "Good! Have some wine!"

"But ... where's home?" Nindy asked, as Keiler helped himself to the wine.

"Sorry ... only one question to a customer."

"What!"

"It's in the scroll. Didn't you read it? Hey, I don't make the rules." She tried to pick up another olive. It hit O-kakashi in the eye.

"Very well," he chuckled, wiping olive oil off his cheek. "Where's home?"

"Depends," Pythia giggled.

O-kakashi laughed. "On what?"

"Angh!"

"Oh, come on!" Nindy protested, but despite the unfairness of the situation, she found herself smiling ... and then giggling a little. "Keiler ... ask her."

Keiler was beginning to enjoy the visit. He smiled broadly and turned to Pythia. "Wow, this stuff is great ... do you sit in here all day?"

"And most of the night."

"Keiler!" Nindy laughed. "That's not what you were supposed to ask!"

"I'm getting hungry. Does anybody know how long we've been in here?" Tin asked.

"Tin!" everybody shouted, but by now nobody cared anymore. Keiler was doing his best to drain the ruby Falernian jug, which just seemed to keep producing more wine. O-kakashi was rolling on the floor, pointing at Pythia and laughing even harder as more olives pinged around the room. And Jojo was just sitting by the door, smiling at everyone.

"Four for four! Woo hoo!" Pythia exclaimed. "Anybody got any pita bread?"

"Jojo," Nindy giggled uncontrollably. "It ... it's up to you. You h-h-have to ask the r-r-right queeeees-tion!" And she fell on the floor in a fit of laughter at Tin, who was trying to use O-kakashi's coolie hat as a monocle.

Jojo, who was used to martinis and didn't see that these fumes were all that different, sat down in front of Pythia and cleared his throat. "In what Hellenic city does Jot, the wizard of AwZ, currently reside?" he asked very deliberately.

At that precise moment, Pythia's servant opened the door and cleared his throat. "Time," he said.

"Well, I'll never get the hang of these things," Pythia pouted, although even that didn't really diminish her good humor.

"It's easy," O-kakashi said. He took her hand and placed the chopsticks between her fingers in the proper configuration. "Now try it."

"Oh, this is wonderful. Look, look! I did it!" she exclaimed. The olive held between the chopsticks for all of three seconds before pinging across the room and hitting Pythia's servant on the forehead.

"Time!" he growled.

Pythia sighed. "Oh, alright, Homer. He's no fun at all," she whispered. "But YOU have all been great fun."

"But you didn't answer Jojo's question," Nindy pointed out.

"Didn't I? Okay...let me see ... I'm supposed to make this ambiguous. 'They say all silk roads lead to The Jade City ... but they go thru Athens first'," she added, winking at Nindy as Homer shooed them from the room.



Tin knew exactly where Athens was, and everybody in Athens knew where Jot was. So, after more than a millenia of travel, our intrepid little band of adventurers finally arrived on his doorstep.

"You did it? How?"

"Well, we're not sure, actually. O-kakashi's arm caught fire and the only thing I could find was a bucket of bleach. It turned her robes orange and she ran away. I don't know why."

"Ah, you colorized her. Good plan. Cornellia's from Texas A&M, you see. They don't get along well with the University of Texas and their squadrons of little orange people. Well, at least you didn't use magic ... she might have ended up wearing a pair of UT longhorns and then she'd be here asking me to uncode them. I'm impressed. No one's ever gotten Corney's chainsaw away from her. Of course, she has a closet full of them, so it won't stop her for long."

"But you never told us—" Nindy began.

"Ahhhh, don't worry about it. I just wanted to distract you so I had a little extra time. Anyway, I programmed your trip home, but the coding is a bit glitchy. It only works if you answer a few questions first. So...tap your Lotus shoes together three times, circle around your monitor clockwise at least twice, reboot the computer, and then—"

"All of that?"

"Nah, not really. I just wanted to see if you would do it. Okay, take the Yellow Silk Road east to Mesopo—"

"East? AGAIN??" Nindy exclaimed.

Jot lowered his head and peered at her as though squinting thru spectacles, "Do you want to get home or not?"

"Yes," Nindy sulked.

"Then follow the Yellow Silk Road east to—"

"Mesopotamia. We know," sighed Nindy.

"Good," Jot smiled tightly. "I left the quiz with one of the scribes there. Caileadair Etana. This whole adventure was her idea, you know. Well? What are you waiting for? On your way."

Sources:
The Oracle at Delphi
Delphic Oracle's Lips May Have Been Loosened by Gas Vapors
Greek Food
Delphi

More Activities:
When you finish taking the quiz...and enjoying the scavenger hunt, test your knowledge of the MGM movie "The Wizard of Oz" with Caileadair Etana's Down the Yellow Brick Road crossword puzzle.