9. The Sword of Gadolinia

 

“I would have to say that there is nothing more annoying than a talking sword. Well, except for talking kitchen appliances. And don’t get me started on talking cars.” – Silas Hundredhands, 24^th Century (alleged).

 

In the middle of the forest a tall blond man wearing dark brown leathers handed a scabbarded sword to an alabaster-pale woman.

“A talking sword?” said Olga. “Really?”

“It’s part of the whole sword-and-sorcery thing,” said Fanboy. “Besides, I think he’s kind of OK.”

“Well, thank you for that faint praise,” said the sword. “I will have you know that I did not create this simulacrum. One does the best with what one has.”

Olga furrowed her brows.

“Hey,” said the sword, “you try being a talking sword, see how well you do. It’s not as easy as it looks.”

“Is it supposed to look easy?” asked Fanboy.

The sword wiggled in its scabbard in a way that might be held to be analogous to a human rolling its eyes – which was quite an accomplishment of body language, for a sword.

Olga Razon took the sword and its scabbard and buckled it to the belt going around her narrow waist. “Well at least you look like a real sword. I grew up in the era when swords were cutting edge technology, you know. You have that crude-hammered solid-steel no-nonsense I’m-a-fucking-weapon look to you that the real swords had. Not the dandified Walt Disney kind of movie sword, or the pansy polished things that the Japanese made (give me a decent Zweihander and I’ll cut your average samurai in two any day of the week thank you very much).”

“Well then,” said the sword. “Perhaps this relationship has promise after all.”

“Don’t be hard on the Sword of Gadolinia,” said Fanboy. “He means well.”

Olga sighed. “I suppose. But this – it’s not a virtual reality, I got that, this simulacrum – well, it pretty much hits every single cliché of the genre. Why are we doing this? Sword and sorcery is not your thing, really.”

“I know,” said Fanboy. “I was always a science-fiction kind of guy, back when I was an interstellar battlecruiser. But I thought it would be fun for a change, and Bollard worked so hard on setting it up. Unlike a virtual simulation, everything here is physically based – the monsters are animated robots, the terrain is physical dirt, and so on. I couldn’t disappoint him. Besides, you look perfect for the part of a barbarian warrior queen. You even have a talking sword.”

Olga pointed at herself. “This? A skimpy leather outfit with a short skirt. The boots are OK, but my upper legs are not only unarmored, they are uncovered. I’d last two minutes in a real battle, not that women ever went into real battle anyhow. They just don’t have the arm strength to swing a sword.”

“But you’re a vampire. Your upper body strength is at least triple that of a baseline human male. And with your regenerative powers you don’t need your legs to be protected – and as perfect as they are, they shouldn’t be, not if they don’t have to. But you should have worn fangs. Fangs would have really made the outfit.”

“No I don’t wear fangs, I always cut myself on them, but thank you for the compliment. And the tall blond blue-eyed hero of the anime Space Battleship Scharnhorst really works as a mercenary warrior.”

“Do you think so? I used my old Dieter Waystar android; the one modeled on the protagonist of the original German cartoon series, and dressed him up. I argued with Bollard about it though. He thought a mercenary should have a sword, or maybe twin daggers, but I’ve always preferred ranged weaponry.”

“At least your bow doesn’t talk,” said Olga.

“I heard that!” said the sword. “The reason you never hear about talking bows is that bows have no style. It’s always the sword that connotes power.”

“You’re not going to get all Freudian on me, are you?” said Olga.

“Who’s Freud?” asked the sword. “Is that someone that we have to kill?”

“Not today,” said Fanboy.

The sword settled back into its scabbard and fell silent.

Olga looked around. “This really is detailed though. The trees, even the lizards scuttling around the underbrush – is it all artificial?”

Fanboy laughed. “All of it artificial? Hardly. Can you imagine the effort it would take to make enough robotic lizards and bugs and birds and blades of grass, etc? And the maintenance load? No, the plants and animals are all real, part of Bollard’s nature preserve. It’s only the fantasy elements – you know, the trolls and elves and suchlike – that are animatronic.”

“Ah, that makes sense then. I thought the detail excessive even for Bollard. By the way, where is our host?”

“According to his instructions, we are to summon him.”

“Summon him? You mean like: come here Bollard! Nice Bollard! Here, Bollard Bollard!”

“No, no,” said Fanboy. “I mean summon as in reciting an arcane mantra that will cause our host to magically appear in our dimension.”

Olga started giggling. “Really. And would you by any chance happen to know the arcane mantra required to summon so august a presence as the esteemed Bollard?”

“Why now that you raise the subject, yes I do.” Fanboy cleared his throat. “Oh mighty Bollard, Wizard of the Empyrean, Warlock Supreme, we humble two – the mercenary Fanboy and the barbarian queen Olga Razon, do request your aid. Ascii! Bismuth! Collagen! Dendrite! And Entropy!”

Olga continued giggling. A faint wind stirred through the trees. The sky darkened, and the air seemed to acquire a sharpness to it. The birds fell silent, and the lizards and ground-squirrels slipped away to their burrows. A diffuse ball of light began to form in a clearing off to the side of Olga and Fanboy. It grew brighter, and turned into a luminous vortex. Lightening forked out of the vortex, the sky turned jet black, there was a flash – and standing there was the Great Wizard Bollard!

“Hi there!” said Bollard. “How do I look?”

“Well,” said Olga, “let’s see. I like the cape, and the little swirls of stars on the inside lining that move around by themselves are quite nice. The ebony staff with the crystal skull works for me too. The android overall is OK, but an ethnic Chinese with a Fu-Manchu moustache? Maybe a little cliché?

“Hmm…“ said Bollard. “Cliché? Maybe. But I wanted to stay in character.”

“I thought your entrance was great,” said Fanboy. “How did you do all that, anyhow?”

“Did you really like it? I’m very proud of it myself. You know, they say that technology is indistinguishable from any sufficiently advanced magic. Or is that the other way around? Anyhow, our technology lets us do things that are beyond what most of the ancients would have called magic. I could have descended from the heavens on air jets or graviton fields or whatnot. But to use technology in a way that looks like the ancient idea of magic? That turns out to be a lot harder! At least, unless you turn to a virtual reality.”

“And why not do a virtual reality?” asked Olga. “It would have been easier.”

“Oh I like a good virtual reality as well as anyone, but no matter how many petaflops you use nothing gives quite the texture of physical reality. I also suppose there is the challenge to it – anyone can conjure up a ghost in virtual reality, but a realistic-seeming one in baseline reality? That’s hard.”

“Agreed,” said Fanboy. “And now that you are here, what is our quest on this little adventure?”

“Ah. Well,” said Bollard. “A dark mage has acquired the Atlantean horn of destruction, and by the light of the full moon he is going to complete the Infernal Ritual of Malden and use it to destroy the universe. Our mission is to stop him.”

“Do you know where we can find this dark mage?” said Olga.

“No, of course not. That would spoil the fun! I set up the scenario using a data ecology, so the dark mage could be anywhere.”

“We’re not going to have another Space Nazi fiasco on our hands, are we?” asked Fanboy.

Bollard shook his head. “No, I’m not going to make the mistake that Uncle Jon made when he coded up all those mechanical Nazis for a wargame and he lost control of them. My robotic units are clever and adaptable, but there is no danger of them becoming self aware or going rogue. I just randomized the initial conditions – like shuffling a deck of cards – so that even as its creator, I can still be surprised and challenged by the scenario.”

“Good,” said Fanboy. “The Space Nazis were amusing – I don’t know when Uncle Jon is ever going to live that down – but once was enough.”

“So then,” said Olga, “how do we go about finding this dark mage? Do we just walk around and ask?”

“Of course,” said Bollard. “We ask, we look for clues, the usual thing. Shall we be off?”

Bollard led them down a narrow path that headed off deeper into the woods. For a time they seemed to be alone, with only the chirping of the birds and the buzzing of insects to keep them company.

“You know,” whispered Olga. “I think I hear someone off to our right.”

Fanboy cocked his head to one side and listened. “I agree. Probably several, but it’s hard to be sure. They appear to be headed our way. Perhaps we should wait for them, and see what they are.”

“No,” said Bollard. “That would let us know that we have heard them. Let’s keep walking and let them intercept us on their own. That should also make it plain whose side they are on – if they are friendly they will introduce themselves, but if their intent is hostile they shall attempt to ambush us. But we are now forewarned.”

The three continued walking, and the sounds of footsteps became more distinct, even though it was apparent that they were trying to walk silently. The other party was closing from their right rear, in what was clearly going to be an attempted ambush.

“They are almost on us,” whispered Fanboy. He removed the bow from his back, and nocked an arrow. “Get ready.” Olga put her hand on the grip of her sword, and Bollard conjured up a small golden sphere in his right hand.

Twelve dark forms burst out of the forest and rushed them. They were sallow-faced humanoids, bearing crude rusted swords and short spears. All of them wore navy blue jackets and neckties, and half of them had thick horn-rimmed glasses (the kind that make your eyes look really small).

“We mean no harm, peace,” said Fanboy, but the strangers continued to rush them with their weapons at the ready. “Suit yourself then.” Fanboy shot one of the strangers clean through the center of his forehead, and almost instantly had another arrow nocked and shot, and killed a second. Bollard threw his golden sphere at them, and it burst into a black cloud that dissolved two of them into a puddle of goo. Olga drew her sword, cut the right arm clean off her assailant, and stabbed him through the heart. The animatronic assailant sparked and then shut down and fell over.

“Nicely done,” said the sword.

“Thank you,” said Olga.

With five of their number dispatched so quickly, the strangers halted their rush.

“The invisible hand!” screetched one of them.

“Free to choose to own slaves!” howled another.”

“All power to the markets!” yelled a third.

“Great heavens!” said Fanboy. “They are Neoliberal Economists!”

Bollard smiled broadly. “I know! Aren’t they fiendish?”

Two of the Neoliberals were squabbling over who would get to loot the body of one of their fallen comrades, but the remaining five uneasily faced off against the trio.

“We only meant to pass,” said Fanboy. “Stand down and we will spare your lives.”

One of the Neoliberal Economists – the one with a bow tie - drew himself up to his full height of 1.5 meters, and said: “We have an exclusive contract for this privatized footpath. Pay the toll, or be heavily fined, and risk a significant downgrade of your credit scores.”

“Ah,” said Bollard, “that’s the leader. The leader of a pack of Neoliberal Economists is always the one with the bow tie, and the thickest glasses.”

“Well duh,” said the sword, “everyone knows that.”

Suddenly Fanboy’s bow began to sing in a beautiful rich tenor:

 

The noble Fanboy shot his arrows straight and true,

Piercing the evil ones through and through.

 

“Bollard,” said Fanboy. “My bow is singing.”

“Yes of course,” said Bollard. “It’s the singing bow of Bismuldia.”

“It’s really annoying,” said the sword. “Make it stop.”

“I think it’s annoying too,” said the leader of the Neoliberal Economists.

“Nobody asked you,” said the sword. The leader of the Neoliberals looked slightly crestfallen at this but did not respond.

“OK, enough,” said Olga. She addressed the leader of the Neoliberals. “We are trying to find a dark mage who is planning on destroying the universe with an Atlantean Horn of Doom. Could you tell us where to find him?

The leader of the Neoliberals pulled out a thick hundred-page written contract. “Possibly, but first you would have to sign a long-term contract concerning the intellectual property rights of such knowledge, and committing yourselves to a long-term limited partnership and binding arbitration.”

“No,” said Olga. “We’re not going to sign that. How about you tell us all you know, and we don’t kill you?”

The Neoliberal leader frowned. “That doesn’t sound like a very good deal.”

“Well,” said Olga, “It’s better than the deal where you tell us everything you know and we do kill you, although technically this is not as good as the exchange where you tell us nothing and we kill you, because you would not have first given up anything of value, but from your point of view the difference seems moot.”

Another of the Neoliberals started squabbling over the rights to loot their own dead, leaving only four of them still standing their ground. “You are a talented negotiator, my lady,” said the leader of the Neoliberals. “Are you perchance an anarcho-syndicalist?”

 

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The negotiations with the Neoliberals was, as expected, pointless. Eventually the trio left them to loot their dead and continued on their quest to find the dark mage.

Near the ruins of an old farmhouse they were assaulted by a pack of dire-wolves, which they easily drove off.

There was a minor side-quest where they had to navigate a maze and avoid cunningly-designed booby-traps to retrieve the sacred stiletto of Savannah. Fanboy added the gleaming silver knife to his belt.

In the ruins of an old castle they encountered a large and very charming dragon. They chatted for a bit, but when the dragon noticed that they carried the singing bow of Bismuldia, he begged them to have it perform for him. After listening to the bow sing several of Mozart’s arias, “Under my Thumb” by the Rolling Stones, and the theme song to Gilligan’s Island, the dragon was so pleased that he told them the location of the dark mage with no other conditions.

The singing bow of Bismuldia looked about as smug as a hunting bow can, and the sword of Gadolinia sulked in its scabbard.

They approached the fortress of the dark mage, and, after scouting around it for some time, stealthily made their way through a back entrance. The guards were large and coarsely-featured humanoids with crudely-fitted armor and carrying large steel maces and axes. Though powerful in appearance they were not very alert and the three managed to slip by them and enter the dark mages’ inner sanctum without raising the alarm.

The inner sanctum was appropriately large and gloomy, lit by a multitude of candles and hung with heavy red velvet curtains. The dark mage was standing facing away from them, reading an extremely large and heavy physical book on a chest-high lectern. The three snuck up behind the guards and expertly slit their throats, then advanced on the dark mage.

“Ah, there you are. Took you long enough.” He turned around, revealing a surprisingly bland looking ethnic European male with a round face and wispy sand-colored hair. He wore heavy black robes, and had an oddly angular black-steel sword at his waist. His mild gray eyes were marred only by a series of violent facial ticks.

Fanboy stared at the dark mage. “Wonderbear? What are you doing here?”

“Do you know this guy?” asked Olga. “He doesn’t look like a dark mage set to destroy the universe.”

“Yes, I know him,” said Fanboy. “He’s a Bear-Class cybertank, pretty normal but not known to get out much. This is a little out of character for him.”

“Out of character?” said Wonderbear. His face continued to twitch. “Yes. Yes it is. I apologize for hijacking your dungeons and dragons scenario, but this is important.” The twitches started to spread into his hands. “I need you to kill me, soon. Or I will kill all of you.”

“It’s bad manners to intrude into someone else’s game,” said an angry Bollard. “And as jokes go, this one isn’t funny.”

“Funny?” said Wonderbear. “Funny.” He pronounced the word as if it were an alien thing. “If only. No this is not funny.” He shook his head for emphasis. “Not funny.”

“Perhaps,” said Fanboy, “you might explain what this is all about?”

“Explain,” said Wonderbear. After a pause, he continued: “yes, explain. But only a little. Too much and you would be cursed, like me. You see, I have discovered magic.”

“There’s no such thing as magic,” said Olga.

“More to the point, magic is logically impossible,” said Fanboy. “If there were such things as ectoplasm or spirits or whatnot, they would follow rules, and be added the physics textbooks alongside even more bizarre phenomena like quantum physics or gravity waves.”

“Wrong,” said Wonderbear. “You don’t understand what magic is. Magic is not yet another set of rules. Magic is not mere randomness. Magic is no rules. You see, all science is based on repeatable phenomena. You drop a hammer, it falls. You drop it again, it falls again. Pretty soon you learn that dropping hammers makes them fall. That’s how we understand the universe. But the universe doesn’t owe us any favors. What if the universe had, embedded deep within it, phenomena that were not just random, but not repeatable at all? That could not be studied by the scientific method, but that were nonetheless real?”

Bollard shook his head. “Ridiculous. We would have noticed such a thing. And even if it were real, how could we understand it? It would be only a source of noise…”

“Yes, that’s it. It is present all around is, but we ascribe it to random variation. Too many parameters, chaos theory, inaccurate observations, nothing science can’t explain away… But it is. Is real. And powerful.”

“Even if I grant your case,” said Fanboy, “how could you possibly understand unrepeatable phenomena, let alone control them? Logic won’t work.”

“I can’t tell you how, or I would curse you along with myself. Let’s just say that I stumbled onto a, onto a… trick. Just my own unusual personality, and some bad luck. A lot of bad luck. And now I know. And the only way that I can un-know it is to die in a specific manner.”

“Wonderbear, I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt,” said Fanboy, “but your story is a little out there. How about we just all relax, and call in our friends? I’m sure we can figure this out…”

“No!” Wonderbear became even more agitated, and his twitching increased even more. “I have no time! You have no time! You must defeat me here, now, in these forms. Kill me, and if you fail, your own main hulls will die.” He unsheathed his odd black metal sword. “En garde!”

“Fanboy,” said Olga, “you’re a Sundog Class, and Wonderbear is only a Bear. Can’t you just, I don’t know, shut him off or jam him or something?”

“Sorry Olga, no can do. My main hull and all my other remotes are powered down and locked out. I only have this single humanoid remote active. No, I don’t understand how he’s doing it either.”

“And me as well,” said Bollard. “Any attempt that I make to call for help or activate other systems are voided. I don’t know why.”

“Enough talk,” said Wonderbear. “Now fight!” He advanced on Olga and struck at her with his sword. She dodged the blade, and attempted a riposte, but he blocked it easily. Fanboy shot three arrows at Wonderbear in quick succession, but they all missed – or didn’t miss. They were directly on target to his head, they didn’t phase out, and they were not deflected. They impacted the far wall in a precise straight line trajectory that intersected Wonderbear’s head – they just didn’t hit him.

Bollard threw two of his small golden spheres at Wonderbear. They arced out sparking – and vanished. Wonderbear made a complicated gesture with his left hand, and Bollard exploded.

“He’s dead,” said Fanboy. “I mean really dead. I received the final terminal pings from his localizer beacon. Bollard’s main self is gone.”

“Perhaps,” said Wonderbear, “now that you realize that this is not a joke, you will start paying attention and kill me.”

Fanboy shot some more arrows at Wonderbear. This time they didn’t miss but only turned into sand before they hit him. Olga fenced with her sword, and she was both strong and skilled, but Wonderbear’s oddly-shaped black blade caught her own at strange angles and it was all she could do to not get stabbed herself. Fanboy flicked his small silver dagger and caught Wonderbear in the left eye – and the dagger turned into a slug, large and grey and oozing slime. Wonderbear uttered words that hurt the ear and Fanboy was thrown back into the wall, and then fell forwards onto the floor, unmoving.

The singing bow of Bismuldia clattered to the ground and cried out:

 

The raging hero quelled in his desperate hour of need!

Oh what succor will now bear our heed?

 

“I find that to be annoying,” said Wonderbear.

“Fanboy!” cried Olga, but she could not afford to help him or take her gaze off of her opponent, who now advanced on her without distraction.

“This is unfortunate,” said Wonderbear. “I had such high hopes for you all. Now only the weak biological vampire is left. And after you are gone, well, you will be better off dead. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

The two exchanged blows, and Olga was forced onto the defensive – she was clearly overmatched, and unable to take even the slightest offensive action. “Why are you doing this?” asked Olga. “Why have you betrayed us?”

“Betrayed?” said Wonderbear. “No, I am trying to save you. I have set in motion something dreadful, and wish to stop it. There were three of you, you should have killed me. Please try harder.”

That’s when the sword of Gadolinia talked to Olga. “Olga,” he said, “don’t make any visible reactions. I’m talking to you via bone conduction, so he can’t hear us. I think I have his style figured out. I’ll try to guide you, just react to the vibrations in my handle.”

Wonderbear made a lightning-fast horizontal cut – but Olga, anticipating the attack from the vibrations in the sword of Gadolinia’s handle, blocked it and swiftly sheared into his left shoulder. Wonderbear calmly executed a blindingly complex series of attacks. With the sword’s guidance, Olga blocked them all, sliced off Wonderbear’s left arm, and also wounded him in the left hip.

“I am encouraged,” said Wonderbear. He was holding his sword one-handed now, and limping badly, but still functional. “Please proceed.”

The swordfight was fast and brutal, and it ended with Wonderbear standing up minus both arms, and Olga’s sword at his throat.

“Well done,” said Wonderbear. “Well done. Tell my friends that I’m sorry. You must strike clear through the center of my head and chest to finish it. And thank you.” Olga struck a powerful overhand blow that bisected his head and the upper part of his chest – the Wonderbear android sparked and fell over.

“That was awesome!” said the sword of Gadolinia. “Let’s do that again!”

Olga doubled over, gasping for breath, her high-output vampire metabolism exhausted. She forced herself to walk over to where the Fanboy android had fallen. “Fanboy?” <gasp> “Are you all right?”

Fanboy shook himself, and grinned. “This android body is pretty badly beaten up, but it’s still functional, and my main hull is coming back on line. Looks like you saved me again.”

Olga’s gasping was becoming less labored, and she laughed. “Like old times.”

Fanboy stroked her cheek. “Like old times.”

 

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It fell to me, Old Guy, to make a report on what has become known as the “Wonderbear Incident.” I think I was assigned this duty because the smarter cybertanks knew that there were not going to be any definitive conclusions, and they would rather that someone else get blamed for that. And also, because Wonderbear was a good friend of mine.

Of course I still don’t understand it. Wonderbear was a strange bird: quiet, obsessive, polite, non-violent, nothing like how he acted during the incident. Did he really discover magic? The physical evidence does suggest the existence of phenomena that we cannot explain any other way.

A logic to explain and exploit non-replicable phenomena? My very circuits throb just trying to think about it, but it would be arrogant to say that we know all that there is to know about this universe. It might be sentiment, but my own opinion is that Wonderbear stumbled onto something horrible, and did everything he could to save the rest of us at the cost of his own life. Why this should require that an android remote of his be defeated in physical combat in a dungeons and dragons simulation, I have no clue, but “I have no clue” is pretty much the theme of this investigation.