Legendary Cosmic Hammer

Part 1

The Chaos wizard, Dax, falls over backward. Stuck by the Cosmic Hammer. The glowing blue steel weapon spins around in the air is if it was a top spinning on a table. After hovering in place for several seconds, like a yo-yo it is drawn back to its source.

Yangus descends from the stars like a comet. As he smashes into the dessert planet a cloud of red sand is throw into the air. The mighty king stands up, astral fire spilling from his body in cascading glory. Yangus spins his hammer gripping it in both hands. A titan the king seems to be, a celestial body made flesh. The man, the hammer are as one. They now have the power of a spiral nebula at their fingertips.

Yangus is now order to Dax chaos. It is clear, Dax can see it all so pristinely. This body he has stolen, it no long has the power to stand against its counterbalance. As such, this body no longer serves a purpose.

Dax takes off his goggles. Storms boil in his eyes, his mouth opens lighting explodes from his body. The wizard assumes his natural state. Sentient radiation, solid power. Natures law no longer binds the wizard. The air burns. The atmosphere depolarizes. Time starts to run in reverse.

Yangus alone stands unaffected as he was born in a place outside of time. Yet there is little that Yangus can do to stop that which has already begun. Instead with a swing of his hammer Dundee freezes time so he can track the wizard’s movement. Following the slipstream of shattering reality.

The chaos wizard quest for a new flesh to wear, but if the embodiment of order is a man with a hammer, what shape would be best to match it? A woman with a spear perhaps? Chaos and order must have symmetry. Dundee has a shell made of steel. So to must Dax new shape. Or better yet, a shell of flesh. The Wear-in-wolves. the warriors of Danland. He must take a woman from them as his next body.

***

Tail sits on her bed, a keyboard resting in her lap as she tips franticly. Her head tips back in laughter as she is thinking head to the coming pages of her story. Mac slips into the room. he stands along side Tail to read over her shoulder. His hand rest on the bed so he can get in close.

“The mighty king stands up, astral fire spilling from his body in cascading glory” Mac reads aloud. “Am I a superhero?” Mac question playfully.

Tail puts down her keyboard and rolls onto her side to look at her lover. “Isn’t it bad luck to view a piece of unfinished artwork?”

Mac shrugs “probably in some cutler.” Mac sits down. He points over to a monitor sitting on the nightstand with a strange looking copper tube set atop it wrapped in bronze cables. “what is that thing over there?”

Tail turns around to remind herself of what she had set on the table “it is a kind of spectrogram. All around us there are negative protons, background radiation, leftover stuff from the birth of the universe. Almost completely undetectable. But by scanning a vacuum for EM fields we can start to peek in on this world…”

Mac squints “to what end?”

“Randomness isn’t.” Tail explains “every action that can happen has to happen within a strict set of parameters. Allow me to demonstrate.” Tail wave side to side “stand up, walk anywhere in the room. tell me when you are where you want to be.”

Mac plays along with Tail’s game he walks around for a few seconds then comes to rest with his back to the clothes basket. “here.”

Tail nods “I would have given that spot a 15% probability of where you may have chosen to stand. And here is way. As soon as you stud up, you turned to look away from me. You walked around the bed. So you were going to stop someplace between me and the bathroom. Now tell me. Why didn’t you stand on the bed? Why didn’t you stand on my shoulders? Or on the wall?”

Mac shrugs “just didn’t make sense I guess.”

Tail points “in your case, you were just following the trail of minimum resistance. Between, you, me, and the hamper. There are no obstacles right now. Nothing you needed to jump over or push, and you had line of sight with the basket as you and I had been talking. You could have stood in the closet, but that would have required you to open a door.” Tail pats the bed inviting Mac back over.

Mac lays down along side Tail “and how does that relate you your thing over there?”

Tail is already in the middle of another thought “…the same sort of thing happens when you ask someone to pick a number between 1 and 10. No one will ever say 7.887264091253738, it just isn’t….” Tail gets back on track “right, so as I am working on my story to help me better simulate human behaviors, whenever two character interact with each other I write up a list of things that they could do, and then assign a numerical value to each action. I will then ask my computer to select a point in my graph over there, correlating with space time, and rounded off to the next whole number. I will compare the randomized number with my numeric values and chose events accordingly.”

Mac places a hand on Tails leg offering to pull her in for a hug “sounds like that can get complicated.”

Tail nods, then shakes her head, then nods again “well, that depends, so long as I understand the fundament motivations of each person involved and assume that their actions will in some why correlate with their desires the list don’t get to long. Things are of course most interesting when to people have desires that are mutually exclusive to each-other.”

Mac chuckles softly “I think that would be called conflict.” Tail sways her tails grinning in turn.

“But you see, this formula is imperfect. Most of the time, our interest don’t conflict. Unless, of course, outside factors result in scarcity of selection. Everyone wants, food, shelter and companionship. If we have unlimited food and there are in even number of possible companies there are very few things for us to fight about.” Tail’s eyes brighten as she thinks “But what would happen if there were seven men for every woman?”

“Matriarchy?” Mac shrugs

Tail nods with a shrug “maybe. Or maybe patriarchy. Maybe mass barbarism. But then we would need to ask, what events would need to transpire for this to take place? Why are there seven men for each woman?”

Mac thinks “what if it is because women birth in clusters. you are giving birth to 30 children at a time?”

“Good.” Tail expresses “maybe females are sentient and males aren’t? in this world women would go to war with each other in order to command peak territories, places closest to water would demand the highest prices. Maybe a different idea, what if people where statues made flesh. There simple where more male statues then female at the time that the statues came to life for whatever reason. Now these newly born statue people need to build a new society.”

Mac considers the possibilities “in that world girls would be a commodity. They may be traded as chattel.”

Tail giggles uneasily “wouldn’t that be something.”

“but that would assume that your statue people live like we do and reproduction requires coupling.” Mac hypothesizes “in that world, maybe male and female are functionally identical and there is a special echelon of people instead that are builders that can create new life from whole cloth.”

Tail brings her head in offering to touch her nose to her lovers “See Mac, you have some idea what is going on here, why didn’t you ever try art?”

Mac moves his hand up Tail’s leg petting her as he feels along her leg, hip, rump and back. “I never felt the need to, not since my siblings and I had our falling out anyway. Life is so amazing, so complicated. Nature herself has forged things more powerful and beautiful than I ever could.”

“You are a Tamriel, you can shapeshift and control the weather, you are nature.” Tail comments.

“not anymore.” Mac explains. “After Mammon died, I lost almost all of my magical abilities. The Tamriel had a balance; law, order, chaos, judgment. When one part fell away it set off a chain reaction which robbed all of us of our strength. DayO without Chaos was no longer the great lawmaker, and me without Mammon, I am no longer the ultimate arbitrator.”

Tail tips her head up looking into one wall “I have never understood how the connection between the four of you worked. You are each your own lifeform but you are all somehow aware of each other’s thoughts and actions?” Tail looks to Mac again “and how is law not order?”

“Law, by necessity, requires action. Order can be achieved through inaction. It is the same distinction as happens when you contrast what you ‘think’ with what you ‘know’.”

Tail barks softly as she looks deeply into her love’s eyes. “so, how are you feeling tonight?”

part 2

Slingshotting through space, across time. The king know as Dundee finds he has lost his magical hammer, his armor has grayed and fallen apart. When returning to temporal reality the mighty warrior finds he is reduced to little more then flesh and ambition.

A burning sky greets Yangus, a cackling volcano stands in the distance. Thing trees with broad leaves and rock lick fruits grow tightly together. but hardly has Yangus gained his balance before the inflince of the chaos wizard is upon him.

Gnollish women, screaming laughter. Twelve beast spring from the ground as if trapdoor spiders. Dead birds hand from there bodies like armor, tied by leather straps and plated with wooden planks. Armed with hooks and spears they approach!

Yangus must face down this threat without his armor or magic weapons. But regardless of his heroic strength. Dundee comes to a horrific realization. These weapons in the hands of the gnolls, they have been adorned with cursed runestones, programed to drain the magic and the power from celestial hero. Knicks and grazes from the hooks and spears transform Yangus into a mortal man.

Ropes are thrown to bind the hero’s arms then around a pair of trees to stretch the mighty man. The unstoppable titan is at the mercy of savage women. Hidden behind a pillar of rocks, a growling voice softly laughs. ‘It is all so easily.’ The wizard thinks. Dax steps out from hiding to gloat reveling…

***

“Dax is Valor Hoots.” Mac turns to face Tail. it is midday. Tail has come home to eat lunch. Mac sits on the window seal looking out onto the street, the computer he is reading from illuminated by the soft midmorning sun.

Tail is bent over in the refrigerator searching “what makes you think that?” she asks

“If Valor is still in the story, I can’t imagine anyplace else she could be.” Mac comments “Valor is mortal, in a world full of gods. Yangus and Dax have both demonstrated this level of omni power. But we saw several chapters ago that Yangus is stronger. So, what could Dax do to even the score? It would weaken and destress Yangus to see Dax wearing Valor’s skin.”

“Well that is a cool thought…” Tail calls over “what night was it we had ham-stake for lunch?”

Mac looks up thinking “I didn’t cook that.” Mac sets down the computer, he walks over to Tail resting a hand on her back as he leans in to look at what she is looking at “you or Mynxs must have ordered that from the replicator.”

Tail stands up holding a bag the stake is in “so, you think Dax is Valor?” Tail walks over to the replicator and sets down the stake “reheat to 165*f” the hunk of meat is bathed in energy for a moment then is suddenly hot and steaming in the bag, ready to eat.

Mac holds his arms to the sides exclaiming “it would add up. Valor is the first person we meet in chapter 2. She was in every major battle up until chapter 12, she freed Yangus from Dax mind control. But then in chapter 16 she is just no longer there? Who else could the revel be?”

Tail points out as she sets her plate “Logical fallacy, argument form incredulity. There is no rule saying that all the characters from the first five chapters of a book still need to be in the last five. Maybe Dax has just found some wide hipped, bubble but busty babe to be his avatar.” Tail giggles “I was thinking about writing a scene where you are forced to mate with werewolf or a few gnolls in the next chapter.”

“so then I have always been Yangus. Even before you let me start reading your latest story.” Mac confirms “that doesn’t strike you as objectification?”

“it is only objectifying when a man does it. when a woman treats a man as a piece of meat it is empowering.” Tail takes a bite of the meat then gets a sour look on her face “yeah, you didn’t make this. The spices are all wrong.” Tail walks over the to the sink to get a drink “besides, this is going to be a hallo-navel, everyone is going to invasion you as themselves, or one of their friends.”

Mac sits down to keep reading “I have always struggled with the idea of player character distinction.”

Tail nods “it can be hard to tell the difference between art and artist for some people, or more relevantly the difference between character and actor. For years every time I saw Doug Bradly I got this nervous twitch.”

“I assume for is role as Pinhead not Howard Lovecraft.” Mac jokes

Tail quickly eats her lunch “Mac, am I allergic to Cajon pepper?”

Mac slowly looks over “no, you are allergic to onion salt, green tomatoes, nickel, and quinoa.”

“I am an android for all intent and purpose, why do I have allergies?” Tail thinks aloud. “I should look into getting that fixed.”

Mac shakes his head “I don’t think that is something that needs or even can be fixed. Allergic reactions are your body doing what it is meant to do. It has detected something that it thinks is alien and has taken precautions to protect you from possible harm.”

“Yes,” Tail comments “but it is an inappropriate reaction, sometimes resulting in injury or death. I think I also object to the concept of mind body duality. Ones body can’t make ‘decisions’ independently from the mind. Everything that your body does is as a response to something that happens in the brain, therefor the phrase ‘My body’ is a fails dichotomy. There is no ‘your body’ there is only ‘you.’ Even if the mind is capable of ideomotor reactions, and ideomotor thought…”

Mac inquires “Do you chose to have wet dreams?”

Tail raises a hand and opens her mouth; her eyes drop as she freezes up for a moment considering the possibilities. “do I choose to dream would be a more app way to phrase that…” Tail screeches at her neck as she is thinking.

Mac recites “I recall coming across this article not so long ago. Two doctors where hashing out some concept of neurology when the idea of ‘Will’ came up and this became a debate about whether or not in our daily lives if we truly make choices or if the ‘illusion of free will’ is nothing more than a result of our ability to understand the factors at play that make us take actions.”

“if I recall the two schools of though were described as ‘Libertarian will’ and ‘Compatibilist will’. In the libertarian world every thought and evert action are in independent event, we and we alone have the power to make choices. This is straight forward enough. When most people say free will, that is what they are describing. But what if choices are limited? What if everything you do is a consequence of something else that happened somewhere else?”

“for needs of this conversation let’s say, I asked you to pick a number between one and ten, then you picked seven. Now in a year someone builds a ‘Chroninberge’ device that lets them send an invisible microphone back in time to before you answered but after I asked for the number. Can you possibly say anything but ‘seven’ this second time around? If not, then that must mean that you chose ‘seven’ before I asked, or ‘seven’ was determined by a separate and seemingly unrelated event.”

Tail tips her head pondering “so, I may or may not be in control of my action. My action are limited or even manipulated by my environment?”

Mac nods, “that was the impression I got. You and I are mates, but I never went out looking for you, and you didn’t need to pick me. But maybe there never was another possibility. Maybe decades earlier, when Marks Karingson was at a job interview with Shaun Clawed, events had already been put in motion that could only have resulted in us mating.”

Tail folds her lags and turns in her chair leaning off to one side “but when did my father choose to go in for that job interview?”

“Maybe it was when Minoru Genda thought up the phrase ‘Tora, Tora, Tora’.”

Tail extrapolates “then you are literally saying that the universe is deterministic?”

Mac shakes his head “no, not necessarily. I am just reporting what I read.” Mac continues “I don’t think anyone or anything has any power over me out side of the power I give it. what maybe limited though is options.”

“like in my spectrograms?” Tail giggles

“you where saying earlier that you where doing list of all possible reactions to x events, why isn’t each list literally endless?” Mac asks

Tail smiles as she has now caught onto the idea. “Each event needs to relate to the preceding.” Tail claps once “otherwise the chain of continuity would be broken.”

part 3

Tail stands in front of a mirror as she looks over the outfit she is dressed up in, a hemp gown that swings freely around her ankles, gloves painted to look like marble, and a wolf skull crown. Tail spins to look at Mac as they are about to enter R/6. Tail had reserved a room to work on fine toning her program. “So, how do I look?” she fans her tails and rocks her hips cutely.

Mac, on the other hand has nothing on but his hair ribbon. “I think you look fine, but why am I nude?” Mac rest his hands on his hips and tips his head downwards with a playful look of irritation.

“Because Beowulf was when he fought Echidna.” Tail Expains

Mac intergects “No, Beowulf was nude when he fought Grendel. Beowulf didn’t fight Echidna, he had sex with her.”

Tail laughs as she slaps Mac on the arm “That makes this even better,” she directs him over to the door to the holographic chamber “come on, lets see what happens when we upload our avatars.”

Mac follows in behind Tail “Can’t I get a pair of trunks or a grass skirt or something?”

***

Mac is chained to the wall, his arms held overhead. Water runs down the walls, strange flowers cling to the ceiling. The hyena women in the room sing songs of their mighty victory. Mac looks up, he shakes the chains slightly. Dirt trickles down the walls.

A long shadow lurks into the room. Tail holds a hand out and the door leading into the dungeon unlocks for her. Tail folds her hands in prayer as she steps into the darkness. Tail stands before Mac, a wide toothy grin on her face as she looks down at her pray.

Mac turns his eyes up defiantly “Hello Dax.”

Tail responds “the line was ‘be ye my beloved Valor or be ye the chaos wizard?’.”

Mac takes a slow breath “is Yangus me?” Tail nods “and is Dax my brother Mammon?” Tail nods again “My brother could wear whatever costume he wants and I will still know it is him.”

Tail throws her arms out shouting “Do you understand now Dundee!” she spins around fanning her tails and flapping her cloak around cartoonishly “You have lost your hold over me. You are powerless!”

Mac mounts his feet into the ground “It doesn’t need to be this way Dax.” Mac explains “your power is the same as mine. If we continue this game death is the only outcome for both of us.”

Tail thrust her arms to the wall leaning over Mac, she stands nose to nose with him gloating “Death for you King of Dundee, not for me. I have already survived death!”

Mac asks “to what end is it that we should do battle?”

Tail bellows in laughter “you think you can battle me? You have not the power. You have walked as a man for too long. The cosmic fire is gone from your blood…”

Mac snaps his arms off to the sides, the chain shatters to bits freeing him from bondage. Tail hops backwards in shock, she mumbles “did he just do that?” Tail speaks up “computer, please confirm that safety mode is active.”

The computer replays Safety Modes is set to level 9 safety.”

Mac paces closer to Tail “your war on reality if over Mammon. This dimension is under my protection and I won’t let you destroy it.”

Tail has an uneasy giggle “Ok, Dundee, so now it is just you and me and my…” Tail looks to the door and shouts “Guards!” Tail runs away hiding behind one of the pillars in the room. the door burst open and six gnolls rush in.

Mac looks side to side quickly taking in his surroundings. Gnolls armed with spears come in from three sides. The first dashes forward, lunging with its staff. Mac twist his body and catches the spear between his arms in a low pin, one arm on each side, with the outside arm mac hooks back and up tying that arm around the spear. With his other hand he palm-punches into the weapon smashing it. Mac calls on his holy power, lighting crackles in the air.

Mac throws a palm punch into the breast of the hyena. The gnoll flies backwards striking the wall harshly.

Gnoll is defeated.

The next in line howls and throws an upwards slash with the point of its spear. Mac throws a low cross block to catch the attack. Mac counter grabs rolling the spear off to one side to control it. From there Mac slides steps in standing between the gnoll and her spear. Mac thrust a hand out into a eye strike, then pulls down in a racking strike and then disengages with a jab to the solar plexus

The second gnoll drops her spear, she show her fangs and jumps at Mac delivering a tarrofing bite to the side of the head.

Mac brings a hand around the Gnolls back and slides his fingers into her eyes, he pulls back on her head making her lean over backward, he thrust a palm strike into her chin throwing her at the ground.

The second gnoll lays on the ground broken and bleeding form the strike.

Gnoll three runs at Mac, Mac backsteps into hooking push block shoving her into the wall with her own force. Mac stomps on the back of her leg to make her knell then throws a back elbow to ounce her off the wall.

Seeing three of their partners defeated with such ease shakes the gnolls. The three of them drop their spears and flea from battle unnerved by the power of their opposition.

Tail steps out from hiding, She thrust out her left hand then right then punches out with both hands shouting “Fire! Fera! Feraga!” three burst of flames erupt for Tail’s body.

Mac walks through the flames, hardly scratched by the attack. Tail pulls both hands into her chest and gathers power “Feraja!” Tail thrust out to cast another spell. Mac steps in grabbing her hands prointing her form finishing her spell. He pushes her backwards guiding her into the door to the cell.

Mac holds Tails hands to her chest. “As I was saying, it doesn’t need to be this way Mammon. Forsake the gods, abandon Eden, abandon Yggdrasil. Come with me. Fade into the darkness of eternity.” Mac leans in close, “or, we could test the limitations of our indestructibility.”

Tail calls over “Computer, suspend program!” the room around them fades away transforming in to little more then an empty room filled with photon emitters. Mac lets Tail go. He chuckles as he takes a step back. Tail reaches up and slaps Mac. “Do you have any idea how tariffing you are?”

Mac has a wide grin as he nods “I have some idea.”

“SO, what did you think of that part?” Tail relaxes

“I think you are going to need to make the chains 8% stronger” Mac looks about. “otherwise I think that was cool.” Mac holds up a hand “but why are all the gnolls female?”

“The way I see it they are from a society where men are considered to weak and emotional to be warriors. So, only women are allowed to fight.” Tail explains.

Mac shrugs “I can see how that can happen.”