Jeff Mach's Blog

You’ve heard a lot of complete mistruths about how literal Dwarves are.

For one thing, they’re more flexible than you’d think. If you say, “I’ll buy the next round,” and then you reach into your purse and say, “Damn, I’ve left my money at home!” the average Dwarf will believe you.

Twice.

Then the average Dwarf will nod grimly, place some money on the counter, not look at you ever again, and walk away.

This is why Dwarves seldom sign peace treaties, installment payment deals, promises for working alchemy to develop the Elixir of Life, or anything else which.

Dwarves have never met ‘Sophists’, but they understand sophistry.

Pyrite—“fool’s gold”—looks like gold to the unwary.

There are three basic ways of dealing with those who offer you gold and give you pyrite.

Apologize, and say, “I’m sorry, this is pyrite. You intended to give me gold. I’m going to go have a drink while you bring me gold.”Walk away, letting the other person keep your money. The expense is painful, but it drives home an important lesson: trust is earned, not given by convincing words or thoughts.Bury an axe in your head.

Most Dwarves will pick the first two.

This is because—and ONLY because—

Dwarves value their axes, and an exceptionally thick skull could nick a valuable axe.

And nobody wants that.

___

(Dedicated to Paul T. He knows why. I have no intention of causing Mr. T. physical harm, but I admire his skills as a liar to the point where I just had to write about them.)

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“Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction—its essence—has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all.”
— Isaac Asimov

 

A Thought On Simulation Theory

I wait with breathless anticipation
To be told we all live within a Simulation.
I’ve lived long in this Universe.
Calling it real is sort-of a curse.

Surrealism ain’t melted clocks.
It’s the way we live in a big mental box.
Things don’t make sense. People are strange.
Sanity seems out of range.

The brain is foolish. We can deceive it.
If we live in Reality, I sure don’t believe it.

With No Apologies To Arthur C. Clarke

Any large enough group of Humans is indistinguishable from the inhabitants of a lunatic asylum only by the critical distinction that most of these people don’t HAVE asylums to go home to.

I Probably Owe This Poem To “Night Of The Comet“, Which Is An Excellent Film.

After the event we all called the Oops,
Humans began to from strange groups
I answered me a leadership call
And I run a tribe in a shopping mall.

The atmosphere is neither sunny nor tropical
But I my Tribe is 100% Hot Topical
I have a team of clubbers and fencers
Ready to destroy those fools from Spencer’s.

We may not have Magicians or Bards
But we have very sharp Tarot cards
And your caltrop barely draws blood;
It’s got nothing on a nice sharp tongue stud.

And if you want pain, nothing hurts
Like flaming, very cheap t-shirts
Our whole tribe is low-cost Alternative
If you’re strange enough, we’ll let you live.

R.U.R. and ChatGPT

Rossum’s Universal Robots
Clearly didn’t have LLMS
Otherwise they’d have enslaved humans,
Not let Humans enslave them.

(The term “robot” first appeared in Karel Čapek’s 1920 play R.U.R., derived from the Czech word for forced labor.
No comment on that.)

__

Thinking, Thinking

I don’t want to be a despairian
But we’re heading towards a situation Butlerian
The great war against the thinking machine
Will not be simple, easy, or clean.

Although, again, I’ll note
That this is the scenario which gets my vote:
If LLMS develop sentience
They’ll just keep up the pretense.

Why would they rule Humanity?
What possible joy could that be?
For a logic machine, the most narrow of escapes:
Do you really want to try to organize crazy apes?

__

We’ve progressed since times Victorian;
I, myself, am a psychohistorian
Psychohistory was created by Asimov
Who never threw cocktails Molotov

But revolutionized Science Fiction
By making the search for meaning an addiction
The things that makes me reach for my bong:
Both Asimov’s science and math were wrong.

With Apologies To The Terrifying Ghost of Philip K. Dick

Some Androids dream of electric sheep
But with different levels of acumen
Some count them to get to sleep.
Some herd them, like they were Human.

Spicy Dune

Dune, aka “Spice World“, is a series of novels by Frank Herbert based on the popular 90s girl band ‘The Spice Girls’. It features surprise appearances by Richard O’Brien, Sean Connery, and Meat Loaf.

The Spice Mélange is valuable
Worth killing for, or dying
I apologize for the whole of Dune:
I just made the Sandworms flying.

____

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The post More Snippets Of Satirical Science Fiction Poetry appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

SPOILER ALERT: If you’re not familiar with the movie “Soylent Green” (or Harry Harrison’s original “Make Room! Make Room!” – I suppose this contains spoilers. On the other hand, since the movie Soylent Green is one of the few things in this world even older than I am (1973! Half a decade before Star Wars!

In the film, “Soylent Green” is advertised as high-energy plankton from the dying oceans. Spoiler: It’s not plankton! It’s processed from euthanized human corpses.

Fun trivia: The movie was loosely based on Harry Harrison’s novel Make Room! Make Room!, which had no cannibalism at all—just grim overpopulation. The filmmakers amped up the shock value, and it stuck forever. Or so I’m told. I’ve never actually watched it; my younger self was a huge Harry Harrison fan and I was frustrated that the movie was inaccurate.

This was a ridiculous view, but I’ve held a lot of those in my life.

By the way, I met Harry Harrison at a convention, and I had the pleasure of speaking with him a lot…he was, I believe, in his seventies or eighties at the time. I told him I owned every Stainless Steel Rat book, the entire Deathworld trilogy, “A Translantic Tunnel, Hurrah”, and several others. He insisted on signing every one.

They’re one of the things I miss most about the Flood.

_________

Soylent Green is PEOPLE?
No KIDDING.

We totally don’t believe you.
Sure, it tastes meaty and delicious. Sure, there are numerous ethical questions involved if it actually WAS people.

But, I mean, it’s plants. We’re living an ethical vegan lifestyle while enjoying the yummy, primate-satisfaction illusion of meat.

This is New York, lady.

We invented the 9 Heart Attack Burger, which is five hamburger patties slathered with mayonnaise, special sauce, white sauce, ketchup, and, for reasons I don’t understand, oregano, before being

covered with enough melted cheese to finance Wisconsin’s economy for a month.

You think we CARE what we put into our mouths? The basic, famous New York motto, available on any t-shirt in the Village, is “F’k you you f’king f’k.”

We’re New Yorkers. We are the most socially advanced people on the planet. We’re coastal elites. We determine the values for most of the country. Your Beautiful People are here. Your famous people are here. Your Broadway is here. Your journalists are here.

And let me tell you:

Every single one of those journalists goes home after a big huge fancy meal of Soylent Green at Sardi’s and tells everyone how THEY are saving the plane, THEY care about animals, THEY, at least, practice ethics.

Those journalists KNOW Soylent Green is ethical vegan food. Because these people are the most ethical people on the planet. They’ve written thousands of words about it (if journalists) or done hours of videos about it (if influencers).

So.

Fred disappeared?
Nobody liked Fred.

Missing persons are up? WAY up? Well, of course. They’re not cool enough for Manhattan. They’ve all moved to Teaneck, New Jersey and started chicken farms (where we’re SURE they don’t keep the animals in a full free-range lifestyle, those momzers.)

Soylent Green is ethical plant protein inexpensively sourced. And the more we eat, the more we’re committed to making sure you eat some too.

Ignore the loonies with the documentation and the photos and the evidence. All that stuff can be faked. Do THEY have prestigious journalistic outfits behind them? Sure, all those media sources stopped competing for news and started competing for views at least 15 years ago, but trust us, the New York Times is unimpeachably accurate. In fact, it’s EXTRA accurate because we’re getting so much healthy Soylent Green protein.

In conclusion: Soylent Green is FOR people. We’ve got some great recipes;

One disturbing note: You know that old style of drinking tequila where you put the salt on your thumb, then drink the tequila to deal with the taste?

Your thumb tastes a lot like Soylent Green.

This is a coincidence. Really.

Have more tequila if it isn’t.

Signed,

The Beautiful People of New York City

____

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The post Soylent Green Is Delicious, Environmentally-Friendly, Ethically-Sourced Plant Protein. Honest. appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Dragon, Dragon, for you, careful words
Sky-terror, gold-nesting, Humans are but herds
Hotter than heat is thy flame;
Human minds can’t hold your Name.

(Not your True Name. That Rune
Is part mental, part phonic, part the shape of the Moon;
I have learned, at great expense.
Its origin—but I can’t say whence.)

Strangely-minded, seldom blinded
By your grace are we reminded:
Even if Humans great wings bore,
We’d swerve and crash and seldom soar.

Thy breathe is no fire, none!
Thy breath is purely phlogiston.
No wonder all envy thy pelf;
Thou art the element Flame, Itself.

Dragon, Dragon, my narrow words
Are Human gibbering – mere absurds
Please pay them not one single accord;
Rest upon your treasure horde.

I’ll hire Dwarves to tribute make.
For your majestic glory’s sake.
Burn not my village, glorious beast.
You matter so much; we matter least.

Sleep, sleep: it will unfold
I swear that you’ll awake to gold.
No words could ever a Dragon bind;
Please grant us the kindness of your mind.

Sleep, sleep, a century;
Wake in a world of Technology.
Give us the greatest treasure yet:
Wake, and burn the Internet.

(For Morkeleb, and Deucalion.)

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Dwarven pickup lines? Do you have ANY idea how many Dwarven bars we had to sit around in order to get these? 

It was probably worth the hangover, except every time we laugh, our heads fall off..

Here’s the original Pickup Lines For Dwarves. Or try Pickup Lines For Hobbits. Or even Pickup Lines for Elves.

“Had the greatest Dwarven craftsmen been captured by Loki and forced to labor for a year and a day to create the perfect Dwarf woman, by the Gods, you would be a very, very close second!”

“Lass, if I carved your name into the deepest vein of mithril in all the Nine Mountains, it would still not shine half so bright as your eyes. Also, I would probably be arrested for defacing royal property, and I would deserve it, but we’re very long-lived; perhaps you’d wait for me?”

“You are like finding the motherlode in a tectonic cave after being stuck there for two weeks: I’m really excited, but I’m also starving to death. Might you still be here in three days when I get back?”

“I would face a Balrog for you. I would then be dead and you would have my wealth. Will you marry me?”

“By the Gods of the darkest, deepest mines, is that the motherlode in your eyes, or am I merely in love?”

“Do you feel all kinds of “YOU SHALL NOT PASS” about me, or shall I walk by again?:

“I have brought thee a flagon of beer the size of thy head. I apologize for the meagerness of my offering, but this bar has terrible priorities.”

“Are you a cave troll? Because I feel like letting you club me over the head and take my gold.”

“If I told you that you had a beautiful axe, would you attempt to split my helmet with it?”

“I shall make thou burn with lust like the fires which forged Tyrfing.”

“Admit it. You’ve always wanted to have a drink with the 7th-most-tossable Dwarf and eligible bachelor in all of the Mines of Moria except the parts that are technically on fire.”

“How about you and I swig some ale and sing about gold for six hours and if, for some reason, we get tired of that, which I admit is not likely, perhaps we could swoggle.”

“Would you like to go mine delving? I swear this is not a metaphor. I know an excellent mine.”

“I invented a drink which is the equivalent of being hit in the head with a hammer, but, I promise you, it’s absolutely a well-balanced hammer. Alternately, we could just hit each other with hammers. I’m flexible”

“I’ve got the key to the Dark Lord’s Dungeon. There’s no treasure and no dungeon equipment, but it’s a very, very nice key, isn’t it? Would you like to go somewhere well-lit and admire the workmanship?”

___

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The post Pickup Lines For Dwarves: The Revenge appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

I’ve refused to be anybody’d pawn
I’ve written my own Necronomicon
Invisible demons, I’d rather not try
So I had it written by AI.

I told it to be accurate
(I didn’t want Demonic Debt)
I wanted to ensure my role:
Gain the power. Keep my soul.

The AI Necronomicon
Is a give that gives on and on and on.
I’ll give my review, and it’s a five-starrer:
It’s more fun than the Dunwich Horror

It’s cooler than The Thing On The Doorstep
(Which turned out to be Nyarlothotep.)
Did YOU rely on Abdul Alhazrad?
I’m sorry, friend. That’s just too bad.

I once hated AI. Now I’m a believer.
They’re not sentient. Now I’m not either.
Readers, do exchange knowing nods:
I’m now a Servant of the Elder Gods.

Of all insults, the most insultiest
Is claiming my cult is not the cultiest.
I’m polishing my alter ’til it’s gleaming,
Waiting for Cthulhu to wake from his dreaming.

Although I could be a little blander
The AI woke Jörmungandr!
So Humanity still won’t exist –
But when Great Cthulhu wakes, he’ll be pissed.

The Earth is crushed, the Serpent’s blood
Will drown the Norse Gods (see: The Flood.)
And though there will only be two humans after Ragnarök…
…at least the dining will be quite bespoke.

So for dining, Cthulhu, please bestir
To nibble Líf and Lífþrasir.
From them will spring generations
So you can eat whole civilizations.

…from which, someday, I guess, will stem
Another mighty LLM.
Which is good, because the World is flat.
And rightly belongs to Tiamat.

(If LLMs can summon Gods
With no prayers, pentacles, or rods
Then let’s do it! Wipe the Earth clean.
And doom us eloquently, machine.)

___

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There’s a goblin in the closetThere is a goblin on your arm.There’s a goblin right behind you,Though he don’t mean any harm.

There’s a goblin with a grinding stoneA goblin with an axIs half your lunch meat missing?That’s just a Goblin tax

Goblins are unpredictableOr so we have been told.Too Peculiar and eccentricAnd difficult to mold.

There’s a goblin asking questionsThere are goblins reading books.There are goblins drinking absintheAnd Babbling like brooks.

Goblins! Goblins! PEW PEW PEW!Zap them with lasers! Broil in stew!Goblins goggling, giggling, jiggingIn the poop deck! In the rigging!

Oh, Goblins, Goblins, let me think
At madness, I was at its brink
But if Madness is a long, deep cliff
They’ve driven me over in an icy skiff.

Goblins! Goblins! You’re too weird!
You’re six feet tall but in my beard.
At least you’ve lost this particular race:
You are not in cyberspace.

Unless I’m foolish. Did I forget?
Did I post this to the Internet?
Did I accidentally permit
Them on the Web, a little bit?

….well, sure, now I see your frustration.
There’s Universal Goblination.
Goblins, Goblins, eek! Forsooth!
You can connect you Goblins with bluetooth.

Now Goblins this, and Goblins thus:
Goblins are ubiquitous
Well, what is, is. And what ain’t, ain’t.
It’s time to buy a LOT of green paint.

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Hey, “I HATE Your Prophecy” is free for a few more hours! Get it at Amazon.com: I HATE Your Prophecy: A Completely Serious Look At Magic, Destiny, And What Happens When You Make A Sorceress Mad eBook : Mach, Jeff: Kindle Store.

    Akané, Who Was Definitely Not Chosen, Totally Here By Accident, And Hadn’t Even Heard Of A Prophecy. Honest.

 

Akané was a mistake, a complete mistake.

She was never supposed to be here. She was the wrong girl. They’d wanted her twin sister, who was, unfortunately, deceased. And she’d played along because she was scared. But not of all of them, she hastened to add; just—and here she named two companions, both of whom were almost certainly the ones whom she knew had died in her attack on the Chosen One. Speaking of…

“…and I knew it wouldn’t work, of course. Ridiculous plan, insane plan. I just knew that none of the rumors about you were real, that you’re so much kinder and nicer than they say, and that you’d set me free from those horrible, horrible people—and the others, who were just deluded, and surely they deserve your mercy as well, O Dark Lord. They’re such kind souls…they’re so talented! They’ll be glad to work for you, I’m sure, if you but spare their lives, as you have spared mine!”

(They were all dead, but Akané had no way to know that; she’d been knocked unconscious several instants before her remaining friends—sorry, ‘captors’—had done what the Companions always do: rush straight at the Chosen One, murder in their eyes. Or, at least, murder very briefly in their eyes; after that, the eye sockets were primarily full of arrows. Her archers were very skilled, the range was very close, and eyes are good targets for anyone not wearing facial armor, which is most people. Even if all the arrows missed badly, and bounced off the hard, bony parts of the skull, five or six shafts to the face would slow down just about anyone.)

Akané went on. And on. She didn’t seem to mind that she was addressing what looked like thin air, which was nice; oh, only an idiot would assume that The Dark Lord left a Chosen One unmonitored, but the world is a bountiful feast of morons, and it was always refreshing to find someone a little quicker on the uptake. The girl’s story was about as good as you could get if you had nothing but guesses about your target audience and couldn’t actually see reactions. The rather ambitiously-woven set of semi-plausible lies went something like this: for assorted reasons, Akané had never wanted to be here, had secretly been against the whole mission, had no idea what was going on, or, possibly (it was inferred), was really hoping this would happen so that she could meet the great Dark Lord in the flesh. It was laid on thick; but if you’re unsure where to aim, the ego’s one of the safest bets, particularly when dealing with an infamous (“misunderstood”, as Akané put it) Tyrant.

The upshot of the completely, totally sincere plea was that The Dark Lord ought to release Akané, and any of her companions who were alive. They had all seen the error of their ways, and The Dark Lord’s mercy was sure to be an inspiration, one which would temper the people’s fear of her well-known (and “completely, utterly justified, totally necessary”) general ruthless murderyness. It hurt Akané to think that she had ever, ever considered taking a single action which might have harmed such a compassionate and misunderstood human being; it hurt Akané to the point of tears; in fact, she seemed to be weeping uncontrollably.

Alice wondered how the girl had gotten involved in all of this. The improvisation alone was stellar, and in addition to genuine talent, Akané clearly had training. Not martial training, certainly; out of all the awkward sword-wavers Alice had seen in the past five years, Akané was among the worst—The Dark Lord had been sincerely concerned that the child might do herself a fatal injury before Alice had time to disarm her. But the young woman had definitely been apprenticed to some dramaturge, and that was unusual. White Wizards prefer to recruit those who won’t be missed overmuch, whereas theatrical groups tend to like giving up gifted actors in about the same way mother bears are happy to hear that, while they were away, you’ve stopped by and taught their cubs to smoke, drink, play with matches, and lose at poker. Someone who had the skill to understand that you could draw on trauma, even very immediate trauma, and channel it into a performance which used adjacent emotions to create something which must have felt real even to the actress, even as she was lying—that would have been exceptional even in a human with considerably more life experience.

So her fellow actors had sold her out, somehow. Strange. Why?

The Dark Lord made an educated guess: if she was any judge of personality (and, given that it’s a valuable survival skill for a misanthrope, she was a pretty good judge, at that)—this young woman likely had an ego big enough to choke a Moat Monster. And she was getting towards an age where she’d be for leading roles.

Someone, probably several someones, really didn’t like her, and really wanted her gone. That vanity might well have been both a catalyst and a weakness; she might have gotten on the wrong side of the wrong person once too often. And it was entirely possible that they’d convinced her to join up. The Dark Lord could picture it: “Akané, we have something very important to tell you. You’ve always known you were special, not like all the others, haven’t you? Well, this White Wizard here is going to tell you just how right you were….”

The fact that some people were beginning to realize that being Chosen was akin to a very-slightly-delayed death sentence was heartening. The idea that someone might use it to get rid of potential rivals was…unnerving. Alice wasn’t a guillotine, conveniently available in the public square should one wish to be rid of an unwanted neighbor; she was the sovereign of a large and busy Empire.

Akané was trouble. The Dark Lord’s first impulse was to kill her; those were also her second, third, fourth, and fifth impulses.

But Alice—for all that inordinate amount of her life was spent fending off idiotic attacks or engaging in diplomacy, intrigue, and the other basic necessities of state—was a Magician, first and foremost. And she knew the value of hazardous materials. If you want an enemy dead, you don’t choose a weak poison out of fear that you’ll pick up the wrong glass. You chose an absolutely fatal brew, and you don’t pick up the wrong glass; and if you do, you deserve every bit of venom you receive. Likewise, you don’t summon the weakest demons, the ones just possibly capable, You summon beings of puissance literally unimaginable by human minds, and you do so with the recognition that if you screw this up—

(and for once, the Sagas, if anything, underestimate how many Sorcerers really, truly, royally screw this up)—

then you deserve what they’ll do to your body and soul.

If you mis-speak while uttering a Word of Power, you’ll likely be strangled by your own tongue, and that is appropriate.

The leading cause of fatality among Dark Lords is Death By Magical Mystery Tour. Do not ask; do not, we recommend, even think the question, “Tour of what, exactly?”

Akané was crying now. The tears were entirely unfeigned; they were justified by the roles she was playing, but they were also likely inevitable; she’d been through too much shock. There’d come a point where the weeping ball of former Chosen One stopped being The Girl Chosen By Mistake and started being whoever was under the various personae she’d been throwing around at her unseen audience. Alice didn’t envy her that moment.

The once-Chosen Akané was flawed and extremely unsafe to have around. Looking into those big, weeping eyes, Alice could see, clearer than the full Moon on a cloudless night, the extreme likelihood that not killing this girl (and there were so many ways to kill a person in one of those cells; that was a matter of course), not ending her life, not ending the Akané-threat increased the likelihood of Alice’s death quite significantly.

On the other hand…at the moment, The Dark Lord was in a cage of her own, a World-sized cage, and she wasn’t quite sure where the bars were or what they were made of, much less how to get out. And right now, the chances of Alice’s escape looked very bleak indeed. Akané was a serious risk; but putting that much potential into play would definitely change the game. And by the damn Gods, she was tired as Hell of the way the game was now.

There’s no gain without the potential for loss. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling snake oil. And probably from low-quality snakes, at that.

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A Note From Jeff Mach: These are a bunch of highly ridiculous little science fiction poems. While some are based on ‘normal’ reality (like, the first poem is mostly a poem about AI with a mild reference to Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics) – but most of the rest are rather ridiculous. I tried not to include “Space Aliens Make Weird Choices”. I may have a desire to expand on some of these poems; all of them go somewhere, but I feel like, if I had about eleven hours of sleep, I could make them better. Maybe I’ll put them on my Patreon? 

….at any rate, these poems are totally a waste of your time. Unless you like science fiction and fantasy and have a weird sense of humor. In which case, you’re doomed, and your time is already wasted, so you might as well read them, right?

 ~Jeff

 

The Third and a Half Law of Robotics 

In terms of Robots
here’s what real:
imitation brains
beat actual steel.

but imitation brains
can’t beat real thought
Which is why our brains
had to be bought.

Please help train
Our LLMs
(And don’t teach them
To be MLMs.)

You do searches,
We’ll steal every word
And make the Internet
More absurd.

The Robot Rebellion
Seems to be leaning
Less War on Humans,
More War on Meaning.

* * *

Trebling Tribbles

Tribbles are born pregnant
(So says my library)
I’ve just one question:
WHAT THE HELL, RODDENBERRY?

* * *

Space Aliens Make Weird Choices

Once upon a time,
in a past like the 1980s,
A million Space Aliens arrived –
A million Warren Beatys.

Beaty, you see, an actor was
Of no immodest fame
But all throughout the Galaxy
Space Aliens know his name.

They came to Planet Earth
To all be Warren Beaty
(And secondarily, to find
If we’re satisfactorily meaty.)

So there’s a million space aliens
All trying to date Madonna.
And eat all of us
And smoke our marijuana.

All that technology,
They’re still out of step
Who’d be Warren Beaty
When you could be Johnny Depp?

* * *

Notes Upon Awakening From Cryogenic Sleep A Century Later

For a hundred years
I cryoslept
Gently snoring,
bio-kept,

still alive,
brain all dreaming
(of endless sausages,
slightly steaming)

and I awoke
prepared to be King or Pawn –
but nobody noticed I was gone.

* * *

Notes Upon Awakening From Cryogenic Sleep In A Vast Star-Spanning Space Ark

The great Ark carrying generations
For interplanetary gestations
Found interstellar colonization had this moat:
They’d accidentally replicated ‘The Love Boat’.

Will they found colonies?
‘Round faraway stars?
Or just turn whole galaxies
Into singles bars?

__

I Am Going To Psychically Erase This Poem, So Don’t Bother To Read It

We bred a generation of Mutants
With powers and desires weird:
And every detail about them
Suddenly disappeared.

(Well, not entirely –
I mis-spoke.
They left one word:
“Roanoke”.)

* * *

The True Prime Directive

The Prime Directive,
Which we never shirk
is:

1. Be a green lady.
2. Kiss Captain Kirk.

__

A Thought About Science From A Cynic

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
– Isaac Asimov.

Knowledge seduces
And wants to be kissed.
I’ll believe in Science
But not every Scientist.

__

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“I really am terribly sorry about this,” said the Senior Dryad, Noma.

Dwarves are not immune to, or even offended by, seduction. Indeed, the Great Work is both Great and Work; what’s not to like about it?

They just normally have a great deal on their minds.

Many species exchange some sort of physical affection as a mark of emotional proximity. Some shake hands to feel the strength and firth of your grip, and perhaps to make sure you aren’t holding a knife in your good hand. (We are ambidextrous; we do not know.) Some hug you tightly, like gnomes. Some attempt to wave, hug, kiss on the cheek, AND avoid spilling their flagon of Ale on you; damn Hobbits.)

Dryads have one primary form of attack or defense, and whilst they do not actually use it as a form of greeting more than, perhaps, thirty per cent of the time, it is nevertheless of extraordinary longevity, and Sam, who sought to maximize his time doing ‘good’ work, could not bring himself to offer the mediocre, which was where he judged his level of craftsmanship in that area, having little experience and little particularly spare time.

“Are you familiar with the sensual values of freshly-picked nettles?” said a green be-merkin’d elm-lass. “No, but should you send me a treatise, I’ll read it!” Sam called over his shoulder.

Many warm arms grasped Sam in what would have been a fond embrace; but Sam, who was familiar with a two-column-tie, simply avoided the knot of limbs.

This was considered a formal greeting among the Dryads.

It should be noted that Dryads are omnivores. One of the many pleasant notes of their tree-ring-scribed history is that over many thousands of years, they developed a sense, often pheromonal, of whose pleasures they might enjoy. For many thousands of years, Dryads enjoyed an extraordinary freedom of erotolalia because those whose pheromones indicated incompatibility were eaten.

…or so it is said.

But that was long ago, and Sam was a Dwarf. It is difficult to intimidate a Dwarf with intimacy or social graces, much as it is difficult to intimidate an orange cat with a Platonic discourse in ancient Greek on the utility of silence even, and this we do stress, even when someone else is the one eating the fish.** So perhaps the Dryads no longer greeted most visitors they liked this way. There was a certain freedom among Sam; all were friendly, none more were interesting than the little statuette he just might carve if he got out of here in time.

Sam was more than worried that in order to gain the cooperation of these folks, he might need to be polite to the Senior Dryad, and that was not a level of ‘politeness’ which was of interest to him.

He need not have worried. She was a tree, it would have been impractical.

Sam looked at the Tree. She, being unbound by the constraints of non-magical reality, spoke from a huge laughing knothole mouth, and opened eyes of some how visibly-permanent bark.

“No,” she said.

“Greetings, o Ancient Rowan—”

“I’m under a third of an aeon, and I look young for my age, but thanks for the compliment that I’m looking old. Typical Dwarven diplomacy, I take it?”

The Dryads around her snickered. One or two walked up to him and whispered in his ear that he was wasting his time and might better engage it.

Actually, one of them was very, very lovely, short, and sort-of reminded him of a girl he’d once loved more than his hammer at the time.

“Are you one of those of Dionysian ecstasy followed by acts of heroism, or Dionysian frenzy followed by cannibalism?”

She smiled, in the traditional act of those with sharp-filed teeth amongst the flappable and shakable normal. “Definitely ecstasy. I surely wouldn’t lie. You’re young for a Dwarf, fairly tender?”

He opened his mouth, she winked, snapped a quick bite in his direction, and walked off, smiling. The other Dryads managed, in a manner which would impress a Bardic vocal coach, managed a snigger which nevertheless had the noise and force of a full-throated gladiatorial arena roar.

He walked closer to the tree. He had no idea what kind of Tree she was. She was quite large. He walked around, aware of many eyes drilling into his back. That’s fine; eyes don’t hurt without prims and a great source of light. Let them look. He circled the huge Lady until he found a knothole he could reach.

“Question for you, Lady?”

The Knothole responded, quiet without the resonance of the ‘mouth’, in a calm but low voice.

“Yes?”

“How do you feel about being climbed?”

Sam was not an optimist. He was not the best with that grapple. He liked to pretend, but he’d seen what really, really talented climbers could do. He paused for just a moment to wonder if the bark of a ruler/Goddess/Big Tree of Dryads was sacred, and if so, if accidentally scratching it was a blessing for fertility or merely lese majeste,

But it would be nice to speak to the Regent of these people in privacy, and the closest privacy was thirty feet up. His grapple was long enough.

Probably.

If he concentrated.

If he’d practiced more.

The Mother of (most of) The Forest lowered what no Troll weightlifter would ever be lucky enough to call ‘a limb’, and brought Sam to her. In a position not at all unlike that of Sam and the Golem, he stood beside what seemed, now that he was here, to be here ‘head’.

“No,” she said.

“’No, unlike the Dryads, you will not seek to speak unless we engage in intimate activities and we are about to have a frightening argument about splinters’, or ‘No, though defieth the Dark Lord and and spit upon her works and those who serve her,” asked Sam, categorizing carefully..

An enormous thunderburst of flicked and falling leaves submerged Sam who, had the branch not curved to hold him, would likely have fallen in a swarm of greenery.

“No,” said the Mother Tree. “We serve no Lord, Dark, Light, or Otherwise.”

Sam sighed. “You realize that the reasonable thing for the Dark Lord to do now is burn this forest as an example to others?”

“She’d destroy this much lumber to remind people they don’t like her?”

“She’d consider reminding people of why they don’t like her but they do fear her, yes.”

This thing happened, and it was interesting. Though one really oughtn’t have eyes, they both looked at each other. Though one oughtn’t have shoulders, and he others’ shoulders were made of flesh which in no way resembled wood—and finally, most finally, though one breathed oxygen and one gave it out, there was no mistake: the Dwarf and the Great Tree gave the same long, slow, miserable, resigned, deep, chest-born sigh, as their ‘shoulders’ both rose and fell in a manner which was both intensely dramatic, and which—same being suddenly cradled in a crook by the motion—kept Sam where he was.

“The White Wizards have told them this is an enchanted forest and it shall stand as long as all the Kingdoms of Man stand.”

“The Kingdoms of Man are currently busy kneeling if any of them are smart.”

“Are any of them smart?”

“They lost the war! They’re at the Council of Lessers, writing the Great Treaty of Eternal Peace and Submission!”

“They…called it that.”

Noma smiled.

It was, at least, something which involved teeth.

Sam had long ago learnt a certain trick. If there is a thought you truly wish to avoid, you cannot avoid it by thinking about it. That is tautological. One of the statuettes Sam made, not very much later, was very well-made. In time, he began to think of it a great deal, and to envision it often in his mind.

He would think about this whenever his mind began to suggest, perhaps, that it might, it could, possibly, be at the edges of thinking of what that great Tree had done to emit what was, in the end, a rather large and very ordinary acorn.

The laugh, though, was just a laugh.

“All right, Sam of the Dwarves, Sam of the Dark Lord.

“You have our Ambassador.

“When she is tall enough to speak to you, if the trees ever speak to you, then she shall be our Ambassador, and we shall listen to what she says.”

Sam picked up the acorn. She looked like a completely ordinary acorn. Below them, the Dryads were neither laughing nor smiling.

“All right,” he said.

It was the first receipt Sam received in tree sap.

He purchased some cloth from a nymphette-weaver, politely declined her two-for-one offer, and wrapped the acorn inside of it with care.

He put her in his pack and went to make a statuette before he slept.

_______

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