12:36 / 24:37, Rotation 518 / 687, 231 AE, 8.929310, 136.035921, Aryss

  Chamber 111118, it was clear from the hexadecimal that it was near the central spire of the Hive. Before she knew it she was shooting up a gryphantene reinforced glass body delivery tube, one with a view of the Aryssal expanse. Layers upon layers of barren, rocky mountains stretched before her now, devoid of life-giving oxygen, interleaving with one another, a desolate horizon of elemental hostility representing to Vilithe nothing but endless, fractal violence.

  She entered a security chamber, and it was clean and nice and spacious, with latex floor, shiny aluminum walls anodized in smatterings of colors. A water fountain jetting refreshing negative ions into the air, connecting to little rivulets of streaming water growing small lily pads. Plenty of sunlight from the big windowpane, observing a blue Aryssal sunset. This was Clan Amallark’s private territory, and it was unusual for a vassal to step foot here. A milieu of lesser psions were scattered about here, doing the empire’s business. There were several large, heavily secured gates, to each side of them were Amallarkean guards in solid carapace, worn only by elite knights. All the elvans here were dressed and Vilithe covered her nakedness in embarrassment. But no one paid heed to her presence.

  You should be lucky to be here, vassal.

  Shut up, Malevolent.

  And then the spirit fell silent, as it began to record her present experience to transmit to Zitra.

  A psion stepped towards her. State your business, vassal.

  Vilithe transmitted the psionic signature that floated in her mind.

  Serun Amallark, clan soldier, age of twenty Reathean revs. Chamber 111118, he has requested that I service his pleasure.

  The psion leered at her, wondering why the hero knight would want her. But she nodded and waved her head to the side, indicating that Vilithe should step through one of the gates that were now sliding open, the knights on either side unflinching.

  Vilithe strode through, and passed through a little maze of passageways, all alike, all with little pleasure rooms secreted away for Amallarkeans to socialize and fornicate and intoxicate themselves. It used to be that almost all elvans were given these privileges, but these rotes they were a luxury reserved for the ruling clan. Though they were many little rooms, they were all part of the pleasure chamber, whose Brood Mother now waddled towards Vilithe. The cocoons she was given had long dried out, desiccated after working to produce sixty-four elvans in eight broods in under just ten revs, and so she was assigned to be the caretaker of the pleasure chamber.

  “Oh, no, no, no! This shan’t do!”

  She grabbed startled Vilithe and spun her about, her eight flabby breasts bouncing about in every direction. She wore nothing but a simple cotton cloth poncho – although cotton itself was a luxury – didn’t bother with anything else for her loose skin. She had no use for fat stores anymore, no longer able to accept new cocoons, so it was all stripped away. Flaps hung like the folds of a dress over her legs. She had a lot of makeup on, a pasty layer of foundation and blushed rouge on her cheeks, her entire eyelid was covered in eyeshadow, fake eye lashes had corners about to pop off, shaking black snowy mascara with every blink, and the long extension of eyeliner made her look like a hieroglyphic. Her lipstick was striking red though. Vilithe would very much like to be able to make her own lips have that shade, but she had never in her life used makeup.

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  As Miz Dazey tsked and looked Vilithe up and down, she took a hit from her nicotinic vaporizer.

  It was strange that this Brood Mother was using her own voice. She smiled warmly.

  Now, now, dear, don’t you think all elvans deserve some happiness, even vassals?

  And then she spoke again, “Welcome to my chamber!” It was uncannily cheerful for the realm they found themselves in.

  It felt good to be treated like an actual elvan being for once.

  “Thank you, uh-” she dared not scry the mind of a member of Clan Amallark.

  “Dazey,” she grinned, “But everyone just calls me Miz Dazey.”

  She continued, “What the hell Miz means? Damned if I know! And if you may be so kind as to let me know…” something about the silly way she said it with such generous verbosity, it put Vilithe at ease, “...your name?”

  “Vilithe,” but she said it terse and taut. She still didn’t trust Dazey Amallark, old brood mother of the pleasure chamber.

  “And your clan name?”

  Vilithe was stunned. She couldn’t believe one of her captors was asking her that.

  “Clan Ca-”, she paused, still quite in disbelief, “Clan Callethe.”

  Dazey’s eyes widened, “Ooh!”, she had a lilt of curiosity to her voice. “The Great Clan of Phyros! Why you must be the Dragonrider of the Cloud Realm! I’ve heard much about you.”

  Stunned by the validation, Vilithe nearly let her guard down. No. It’s too obvious. She’s trying to trick you.

  Besides, she was supposed to satiate the lust of an Amallarkean soldier. Ugh.

  “The last surviving Phyroan! And my, the only dragonrider here on Aryss! Well, a vassal of such stature and honor certainly deserves a treat.”

  Dazey produced a big bowl of oats.

  Oats! Oats!!

  Vilithe snatched the bowl from her hands and scurried to a nearby pleather couch. She devoured the oats, there was a wooden spoon stuck into it, held in by the goopy thickness. Oh, it was so thick! It was so full of nutrition! She adored each nutty flavor and could cry with how sweet it tasted on her tongue. She loved how it stuck to her teeth as she chewed, but not so much that it had to be picked out with a nail, as it fell away with a lick. Polishing off the bowl by tipping the soupy, milky brew left over into her face, she let out a satisfied, “Ahh.”

  Miz Dazey watched Vilithe slurp each spoonful with just as much satisfaction, but of a starkly more sinister kind.

  Carapace was only denoted as solid if it was made fully from gryphantene plates. Even more advanced that solid carapace was liquid carapace, or, a spirit suit, worn only by psions, with fluidic fullerenes that moved across the body like a living thing.

  While marriage existed for elvans, it was so rarely practiced anymore – elvan sexual relations were liberal to say the least, and while it wasn’t exactly strictly polygamous, there were more polycules than there were pairings – the titles of miss and missus no longer held much meaning. Dazey simply liked how it sounded, even though the lonely brood mother had never truly had a mate. Plenty of mating, but no real mate. The drones just shuffled in and out.

  It was a distinctly archaic Amallarkean lingo – the new generation of broodlings never said this and thought the older ones like Miz Dazey sounded terribly dated when they called Phyros ‘the Cloud Realm’, Reath, ‘the Earth Realm’, and Aryss ‘the Hell Realm’.

  One of the last.