Eidren just dashed straight off but then he realized he had no idea where he was going, so he had to double back to Dazey who smacked him on the head and said, “Sui zai [衰仔]!”, and they kept shuffling right along the blue passageways through the club neon of bright blue chamber 0096FF.

  Over in the opposite direction of the hive, in the neon red FF3131, the pulse of workers was just unbearable and Vilithe just resolved to tear her way through these bodies in front of her to see what the excitement was all about and what the hype was, when finally the thought reached her.

  Princess Amefrid is gonna throw a porgy to celebrate killing Talisa the Rogue!

  Porgy.

  A Porgy?!

  The elvan word for ‘party’.

  Scryer, if you thought that an orcan razza was crazy, well…

  You haven’t seen an elvan porgy.

  As their luck would have it, Eidren and Vilithe ended up depositing in perfectly opposite sides, having taken completely parallel roundabout routes, to get to the absolutely packed to the brim chamber 111118- Miz Dazey’s cavernous pleasure chamber and its sub chambers, which puffed up so much larger than all the scattered arterial and storage and work staging chambers around it. It radiated onyx class and sleekness.

  In the front, on a towering dais, stood Amefrid.

  Amefrid had saved this special couture for just such a special occasion, and it was glorious, threads and threads of what appeared from afar to be glittery sequins that were upon closer examination synthetic rubies, in all sorts of irregular dodecahedral cuts, unique one and all.

  They spilled and flowed over her body, along the scalp of her head like a crown, or a hood, parting around her flaming, flaring hair now returned to its glorious crimson red, now replete with an orange and bright blue burning core. And the diamonds. So many synthetic diamonds. She was absolutely dripping in them- dripping in drip. The strings of jewels discreetly flowed to where it could best hide her nips, crotch and groin, but otherwise they were just threads, and for all intents and purposes, she was completely naked, in a sense. And yet at the same time, she was wearing pure nazge bling, worthless as it was given the synthetic nature of the rocks. This was not a Princess’s new clothes situation here- she had waited so long to wear this.

  Welcome, my subjects! She spread her arms out, and the dangling threads of precious gems swung with her gesture, a long flowing cloak of blood-red.

  When a Queen or Princess is in a bad mood, that psionic foulness poisons the mind of her whole clan and all vassals ensnared in their psionic net like a bad cold or covid. Like a ripple in a pond.

  But now that the Administrator of Aryss was ecstatic with joy having just accomplished the greatest thing in her life, the hive was equally euphoric.

  Congratulations to my hive for bringing us to the Triumph of my Administration. The Death of the Rogue! The enemy Talisa lives- no more! She swiped her arm in the air, and the rubies and diamonds swept arcs in the wake.

  “WOO!”

  “WE LOVE YOU, YOUR HIGHNESS!”

  Aw, sweetie. She blew a kiss and pointed at her adoring fan. I love you too. “I love you too,” she whispered coyly.

  The move sent waves, it was explosive. Arms were thrown up in the air in joy now, rippling from where Amefrid pointed, and the only thing that kept a mad rush from burying the Princess was, of course, the psionics puppeteering them, and keeping them in their place.

  Placed around the main lobby and every single one of the compartments of the pleasure chamber is sweet clan miruvor completely loaded with molly and acid. Vassals, help yourself.

  She sensed hesitation. This was some serious stuff, and bad trips were a very real possibility. So, she winked coyly and thought, and by the way, consumption is not optional, nah, not at my porgy. We’ll do what I wanna.

  It was an Amefrid porgy, so they played by Amefrid’s rules.

  But whatever! All over the place were plates and plates of food! Fresh baked buns of bread, youtiao [油条] fried flour dough crullers, just stick doughnuts, Amefrid just went nuts with digging into the flour stores. And yes, plenty of bowls of oats, and- eggs! So many hard boiled eggs, soft boiled eggs, the shells already picked, still warm and glowing with goodness. Around the pile of boiled eggs were piled up all sorts of lovely condiments, all the classic deviled ones like mayonnaise and shakshouka style harissa sauce, and dried red pepper flakes, and black, white, and green peppercorns, stashes of vacuum sealed, dried, ancient Kampot peppercorns no longer possible to obtain, and zanthoxylum peppercorns for the more daring. There were also plenty of synthetic ‘cheese’ sauces. But no spirit-woven burgers. Only the Aryssal elite ate those. This was a communal thing. Still, it was better than any of these elvans had eaten in revolutions. On each corner was a stack of bowls ready to receive the assortment of flavors, all sorts of salsas made from hydroponic tomatoes, onions, all sorts of peppers, and even some citrus. Spirit-woven artificial candies made from Protorcan corn extracted fructose syrup, various collagen gummies, multicolored sweets and lollies for a broodling’s heart’s content, not to mention their tongues, even as their stomach spirits would complain fiercely.

  Eggs, eggs, eggs- it’s all you need to eat for the early rote for a whole lifetime. There was even an omelet station, a sweet tamagoyaki station using precious mirin, a pav egg and potato curry station rich with nutritious turmeric to bring the breads over to, and of course julienned fries, or chips, twirly shoestring fries, thick cut style fries fried in peanut oil, made every type of tuber. Hash browns, potato egg frittatas, potato knishes, potato pancakes, potato noodles in a big egg drop soup broth made with the bones of the precious few chickens that could be afforded to be put frozen on a dragon and sent to Aryss, and here was the kicker- free flow wine. ‘Champagne’. The bubbly. The fizzy.

  Cocaine is for Amallarkean workers only, and I must stress gurls, there really isn’t that much. Sisters, don’t be greedy. But yes, there’s some if you need. True tobacco cigarettes, we’re instituting a lottery system for, but feel free to pick up a vape, we really do have all, and I mean all, the flavors.

  There were some muted ‘woos’!

  Oh, and plentiful moon sugar for the crash. You’ll find it.

  If the orcans really loved their cannabis, the elvans really loved their ketamine, or as they called it, ‘moon sugar’.

  With how dire things are on Aryss, and how it made no sense to waste resources, the Amallarkeans and vassals were all mingled up together, all the better for the Amallarkeans to have their pick. They were all mingling now, sizing partners or potential polycule connections up, looking for group.

  The Amallarkean Princess telepathed directly to Dazey, now, ‘DJ Minni’, no Disney songs, ok? Done with that. She was not going to let Dazey entertain these fantastic notions of workers promoting to Princess. Amefrid was the Princess, need she remind you that? Dazey nodded and loaded up the black discs.

  She dropped the needle.

  She was going to take it easy, let’s just ease into this one. A rollicking little beat popped up and down with a soothing vibe like a stroll down a beach.

  Well then subjects, I bid you adieu, then. Amefrid was lifted up by six of her finest shoulders by each arm and shoulder, and one more, a seventh, gingerly lifting her up by her waist so she would feel no discomfort as she was carried, and they retreated to her private chambers.

  “Dodge the fair to hell and back, now look who’s calling the kettle black?”

  The peculiar attribute about molly was that it made elvans extremely sensitive to psionics. The intrinsic sense of close personal bonding and connection that the drug made the user feel was amplified by spirits and forced psionic connection whether it was wise or not.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Good morning.”

  They haven’t had a porgy in revolutions! Senjya never did them. She found them a total waste of resources. For Amefrid, on the other hand, getting wasted was never a waste of time.

  The first thing Vilithe did was dive and snatch for a thin potato crepe still piping hot, which she gently wrapped a strangely flavored gummy worm in, for there was no maple syrup or caramel, and when she took a bite of her delectable creation she felt her heart soar, frisson light up every part of her body with well needed calories, and in oh so delicious carbohydrate form. Then she danced onwards and snatched a flute of rosé, washed her childish broodling’s breakfast down with it. She pilfered bites from everything else on the buffet table, and she was so happy she almost entirely forgot about Eidren, almost. She made sure to keep her eating light and measured, because she knew exactly what she wanted to do to him. She made sure to snatch a disposable vape. Those always came in handy.

  On the other side of the crowd, Eidren was just stuffing as many of these incredible crullers into his wide-open maw as he could, sopping up as much egg curry as he could, and salsas, and harissa, which really were the first spicy things he ever ate and surprisingly loved it. He loved the pain, the sweatiness, the post-spice endorphin rush. He felt so alive! He foolishly drank the candyflip brew to cool off, not quite knowing what it was, which still tasted slightly bitter under the sweeteners, so he just popped a jawbreaker, crunched it apart into sugary pieces with his molars, letting it all get stuck in the cracks between the teeth that he would suck out later, and then just kept eating.

  “Don’t cry about your salad days, laugh it off, it will be okay.” The beat was popping quite rollicky now.

  “Good morning, good morning.”

  Dazey, grooving, swinging her shoulders, phased into the next song by psionically manipulating the decks, a bumpy, minimalist, electro dance, funk house track, with a few hints of tribal influence, that surely will get the porgy going. She felt the track’s title was appropriate for the heroic returning warriors.

  If orcans loved excessive all out in your face genres like drum and bass, maximalist techno, psytrance, metal, rock, and punk, then elvans preferred minimalist, suave, sophisticated kind of music, with nuance. Elvans loved house music. Elvans loved house music a little too much, and it often got overplayed. They loved electro, stripped down minimalist techno, funk and disco, jazz, blues, trance without any frills and whistles, and ambient. The classy stuff.

  Now they pushed through the crowd seeking each other’s psionic signature. There was a hint of longing in the music, and it only propelled them, their longing now overbearing now, overwhelming.

  “Woah hey! Hey! Woah, you’re the conduit, yeah?” Vilithe’s exploits had become legendary, and it hadn’t even been a fortrote yet.

  Vilithe rolled another finger through another pair of sweaty cornrows and then rolled her eyes, sighed and said, “Yeah?” Yeah? She rolled her eyes but found that they fluttered up and away for a few seconds before she could bring them back down.

  The worker gave her a peck of the cheek and Vilithe couldn’t help but flush with a smile, she handed Vi a cup of candyflip juice, and carried her own, but the way she handed it to Vi during the peck on the cheek meant that their arms were twined around so that drinking the concoction would force them closer together, as if they would kiss. “Cheers!” She downed it in one.

  Well, it was a porgy. Vi had to admire the cheek, downed it in one too. She had never tried this stuff before, in Phyros all they had was tea, meditation, and binaural beats. She shuddered at the acrid taste and gave a polite peck on the lips for fangurl, who giggled and went back to her other drink that she was double fisting, which was the fizzy of course, to get rid of the chemical taste.

  Through the pulsating beats, Dazey, who had thrown her head up in ecstasy because she was really feeling a buzz from the stuff now, deftly interlacing into the next song.

  “It's unfortunate that when we feel a storm… We can roll ourselves over 'cause we're uncomfortable.”

  While elvans were quite restrained, such was not the case when it came to a porgy. A lot of making out, ass grabbing, tit grabbing, crotch grabbing, indecent stuff. Elvans were as perverted as orcans, when the situation called for it, or perhaps even more so. Of course, it was all consensual because of psionics. If something beckoned for you to touch it, it’s probably because it actually was beckoning. Touching the wrong worker was usually stopped by a Hold Person, and the indiscretion was brushed off. As for a soldier, it went the other way around, he was at the mercy of his gropers.

  “Oh well, the devil makes us sin, but we like it when we're spinning in his grip.”

  Porgies. No words or “WAGHs” even needed to be spoken.

  “Love is like a sin, my love. For the ones that feel it the most.”

  Eidren was getting his fair share of attention, lots of workers reaching to grab his… ‘sword’, and not the one sheathed at his hip, and he had to shrink up and huddle up trying to fend it away because he knew there was only one Lady of the Lake for him. His dear bae. His Vi. He shuffled meekly through another wall of workers trying to cop a feel, only to stumble upon her giving a peck on the lips to fangurl. He felt a twinge of jealous possessiveness.

  It was of course designed so that she could do, as the orcans called it- the zug-zug, while wearing it. She would have workers to hold the hard, sharp and pointy bits away from her own most vulnerable flesh. As for the soldiers servicing her, they could get cut and bleed, as far as she was concerned. Just more lubrication, wasn’t it? Oh, suck it up soldiers, she would think- the Godlike gynous had to deal with something like this once a luna.

  Not in the traditional sense, anyway.

  She was referring to 3,4-Methyl?enedioxy?methamphetamine, or MDMA, and lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD. Also known as a ‘candyflip’, it was a polysubstance best tried in very careful moderation, for the two potentiated each other and made the other stronger. Best done with minimal doses. But Amefrid did not put in minimal doses. Heroic doses for the ‘heroes’.

  Like for example one that beset a poor Githarie Thraxes.

  Contrast with the orcan razza which only had the pop-up beer bar. Food? Psh. Bring your own shit.

  French omelets. Adding ingredients to the omelets was disallowed. Amefrid saw the inherent flaw in giving her subjects a little too much freedom in that regard. It would put a damper on proceedings for one of the ingredients to run out. She was hoping the drugs would kill all the appetites before it incurred too great of a feasting cost. She had these eggs fresh brought in by dragon at her insistence; the occasion warranted it.

  As for the flesh, Amefrid ate them all. Only the Princess got to eat chicken.

  It wasn’t champagne at all, certainly it wasn’t from the region of the Frozen Wastes, once of the Tunedic nation known as ‘France’, that the Godlikes called ‘Champagne’, which no longer produced any grapes at all. So, technically, true champagne was completely and utterly extinct. Sad. This was just a slew of what she deemed ‘undrinkable slop’ that she could dig from Senjya’s cellars that Goddess Mother bothered to dragon over, blended and carbonated, to create a sparkling rosé.

  This has never happened when it comes to cocaine consumption, from the Lost Age until now.

  Good Morning - Bonaparte x Acid Pauli

  Where most of the cocaine sat ready for her personal exclusive use. Greedy, like we said.

  She was not familiar with the taste of banana, although there was no actual banana in it whatsoever.

  What else would elvans puff, but the Elfbar? Although the design had improved remarkably since then. Still disposable though.

  It was Heyshush, who had always been hosted by Eidren’s body, who made sure to bump up his leptin levels before he got too full. As the spirit did this it thought, wish you three would get on with it! The spirit felt quite lonely now without his spirit companion Volent, formerly Malevolent, to banter with.

  March of the Living - Mira & Christopher Schwarzwalder

  Except for Vi, she didn’t like jazz. She really didn’t like jazz. She was way too logical to ‘get it’.

  After all, class was the primary factor that defined the very different evolutionary paths that the orcans and elvans took. It was the system of capitalism that led to the splitting of the Godlike species.

  Phyroan grown ergot fungus and sassafras was reserved for making migraine medications, for the rare times when they had to overclock their psionics and received harsh feedback, and root beer, respectively.

  Paradise Circus by Massive Attack.

  Meanwhile, Amefrid was in the middle of it with One and Two. The other four were waiting their turn patiently, as dutiful soulja drones do. One and Two, scarcely believing their luck, decided to do a double high-five, thus forming an Eiffel Tower with Amefrid.

  But, given how the androus usually are, there was hardly any complaining, save for the rather common occurrence, about one in ten, of a homosexual soldier. They were expected to service the worker that fancied them, despite their preferences. This was always followed with a thought- ‘Down with the Matriarchy!’, quickly redacted.

  We’re looking at you, Karyn.