22:58, Rotation 264 / 365, 232 AE, -67.281750, -68.771598, Reath

  Drizzit Du Pont and Vyerna Du Pont were fraternal twins, Clan Du Pont having the peculiar practice of hatching four soldiers and four workers to each brood, instead of keeping it monogender. Each soldier would be paired with a worker, and each pair would work together to fill the same duties. Instead of a worker surfeit in times of peace and a soldier surfeit in times of war, Du Pont considered the hypertrophic and bone density measures of the soldier better fit for their labors, which involved lots of mining for their precious chemical precursors and kept their ratios at fifty fifty almost all the time. With this abundance of war capital, it meant that before the great War of the Clans, Clan Du Pont was often the aggressor in secretive attacks, covered by plausible deniability.

  Drizzit, the soldier, was a ranger, like many soldiers meant to go forth on rangings to hunt down and eliminate the enemies of his Queen Mother Malis Du Pont. But Malis Du Pont had quickly fallen during the War of the Clans, the Clan Du Pont home – encompassing an entire island on the Tunedenic Archipelago – was run through by dragonbreath. Glassened. Nothing lived there anymore, nothing could. Nothing grows on glass.

  Drizzit wielded dual gryphantene scimitars, spirit granted ambidexterity being a common trait of elvans. It was a style of fighting known as ‘blade dancing’, the combat art of the whirling dervishes. One of his scimitars had a nitrogen canister injector that he could use with the spirits on the blade’s edge to make the weapon capable of shattering ceramic or steel plating by freezing it with a preparatory blast. But it worked to only one Icingdeath Slash – that’s what he liked to call it – per canister, reloaded through the bottom of the hilt. If an Icingdeath Slash hit flesh, it usually destroyed the entire limb, though Drizzit thought it merciful that it would additionally provide instant freeze-burn cauterization, so that his opponent would not bleed to death. But they would have to accept honorable defeat in hand-to-hand combat.

  Vyerna, the worker, was an assassin. She had once been one of the greatest psions under the Queen Malis of Clan Du Pont, but after much flaying her psionic ability had been stripped from her. Rogue traders, while tolerated on Reath instead of hunted down like on Aryss, weren’t allowed the Amallarkean granted privilege of psionics. While worker-traders would accept the humdrum lot of working fields, haggling over piecemeal metals, or other such boring industrial or corporate bureaucratic work, Vyerna chose to leverage her specialized training and become a killer for hire. Instead of weapons of the mind, Vyerna used weapons of the hand: poisons, daggers, bows, and rifles.

  They were rogue traders who still stood outside of Clan Amallark, but the God Empress had granted them mercy. Drizzit and Vyerna both believed fully in the Goddess, for they had veritably witnessed her wrath, this was a fact for them. And they gave a prayer to their deity, their God Empress of Elvankind, to wish them security and haste in this next endeavor.

  “Remember. Stick to the plan. Anticipate, do not improvise. Forbid empathy. Empathy is weakness.” But her voice trailed off, the scheming rogue not bothering to waste breath, and her thought-voice took over. We must never yield an advantage.

  Knowing exactly where she picked that all up from, he sarcastically replied, sick reference, sis. Your references are out of control. Everyone knows that.

  Shut the fuck up, Drizzit.

  Drizzit and Vyerna had made a killing selling all this methamphetamine that Princess Senjya was dumping on the market, direct to the San Martín bois, who sussed out any further distribution. Those orcans were good business. As rogue traders, they didn’t think of orcans as orcs at all. It helps to get to know the customer. Their profits rested on good relations with orcan villages far more than any good relationship with Clan Amallark, not that Amallarkean faction points ever mattered if you weren’t a clanner- the Imperium didn't raise orders or bids. Ever. You took their price or nothing.

  The razza sales had been excellent, and they were chuffed with their revolution quarterlies. Fifteen points rev-on-rev growth! That was significant enough to expand their repertoire of tools. Perhaps pick up a railgun or something, but Vyerna preferred the bow – which she trained very hard to master, depending on whether she needed to shoot precise or shoot fast – the whistling arrow was deadly quiet, even quieter than a silenced round, and usually deadlier too, for the measly massed ballistic projectile did less damage at subsonic speed, and would deflect against a semblance of armor, while the heftier arrow hit harder and pierced.

  Maybe they could find the help they needed to restore Vyerna’s psionics. That would be very expensive, but worth it, if they wanted to get out of Orca- psionics didn’t seem to work on orcans, so they were at equal playing field with other entrepreneurial rogue traders looking to stake a claim on some sort of revenue stream in these blasted cold lands, but if they ever wanted to move up the ladder… to Upper Reath… to Babylon… up the Babylonian Royal Road… to the Celestial Escalator even! But Vyerna dared not dream that they could make it that far.

  In the vast wilderness of Orca they could hide from the orcans if they needed, who usually stuck to their villages. It wasn’t needed. Drizzit and Vyerna offered no harm and only mutual gain. They plied their wares from village to village with their drake, similar in heritage to a dragon, but it could not go voidborne. Neither of them could ride dragons, so they had a black-market rogue spirit they purchased, that they named Jarlaxle, to fly them around. It was quite nice, really, having an aerial chauffeur, and Jarlaxle had all the best black-market hacks. It was quite mundane really, trips to elvan encampments in Protorca for resupply, then back to Orca for the profit.

  They didn’t remember anymore that they were from the Clan Du Pont, nor did they care. Clan Du Pont was dead. There was nothing left there but glass, but they could not remember that either. Long live Rogue Trader Twins Drizzt and Vyerna. They were their own clan unto themselves now. They knew they couldn’t command the might of a clan, so they served the Goddess, who so mercifully spared them, before they served themselves. And what better glory to Goddess than the hardworking service of a vibrant, flourishing elvan economy? Everybody won, Goddess, Vyerna, and Drizzit the same. Rising tide, and all that.

  Incest was not taboo in elvan culture – what was the harm? – so Drizzit and Vyerna weren’t just siblings, but also very passionate lovers. They had developed a twistedly co-dependent intimacy to reawaken some level of psionic capacity between each other, just enough to telepath, but only to each other. They believed that if they could perform the gestalt that maybe they could take the Drake through the Red Path on a sunny, clear rotation – fat chance, thought Jarlaxle – and strike it out in the Tunedenic Archipelago.

  As far as any Reathean Rogue Elvan was concerned, the Tunedenic Archipelago was where it was at. The climate was hella tight, there was plenty of land – it was the shattered lands – so many islands that enemies would have a hard time knowing where to look and besides, it was still so sparse, because the elvan empire was still young.

  Vyredia was no-go, that was Amallarkean clanner territory. The Archipelago really was the only place to look for a starter home for an elvan sib-couple looking to settle down.

  They could throw together a lean-to with some trees in the Tunedenic or Jhiryan settlement forests. If they could make enough ether and bit, maybe get to one of the elvan forest treetop cities. Those were the elvan boonies as far as anyone on Vyredia was concerned, but it certainly beat living in Aryss. Drizzit and Vyerna had to remind themselves to schadenfreude those unlucky Aryssal elves to keep their own spirits up, as well as the spirits of their spirits, or, well, their one spirit anyway. Jarlaxle after all, was the duo’s biggest fan, and certainly not the only one, for their infamy reached far.

  This ‘ice’ rush had ended as quickly as it began. After Babylonian Markets – they didn’t have to fly to Babylon, it was just that the central node for these trades was conducted there, the psionics necessary to conduct a transaction could be done anywhere on the three realms – were flooded with meth, they had been the tip of the spear and the edge of the blade on that wave of arbitrage. They raked Bit Coin with those initial prices, but soon the orcans realized that they had the leverage, and played dealers against each other, or they just outright robbed them. The price of meth quickly crashed. That is, if you could find the fabled, proper blue stuff, the legit Heisenberg, which was dyed blue on purpose to signify its provenance. That stuff ripped through your brain like the bubhosh ghash ate oxygen. But then, it all became dyed blue. Imitators. Facsimiles. The Du Pont twins knew orcish, it was easier to conduct business that way. After all, your business lives and dies by its reputation, that is- its relationships.

  And in the end, of course they had to know the language of their favored enemy. Emphasis on favored. Enemies of the market, and not in battle. So, their orcish was quite fluent. They even had their accent down- used the proper tones.

  They tried branching out to another market – moon sugar – but only nurd ting ting weirdo orcs liked moon sugar as much as the elvans did, maybe spend a fortrote watching a spirit generated visual. They would never wagh out on the stuff. Instead of more - never enough, at some point these globs found a weird, dissociated, detached peace with themselves and would tell the twins ‘Nah, I’m good. Maybe next luna?’ But that wasn’t good enough for Vyerna and Drizzit, they might as well resign themselves to living on Orca forever. Then they’d have to find new clients. And that was always the most dangerous bit, any time an elvan interacted with an orcan was dangerous. Never know what to expect. One moment shaking hands, the next shanking flanks. Quickly they marked the ketamine as a sunk cost, the run up time to the revenue was just too long, and Vyerna was pissed. They needed either a reliable income, or a big score, so they could get some capital and finally make that income passive.

  Drizzit and Vyerna weren’t interested in a slow and steady active income that would keep them stuck here as poor elves. Rogue traders that were poor were pretty much only one rung in elvan society above Aryssal vassals and Aryssal rogues. Even Reathean vassalhood was better than that- or this nuk-nuk wu profit narcotrafficking. It just didn’t scale. The fattest margins could only be made by scrounging small deals. At the top of the supply chain, they absorbed all the breakage, and now just found themselves holding a bunch of bad debt, that the San Martiners, the ‘Hyenas’, had de facto defaulted on. They wanted to kill those globs so many times, especially knowing that they were just smoking all the product, but then without their distribution they might as well just torch the rest of their inventory along with all their useless orc bodies.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Get a menial job shuffling Amallarkean cargo around on Vyredia and its massive storehouses and you were set. A life in peace, largely left to your own elvan devices, your only minders spirits. Even in the Archipelago, with all that and not even spirit-minders, a rogue had to contend with the elements. On Reath, nothing was deadlier than the elements.

  But they had finally found what they were looking for: the Big Score.

  The Deal of their Lifetimes. The Starter Capital. The Nest Egg. The Seed.

  They were going to make it.

  Take what was theirs.

  It was an encrypted telepathy direct to Vyerna, and she more than graciously accepted the temporary reawakening of some of her psionic powers to receive the faraway message. To her honor, it was from one of the Holy Priestesses themselves, the Royal Psion Yedwin Amallark. It was of utmost confidentiality – loaded with a non-disclosure psionic booby trap that Vyerna still carried in her mind, that would render her a vegetable should the details of the contract ever be shared with another elvan, save for her brother, a clause she had to fight hard for – a secret gig. Which meant that it had to pay more. Much more.

  The ask: a healthy, robust, gynous orcan of no more than fifty revolutions in age, the younger the better. A simple enough deliverable. Vyerna was sure there was performance scaling. The implication was that they could double, triple, maybe even quintuple it up by delivering more than one orcan gurl. How hard would this be? The Amallarkeans didn’t quite give the figure up front, but when a gig from Royal Psion Yedwin Amallark dropped into your lap like manna from the sky, you took it.

  Drizzit was using the telescopic lenses implanted in his corneas to scout for a good, juicy, healthy specimen. The hunt was on.

  They were wholesalers. They had already dumped the rest of their inventory through the Baybois. Let those snagas do the elvan’s work. Retail was beneath them. Might have better margins, but with so many transactions it wasn’t time effective, not to mention the sheer risk of interacting with so many orcans as a rogue trader. They were universally distrusted throughout Orca. Death was one waghed out customer away.

  So, without needing to mingle into the social chaos of the razza, they had set up nice and cozy here, in a little nest high above the bamboo forest from big bundles of bamboo treetops that they tied together, after flying up here on the Drake. A recce.

  The twilight was just dark enough – they waited until sleazy hour when these horny orcan kiddos would be too busy doing what they, the elvans, would call a ‘porgy’ to notice them, conserving their energy in a restful reverie – before waking all fresh and psyched for their horny, nakaz, green lottery ticket out of here and into the Imperium’s big leagues. Though it was a long shot that a couple would stray this far secluded just to do the zug-zug, it was the only area they considered safe enough to conduct a kidnapping. This was high risk, high reward. Better safe than sorry. They weren’t dealing with their usual cargo.

  It was Drizzit’s undying hope that Vyerna could regain her psionics and help them remember their forgotten memories. But unlike Drizzit, Vyerna didn’t care much about the past. She only looked into a future- full of bits. Get rich or die trying.

  Ah! Drizzit licked his lips, already thinking about the fruit he and Vyerna would grow themselves in a little garden in the hygge little hut they’d build out there, There’s one! Tuneden ho!

  Vyerna had higher aspirations, she wanted to get to Babylon as a harbor agent. Then they would be the ones making the deals. Not the ones taking them, delivering them, and then haggling and chasing over fees, or worse, supply, for lunas after. Clan Amallark was for all intents and purposes a monopoly. The elvans were a captive market to their Goddess. Why should a God have to pay you, a lowly rogue trader, on time?

  No, better to be the Priestess in the temple. You are just the representative of the Goddess. The Goddess flows through you. And into you. In Goddess we Trust. The house always wins. Put that nazge in the collection plate.

  Drizzit was the spotter, Vyerna was the sniper. She cocked and leveled her relic rifle along Drizzit’s sightline There’s one? She thought. Where?

  That gangly thicc one, over there, running around crying like a nakaz zug snaga bitch. Ouch, who hurt this hai?

  Will you be serious for a second, snaga elf.

  Don’t think me a snaga elf, sister!

  Definition of the orcish snaga- subordinate. Soldier. Snaga. There was no question. Vyerna wore the pants here. It was typical elvan family dysfunction.

  You water it down. Dysfunction sometimes had an upside, Drizzit thought, give me the prescriptive meaning, babe.

  Slave. She thought it teasingly.

  Oh, stop. But Drizzit wanted his Mistress Dominatrix to continue, because he was getting turned on.

  My sexy little snaga elf slave, is he missing the lick of Mistress Dominatrix’s whip?

  Oh Mistress! Snaga mode. Vyerna loved this side of Drizzit. This slave lives to serve his Mistress Dominatrix, the Rogue Queen – they indulged in a bit of elvan power fantasy – … Du- uh. Do- Clan Do Urden? Rogue Queen Do Urden? No, that didn’t sound right. Anyway - this soldier lives to serve, but this soldier humbly suggests that we celebrate after the job, beloved Mistress Dominatrix. She grabbed his butt and gave it a hard squeeze, pinching it to the pain level he wanted.

  Suffice to say, Drizzt and Vyerna were into bondage, domination, submission, and masochism.

  Vyerna shuddered and squirmed her butt. If there was only a reason to wear a diaper under her assassin’s jumpsuit, or something like that – anything absorbent – every luna, nothing too uncomfortable, well, maybe only if you were unlucky – because goodness right now she was soaked, and it would be a little itchy and uncomfortable and affect her aim. That shudder had already juddered the sights of her scope – her original assassin eyes with telescopic lenses had been ripped out and forcibly replaced with inferior downgrades – which had followed her spotter to train on an emotionally rekt Lawrah Varoka.

  She licked the reduced-propellant round loaded with unsold moon sugar that they had distilled into liquid concentrate form, praying to Holy Goddess Empress to grant this loyal assassin good luck, and slid it into the action. This enchanted arrow could knock out the Horde Master himself. She was, as the orcans say, ‘Ash’ - the one and only, they had yet to meet a better marksman. She may have lost her old eyes, but she’d shot enough where she didn’t need them anymore. Such was the superiority of elvan assassin training.

  She’d even participated in orcan shooting tournaments, to be safe she used a pseudonym - ‘Ani, the rogue trader ex-assassin sharpshooter’, she loved her own self invented title. But she loved the nickname that the orcan gunslingers made for her – Cool Hand Ani Oakley. She always wore a cool set of relic shades.

  Cool Hand Ani Oakley, ex-assassin sharpshooter Vyerna Du Pont, took a deep breath and held it perfectly still within her, refusing to exhale, getting used to the precious oxygen in that one drawn breath, and letting the spirits dial back her heartbeat… the crosshairs fell right on the fresh hickey on Lawrah’s neck…

  Lawrah continued to cry and cry, mourning her friendship. Her heaving sobs were slowly becoming less ragged, less violent now, thank the Gods. She was taking deep breaths too, but of course immediately letting out a long smooth exhale, breathing normally and not holding her breath, unlike a certain psychopath. Still. Calm. Lok Ting.

  She had no idea she was becoming easier, and easier… and just a little bit easier…

  …of a target.

  Pronounced exactly as it is spelled- driz – zit. And not ‘drist’, nor ‘drizt’. That is another very famous elf, indeed the one who inspired the naming of this soldier. The Queen of Clan Du Pont was a R.A Salvatore fan.

  ‘They just went rogue. What can we say? Didn’t come from orders from us.’ – the Excuse.

  Of course that’s what he called it.

  Did honor preclude use of dirty trick weapons?

  Vyerna couldn’t understand why these worthless minerals were used by orcans as currency. She only cared about wealth on the ethereal chains.

  She was an assassin. So, of course she took the mantra of The Killer.

  Both Mediterranean and Comanche styles.

  By far the most primo real estate in Babylon.

  Of course they would name it that.

  Enabling maneuvers that could put dangerous levels of grasp-forces on their rider, enough Gs to cause fainting. They weren’t used, they were wholesalers, not smugglers. Their cargo had only been contraband in ancient times. It was a horrid waste of their higher-level access to black markets.

  They thought themselves a contemporary Jaime and Cersei Lannister, and this certainly featured in their roleplaying.

  关系, 关系

  It was the Electric Sheep collaborative abstract artwork. Those spirits were still at it.

  And while they were certainly much wealthier than the average orcan household, this was all relative. Comparatively, there were rogue traders that were much richer than they were. And then rogue traders much, much richer than those. And all the combined wealth of all the rogue traders was still dwarfed by the unimaginable wealth of the God Empress and Clan Amallark.

  Number four, and I know you heard this before- never get high on your own supply.

  Indeed, it was a bit graceless in how fawning she was, a bit pathetic in the royal psion’s third eye.

  They couldn’t stay nimble hauling all this cargo with them. Now, their cargo… it would be fresh orcan gurls.

  They promptly dismissed Jarlaxle to park low, and hidden. A drake hovering nearby would surely give them away.

  An Accuracy International Arctic Warfare Magnum, crafted by the Godlikes themselves.

  Thinking of the horny little lottery ticket made them horny in turn. Then again, they were horny in general.

  Trying to recall their true clan’s name, he instead conjured a name from another universe, and another realm- a forgotten one.

  Or, as the Godlikes would simply abbreviate in the Lost Age- ‘BDSM’.

  Orcans still had their period, but elvans did not, not unless they were broodmothers, who wouldn’t be given the chance to menstruate anyway. Eggs were sometimes skipped altogether, in favor of spirit-forging an embryo from scratch. Why leave the essence to the chances of a Mendelian cross?

  She forgot the orcish for this one for a second, remembered it, and thought- nurd? Why would nerds be unlucky, they were the luckiest of all the Godlike Beings in the end. They had become the Elites, the ancestors of the elvans. Vyerna was well versed in Reathean history and was also very proud to call herself a nerd. She was a total nerd for sport shooting, fetish fashion, and David Fincher movies. Her fave was Gone Gurl. Had Vyerna understood how painful endometriosis is, she would have understood why to have painful periods were terribly unlucky indeed.

  Oakleys. They were Oakleys. Of course they were.

  Very much unlike Vyerna, who was most definitely a psychopath – she took to her ancestor John Du Pont – and who was getting a bead on Lawrah just as she thought to herself- thank bubhosh ghash that I’m getting control over my crying.