Vhalar 24 722
Obtaining Reevi was not always an easy thing to do, as Eternity learned one afternoon. She and a friend, Olga, had gone to a street where they had purchased the drug in the past. They were approached by a large ithecal who motioned for them to come down an alley.
“Stay, I’ll be back soon” he said. His voice had a tone to it that put Eternity’s hairs on end. That was probably the first sign that this was a bad idea.
Several bits passed and he returned and led them down yet another alley, far from the prying eyes of anyone who might see them. He asked them, “how much you buy? You want lots yes?” He struggled to form his words and paused many times to think of what to say.
Olga piped up and explained how much they wanted and negotiated the price with the ithecal for a bit. She’d been doing drugs for years now so this kind of thing was fairly standard. The Ithecal handed over a small container and Olga inspected it. “This is twice as much as we agreed to,” she said, “we don’t have enough money to pay for this much.”
The Ithecal struggled to understand what she was saying and he grunted angrily. He walked down the alley and came back with someone who was supposedly his boss. It was another Ithecal, but smaller and older. The boss handed his underling a few more containers which were comically small for creatures with such large hands.
Eternity got nervous when the Boss showed up. Her Reevi purchases were never this complicated, probably because she had never bought so much at one time and she certainly would have never agreed to follow a strong looking stranger this far off the beaten path. She’d trusted Olga so far so she stayed silent. While Olga examined the new containers, Eternity took a look at the drug dealers. She could tell now that they had a myriad of weapons on them. The boss had a whip, two short swords, and a vest with several throwing knives. Eternity why he bothered with weapons when a single swipe of his arm would be enough to knock Eternity out cold. The underling didn’t have as many weapons, but the one he did have was much bigger. It was a massive axe that was fastened to his back.
“This is still too much,” Olga said. “I am happy to take this from you, but all we have is this much.” She dug in her pocket and pulled out all the money she and Eternity had pooled together to make the purchase.
“You no buy much? You no like price?” the Boss asked. The Underling took the hint and took an aggressive step forward. “Empty pockets NOW.”
Eternity didn’t waste any time showing that she really didn’t have any money on her. All she had was her dagger which was basically a toothpick compared to any of their weapons. Olga did the same, except she didn’t even have a weapon.
“Don’t play games. Show us money,” the Boss said angrily. He looked behind him to make sure they were alone. He spoke to the Underling in a language neither of the humans understood.
“We’re not,” Olga said. Her confidence wavered and she started looking around but there was nobody to help mediate the situation.
The Boss said, “we follow you home. Then you give money.” The Underling stepped forward and put a hand on their shoulders. Eternity was at least used to having to run away so she bolted but the Underling caught her shirt and pulled her back and gave her a look that told her to not test him further.
Eternity hissed in a low voice, “Olga, let’s get out of here! We have to run!”
Olga stood there dumbfounded, unsure of why there was even an issue. She said, “we don’t have any more money. If you don’t want our money let us go. Do you not know how this works?” but that didn’t make the Underling very happy. He started grabbing at her body, checking to make sure she wasn’t hiding anything of value.
Growing impatient, Eternity decided to act. She swiped the containers of drugs that Olga still held and threw some of them over the ithecals’ heads. It was enough to make the Ithecals turn their heads which was when she took off. If Olga wanted to die trying to negotiate for a handful of coins that was her prerogative. Eternity, on the other hand, had much more to live for than some drugs. She looked back before turning a corner and saw that Olga was running as fast as she could. The Ithecals didn’t look like they wanted to give chase since they were too busy collecting drug containers that had been dropped in the chaos.
When Eternity and Olga finally made it near a populated street, Eternity pushed Olga against a wall. “That was way too close, are you crazy,” she hissed in a low voice so that nobody would hear them.
Olga reeled and said, “how can you blame that on me? They didn’t understand common, or they wanted to rob us from the start. It’s hardly my fault.”
Eternity replied, “I’m not the one who wanted to buy a ton of it in one go. The kind of person I buy from wouldn’t lead you down an alley to get murdered over a couple coins. What were you thinking dragging me into that mess?”
“Well excuse me for wanting to buy enough to not need to make a trip every few days,” Olga seethed. “I saw that dagger you have on you, a lot of help that was.” She didn’t take Eternity for someone to carry a weapon and felt like she should have at least tried to use it.
Eternity tapped her waist and said, “usually when I have to wave this around it’s not to intimidate two massive ithecals who want my money. When that happens you run, not try to negotiate. Whatever, I’m over it. We can both take some of the blame.”
Olga tapped her head against the wall a few times and then sighed. She said, “at least we lost them. When I ran they managed to knock the money out of my hand though. I guess we did all that for nothing.”
Eternity shook her head and said, “not for nothing,” and she flashed a container of crushed Reevi from her pocket before putting it back inside. It was the only one she hadn’t thrown. “I managed to hold onto this one.”
Olga looked at her with a shocked expression and said, “oh no, you didn’t. You stole from a drug dealer? That can’t be good.”
Eternity gave her a questioning look and said, “I thought you’d be glad that I kept one. Now we didn’t waste our money.”
Olga sighed and said, “yeah, but if you hadn’t stolen anything they’d have no reason to ever look for us. Now we have a target on our backs. How are we supposed to go back there and buy drugs again if even the bad guys are looking out for us?”
Eternity hadn’t thought about that. She never had to think about nuance when she stole before but she supposed stealing from criminals was different than stealing from regular folk. She asked, “so, what now? Should I go give it back? We’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t.”
Olga sighed again and rubbed her head, which now hurt because she’d hit it against the wall too many times. They stood in silence for a few bits then she said, “I think I can smoothen this out, I just have to talk to some friends of mine. If I can find out who those two are then I can give it to them and we should be good. It’s better than having some angry Ithecals hunting us down.”
Eternity frowned and said, “hold on a tick. We paid for this fair and square. They got our money already. We’re not giving this back. If you can arrange for it we can just give them some more money.” She was already a little addicted to Reevi and she wanted to get some into her system as fast as possible. She didn’t want to deal with going back and finding some more. She popped the container open and took about half in her hand and gave the container back to Olga. Eternity then briskly took off down the street with the reevi clenched in her hand which she stuffed into her pocket. She was headed home where she could consume it in peace.
Olga groaned and said, “alright. I’ll see what I can do. And hey, make that last.” They hadn’t stolen much more than they’d paid for so a part of her told her that everything was going to be alright. Then again, there was always a chance that this could evolve into a shit storm.
[Template credit to Pyrre]
