From what I could tell, it started with a sign: Water - 500 Selve.

A gloomy off-yellow light projected from a nearby streetlamp that was flickering. At least we still had power, though there was no guarantee of how long that would last.

The ground was littered with crushed gallon containers and ejected navy caps, the pavement dark with wasted water that had seeped between cracks. Not far from where I stood, a man was engaged in some sort of flailing. There was a pile of 24 packs that was now half-crushed, and a crowd of people swept in like vultures trying to grab them.

A man sporting something dangerously close to a bowl-cut was being held down by two stronger looking men. He was screaming something that sounded like “Give it back!”

It wasn’t hard to put it together. Bowl-cut was a scalper—low but enterprising, and had put together the fact that Selve was a currency and figured out how to use the trade window. From there, he tried to sell water for Selve, probably figured out rapidly that it didn’t work, and the crowd of desperate people didn’t take it so kindly when he rescinded his offer.

I’m not sure who started throwing the Molotov’s and why. That piece of the puzzle was a little more obscure. But there was a mess of broken glass everywhere, more than a few buildings on fire, and a growing accumulation of smoke that stung my eyes. If I didn’t have the mask on, I probably would have panicked. I didn’t do well in crowds, let alone mobs. As it was, I took everything in and decided it was definitely time to leave.

I kept to my usual pattern of low profile. Head-tilted down, hood down, casual pace. I passed more than a few brawls breaking out. There would be a state of emergency called tonight, if there wasn’t already.

An electric current of warning arced through me, and I took a quick step back. A big guy sitting on the hood of an old trans-am was five beers deep and hurled another empty at me. The movement was almost lazy.

With the gnolls, I’d been mostly subtle, not wanting to alarm them or draw attention to myself. This was a good test case for how direct I could be. I reached out with

”Stop throwing shit.”

Nothing. Another bottle shattered behind me.

I tried again.

”Look how the bottle shines in the streetlight.”

He did, pausing to examine how the light came through. A small smile of wonderment played across his lips.

Then he threw it at me anyway, much more accurately now that he’d taken time to aim.

I moved my head and the bottle exploded against the stone-brick behind me. A shard of glass fragment hit my pant-leg, leaving a small stinging pain.

It has to be something the target would naturally consider doing. I used the gnolls pre-existing rivalries to turn them against each other. But I know next to nothing about this guy. Will something generic work?

I tried one final time.

”Sure are a lot of buildings burning. Did you leave the stove on?”

Bottle-guy’s face went white. He tossed the remaining empty, jumped in the burnt-orange trans-am and took off, swerving around a small pile-up of cars. Lesson learned. I could use Suggestion on the fly on both enemies and allies. It was more powerful if it was used on someone I knew more about, but that was a limitation of creativity.

I rounded a corner and stopped, watching overhead as a tear gas grenade arced, landing in the midst of a line of protestors. The city was going from bad to worse at an exponential rate. Things were only going to get worse overnight. I took the long way alongside a police line, officers in riot gear complimented by people too mad-max looking to be anything apart from Users. While standing next to a Swat Officer with a riot shield, a User with a duster jacket who could have been cosplaying Aragorn smashed the hell out of a man swinging a sign with the pommel of his sword. One brutal strike was all it took, and the man went down. His sign went flying, landing a few feet away from me. Big-upside-down red text on the sign read. “WHERE’S THE FUCKING MAYOR?” The eerie fog of teargas grew thicker and began to rise. I expected a wave of stinging pain to hit my eyes at any moment, tearing up my vision.

Nothing. It seemed the mask was protecting me.

The police were killing us yesterday. What changed?

It wasn’t all that outlandish, now that I thought about it. The cops and the Users were people with power now. It made sense that they’d band together, though I had no idea how they’d organized it. At least they weren’t gunning people down, though there was no way to know how long that particular reprieve would last. The SWAT guy at the hospital had come off as less than organized, borderline unhinged. Maybe his squad was off the reservation.

Or Users within the Police Department have taken over.

A scary thought entirely within the realm of possibility. I looped back around the building, avoiding the melee, and walked faster. I wasn’t sure what the point of it all was, introducing non-Users into the system like this, but even without the Allfather’s ominous hints and vague allusions to “Transposition,” the signs didn’t point anywhere good.

Civil unrest.

Widespread Chaos.

Devaluation of currency.

Forced assimilation of new currency and values.

Historically, that particularly volatile cocktail of elements only preluded one of two things: uprising or conquest. It had to be intentional. But why? And why only here?

It took a full half-hour to reach Kinsley’s door.

/////

I slipped my mask off on the approach and placed it in my inventory. A wave of barely restrained panic washed over me, raging beneath the soothing calm of my title. I needed to compartmentalize, but new problems kept cropping up before I could deal with the old ones.

I slipped through the small blue door and found myself staring into the barrel of a shotgun.

“What took you?” Kinsley asked.

“Oh the usual. Riots and whatnot. Are we really doing this again?”

Kinsley lowered her shotgun and returned to the center of the warehouse. But her body language was off, pulled into herself.

Something’s wrong.

As a quick check, I pulled up my quest screen:

Quest: The Kinsley Accords

Primary Objective — Gain loot and levels as you fulfill your contractual obligations.

Primary Objective Extended — Explore the dungeon, venturing at least to the fifth floor. (3/5)

Personal Objective — Remain unidentified by other Users.

Threat Level: (S-L)

EXP GAIN (M)

Time Limit: One Week.

Reward: Increased relationship with Kinsley, Merchant.

Reward: Progression towards Vocation ???

Still safe. My personal objective was unchanged, neither failed nor achieved. The only real change was the progress towards the extended primary objective.

“How was it?” Kinsley asked, her voice neutral.

I did a slow scan, checking all the corners, making sure I wasn’t missing anything vital. “Not bad…” I said slowly, “I think I made out pretty well, actually. But I guess we won’t know until we see how much everything was worth. Do you have booze?”

“Yes?” Kinsley cocked her head. “Was it that dangerous?” She sat at the small fold out table, her voice curious. But there was something about her tone I didn’t like. Something under it.

“Yeah.” I considered exactly how much I wanted to reveal. “More than I bargained for, and a trap that could have killed someone easily right off the bat. I was underprepared. Even with the stuff I bought. Need to make sure that doesn’t happen again. After that, we have to talk business.”

“Sure.” Again, she was strangely short. Disinterested.

I needed a new crossbow, but that was largely secondary. Before I’d set foot in here, I intended to push up the timeline. With the rate that things were deteriorating, the sooner we could get Kinsley’s shop online, the better. I’d pitch her on the idea in a way that ensured my cut. Work out the details later.

But first, I had to determine what, exactly, was wrong.