A once flat road now dipped downward at an almost 90-degree angle. I barely caught myself in time, wedging a foot into a newly opened fissure and grabbing onto the edge of a curb with my freehand. The was transparent and radiated bright gold, barely larger than a cue-ball. It nearly slipped between my fingers before I caught it again and tried to force it into my inventory.

“Are you fucking serious?” I shouted to no one in particular. “Audrey! Help!”

The Flowerfang uncoiled from her rope form around my shoulder, wrapping a series of vines around my waist and anchoring herself to a nearby light pole. I mentally toggled and released my hold on the wall, half-running-half climbing along the steep angle until I landed on solid ground, splayed out flat.

The thing coming out of the ground was more than half-way there, its posture mirroring my own as it leveraged its chest against the concrete. It was hard to tell the color of anything, given how the sky was still a hellish red, but it looked as if it was made from orange clay, the strange proportions of its face and look of its body giving the impression of a terra cotta soldier. Only, you know, massive.

A small group of NPCs moved forward, peppering the statue with enough gunfire that my ears started to ring. The shots bounced off with little visible effect, though the statue looked irritated. Before it could fully stand, a woman dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, holding a massive war hammer over her head, jumped down from a nearby rooftop, bringing the weapon down on the statue’s hand.

The struck hand lost traction and the statue nearly slipped back down. Before it could fall, it reached outwards with its massive arm-span. Its forearm slapped down directly on top of the war hammer woman, leaving nothing more than a red stain across the concrete.

“No!” One of the NPC’s screamed, their voice raw.

I fired off at the gun-wielding NPC’s who were still firing, stoking their terror, all but screaming for them to run. One made it. The others fell as the statue finally managed to escape the hole and stand.

It was well over three times taller than the largest nearby building. Its placid face panned the surroundings as it took swipes out of buildings.

“Are… we going… to fight that?” Audrey asked, the trepidation in her voice clear.

“Fuck no.”

Several more Users piled out of a nearby Suburban. Unlike the first, this group was clearly more experienced, decked out in armor. One at the front held a massive light-silver spear, which she used to poke at the statue’s legs, doing visible damage.

I turned around, and pulled out the plastic bag I used to store Audrey’s meat in my inventory to store the lux in, then withdrew my most recent purchase. A dark motorcycle appeared from thin air. I’d picked it almost at random after discovering Kinsley’s doors were no longer functioning. Normally, a motorcycle would never be my preference. Even if it wasn’t eye-catching, the inherent danger of the transportation compared to a car was significant. Still, motorcycles could easily squeeze through alleys and backed-up traffic in a way that cars simply couldn’t, which was more than enough to tip the scales in its favor.

The skill to use it would hopefully translate from my experience with the e-bike.

I straddled it, somewhat uncomfortable with the posture, as the length from the seat to the handlebars forced me to lay down almost completely on my stomach. Mentally, I reviewed my route. Most of the Illuminating Lux appeared to have landed towards the center of downtown, the other landing sites were much farther apart and scattershot.

The smartest thing to do was to skirt the center of downtown and scavenge what I could.

I twisted the throttle—and nearly shot directly into a wall.

My assumption that the skill would translate was mostly incorrect. Twisting the throttle gently this time, the bike responded better—still faster than I’d like, but not unmanageable.

Really should have bought a helmet.

The further I got from my initial starting point, the more the monsters seemed to thin out. I was around halfway between the lux I’d found and the closest marked spot on my map. Playing with fire, I mentally swiped through my screens as I rode, careful not to accidentally accelerate while my attention was split.

When I reached Kinsley in my contact list, I was surprised to find more options than just chat. I could call her as well. Apparently, the event had enabled more functionality. There was a click, and the sound of a vacuum, somewhere near the back of my skull.

“Kinsley,” I said.

“Voice chat, it’s about time.” Kinsley responded. I felt an immediate wave of relief. Though she sounded shaken, her somewhat cavalier response probably meant my family wasn’t in any immediate danger.

“Can you talk?”

“Yes, I’m outside. Family’s all out of earshot.” She paused then, and spoke after a second, “None of the glowy bits landed near here. The receptacle’s a few blocks over. You sound different. Like you’re running your voice through a modulator or something.”

“Listen to me. I need you to drop whatever you’re doing—fuck.” I swerved between a knocked over food stall and gaping hole in the ground, narrowly missing a boa-constrictor sized snake that emerged from the now upturned manhole cover.”

“My hands are a little tied right now—“

“This is critical. Two things. I need you to suspend any sales of a specific item. You can do that, right?”

“Yes…” Kinsley said, hesitating. “Though I think this is one of those things I’m going to need an explanation for.”

“Pull up the store page, search for Illuminating Lux.”

“Wait. No one—”

“Yes, they fucking would.”

Kinsley swore. As soon as the Overseer had mentioned how valuable the items were, I’d been worried about the idea of someone selling them. That worry had doubled once I learned the system was practically advertising the fact that could be sold to a vendor once anyone attempted to store it in their inventory.

I already suspected there wasn’t enough to fortify every region as it was. If Users tied to individual regions started trying to sell the items once their quota was met, or some of them just didn’t give a shit.

“I found them. They’re marked sell-only for a hundred-and-seventy-five-thousand selve. And… Matt… someone already sold one.”

God dammit.

“Shut it down.”

“Already on it.”

A few seconds later.

“Done. What was the second thing?”

Now came the hard part. The part Kinsley wasn’t going to be happy about. I turned into an alley to avoid a small mess of Flowerfangs crossing the street to intercept me from a nearby park, waiting to speak until I was through the perilously tight alley.

“How much can you reduce the price of healing items?”

“Which items?” Kinsley asked after a moment.

“Healing potions—“

flared, and I took a hard left turn almost entirely accidentally, a molten fireball singing my hair as it passed overhead. The bike wobbled beneath me, then stabilized.

“—Burn salves, anti-venom, anything that knocks down a status effect.”

Kinsley hesitated. “I can knock down the price to fifty percent. Same as your discount. But the margins—“

“Forget the margins!” I snarled, then fell silent, trying to compose myself. This was the girl who had sold me cookies at the end of the world. Taking a revenue cut wouldn’t come naturally to her. “Kinsley. It’s ninth-circle-of-hell bad out here. Think about what just happened. The overseer just announced to everyone that every civilian in arms reach is a walking bag of selve. A thousand selve sounds like almost nothing to us, but we’re anything but the norm.”

“And if I run out of stock?” Kinsley asked.

“Set a high order limit with a timer, so no one can monopolize the supply. Otherwise…” I grunted in frustration. “I don’t know.”

There was silence on the line.

“You have to choose what you want to be.” I said, echoing my father’s words from long ago. Words I’d routinely chosen to ignore. “And you have to keep making that choice. Over and over. Every decision you make is a hammer striking chisel. It’s not as simple as good or bad. It’s never that easy. All that matters is that, at the end of the day, the existence you carve out for yourself is something you’d be happy with.”

I passed under a bridge, flinching as the body of a man who had jumped off to escape something unseen, crumpled to the asphalt a few feet to my left.

“God. That was the corniest thing anyone’s ever said to me. But it’s going to be hard to make a profit if there’s no one left to sell to.” Kinsley breathed an aggravated sigh. “Fine… fine. Dropping the prices now and discounting traditional first-aid supplies as well. But I’m not discounting the anti-scarring stuff. Alive and ugly is still alive.”

“Fair.”

I started panning through the store again, buying two of everything for as many ailments as I could. A notification scrolled across my screen, indicating that Kinsley had ended the call. Just in time for another message to pop in my vision.