Buy a Hundred Chocolates, Get a Free Case of Anxiety

The panic storehouse burst. Gray salt fell as harmless, briny tears. The creature shrank to rice-ball size and gnawed a brown-sugar bear. [RIDDLE-HEART SOLVED.] [SALT HAMSTER BOUND. PERMANENT ABILITY: AFTERTASTE VAULT.] [EFFECT: Briefly store one contacted form of energy or emotion. Capacity grows with self-control.] [LIMIT: Nothing can be held forever. Refuse to release it, and the vault bursts first.] OmniTaste's planned “mass buying frenzy” became a mass return. Store files revealed that its supposedly limited sea salt came from an old coastal saltworks it had just acquired. The original chocolatier allowed each batch a different salinity; OmniTaste standardized it and added desire-sync agent to manufacture scarcity anxiety.