Just as the water tower started to tip, my vision fuzzed again.

  The color of the tower changed. Instead of a wooden cylinder on stilts, it shone silver. Its legs went spindly instead of thick, with knobby bits, like giant spider’s legs.

  Of course, that wasn’t the crazy thing. The crazy thing was that the structure was falling on top of me.

  I tensed to run.

  And Dave got shot.

  There was a whoom and then a cry from Dave next to my ear, followed by the breath of feathers against my hair. I spun to find Dave pinned to the door of the bank vault, one wing impaled by an arrow. Dave hung there, dazed.

  The tower groaned.

  It was falling slowly. I could have run.

  I ran at Dave—and took an arrow to the back.

  I grunted as the force of the strike forced me forward. I staggered a few steps as my health bar dipped, but it wasn’t even to half. The arrows were just that: good old-fashioned arrows.

  But damn, the aim was on point.

  We were in shadow now. I tried to open the vault. An error message popped up:

  You have exhausted your vault time for today. Please come back again later!

  I turned, raising my shield again, and none too soon. A third arrow thudded against it.

  I couldn’t see who was shooting, on account of the water tower about to crush me. Just like in the old films, the thing was falling slowly. But I couldn’t run now.

  Time dilated. The Game Host came on.

  Achievement! Hero of Minorities!

  You have taken fatal damage intended for a minority target! Be it lime green, neon purple, or the kind of gray you see on the underside of your grandmother’s moldy birdbath that hasn’t seen a bird bathing since they were drowning themselves in misery during the bird flu of 1932, all skin colors have the right to live in peace! And all of them need you, a chromo-normative and progressively-minded buff hunk, to make sure they are safe to do all that peaceful living! They really ought to thank you for standing up for them, especially when you’re on camera doing it!

  Reward: You have achieved the title SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR!

  Once again, I was unable to move during this time dilation—but one thing I could do was think. So when the Host stopped her senseless babbling and the water tower un-fizzed, only feet away from me now and looking totally normal again, I had a plan.

  I switched to my backup weapon set and threw the Storage Orb at the tower.

  The entire tower vanished.

  Just like that.

  “Would you—help me out—” Dave said, his voice strained.

  A fourth arrow struck me in the leg.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  I cried out, dropping to a knee but getting up just as quickly. My health fell below half, and I took out my other hot-keyed item, the Well-Aimed Rock, and threw it at the hazy shape of a figure I could barely make out atop the roof across the street.

  A health bar appeared where I’d seen the shape, as well as an icon that meant Stunned in the original game. The healthy bar was nearly full still, but the Rock had bought me time to spin around and yank on the arrow pinning Dave to the wall.

  I curled him against my chest and took off running, heading straight for the path out of town. Those would lead to the Gem Baths, where I could finally pick up an Aspect and start using magic spells. I’d have to choose my Aspect quick, because once that Stun wore off, the other Hunter would be close on my heels.

  With my free hand, I opened my inventory and drank down a health potion, then handed one to Dave. He shoved it away.

  “I have regen,” he said hoarsely. “Don’t waste it.”

  “What’s your health at?”

  He didn’t answer at first, then finally settled on, “Low.”

  He didn’t ask to be let go, so I didn’t think he could fly. How close had I just come to losing him?

  The Achievement came back to me. You took fatal damage intended for a minority target… lime green….

  “You’re a minority?” I asked, breathing raggedly from the effort of running.

  “Shut up and go back to kill Bridget,” Dave said.

  “If I do that, they’ll shut off the level. I miss out on all kinds of leveling in the next area. And I might never get an Aspect.”

  Dave fell silent. Apparently, he hadn’t considered that possibility. What would happen if all the Hunters killed each other off before the winner made it to the Gem Baths? Would the winner in those levels end up without any magic at all?

  They could still do a lot with the game. So yeah, probably, I thought. After all, even some of the Infernal Riftguard and the Tendua hadn’t had magic, and they’d still been deadly.

  But I didn’t want to be just deadly. I wanted to be magically deadly. If my plan of going hard on Tech and Intelligence was going to work, then I needed magic.

  So I couldn’t kill the last Hunter. Not yet.

  “That new title you got is useful for your idiot play-style,” Dave said weakly. “It will allow you to nullify the fatal damage intended for an ally, including Conscripts, once per day. As in, you can save their lives once without even being present.”

  “Sounds decent. Can you switch me to that title?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how useful Dave could be. He had access to all my menus. If I didn’t have the time or space to do something, I could ask him to do it in the sky, where he was safe.

  But he wasn’t safe from those arrows. Those first two… even three… were all aimed at him.

  Bridget hadn’t aimed at me until the last arrow. Hells, she might not have even aimed the water tower at me. Hadn’t I considered running and leaving Dave behind?

  At the thought of the water tower, my thoughts slowed again. I had seen something when it had tipped. The tower had changed shape, somehow. Its silhouette had stopped making sense, but it had happened so fast that I hadn’t been able to grasp what I was looking at.

  It was another thing I didn’t have time to deal with—but maybe Dave had the time. Or, better yet—

  “FATE?” I said, breathing hard from my run.

  Yes, Remnant?

  “There are two items in my inventory. The water tower and the gargoyle. They both acted weird today. I saw them look like something else for a second.”

  I waited for her to respond. She said nothing.

  Right. I haven’t asked any questions or given any orders, and she’s just an AI bot.

  “Well?” I prompted her. “What do you think?”

  I think it sounds strange. Would you like me to analyze the items?

  I breathed out in relief. “Yeah, do that.”

  Can you give me more details about what you saw?

  I listed out what I could recall, mostly the knobby-kneed shape of the water tower’s legs and the way the gargoyle had turned yellow-brown and lumpy. By that point, we had reached the gates.

  I will look into this and get back to you, FATE said.

  “Good. You do that. You’re dismissed.”

  Ahead of us, two Infernal Riftguard and one Celeste acolyte stood guard in front of the exit gate. Above the wall on that side of the city, the air undulated with steam, catching rainbow light from the glowing pools just beyond the high wood walls.

  I checked my HUD, and gave a start. There was a new icon in my mini-map—a red dot. I remembered that the Developer had promised me the ability to see other Hunters. That must be Bridget.

  That must have been some rock, I thought. The poor woman still hadn’t moved.

  I swung Dave’s cradled body out in front of me, keeping him propped on the inside of my forearm. His wings drooped listlessly. It would have been pathetic if I hadn’t known him better.

  “Why,” I said, “do you know this other Hunter’s first name?”

  “Who, Bridget?” Dave said. “Oh, you know. It’s the usual.”

  “And the usual for you is…?”

  He shrugged his one good shoulder. “I don’t know. They all blur together. I think maybe I slept with her sister…? Or was she the one I left at the altar on Trenzor… no, no, that one had pink feathers….”

  He trailed off, eyes closing, but his heartbeat fluttered on.

  “But—you’re a parrot. She’s full-size. It can’t work.”

  “It works fine. You just have to get creative.”

  “But how?”

  “Mmm. Ask your mother,” Dave replied.