The quest-granting orange text vanished. Then BURN FOR CATO’S MISTAKES popped up in my top right corner in smaller text, below FIND THE INN.

  Was there an option to fucking decline?

  The Cerberus burning tree wolf had finished forming. My HUD was still active, and a small, round portrait of the creature appeared in my top left, surrounded by a thick, grey ring that looked like woven iron. There were two bars next to it: the top red, the other blue. Text floated above the red bar, elaborate typography that read: Cato’s Mistake.

  My HUD dissolved, leaving me with no barrier between my eye and the reality of my situation. White-hair--Cato?--still lay behind me on the ground, as unconscious or dead as he’d been a minute ago.

  For a moment, I considered running. But even as the thought crept in, I banished it. First of all, that would almost certainly kill White-hair if he wasn’t already dead. I couldn’t do that. He’d come out to save me, and for as much of a dick as he’d been, his agitation had only been verbal. I wouldn’t abandon him to get eaten by a flaming tree, even if his spell had made this whole situation escalate. What on earth had gone wrong with the fire? He’d healed me without fanfare, as horrifying and unsettling as it had been.

  There was also the matter of my leg having a giant stake through it at the moment, and the fact that snowshoes weren’t conducive to running. No, I was stuck here, with whatever was going to happen.

  I crouched like I had earlier and hefted my shovel again in my hands like a bat, my mind racing.

  While I’d been making my decision as to the path forward, the creature had clearly been collecting its bearings. It had them now, and, in tandem, all of its heads howled simultaneously. The forest howled back. The whole damn thing flickered, all of it going that textureless purple-blue, transparent and glowing, before it flashed back. One of the great heads, this one made entirely of fire and the closest to me, opened its maw and lurched to devour me whole.

  A shovel wasn’t going to do shit, but then again, neither was a sword. You couldn’t pierce fire, you just put it out--

  I was surrounded by snow. Water. I had water, I just didn’t have a bucket--but I had a shovel.

  I allowed the head of my shovel to drop, burying in the snow. I shoved hard on the handle, scooping a mass of the snow, and just as the wolf-head of fire was descending down on me, all heat and smoke, I flung the snow directly into the whirling flames, snapping my wrists like I was swinging to hit.

  It scattered out like a bunch of wet pellets, slamming into the fire with a wet hiss and belching steam.

  And then the damn thing glitched, again. One moment, I was about to be eaten by a giant firewolf, and the next, as the jaws snapped shut around me, I was surrounded by purple flecked with blue. Everything around me was opaque, the heat had vanished. The smoke had gone from billowing black and curling grey to little squares of white and black, light shining through a loose weave.

  It pulled back, and I felt nothing. Not a hint of pain. My flesh didn’t melt, and I didn’t struggle to breathe. The glitch had happened at the perfect time, wasn’t that lucky--

  Or was it?

  I didn’t have time to think further on it. The wolf snarled, embers flying out hitting my skin. Burning, I was going to burn again--

  I slammed the shovel back into the snow, ignoring the pain in my bad leg to raise the foot and kick it hard against the footstep on the back of the shovel’s blade. I hefted up a substantial chunk of the stuff.

  The heat was coming again. Damn thing was so hot it felt like I was being cooked from a distance. Long-range barbecue.

  I flung the snow.

  Again, as the great wolf head came down and attempted to devour me, it glitched. It passed over me and White-hair, harmless, like it was something in a 3D movie and I was a mere spectator.

  So I kept flinging. Once, twice, they came to snap at me, and I flung snow just at the moment of collision. Each glitch was more violent, a swirl of color and a collapse of reality. Three heads came for me now, all from that same fire.I picked up snow and flung it in an arc, scattering the crystallized water across all of their snouts. It snarl-whined, and I laughed back. It echoed in the dark, half-crazed and half-terrified.

  I was going to burn again--no.

  The first death is doubt. I couldn’t sit here and tell myself that I was doomed to die.

  That quest name could go to Hell. I wasn’t going to.

  “C’mon!” I yelled at the great, burning pinewolf pack which forcibly melded into a single entity. Tossing another arc of snow at it, I watched it seize.

  It had six heads, but the rest had been caught up in the agonized panic of burning, and then further confused by me forcing it to glitch repeatedly. Or at least, that’s what I thought was happening. White-hair still hadn’t moved, limp in the snow behind me.

  I threw more snow. This time, instead of one of the heads made of fire coming for me, one made of burning wood, one eye glowing blue, the other red, snapped for me. I threw the snow. The fire phased out, but the wood didn’t. Textureless, purple wolf snout hit me, scooped me upwards, and sent me flying.

  Twice this evening I’d been tossed like a frisbee, and I was getting real sick of this shit. This time, I landed hard on my back, all the wind knocked out of me.

  I struggled to breathe. I had to get up. I couldn’t let White-hair just get turned into glorified plant food.

  I forced myself up. Somehow, I was still holding my shovel. I looked up to see that the wolf had its jaws around White-hair. Fuck.

  I stumbled, frantic, back in the great monster’s direction. I was going to reach him. I just had to keep running.

  Orange text showed up again, dominating the center of my vision at what was decidedly the worst possible moment.

  PASSIVE: STAND YOUR GROUND ACTIVATED. STATE YOUR FIRST CONVICTION, it read, hiding the mauling that was most definitely in progress beneath its blocky letters.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Holy shit, where was the escape key? Exit all? Minimize?

  I stumbled-staggered-ran in the snow, shovel in one hand, waving my other hand wildly at the text in an attempt to get rid of it.

  “What do you want?” I yelled.

  The damn text glowed brighter, as if it was more exasperated than I was. Well, I had the dude who rescued me earlier getting fucking eaten by a tree-wolf-wildfire thing. Pretty sure I won that frustration contest.

  The first half of the text faded away. STATE YOUR FIRST CONVICTION remained. In the corner of my eye, the blade of the shovel glowed a bright, warm yellow, like the sun rising at dawn. It was getting brighter by the minute until it hurt to look at.

  It was trying to do something, but who knew whether it was helpful. I needed to see. I kept staggering forward. Conviction. I knew what conviction meant. It was a belief. Pick a belief, any belief then.

  “The first death is doubt,” I said, because I’d been telling that to myself all damn day, staving off the absolute avalanche of experiences I’d gone through, just trying to do and not think. “There’s your stupid conviction--now let me see, damnit.”

  The text vanished. The wolf head that had grabbed White-hair was shaking the poor man like a chew toy.

  My shovel was glowing so brightly I couldn’t see the steel that it was made of any longer.

  I had the strangest compulsion to swing. Like I’d been doing earlier.

  I didn’t question it. I grasped my shovel by the base handle, and I swung for the bleachers.

  The light flew off my blade like the snow had earlier. It started as a ball, but expanded out into a giant, shining shovelblade made entirely of light. It slammed into the wildfire wolf from the side, passing through White-hair so that it was hit solidly in the jaw of the head holding the man. Its mouth fell open, and White-hair fell into the snow. The shovel was still going, filled with a momentum I couldn’t grasp. It scooped under the monster and launched it into the air like it had launched me, careening it into the trees that remained in the clearing. It slammed hard and collapsed onto its side.

  “Oh, shit.” The curse came out in a croak. The creature was getting up again.

  No, I wouldn’t let it. I hobbled towards it and White-hair, struggling with my bad leg and half-destroyed snowshoes.

  If I could get the shovel to do whatever the hell it had just done again, then I had it. If I could control it, even better.

  The creature yelped and snapped and snarled, hissing steam and belching smoke. It rolled to its feet, the snow turning to melted slush wherever it stood.

  It should’ve focused on me. But it went right for White-hair again, lurching in his direction.

  “You won’t!” I yelled, my voice rasping, a strangled screech that sounded and felt like it had flayed me on the way out.

  My shovel was glowing again. It went from dull to shining in a single heartbeat. A thought occurred to me. I couldn’t bludgeon the damn thing--I’d proven that earlier--but I’d made a very large shovel.

  Shovels scooped. I bent, shoving the glowing shovel into the snow, getting a pretty chunk of the stuff and flinging it towards the creature.

  The golden ball shot out. In front of me, it went from golden ball to giant shovelhead made of light. It mimicked my movements, digging the tip of the light into the snow-turning-wet-slush and picked up what looked like a mountain’s worth.

  It flung the absolutely enormous amount of snow into the air and directly at the wildfire pinewolf--or was it wolves, since multiple had merged together?

  One moment, the monster was intent on making White-hair its personal stress toy. The next, it vanished under a massive pile of white. The heat and light from the fire that had suffused the clearing vanished, plunging me back into dark, lit only by a cold moon and even colder stars.

  A shock of steam rose upwards instantly, hissing and spitting out angry drops of water. The creature howled like it was dying, a chorus of desperate whines and panicked, frantic snarling. The mound rumbled, shifted, shot melting snow into the air. The snow shone purple, shuddering and winking in and out of existence, before abruptly solidifying.

  It stopped. The slush settled.

  I gasped for air, my breath puffing out in small clouds. I didn’t stare. White-hair had been flung about badly, and I needed to check on him. The wind picked back up.

  My HUD was blinking at me now, demanding my attention. HP: 1/20 was the only thing not strobing wildly. It had gotten larger, and turned a bright, intense red.

  I ignored it. I was still alive. I didn’t feel bad. If my health points were that low, I probably should. I limped towards White-hair, using my shovel like a cane again. I struggled through the snow, my progress far too slow for my reckoning. The man still hadn’t moved.

  The closer I got, the worse he looked.

  His clothes were half shredded, the majestic dark purple and gold trim suffering several punctures and tears. He was wet and slimy, and God knows where the hell his glasses had gone. His eyes were closed, and I still couldn’t see if his chest was rising and falling.

  Shit. I struggled to my knees next to him, floundering to undo the straps that made up one of my gauntlets. My fingers were thick, awkward.

  “White-hair,” I said while I grunted, “If you’re still there, please say something.”

  Nothing. I pulled harder at my gauntlet straps and finally managed to free myself. I placed two fingers against White-hair’s throat. There was a pulse. Faint and quiet. I patted around him for other wounds, but I didn’t find any. Had he somehow not been bitten?

  Well, what the fuck was I supposed to do now? I studied White-hair. He was tall, but he was a lanky, lean tall, all boney edges and sharp corners. If he had any kind of muscle, it’d be the muscle of a runner. In other words, the dude would not be heavy. Inconvenient, but not heavy.

  I looked at my bad leg. I put weight on it. Painless. Man, adrenaline was a hell of a drug.

  Something flashed in my HUD again--a new icon in my top right corner, next to the weird, glitched one and the blood icon. It was a little image of a human, like those on bathroom signs, but this one seemed to be bracing. I put the mental mouse cursor over it.

  STAND YOUR GROUND, it proclaimed. PALADIN PASSIVE: Activated once every Wing. Your party can not drop below 1 HP for a period of time. Time determined by CONVICTION.

  My party, huh? I had a niggling feeling that whatever a party was, White-hair was a part of it. I didn’t understand the rest of it, but I got the gist.

  Super-adrenaline was in progress, basically. That meant I had time to find help, probably at that inn. As for what happened after it ran out, I didn’t want to know. The last important bit was that however this had turned on, it probably wouldn’t work again for a while. “Once every Wing” didn’t sound terribly frequent.

  QUEST FAILED: BURN FOR CATO’S MISTAKES flashed across my vision. QUEST 1/3 FAILED. I flinched, then frowned as it faded away.

  The surrounding trees rustled, but nothing appeared.

  I exhaled. My unease hadn’t vanished, but whatever the cost for failure was, it wasn’t that. Besides, I’d take that “failure” any day.

  I pulled my gauntlet back on, fumbling with the belts. It was a loose fit, but it worked. I hung my shovel at my waist again, in the little loop that held it there. I crouched, then, grabbing the limp torso of White-hair, pulling at his arms so they went over my right shoulder.

  I grunted and huffed. I was strong, for a woman, always had been. I’d picked up some weight in my time, but limp bodyweight was always gonna be real awkward. More grunting that probably made it sound like I’d failed to eat fiber for three weeks running, but after a moment, I pulled him across my shoulders.

  He had weight, but like I’d predicted, he wasn’t heavy.

  He was long, though. His limbs flopped, and that white hair of his trailed along the ground. It went past his hips, which was impressive. I couldn’t imagine the pain in the ass of caring for it.I hooked an arm over the back of his thighs and through one of his arms as I lurched and stumbled my way forward.

  I glanced up, searching for the north star. Couldn’t find it. Fine. I’d just pick a direction and go. I’d find the inn before the time ran out, and then I would wake up from this godforsaken nightmare.

  I trudged out of the clearing.