Brick wrapped me in his arms as we went through the Nexus, and I felt the transition as his human muscles expanded into their orcish bulk.

  I nestled into his chest, closing my eyes tight in an attempt to avoid the blinding effect the flash of light associated with travelling between worlds always brought with it, but it seemed to come from inside as well as out, even beneath my eyelids.

  “Emma!” Jackal’s voice informed me that the transfer had been completed. “You’re back! I’ll go get Bastion and Bruiser!”

  I shifted back, looking up into Brick’s freshly green face, appreciating the shift in his features. I found him handsome as a human as well, but I’d gotten to know him as an orc first. Well, a half-orc half-elf hybrid, although he’d only found out the secret to his heritage well into our adventure.

  I leaned up on my tiptoes and planted a kiss on his cheek, right next to his protruding tusks, and felt his skin curl up in a smile.

  Orcs were considered one of the less-attractive creatures in Newtopia, and the racial prejudices were strong. It had no impact on me, but I knew he felt self-conscious, especially when the transfer between faces was fresh, and especially when he’d spent a fair amount of time in his human form.

  “It’s nice to see you again,” I said, and felt his grip flex on my waist.

  “Brother! Emma!”

  We turned our attention to Bastion and exchanged greetings as Jackal bobbed up on the balls of his feet, beaming with all the enthusiasm of a golden retriever, and Bruiser sloped in behind them and leaned casually against the door frame.

  “How long was I gone?” I asked, stepping off the Nexus.

  “About a day,” Bastion frowned. “Bonaparte, Ermine and Pooky turned up shortly after you left. They’ve been camping out in Bruiser’s room. We’ve kept the door barricaded most of the time. The market out there has been crazy non-stop. People are breaking into literal fights over stuff. An NPC got stabbed over a weird gnome doll, despawned, then respawned at the edge of the market and ran back in to buy another one. It’s been insane.”

  “Sounds kind of like Black Friday sales,” I said, grimacing.

  It was one of the continuing oddities of Newtopia that some beings – not limited to people – remained unconscious NPCs and had no problem despawning and respawning, while others developed sentience and seemed more able to adapt their path to fit their desires rather than their programming. The one downside to developing self-awareness was that once sentient, the ability to respawn seemed to disappear. Once you died, you were dead for good.

  NPCs had been a crucial part of the original world as mission givers or objectives, but used as a way to generate a sort-of-invincible teeming mass of desperate Christmas shoppers? That just sounded terrifying.

  “Have you managed to overhear what happens on Krampus night yet?” I asked.

  Bastion shook his head. “Bruiser heard a bit, but it sounds nonsensical. You have to buy presents or get punished? I don’t get it. Did you find out anything on your end?”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Let’s move to the front room, I’ll show you the file Nightfall printed.”

  We filed into the café part of the bakery and took a seat around a large table near the back of the room. Bodies were pressing up against the glass doors at the entrance as shoppers wrestled each other, and occasionally one of them would pop out of existence when punched or crushed a little too hard.

  Jackal served up a large plate of the vanilla-tasting gingerbread cookies, explaining that a fresh batch of them spawned onto the counter about every half-hour.

  I tried to ignore the background violence, turning my back on the front doors and laying out the files detailing Krampina and James’ childhood Christmas stories.

  “There’s a lot of gaps in there,” Bruiser said finally, once we’d finished looking over the information. “And you say she’s totally unresponsive?”

  “James really hurt her feelings,” I said. “I think she’ll take a while to forgive him, although hopefully not the full one hundred years. And I guess we’ve all been a little unappreciative, overlooking her contributions. The main question I’ve got is how she’s decided to employ her creative license to this mess.”

  “I can fill you in there,” Bruiser said grimly. “It makes a bit more sense after seeing this, but it’s still of great concern. Let me tell you the terrifying tale of Christmas, as I’ve heard it from the birds. Then you can let us know if your Earth adaptation has any further wisdom to shed on the matter.”

  We settled into our chairs as Bruiser stood, casting a dreadful, haunted look towards the scenes playing outside our very door.

  “Christmas begins, on the first day of the season with the Gift Hunt. Everyone in Newtopia is tasked with buying gifts for the people in their lives: families, friends, employers, acquaintances. Generosity and kindness are measured and rated, with the most generous gift-givers receiving special honours at the end of the month by Santa. On the fifth night – Krampus night – the Krampus and his enforcers inspect households for compliance and punish those who have failed to produce the expected level of gifts in preparation for Christmas.

  “For offences against the holiday spirit, citizens will be shamed with public whippings followed by a mandatory purchase of products which can result in excessive levels of debt to Santa. In order to pay this debt off, the citizens will be rounded up and taken to the workshops in the icy hellscape Santa calls his home until such a time he considers their redemption complete, and their debts repaid.

  “Those who are in the top 1% of gift givers – those with the highest value or highest volume of gifts given – will receive the greatest honours Santa can bestow: a public parade in their honour, as well as a golden ticket which entitles them to annual dividends from the profits Santa’s workshop makes from that Christmas season.”

  It took a long time before my jaw felt functional again, hanging open uselessly as it was. Even my eyes began to dry out as I stared at Bruiser in horror.

  It was like Jenny had taken all the absolute worst parts of Christmas and rolled them into the ultimate dystopian horror story.

  “So basically, the richest win, and it’s a gamble to maintain wealth and power,” Brick said thoughtfully. “The more you spend, the more likely you are to get the biggest returns – and for everyone else, they just want to stay ahead of the bell curve or they’ll end up in indentured labour paying off debts to the Christmas overlord.”

  Bruiser nodded. “That’s about it. And further than that, it weaponizes some of the values that Newtopians find most important – honour, prestige, wealth and shame.”

  “So, Emma. Do your people fight over gifts and out-buy each other too? How does this differ from Christmas on Earth?” Jackal asked me curiously.

  I sat back in my chair and thought back to Christmas with my mess of a family. Between my mother’s four husbands and the endless train of step and half siblings trailing through my life, favouritism had been an absolute constant and the competition had gotten so nasty I’d largely tried to stay out of it.

  “Actually, other than the mandatory participation, she’s kind of nailed it on the head.”

  “So how are we going to approach this?” Brick asked, looking thoughtfully at the writhing market.

  “We could kill Santa,” Jackal suggested helpfully.

  Part of me blanched internally. While I had no love for the big, red guy, I didn’t know if even I could handle that.

  “Let’s save that as our last resort.”