The tree was on fire! No, that wasn’t quite right, he realized as he rubbed his bleary eyes and braced himself against the night’s chill. The tree wasn’t on fire, but it was covered in light. 

For the last couple of months, the conifer had been growing steadily, and now it was over ten feet tall and had completely devoured the table that it had originally been planted on, granting it a particularly wide trunk. For the last couple of weeks, nodules had been forming all over the tree near the tips of branches. They had expected they’d be able to harvest nuts or something similar soon, now that the fruits had finally stopped growing, but it did not seem like that would be the case now.

Instead of food, they had all burst open and become… ornaments. Some had become sparkler-like candles, but most of them were instead little lacquered ornaments or small luminous flowers with long tinsel-like tassels. When the Throne’s emissary had used the word Yule, Benjamin had been sure she meant something else, and the system was somehow mistranslating it, but it was hard to look at the tree before him and see anything but a Christmas tree.

“What in the…” Emma mouthed, perfectly stating what he was thinking. 

As he looked it over again now that he was more awake, Benjamin noticed that there was even a star on the tree and that the closer he stood to the whole decorated affair, the warmer it got. For days, he’d been exacting another random, or maybe not so random, attack, and with so little that they had to do, everyone but Raja was taking a turn standing watch while he focused solely on trying to find them a little fresh meat every few days which was becoming a harder and harder task as the winter dragged on. 

“Who would have thought that elves had Santa Claus,” Matt said dismissively as he reached up and grabbed one of the reflective ornaments and bit into it. “Hmmmm… Toffee. Pretty good!”

Benjamin and Raja exchanged looks as he did so. At first, he was merely concerned that it might not be something he should be sticking into his mouth. As powerful as his healing magic was, Benjamin wasn’t sure it could cure every poison or replace a tooth if his friend broke one. 

Once he mentioned that they were candy, though, the look they were exchanging transformed into eagerness, and as one, everyone started a sugar field gold rush that only those who’d slowly grown to hate bitter acorns and tough jerky over the last few months would ever truly be able to appreciate. 

Color quickly became the guide to what ornament was what flavor. The golden ornaments were toffee or caramel, the colorful red ones were raspberry and strawberry flavored, and the dark ones were chocolate. They quickly became the most sought-after, though after they’d all spent a few moments shivering in the dark as they pigged out, they agreed that perhaps some should be saved for tomorrow and all the other days after that. 

“I suppose,” Nicole agreed, “but will it be the same without this wonderful spectacle to accompany it?”

Benjamin definitely agreed with that. Having candy would be a nice morale boost and a ready source of calories, but it definitely wouldn’t inspire the same wonder as waking up to this unexpected surprise. They were able to continue to enjoy the whole thing for a little while longer as they picked the tree clean of anything that was edible. Emma and Matt even showed a rare instance of teamwork to grab even more of the candy that was out of reach and sat on his shoulders to grab the dozens of ornaments that were tucked away in the high places. 

About the time they’d finished that, though, the candles had burned down to almost nothing, and there was nothing left on the branches for the tiny sparklers to reflect off of. 

“So, then I guess we should…” Benjamin started to suggest that they all went back inside where it was warm, but as he spoke, the entire tree burst into flames. Like dry kindling, the whole thing went up in seconds, illuminating the whole snow-covered area outside their hovel in the warm orange light as everyone stepped back, fearing some kind of bizarre trap or an attack of some sort. Benjamin’s mind even flicked to the idea that what they’d just eaten might have been poisoned, but the fireworks that quickly followed put him at least a little at ease. 

Somewhere, hidden inside all the branches that were quickly burning away, there were some kind of… Roman Candles? That was the closest parallel that Benjamin could think of for the fiery little balls that erupted out of the burning tree. Each of them looked to be no larger than a grape or a cherry, but as they shot skyward, they exploded over everyone’s head in little patterns of green and gold sparkling light. 

It was an unexpected delight, and despite the late hour, they all stood there transfixed for another few minutes as the unexpected show dazzled them. It was a wonderful moment, and for the first time in a long time, Benjamin found himself not needing to worry about what they needed to do next. He just stood back and enjoyed it. 

. . .

It wasn’t until morning that they found the presents. Matt had found the faces burned into the bulges of the trunk while he was collecting the partially burned branches that had fallen off the tree before being entirely consumed. They were running as low on firewood as they were on food, after all. Benjamin had planned to start using his creation magic to thin the walls of their cabin to get more, so every little bit helped. 

By the time he’d come in to tell them what he’d found, no one was interested. Not until he showed them what had been inside the tree. The torc was obviously made by hand out of a single piece of ivory in the shape of a snake, with deep black gems where its eyes should be. 

“That’s nice, man, but—” Benjamin started to say. 

“Check my sheet,” Matt insisted, forcing Benjamin to sit up and log into his friend’s interface. The result was interesting, to say the least.

“Huh…” Benjamin mused, “An honest-to-goodness magic item. Crazy.”

As he started to study it and see if he might be able to access it via his terminal, Nicole asked, “were there any more?” as Raja and Emma were already forcing themselves out of bed for the second time in one day and heading outside to see for themselves.

“In the stump, there were… like caricatures of our faces, and while I was studying mine…” Matt hesitated. “Well, it kinda broke open, and I found this inside.”

“I see,” Benjamin said skeptically. He was certain that whatever the depiction was, Matt had not cared for it and had punched right through it. I could practically see it in his mind’s eye. 

“Well, I mean - I’d love to give you more information about this,” Benjamin said as he stood and slipped on his shoes, “But I can’t. It’s completely incompatible with the system, sorta like Mac and PC, you know?”

Benjamin could see that Matt, in fact, did not know, not anymore, so he continued. “My best guess is that the system is reading the effect it has on you and interpreting it because it has no way of reading the actual thing itself.”

“Well, then, how do we know it’s not doing something negative?” Matt asked. 

“I mean - we don’t, I guess, but if it was, it would be showing up as some kind of status, I think,” Benjamin said as he walked outside. “The real question is, ‘Why the hell is the faerie queen giving us freaking Christmas presents?’”

It was a good question, and no one had a good answer, though Nicole did volunteer. “I mean, aren’t there stories about how you shouldn’t accept gifts from Faeries?”

Benjamin thought there were, but other than Rumplestilskin and Cinderella, nothing really came to mind, so he had no answer, and once he stepped outside and saw what his friends were up to, all thoughts were forgotten.

Sitting on the remains of the stump, Emma was trying on a pair of sleek, black moccasins. 

“Lucky you,” he said to her, though the smile she returned was almost feral. She’d just been complaining that her shoes were practically worn through, and replacements were going to be hard to come by. His hiking shoes had failed a little better but they were looking pretty rough too, along with everything else he owned. 

As he watched, Raja was pulling out a short bow made of delicate silvered wood that looked seriously impressive, but before he had time to study it, he noticed his charred face on one of the bulges of the trunk and stepped toward it instead. 

Nicole did likewise, and he noticed how easily she punched through it and pulled out a cloak that was such a dark green that it bordered on black. She put it on without hesitation, and he could see she instantly stopped shivering. That was enough to make Benjamin check out her gift, too. 

To Benjamin, it was more than a little strange that this tree just happened to be giving everyone exactly what they wanted. He had no idea how it could possibly do that, except, you know, magic. Still, it was enough to raise his suspicions as he looked at the simplified version of his smiling face, and for a moment, all he could do was wonder what it was he really wanted. A breakthrough in his virus program? Some better food? If he had to guess, he would say what he wanted more than anything was for the damage he’d so foolishly done to his soul to be removed, but that didn’t seem likely. 

He’d patiently waited for weeks, hoping that the major soul scar depicted on his character sheet would fall to minor soul scar as things healed. Hell, at this point, I’d happily take a plain old soul scar rather than the alternative, he thought angrily. It had never improved, though, and to this day, he had half the mana he should have because of the damage he'd inflicted along with his least-worst-case workaround. It aggravated him, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about it. But maybe the strange nature magic of this world could, he thought, hopefully. 

Embarrassingly, he was the only one who had to hit the wood twice to break the fragile bark layer that served as wrapping paper. The first time, he’d been unable to shake the feeling that it was going to be solid and he was going to break his hand. So, he endured a few snickers as he broke it on the second, stronger punch. 

The result was a small… locket? No, that was the wrong word. It was an amulet of some kind, and as soon as he opened up his identify window, he was pleased to see it agreed with him. It was just a chunk of amber shaped into a heart on a delicately braided leather thong, but that was still enough to make it the nicest thing he owned.

Well, it doesn’t fix the soul scar even a little bit, he thought with a smile, but it helps counteract the penalties a bit, and I guess that’s good enough for now.