The creature moved fast but Vess was leagues beyond it.

“On The Wing!”

She vanished from its path as it charged a tight line into her four poster bed, plowing through her down-stuffed mattress like a reaping wind. Feathers burst everywhere and were cast aside as it whirled in place, hunting for her—only to find a spear stabbing down into its chest.

“Draconic Stormfall!”

Vess dropped from the ceiling, spear first, as lightning crackled in her wake. The creature leaped aside, but not fast enough to avoid injury. Her training spear hit it’s shin, finding the gap above the greave and shearing through the leg entirely. Lightning burst in a ring, tossing the thing head over heels into the wall. It crashed into the ground.

Vess stood, wings outspread, and leveled her shattered training spear. “Who are you? There was no attack this day.”

The creature was on its back, and instead of flipping over, the thing rotated its head and limbs fully around, joints bending backwards, until it stood on all fours like an animal.

“Disgusting. I can kill it,” Yin offered from her shoulder.

“No, it needs to answer if it can. What are you?”

The helmet it wore was gone, and its head was a swirling nest of chaotic liquid, broken by jagged vapors that faded its flesh into unreality.

It rushed her again.

“Enough of this. Galebound Glory!” Twenty-five Spears manifested at her side and flew in the same instant, smashing through the creature’s twisted body and nailing it into the wall. It spasmed, pieces that it could move twitching faster than Vess could track, but there was no room for escape.

It hissed through what Vess assumed was a mouth before it dissolved, flesh and armor alike melting into a blue ichor that pooled down the wall and floor.

There was no notification from the System, only the glitching remnants of its presence, which now left a reminder across the wall. Where its blood had touched, the wall had turned into jittery blocks of plaster and stone. They jolted, moving as if possessed of a chaotic Will, and fuzzing around the edges as if unmoored from the rest of the memory.

Broken.

Between one breath and the next, however, the instability righted itself. The memory patched itself, until even her Spears and the holes they’d made in the walls were banished. Vess turned and was unsurprised to see that her bed was also untouched. Even her sheets were made up.

“What was that? Part of the Path? Is it testing me?”

“That did not seem like a test,” Yin said. “Did you see how it corrupted the memory itself? That felt like an interloper.”

“How? We’re within an Omen Path. Those are known to be solely for the one who bears the Key.” Vess chewed her lip. “The Dragoons spoke nothing of phantom horrors.”

As if suddenly switched on, the swell of noise continued from outside of her door. The memory was getting things back on track. Vess frowned and considered the still-shattered training spear, the only evidence of what just occurred.

“There is more going on here.” She dropped the spear and straightened her secondary set of cloth armor. “We need to find out more.”

“Too right.”

She opened her door, finding the guards still standing there as if nothing was amiss. They gave her a respectful nod and she slipped through, Yin hidden in her high collar and hair as they headed in the opposite direction as their private training hall.

The cheers were loud and getting louder with every step. Her high Perception picked up words in the morass of noise, and it was a blessing she had not possessed such attuned senses in the past. Ten year old Vess would have been mortified to hear some of the crass language being bandied about, things no one would ever dare utter in front of the duchal heiress.

She was a much different person now.

Around the final bend, Vess now beheld a large crowd piled around one of several smaller arenas. Sand sprayed up and over their heads and the crunch of metal on bone was louder than the appreciative cheers. It wasn’t until she was almost upon them that Vess could see through the throng, as a woman with two kite shields strapped to her arms smashed a burly Human to the ground.

"Kick his ass!" A man in dented silver armor shouted the loudest, just off to the side. His familiar helmet was strapped to his waist, but Vess would have recognized that crooked nose and scarred face anywhere. Harn, younger than she had ever seen him, perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties.

“Don’t take any hits!” A blonde woman was right next to him, excitedly miming along with the fight. She was sweaty and lean, her smile sharp as the blades at her waist—and Vess knew her as well. Calesca Boscal, now known as Lady Boscal of Haarwatch, the second part of a mercenary trio.

That means… Excited, Vess’ eyes strayed back at the arena. The woman with the shields was younger and far less muscled than the bulky behemoth that Vess would later train under, but there was no denying it. Magda.

The burly opponent, wielding a heavy cudgel covered in high steel spikes, stood back up from the sand. The weapon glowed with silver and golden Mana—some sort of metal and light based Skill—and he charged. The Shieldwitch did not give an inch, however. She beat the man into the sand, driving his bearded face chin first into the earth. The man wasn’t done however, he swung blindly, the cudgel forcing shards of hardened sand to burst upward into Magda’s face. They didn’t get that far. Shields of Mana flickered into existence around her, crushing the shards just as she drove the edge of her kite shield into his spine.

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Vess winced, but the crowd ate it up. In their excitement, they didn’t notice the shift. The man twisted, his hips rotating impossibly as if his spine had turned to water. He slipped free of her shields, limbs slapping down into the sand and forcing him back upright. His bearded face was bloody, but beneath the hair it had gone strangely dark. An unnatural flickering consumed his silhouette.

“Still got fight in you?” Magda grinned and bashed her shields together. “Let’s go!”

Not a single person noticed. Not even as he slashed forward, unmaking pieces of the arena with a swing of his spiked cudgel.

Again? What is happening?

Let me see. Yin arced himself up through her hair, weaving his head around to see past the shifting crowd. One of those things again. It doesn’t seem as if they’ve noticed, however.

Magda didn’t seem concerned with her opponents newfound powers, if she even noticed. The Path itself seemed to be ignoring it.

The manthing surged forward, but was met by another bubble. He was deflected to the side and a kite shield bashed him in the spine again. He crashed into the ground, his limbs rotating to find purchase.

Magda didn’t allow it.

She landed on his back with a great stomp before crouching low and pummeling the man with her shields. Whatever struggle was left in him swiftly died away, until the unnatural flickering flitted off into nothing. Vess watched, in awe, as Magda stood up with blood dripping from the edges of her shields. The strangeness utterly had passed, leaving a bloody Human on the ground, slowly groaning into the sands.

The bell was rung.

"Winner by knockout, Magda Aren!"

She lifted a hand, sending a spray of blood into the crowd. The cheers were deafening.

Vess grinned, shouting along with them. Even Yin gave a little bugling roar that went unnoticed in the unholy din. She’d never known that Magda, Harn, and Cal had been in southern Andiva during the Grand Tourney, but it made sense. They were a mercenary crew before they were Guilders, and they had to earn their coin somehow.

She had been too injured to ever see the bouts during the Tourney last time, but she had no doubt that the trio had placed well in the rankings. Which was unfortunate for the Dragoons, as Harn would likely mop the floors with even their most capable trainees. Vess jolted, a thought spiking through her Mind. If Magda was here… She turned, flaring her Perception to its fullest extent. It swept through the room like an all-seeing eye.

There!

The girl was sitting on a barrel, eating what looked like half a roasted gherik. Her hands and mouth were greasy and bright with juices that dripped when she laughed and cheered along with the crowd. She was younger too, the same age as Vess, and looking like a pile of sticks bound together with leather. A bandolier of knives was slung across her thin chest, and a simple chain had been coiled in her lap.

Vess slipped through the crowd, dodging the shifting throng with flared Agility. “Evie!”

The girl perked up, her good cheer forgotten as a brief alarm crossed her face. Vess questioned how smart it was to approach a memory. Evie wouldn't know her; they hadn't met for several years yet and—

"Vess…? Noctis tits, that is you!" The girl jumped down, roasted bird and chain cast aside, as she swept Vess up into a tight hug. "Blind gods, but you're small," she said, setting her back down.

“You know me?”

The girl's face dropped, her smile falling to uncertainty. "Oh, I mean, I heard a lot about you, and, um, you know, the Dragoons are so popular."

Vess smirked. "Do not lie to me. You told me they were a bunch of stuffed shirts who sat on their spears wrong."

Evie's young face burned and Vess broke into a wide grin.

"It is you!" They embraced again, until Evie held her out at arms length. "How are you here?"

“What do you mean? How are you here in my Omen Path?”

"I'm on my own Path."

Vess blinked. “You mean—! You found an Omen Key?”

“Uh, not quite. We sorta…followed you.”

"What?"

"Felix figured out that you jumped through an Omen Door during your fight, so he sent all of us after you. Turns out, you can kind of kick open the Door and follow after."

Vess leaned back. “That’s impossible.”

“Undoubtedly impossible,” Yin agreed. “To do so is to flaunt the very nature of an Omen Path. They are singular, chainmaiden.”

“Oh.” Evie’s lip curled. “The lizard is here too.” She grinned at Yin’s Wyrmling appearance. “You’re lookin’ better than ever though.”

“And you’ve shrunk down to match your Intelligence score, I see.”

“Enough. Both of you,” Vess snapped. “Explain to me this thing you have done.”

Evie shrugged. “It’s not complicated. Ondine did a thing. A Skill that cut open a new Door next to yours…and now we're all on our own Paths."

"Wait. Who's we?"

"Me and all of the Unbound, except Wendell and Felix. They’ve already been, and you can't go again, apparently."

Vess smiled. "That insane man. This was his plan?”

“Yeah. He's fighting a goddess right now, just to give us time."

Vess’ smile melted away. “Explain.”

“That’d take way too long. It’s…weird out in Amaranth right now, and I think this place is being affected. I already saw somethin’ in the arena that makes me worried—”

“The flickering man?” Vess grabbed her friend’s bony shoulder. “The bearded man fighting Magda?”

Evie nodded. “You saw it too?”

“I did, but everyone else was blind to it. The same thing happened in my chambers.”

Evie reached for her knives. “A monster showed up there?”

“Something like it, but it vanished without a trace once it was disposed of. What exactly is happening in Amaranth?”

Evie looked out at the crowd. Another fight was starting, this time with Harn in the ring. Heaving a defeated sigh, she confronted Vess’ determined expression. “I suppose I have a second to explain.”