Ethan flopped to the ground and dropped his sword in front of him. His mechanical arms disappeared back within his cloak. Behind him, Jasper collapsed to his knees and let out something between a whimper and a sigh of relief.

The gold light faded from around Linna and the barrier floating in the air disappeared. She blinked uncomprehendingly, looking from her hands to the dead Vodrun bleeding in the snow beside her.

“What. Was. That?” She asked, her voice trembling.

“A moment, please. I thought we were all dead,” Jasper said, holding a finger up.

They sat in silence as the adrenaline wore off. Ethan was the first to start moving again. He rose to his feet wiped his sword off in the snow before grabbing the other one from the ground and doing the same to it.

“What were those? Did you make that gold light? I thought your powers don’t work on those things?” Linna fired off a series of questions.

“Vodrun, no, and they don’t,” Jasper said.

Linna rubbed her forehead with one hand and pointed at the dead monster beside her with the other.

“Right, one question at a time. Give me real answers. I think I deserve them. What in Typhon’s name is this…thing?”

“It’s a Vodrun,” Ethan said as he wiped off his second sword in the snow. “Abominations that shouldn’t exist, made by someone that really hates Jasper and me. Don’t worry, they only went after you because you were next to us. You’ll probably never see one again, but we greatly appreciate your help.”

“Yeah, I guess. I wasn’t going to just leave you two. Not to mention you still had my payment,” Linna said. “Also, you saved my life by blocking the… Vodrun when it jumped at me. Thank you.”

“You shouldn’t have been in danger in the first place,” Jasper muttered.

“What he means is that we appreciate you coming back to help,” Ethan said with a smile.

“Well, everything turned out all dandy. You became a Vision,” Jasper added. “Bunch of people would pay a whole lot of money for that opportunity.”

Linna looked down at her hands and flexed them experimentally.

“You mean I made that light?” She asked.

“And the fancy golden wall,” Jasper said.

“How?”

Jasper and Ethan exchanged a glance. A silent conversation seemed to pass between them. The gremlin sighed in defeat as Ethan strode over to the dead campfire and grabbed their packs from the ground.

“I’ll explain it on the road. We don’t want to sit around waiting for more of these mangy bastards to find us,” Jasper said.

Linna nodded shakily. Ethan led the small group away from the clearing, leaving the dead bodies of the Vodrun in the snow behind them.

Once they had put some distance between them and the plateau, Linna shot a pointed look at Jasper and cleared her throat.

“Fine, fine. You don’t have to be so impatient,” Jasper said as Ethan boosted him up into a cave several feet above them.

“We all just nearly got killed by hairless demon dogs with scorpion tails on their backs and I can make gold light out of thin air. I get to be impatient,” Linna replied as she pulled herself over the ledge and followed Jasper into the cave.

Jasper snapped his fingers and a small orb of light appeared in the air above him. It flew over to Ethan and settled just in front of the tall man’s head. Ethan took the lead and they ventured deeper into the mountain’s depths.

“To be fair, only one of them had a scorpion tail,” Jasper said as they walked.

“The gold light?” Linna reminded.

“It’s not that hard. You’re a damn Vision,” Jasper replied.

“I see. And do you plan to explain what that entails?”

Ethan suddenly stopped moving and raised a hand in warning. Ethan and Linna slid to a stop and watched the swordsman expectantly. He stood completely still for several moments. Then his sword flickered out of its sheath and Ethan stabbed something on the ground in front of them.

He turned around and brought the creature he had stabbed into the light so that Jasper and Linna could see it. A large rat was impaled on the end of his sword, still struggling slightly as the life left its body.

“Is that dangerous?” Linna asked cautiously.

“Nope! But it’s delicious,” Jasper said as he grabbed the rat from Ethan’s sword and shoved the entire thing into his mouth.

Ethan sent Linna an apologetic look while Jasper chewed loudly on his prize.

“My apologies. The gremlin gets angry when he’s hungry. Or nervous. Or excited. Or-”

“She gets the picture,” Jasper growled as he polished off the rat. “Now, I believe we were talking about Visions.”

Linna nodded silently.

“Well? What do you want to know about them? If I was to tell you everything I knew, we’d have to add a month to our travel time,” Jasper grumbled.

“I think explaining how I became a Vision would be a good start,” Linna suggested.

Jasper scratched his head awkwardly.

“Bad question. Nobody knows how to become a Vision. It just happens. Now, why you became a Vision is a different story. I’d guess it had something to do with being just about to die.”

“That’s it?” Linna asked. “Just…poof? There are thousands of people that are about to die every day. They don’t turn into Visions!”

Jasper grunted. “Aye. That’s because they actually die. Can’t be a Vision if you’re dead.”

The gremlin paused for a moment. “Usually, that is,” he amended.

“Interesting. So the criteria for becoming a Vision is thinking you’re about to die but not actually dying?”

“Now you’ve got it! Until it isn’t that is. Sometimes it just happens. Why, I knew an old lady that turned into a Vision because her cat thought her cake looked like its litter-”

“Enough, Jasper,” Ethan said.

Before Linna could respond, they came to a fork in the cave. There was no apparent difference between the two paths. Without breaking his stride, Ethan confidently strode into the right path. Jasper and Linna hurried in after him.