There were things in life Gwen could deal with. The bugs buzzing in her ears, a plate shattering whenever she dropped one, a stone in her shoe, even cracking a mirror. But a stain on her cloak?

"I think the hell not," the grumbled to herself as she hunched down over a pond and tried to clean the stain off. She had just bought a potion from the witch Anne Maria, a potion to help Gwen contain her magic for a longer period of time, but ended up spilling the brew all over her cloak.

"What a waste of money. Seems as though nothing ever goes right in my life," Gwen huffed.

"Then try going left," a voice spoke from behind her.

Gwen spun around and saw Trent smiling sheepishly at her.

"Heh, sorry. I know my jokes are pretty bad," he shrugged.

Gwen stood up from the ledge of the pond. "No, it's ok. I could use a little humor."

He looked down at her cloak. "Did a potion explode on you?"

"No, us sorcerers don't brew potions. Only witches brew them." She tried to hide the very noticeable stain, "I was just coming back from buying a potion, and I spilt it on myself."

The musician held back a chuckle. "Jeez, that sucks."

Gwen lightly shoved him for laughing, but ended up laughing herself.

"No, but I'm serious." Trent began as they started walking through the forest, "If you feel as though everything in your life isn't going right, go left!"

"And what's that supposed to mean?" She cocked an eyebrow.

He shrugged and ducked under a tree branch. "Well, just change your mindset. If you always think negatively about something, then the outcome is sure to be negative. Try thinking positive for once."

Gwen took that thought into consideration as she stepped over a log. "True enough…"

"I only speak the truth," he mused and Gwen giggled.

Trent hoped over a ditch in the ground. He turned and held out his hand for Gwen with a sly grin. Gwen rolled her eyes playfully and took his hand. The two bickered back and forth to each other for a few moments until they came to the edge of the Woods of Eve. The edge of the whole island actually. They were a good forty feet above the ocean below, and if they looked to their left, they could just see a few houses in the village.

"Nice day, eh?" Trent stretched his arms behind his head.

Gwen shrugged. "Meh."

He glanced at her. "Why 'meh'?"

She shrugged again. "I woke up with an off feeling."

"What?" His eyes widened.

"I don't know, when I woke up I just felt uneasy."

"Huh… That's strange." He looked out at the big ship sailing towards the island, "I passed Geoff when he was walking to the castle for the early morning knight round-up, 'cause who knows what he's been doing in the woods…" Trent half grinned, "But he told me he also woke up with an uneasy feeling."

Gwen squinted at the ship. "Yeah… That is strange." The ship was giving her a weird vibe. "Tell me, Trent. Have you ever seen a ship with navy sails?"

"Nope."

"Neither have I," she hummed as the ship docked. "Definitely not an Omarian ship."

They remained silent, both watching people unload off the ship and onto the dock. They were far, so they couldn't make out any faces, but they could definitely tell they were people. Someone came off the ship and appeared to be speaking to one of Queen Heather's guards. Then, a horse was brought up, and the person from the ship got on and rode away, followed by a group of their guards.

"Now who could that be?" Trent finally spoke after they could no longer see the person on the horse. "Omaria has never gotten many visitors from other kingdoms."

Gwen's short blue and black coloured hair was blown into her face. "I know. Trent, when you saw that ship, did it just give you a sort of off feeling?" She pondered and brushed the hair out of her face.

"I thought that was just me," he simpered, looking relieved, "you felt that too?"

"Been feeling it all morning."

The musician ran his hand through his black hair that hugged his jaw. The wind picked up both his black cloak, and Gwen's blue cloak, but unfortunately his got caught on a branch in one of the trees behind them.

"Nice…" He muttered as he tried to pull it out.

Gwen giggled. Another gust of wind came. The sorcerer shivered and wrapped her cloak around her body. Her cropped black shirt and black short skirt didn't keep her wearing warm. At least she had tights underneath, and tall boots with fur on the inside. Her shirt was cropped, but it was also long-sleeved. The sleeves had blue letters of a different language on them. Only Gwen could read them. On the neck of the shirt was a sapphire. Her skirt had a belt around the waist, with two pouches on each side, and her tights were black and see-through.

"Wind has certainly picked up," Trent pointed out once he got his cape out of the branch.

"Maybe it's 'cause of the ship," Gwen jested.

He laughed, but then stopped. "What if it actually is?"

The sorcerer moved away from the edge of the forest. "Trent, I don't think-" She was cut off when a shrilling noise caught through her head. Gwen gasped and fell onto her knees, grabbing her head. Images started appearing in her vision, none which she could make out because they were all going by too fast. Hands were bursting out of the ground all around her, pulling her under. Gwen couldn't breathe. More and more images kept screaming around, but suddenly one image stopped.

Everything stopped.

Gwen was sitting in a ring of fire. Something was burning on her finger. She looked down and saw a ring on her middle finger. Furiously, she tried to pry it off, but it wouldn't budge. The gem in the center, which looked to be an onyx, kept changing from black to red. Gwen couldn't even see properly. Her hand kept shaking. A blood-piercing scream echoed around in her ears and then-

"GWEN!"

Gwen gasped and opened her eyes. Strong hands were gripping her shoulders. She was on the ground, how-

"Jesus, Gwen. Are you ok?" Someone asked.

She blinked twice until her vision cleared and she could see who was in front of her. It was Trent.

"Say something, please," the musician begged.

She rubbed her eyes. "Yeah… I'm ok."

Trent let out a breath of relief. "You scared the shit out of me. One minute you were walking away, and the next you were gasping on the ground."

"It was a vision. I had a vision," she told him.

He pulled her up. "Do you usually get those?"

Gwen shook her head. "No, not really."

"Jeez, what did you see?"

"At first I couldn't see anything, there were just so many things flying by…" She paused noticed she was sweating, "But then I was in this ring of fire, and on my finger was an actual ring. It kept changing colours from black to red… I don't know what is means."

Trent and Gwen began walking. "That's so-" Trent was caught off when someone shrieked and came cannonballing down right in front of them.

"Hey there lads and lasses!" Izzy bubbled, placing her hands on her hips.

Trent placed a hand against his heart. "Jesus, Izzy. You nearly gave me a heart attack."

The ginger grinned. "Whoops, my bad."

Two more people burst out of the trees.

"If you ever try to electrocute me again, I swear to god…" Eva growled and started marching up to Izzy's face.

Noah grabbed Eva's arm and held the crazy-strong werewolf back. "Alright, let's save the fighting for when Izzy tries to steal more bread loafs from the market."

Trent's eyes widened. "You guys were stealing?"

"Why am I not surprised?" Gwen muttered.

Noah looked at them. "No, we were not stealing," he pointed at himself and Eva, "Izzy was the one who tried to 'permanently borrow' a loaf of bread from the market, but got tackled by a crowd of angry sales men. So Eva and I had to come in and pull her out before they shredded her."

"Yeah, and the basket-case nearly got us killed in the process," Eva sneered.

Izzy shrugged. "Hey, I didn't need you guys to come save me. I could've taken them easy."

"Yeah right," Eva scoffed.

"I could've! My lightning strikes were just about charged-"

Trent cut in. "You would've struck them with your lightning bolts?"

She looked at him. "Hell yeah I would've. They were getting my loaf of bread dirty."

"But your lightning strikes can kill people so easily," he reminded.

Noah raised his hand. "She would not have used her lightning strikes on them, would you, Izzy?"

Izzy hesitated.

"You wouldn't have, right?" Noah asked again.

The girl let out a dramatic sigh and fell into Eva's arms. "Alright, y'all caught me. No, I wouldn't have struck them with lightning."

"Thank you," Noah said and crossed his arms.

"I was considering it, though."

Eva groaned and dropped Izzy on the ground. "Izzy, your lightning strikes only get fully charged every two days. You shouldn't waste them trying to steal a loaf of bread."

Izzy brushed her mess of orange hair out of her face and looked up at Eva. "A sorcerer's gotta do what a sorcerer's gotta do."

"But you're not even a true sorcerer," Noah pointed out.

She huffed. "Excuse me, I am very much a true sorcerer."

"If you want a true sorcerer, look at Gwen and Noah," Eva said.

Gwen rolled her eyes. "Oh my god, you guys are like the three blind mice."

Eva shot her a glare. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

Izzy jumped up. "We are not the three blind mice, we're team E-Scope!"

"Right... And who came up with this name?" Gwen crossed her arms.

Noah and Eva both pointed at Izzy.

"And who is the leader of this team?" She asked.

They pointed at Izzy again.

"You got that right," Izzy grinned her toothy grin, "call me Explosivo."

Trent and Gwen glanced at each other.

"Uh, where'd you get that name, Izzy?" Trent asked.

Noah groaned. "Don't even bother asking. This girl comes up with the strangest crap."

"I still don't see why you like her…" Eva mumbled.

"What?" Trent and Gwen both gasped at the same time.

Noah shot Eva a glare. "I-"

"Whoa, holy shit…" Trent laughed, "You have a crush on Izzy?"

Gwen burst into laughter. "Oh my god, this is so funny!"

"I-" Noah stuttered, looking extremely flustered.

Gwen wiped a tear from her eye. "Jeez, do you actually have a crush on Izzy?"

He turned cherry red. "I do not-"

"Uh, Noah?" Eva tapped on his shoulder, focused on something in the distance.

"What? Gonna shout out another secret of mine to the world?" Noah asked in annoyance.

She rolled her eyes. "No. Just look over there." She pointed to the edge of the forest where Gwen and Trent had just come from, and there was Izzy flying around on some sort of creature in the sky.

"Oh no…" Noah grumbled and ran to the edge.

Trent raised an eyebrow. "How did she even get on that thing?"

"I don't know, I was too busy laughing," Gwen snorted.

The three followed Noah to the edge of the forest and watched Izzy do not-so-planned stunt moves on the flying creature above the ocean below.

"Izzy, get back here this instant!" Noah shouted out.

The ginger stuck her middle finger up at him and kept riding.

"What type of creature is that anyway?" Trent asked.

Gwen shook her head. "Not sure, I've never seen it before."

Suddenly, a huge bolt of lightning crashed out of the clouds, causing all four of them to jump, and it hit the creature. The creature screeched out and started to fall right towards them. Everyone screamed and jumped out of the way.

The creature crashed onto the ground just behind them, sliding a good five meters before it came to a complete stop. Then, Izzy jumped off the creatures back and brushed her hands off.

"WOO-HOO! What a ride!" She laughed.

Trent and Gwen glanced at each other again.

"What the actual hell…?" Gwen whispered.

"Did you just kill it?" Noah asked.

Izzy just shrugged. "I had to."

Noah marched up to her and the dead creature. "Are you insane? Oh wait, I already know the answer to that question. But still, why the hell would you kill it? You can't just go around killing creatures-"

"Noah, wait," Gwen spoke, "look at its blood."

The fed-up sorcerer looked to where Gwen was staring. His eyes widened. "Oh shit…"

The creature was pouring out dark purple blood.

"Yeah, that is definitely not a creature from Omaria," Trent cocked an eyebrow.

Izzy placed one foot on the dead creature and put her hands on her hips. "See, now I used my lightning bolts on something useful."

"Did you know it wasn't from Omaria?" Eva asked.

Izzy grinned. "While I was riding it, my blade accidentally cut into its skin, and I saw it started bleeding purple blood," she held up her mini katana with the purple blood dripping off the end, "So I brought it down."

Noah shook his head in disbelief. "Wow…"

The ginger huffed and skipped by the dazzled bookworm, flipping her hair in his face. "And y'all doubted me."

"Wait a minute now, this could still be an innocent creature," He pointed out.

Izzy spun around. "Does that look like an innocent creature? Don't you remember the monsters that attacked Omaria one hundred and fifty years ago? They had purple blood as well."

Gwen hunched over the creature. Its skin was black, with tiny hairs sticking out all over the place. It looked like some sort of griffon, except the claws were much longer, and its tongue was also very long with a slit in the middle. Its eyes were also a weird yellowish, hazel colour, but the pupils were black instead of white.

"Have you ever seen this before?" She asked Trent.

He shook his head. "Nope."

"I'm telling you, the monsters that attacked the kingdom all those years ago are coming back," Izzy advised.

Gwen shook her head. "But why…?" And what was that vision she had? Her eyes moved towards the edge of the forest again. Slowly, Gwen stood up and walked until she was outside of the trees again, standing at the very edge of the forest. Her gaze landed on the ship that had just arrived.

She didn't know why, but something was extremely uneasy about that ship.