The School gave them a week off.
Something about "spiritual burnout" or "pressure buildup around the Veil." Biji didn't listen. OTG1234 — or "Tiny" as she now called him — tried to nap through the announcement. They left before it finished.
So they roamed.
Not far. Just through the old districts of Nurael, the cracked market streets where sellers shouted too loud and kids chased floating belief bubbles that would sometimes pop into butterflies or burst into harmless smoke.
At one point, they came across a group of four in black robes, faces covered, pushing around an old fruit vendor. Biji and Tiny paused.
> "Villains," Tiny said, mouth full of dried ginger.
Biji nodded.
They didn't need a plan.
Five minutes later, the vendor had her stall back, and the robed ones were tangled in their own belief-made ropes, hung like laundry between trees, muttering curses like amateurs.
> "You didn't even touch that last one," Tiny muttered, rubbing his knuckles.
"She fainted before I moved," Biji replied.
"Yeah, that tracks."
They kept walking until they found a street cart selling freshly baked honey muffins.
Warm. Soft. Too sweet.
Biji didn't smile, but she ate three.
Tiny had five. One in each hand, and one balancing on his shoulder "for later."
---
Then the sky twitched.
Not in color, not in shape — but in feeling. Like it clenched.
Both of them looked up.
They felt it a split second before they saw it.
A beam — massive, burning white and violet — shot down from somewhere beyond the Veil itself.
It wasn't slow.
It wasn't dramatic.
It just struck.
A mountain — one of the old sacred ones to the far east — shattered instantly.
Not cracked. Not split.
Gone.
Stone turned to dust. Trees to smoke. Belief sigils along the mountain face flashed once… and died.
Even from this distance, they felt the shockwave ripple through their knees.
The muffins on Tiny's shoulder fell. He didn't catch it.
Silence.
Then Biji finally spoke.
> "That wasn't from here."
> "Yeah," Tiny said quietly. "That came from something above the Veil."
They both stood still, staring at the empty place where a mountain used to be.
Something had arrived.
Or awakened.
Or remembered Arcane existed.
Whatever it was — it wasn't normal.
And it wasn't done.
---