[center][h3]Ancestral Farmstead[/h3]
[b]Level 5 Tora[/b] - (32/50) EXP and [b]Level 4 Poppi[/b] - (30/40) EXP 
[b]Tora Stress:[/b] 70/100 and [b]Poppi Stress[/b]: 10/100
[b]Location:[/b] the Land of Adventure
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1121[/center]

With Bowser wounded by a slimy explosion, his human comrades took up his mantle. The Ace Cadet rushed in first, trying to get its attention. After smashing a farmhand into crystalline dust, the Brachydios complied, aiming a swipe at the monster hunter to get him off its flank. It missed, but scattered a few globules of slime on the ground. With the Cadet momentarily warded off, it glanced at Geralt emerging from a tussle with a couple farmhands, but its red-haired assailant demanded its attention. A bomb exploded in its face, provoking an enraged snarl and the full focus of the beast. It took a stop toward the Cadet and rammed its head downward, requiring a well-timed dodge to evade, and giving Geralt the opening he needed to slice into a leg. 

His silver sword cut through the scale and flesh with much less resistance than he might have expected, but somehow it didn't seem to incur loss of muscular functionality. Displaying a remarkable short temper, the Brachydios turned to face him, backed up a touch, and charged while swinging his arms into the ground over and over. Having circled around to the other side, Euden sprinted in as its charge tailed off to stab at its underside. With every thrust his sword gave off a spurt of flame, and some sort of power flowed into Euden. The Brachydios, unable to effectively attack beneath it, peeled off to one side while swinging its tail. Euden raised his shield in time to intercept the scaly club, which rattled him and slid him backward but didn't cause any real injury. 

As it readied itself, he shouted, “this guy just blindly goes after whoever attacks it!” It thundered toward him a moment later, and after a heart-pounding moment he threw himself to the side, evading its headbutt. The experience brought him close enough to its face to see its eyes, and they glowed with fury. “The crystals might be driving it into a frenzy!” A couple swings to its leg, then a hasty retreat. Hit-and-run tactics were serving the heroes well so far; trying to take it on directly, as proved by Bowser, was foolhardy. Euden, however, was too intent on another strategy to make note of it for the others. Keeping an eye on the beast, he said, “If I can keep landing hits, I can shapeshift and deal some serious damage!” Still intent on bashing Euden, the Brachydios licked its arms and came about again.

[hr]

As much as its fleshy protuberance evoked the image of a leech, attaching itself to Tora to drain his vital fluids, the Thing from the Stars did not prolong the bite. Instead it withdrew its ignoble maw almost as fast as it had been projected, leaving its rotund challenger with a two-pronged parting gift: a fiendish blight and a rattled psyche. It was out for just a moment, but in those precious seconds Tora's allies, driven to act by opportunity or revenge, made their move. 

From above, Bowser Jr swooped down in his clown car with Kamek giving support. A fusillade of arrows from Linkle sunk into the Thing as he drew near, barely sticking in its surface. In the child's hand was a fire axe, gleaming with the color of madness, and in the pivotal moment before Junior struck his sorcerous friend enlarged the weapon with a colorful hex. Its huge edge slammed into the monster's body, too unwieldy to be swung with any precision, only for the handle to splinter and the head to barely sink in before falling to the ground. Whatever this bizarre shimmer was, it either signified or conferred superior protections, reducing incoming damage by a whopping approximate four-fifths.

Junior's companions, already on the attack, didn't have the time to process this. At the urging of Linkle while she ran around blowing up the crystalline aberrations, Agoston found his vigor and renewed his assault. Before he got to his target, a sniper round struck the vomitous being's back, knocking a few handfuls of crystal shards and a spray of meat to the ground. By the time he reached the Thing's head, its supposed weak point had already mostly receded, the leftover protruding flesh hanging limply below its skull. The Centurion's formidable overhead chop fell upon its head instead, cutting a mediocre furrow into its wretched flesh and slicing into part of the tube. Barely a second later, Franklin's flame-wreathed machete flew in from behind the warrior, clipping his helmet, and lodged in the face of the Thing from the Stars. 

Next, Hat Kid arrived on the scene. Having left the group of farmhands in her dust with the help of her teammates' earlier efforts and an inexplicable azure beam from her umbrella, she got Linkle's help to team jump right into the action. She soared toward the monstrosity, changing hats as she did, and once in range let loose a short-range burst of earth energy into the Thing's head. When the flames cleared the next moment, she found that it had barely moved, and so used its noggin as a springboard to fly to safety. After her stylish landing, she could see along with the others that the overall punishment dealt to the Thing was substantial despite its protections; another round like that and it would surely give up the ghost. However, all the attacks to its head achieved no better results than any strikes elsewhere.

But there wasn't time to wonder or plan. The Thing from the Stars spasmed once more, and the alien saturation bubbled forth in arcane bolts. Mind-searing lightning swept through the heroes' ranks, seeking a place to belong, frisking their brains and burning their skin before departing skyward.

[center][i]Grounded heroes take 15 stress damage. Airborne heroes take 25[/i][/center]

Then the menace shuffled forward, the damaged head not even facing its foes. It lurched forward, a limb like a beast cadaver retching crystal swinging around to attack in a vicious [url=https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/darkestdungeon_gamepedia/thumb/6/6a/Thing_Stab.png/800px-Thing_Stab.png?version=f8852379d7064e32571625e88178d322]Vorpal Strike[/url] aimed at its enemies in melee range. The great crystal spike struck a glancing blow to Centurion and Hat Kid, who were blocking and retreating respectively, but it hit Junior full-force. His eyes filled with stars, blindingly bright and madly dancing, as he reeled from the critical hit. Then, leering, the nightmare raised its limb to strike again.

[center][i]Centurion and Hat Kid take 15 Stress damage. Bowser Jr takes 35. Everyone else takes 10[/i][/center]

The sight of his young friend reeling from pain and the gnawing of madness reached Tora through his daze. “Junior!” Unbidden, Poppi sprang forward, her eyes grim. She seized a Mech Arm as she jetted by, flying forward to punch the Thing in the big limb's bicep, which housed its arm-beast's spine. Stiff as the flesh was, she felt enough give to grit her teeth and slam down on it. Then, like Hat Kid before her, she pushed off it with her legs and hovered backward to barrage it with a missile salvo. One after another the missiles exploded against the malignity's crystallized hide, but so focused was Poppi that she could not move out of the way of its haymaker in time. Like a gigantic club the side of the spike slammed into her torso, and Poppi shot backward into a nearby farmhouse. She crashed through the wood above the roof and disappeared into a dusty darkness.

[center][i]Everyone takes 10 Stress damage[/i][/center]

Tora screamed. He looked on the verge of collapsing. There were husks lurking in every direction, he was weak from pain and poison, and his friends were being hurt. “Not...not happening!” He knew what he needed to do, but his nerves were shot. Shaking, he took off at a haphazard run for the farmhouse, beating off any farmhands in his way as he struggled to make his way to his partner. In his singlemindedness, he did not see the unusual [url=https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/darkestdungeon_gamepedia/thumb/6/6f/Sleeper_Dream.png/150px-Sleeper_Dream.png?version=015771de58ecfcc27eac37c67b10d1d9]husk[/url] floating a couple dozen yards away, the glow within already mounting to a fever pitch. Just as he reached the farmhouse, the crystalline cyst burst open, and the light bent.

The sky around the farmstead changed, filling with color that swallowed the night. In a mere moment the darkness was gone, and in every direction around the hilltop extended an infinite void of beautiful, haunting, ever-shifting green. It seemed as though the earth itself had disappeared, trapping the hilltop farmstead in an alien dimension beyond space and time.

For a moment Tora was overcome with awe, but only a moment. He was not broken yet. The green cosmos stretching out before him was dreadful, but the thought of losing Poppi was worse. With the new light, he could see inside the dilapidated farmhouse quite clearly, and after spotting Poppi hurried to where he lay. Miraculously, she didn't seem to be in critical condition—in fact, her ether furnace was operating unusually well. They shared a glance, realizing that both were still alive, and without a word embraced one another tight. Tora squeezed and squeezed and squeezed, and Poppi squeezed harder. “Thank Architect,” the Nopon mumbled, eyes screwed shut. His companion stroked his head, and relief filled them both.

[center][i]Tora and Poppi relieve 20 Stress damage[/i][/center]

A moment later, a crash from outside stirred them both into action, and after re-arming the pair rushed outside to rejoin the fight.