[center][h3]Ancestral Farmstead[/h3] [b]Level 5 Tora[/b] - (35/50) EXP and [b]Level 4 Poppi[/b] - (33/40) EXP [b]Tora Stress:[/b] 95/100 and [b]Poppi Stress[/b]: 35/100 [b]Location:[/b] the Land of Adventure [b]Word Count:[/b] 682[/center] The Thing had fallen, but the battle continued. More enemies emerged from the Farmstead surrounding the hilltop battlefield, not in droves but in a steady trickle, and with how tough the husks were it made for daunting opposition. With Tora down and Poppi by his side, and the others forced back together, the situation looked grim. The color-infested things lurched over the bleached soil and grass, farm tools and tainted seed in hand, to finish what they started. Their foremen and scarecrows were turning the tide, striking from afar with biting lash and repugnant wails to tear down body and mind alike. Behind the defenders, the others attempted to rally. Since landing her last attack, Hat Kid had been frozen stiff, her big eyes paralyzed by a color altogether too much for a young mind. Mimikyu and Kamek attended to Bowser Junior, but the light had left the young koopa's eyes. His limbs and eyelids were heavy, sore from bearing the weight of crushing despair, telling him to lie down and accept the futility of the battle. Linkle took in the grim scene and chose to act. Overflowing with righteous anger, she took off like a top, spinning wildly as she unleashed a torrential fusillade of arrows. The night lit up with an awesome tornado of fireworks. Tora squeezed his eyes shut, and Poppi threw herself over him, protecting him with her body. Flame, force, and gunpowder filled the air, but miraculously her allies were totally unharmed. It was as if the breathtaking fury chose to ignore them. When Poppi looked up, eyes wide and wondering, she saw the fading smoke leave behind dust, ash, and crystal shards. Even the explosive aberrations had been vanquished by the onslaught. But not all their foes. A quick headcount, initiated by the portion of Poppi's mind still calm and logical despite the bloodcurdling chaos, came up with nine farmhands, three foremen, and two scarecrows still standing. They were already under attack, with Michael evaporating one foreman and Franklin peppering a scarecrow with practically useless bullets, but there they were. And one scarecrow was about to scream. Tora couldn't take it. Poppi didn't know how she knew, but she did. No sensor or analytic routine told her, but she could still feel it. Her master was doing a two-part samba on the fine line between sanity and insanity, and he wasn't a very good dancer. Too round. One little tap could send him right over, and Poppi wouldn't let that happen. Her heels burst into flame that scoured the earth, blasting her forward. In both hands a new Mech Arm materialized from her ether. Her eyes relayed the data to her mind, a deadly supercomputer, and it spat out exact numbers describing time and force. Poppi hit the scarecrow in just shy of a second with a right hook, her actuators at full tilt. Its head simply disappeared, becoming a spray of straw, cloth, and crystal. Instead of trying to stop the blow, Poppi let its massive force carry her around in a spin made wild by her still-firing boosters. At that point she needed only to extend her leg and catch a brief glimpse of the metal limb ripping the scarecrow's body into two raggedy pieces. Stage one, complete. Stage two, begin. This wouldn't be as complicated. Still spinning, Poppi transformed into her Alpha form, shield in hand, and let it go at just the right moment. The massive centrifugal force sent the shield zipping like a massive, circular bullet at the second scarecrow, catching it square in the chest. It was carried backward a hundred yards before hitting an abandoned wagon and exploded into an indeterminable shower of debris, the wagon along with it. Poppi eased off her boosters, falling to the ground. Her ether furnace, massively overclocked, struggled fitfully to remain operational. It must have been painful, as far as machines felt pain, but the artificial Blade dragged herself over to Tora. Once there she lay against his roundness, watching the fight. At this point, she trusted her friends to finish the fight. Some were doing better than others. With only the will of others driving him on, Junior commanded his legion of minions to attack, but with their power already on the low end and their leader near-inert the koopa and goombas were slaughtered. They were simply out of their league against the husks, two different worlds of strength. Bowser took the fight to the enemy, a burly flamethrower on a rampage, and his own strikers lent their hammers to the cause. Having put down one foreman Michael readied himself for another shot. As in every battle so far, he'd found himself a safe spot to set up shop and start hawking his wares in an opportunistic lightning sale—everything must go. But this time would be different. Above and behind the prone man, a gruesome shape moved like a dark cloud, unseen. If one tried to look at it straight-on, it disappeared, invisible and untargetable, but it could be seen in one's periphery, the corner of the eye: a [url=https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/darkestdungeon_gamepedia/d/d2/Plowhorse.png]plow horse[/url]. It snorted, pawing the ground, and raised a hoof to bring down atop his skull. Not too far away from Michael's foxhole, the fight against the Brachydios continued. Things were getting messy. The heroes were spending their energy and taking hits, and enough husks remained to maintain the perilous divide in their focus. After burying three husks using his Donphan, Courier 6 mounted up to join his friends on the other side of the battlefield against the husks remaining there. Over by the Brachydios, however, four closed in on Geralt, the only ones that remained on this side other than a lone foreman. Euden couldn't break his gaze away from the blue-scaled beast to look at Geralt as he called, but he nodded and shouted in reply. “Right! Thanks!” Draconic power was building in him; he needed just a few more moments. Unfortunately, the reality was that if he stood alone against the monster, even shapeshifted, he couldn't fell the beast. Midgardsormr possessed great strength, but it was fleeting, and not as overwhelming as might be hoped. Euden knew he could surprise the Brachydios and wrestle it to the ground, cut it up a bit with the dragon's claws, but just a few seconds later the window would close. Euden rolled out of the way of another punch, collecting himself to leap over the monster's now-stubbier tail sweep, and landed right in a puddle of goop. “Dang!” he said, a swear not at all appropriate to the gravity of the situation. The slime had already yellowed, and it would blow at any moment. He wanted to thrash around and wipe it off, but the monster would surely hit him. It had been some time since Ace Cadet grabbed the beast's focus, and since Geralt was on husk duty, that meant the prince had the monster's undivided attention. The Brachydios stepped forward, couching an arm for a punch the size of Euden himself. Adrenaline punched, and time slowed down. One word flooded his mind: [i]out[/i]. He needed to get out, no matter what. Aiming his blade downward, Euden slit the laces on his shoes. At the same time he dropped his shield to lie flat on the goo, and both sock-clad feet were on it before it hit slime. Then it exploded, launching Euden up into the sky, out of the way of the punch, the horn, and everything else. For a solitary moment, he was alone in the night. On ground-level, one more husk was stirring. Way out of the reach of Linkle's bombardment, it was roused by the heavy concussions of feverish battle. It lofted into the air, glowing from within, and cracked open like an ancient egg to hatch a new cosmos. The night sky evaporated, and was replaced by gold. Around the hilltop stretched an infinite expanse of glittering, gleaming golden light. Immaculate, awe-inspiring. Hearts skipped a beat; breaths caught in throats. The dazzling, gorgeous, beautiful yellow radiance cast the gray and brown of the remaining landscape in hues of dark purplish-red, perhaps maroon. Alien geometry floated and stretched through the boundless sky, islands and pillars and bridges, ornamentation for the opulent infinity. [center][i]The light has become[/i] [color=gold][b]Splendorous[/b][/color], [i]Enemies grow less resistant. Heroes' hearts swell with virtue, and stress-related skills gain potency.[/i][/center] Euden then fell, eyes full of wonder, and hit scales. Nearby, the Ace Cadet had a hold of the Brachydios' ridge, stabbing away with a knife. So that's where he went. Joining in, Euden started working the beast's upper body. Totally unreachable for the thing, he could build up the energy he needed quickly. [center][h3]Nero[/h3] [b]Location:[/b] Chief's Office, RCPD, Dead Zone[/center] Nodding, Nero passed Joker a page. “Check this out. Probably stuff that doesn't matter anymore, given how things shifted around, but still interesting. The PD also owns and operates an orphanage, somewhere nearby. And this guy, the police chief. Brian Irons? He's been buddying it up with some guy from this Umbrella Corporation. I don't do business or anything, but that literally means 'cover up corporation', right?” He snickered and set it down. “Nothing on hungry ghosts though.” A few more moments of searching turned up nothing. Nothing relevant, at least. The lack of findings drove Nero over to the other door, the one opposite the route taken by Blazermate and Louis. He tried the door. Locked, but not for a devil hunter. A little coaxing and the thing swung open, admitting the pair inside. [center][img]https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/residentevil/images/4/49/RE2_remake_Private_Collection_Room.png/revision/latest?cb=20181120191222[/img][/center] Inside, they found more stuffed animals and a wooden display case with all sorts of stuff, mostly leftover museum pieces. A number of plates stood prominently on it, and it held a drawerful each of long-disused cutlery (cheap, where one would be forgiven for expecting silver) and pristine candles. If the heroes had been putting on a lovely formal dinner it would have come in handy, but a brief search turned up precious little. Nero shook his head. “Not right. There's got to be something we're missing. Secrets out there, so there have to be secrets in here. Right?” He looked around, giving a full second to each piece of furniture. He did not take a second glance at any of the taxidermy. [center][h3]Louis[/h3] [b]Location:[/b] Garage, RCPD, Dead Zone[/center] Louis met the clawed zombie in a clash of sparks. It closed its fingers around the blade, jamming its hideous face against his own. A violently self-defeating act for anyone in the world of the living, but this undead seemed smart enough to use its body to its advantage. It commanded notable strength, too, but not enough that Louis couldn't hold it off with one hand. He held out his other to the side, and it started to change. Strips of leather wriggled across metal and flesh like worms, melding together in a giant, ghoulish mitt claws far bigger than the zombie's. [url=https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/codevein/images/4/4d/Code-Vein_2018_04-19-18_022.png/revision/latest?cb=20180419184529]Louis[/url] smiled. A drain attack took a long time to start, but once it got going, it would take a lot more than this zombie to stop it. It watched, deadpan, as he the ogre claw finished charging and swept into him like giant rake, tearing through cloth and mutated skin. In a mere moment the zombie was reduced to a pile of scraps, and Louis flicked the dangling forearms from his blade. At that point he got the chance to watch, incredulous, while the weak zombies heeded Blazermate's command. They went for the giant, headless axeman all at once, alarming the imp. In a shrill voice it screamed for its protector to attack, and the monster swung at its former allies with mindless strength. Zombie parts splattered across the floor, yielding easily to the huge blade. It was no contest, but the skirmish bought Louis and Blazermate a chance to go to work. The revenant cruised forward, like a dancer. He got in three punishing slices on the first trunked executioner before its overhead chop fell. Once again Louis morphed his arm, this time to block and parry, but when the axeblade made contact he found his efforts unnecessary. A stream of protected power, channeled from Blazermate, surrounded his body in a shining blue barrier that completely repelled the attack and sent the lost reeling. Louis looked down at himself briefly. “Oh. Well now...that'll be useful.” It extended to the medabot herself as well, which he saw as she flew forward to bash the executioner head-on. A tongue extended from her shield to embed itself messily in forsaken flesh, and while it struggled Louis readied his blade and cut into its legs. One, two, and the trunked beast was falling backward, its legs cut at the shins. An impressive display, but Louis had the tools at his disposal to do far better. What followed could only be described as exquisite. He moved like a river, iridescent blue streaked with crimson. Louis made his way through the crowd in a hypnotizing series of slips, dashes, and blinks, each stroke cleaving through a zombie's dead hide whether it be ally or enemy. What he didn't put down, Blazermate cleaned up. The second trunked executioner swung horizontally at him, but he didn't even notice. He simply let it clang off him, then took an arm, the trunk, and the monster's left knee. On its other side, the axeman was winding up for a giant swing. Louis teleported to the other side of the executioner, spinning in the air to slice off its head before using its failing body as a springboard to leap up. Louis took the axe square in the chest, felt nothing, and clambered atop it to get another boost that carried him all the way up to where the panicking imp called the shots. Three cuts were made in the blink of an eye, and Louis fell to the ground with the imp scattered around him. He touched down, and the ubercharge faded away. A noise to his right made him turn. He saw a bright light, then a blinding flash. And when he could see again, he could no longer move. “Hahahahaha! Incredible!” A few feet away, a dark-haired man in a blue suit with a red scarf wrapped around his neck like a tie stood facing Louis and Blazermate, frozen in time. In one hand he held a camera, and in the other an enormous, wicked-looking [url=https://i.etsystatic.com/16333942/r/il/25594d/1469663079/il_570xN.1469663079_8g59.jpg]knife[/url]. He strolled forward into the bluish, distorted zone surrounding the heroes, and spoke in an intense, accented murmur. “You, my friend, have a true talent for killing. An appreciation for the art.” The stranger came to a stop only a foot away. At that distance, the two men didn't look two dissimilar. Well-dressed, dark hair covering one eye, self-assured bearing. Only now, Louis was afraid. His was a fear borne of helplessness, of inability. The other man noticed and smiled. “And your fear. So beautiful. Surely you will enjoy a treasured spot in my gallery. You are now my art!” Clenching his teeth, he lifted the blade of his knife and drove it into Louis' chest. He carved downward, sawing back and forth, diaphragm to navel, and when he ripped it out he snapped a photo of the red spray. The blue zone faded, and Louis dropped backward. He hit the garage floor already dissolving into bright mist. His head lolled to the side, one last look at Blazermate before he dissolved completely. Particles streamed out through the busted metal gate and into the night air. The man looked at Blazermate, pointing his camera like a gun. Any move and he could freeze her again. One lesson, and she already new as well as he did. Confident in his position, he told her. “You are not yet finished. You have a job to do, little light. Been stuck here too long. Tell the others that if they stick around much longer, I'll be taking more photos.” A smarmy, venomous grin filled his face. “Now run along.” Another flash. Not blue, but white. When it faded, there was only darkness. Darkness inside a metal cage, slowly rising. [center][h3]Maximilian Howard[/h3] [b]Location:[/b] Main Hall, RCPD, Dead Zone[/center] Standing up, Howard planted both hands on the receptionist's desk authoritatively. One by one the hunting parties returned, not all of them but most. Nero, Joker, Blazermate, Louis, Leon, and Lucatiel had yet to show. Fox, after returning with Donnie, had departed again with questions on his mind to seek those last two down and hopefully get some answers. With the various reports in, enough puzzle pieces had been laid out to get an idea of the bigger picture, and Howard wanted to sum it up. “Okay, people. What we're looking at is this. Big-time ghost, tortured and hungry 'cause of the suffering it inflicted while alive. This guy Manapaiboon robs and hurts a bunch of people, including his own mom, then gets spiked through the head by an iron bar.” He pointed to Fortune, Banjo, and Kazooie. “You all saw it in this impossible space in the library. Giant, angry, one red eye. Gotta be the guy. And a pitch-black darkness, heavy as a concrete wall.” His eyes landed on Jak and Daxter. “You found a satchel with decorations like the stuff in the weird rooms. Must be linked. Cloth, incense, cursed nails. Keep a hold of that stuff.” A nod at Donnie. “You found some booklet with some pages about ghosts torn out. We got some names for whatever it's called, but don't know which one. But we do know ghosts mess with stuff like machines and locks. Gotta be what's keeping us stuck here.” Nodding again, he swept his gaze around all those present. “We find the pages, we find our solution, and we're out of here. Any questions?” In the silence that followed, everyone became aware of a muffled mechanical grinding. At first nobody could place it. Heads turned in every direction, but Fortune's twitching ears zeroed in on the source. “Down there!” She pointed at the circular dias beneath the goddess statue standing in the main hall's center. As everyone watched, the front part of the dias wall slid down, revealing a mechanism. An elevator. It was lifting something upward, out of the dark and into the main hall's yellow light. A dozen eyes peered inside, watching the shape that came up. It was Blazermate.