[center][h3]Tora & Poppi[/h3]
[b]Level 8[/b] Tora (68/80) and [b]Level 8[/b] Poppi (41/80)
[b]Location:[/b] Sandswept Sky - Sweet Canyon
Primrose's [@Yankee], Fox's [@Dawnrider], Sectonia's [@Archmage MC] Midna's [@DracoLunaris], Yoshitsune's [@Rockin Strings], Red’s [@TheDemonHound]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 976[/center]

For a good moment it looked as though the stranger would arise to the occasion that Yoshitsune presented, but Poppi’s quick intervention and Joker’s rationality prevented the outbreak of another fight. Tora gave a relieved sigh as Red agreed to accompany the group. As it turned out, she came in order to investigate some sort of trade dispute. The average Nopon might find such a subject of great interest, but though as shrewd with money as any, Tora cared less about shipments right now and more about sugar.

As the group followed in Midna’s tracks, alternating between footsteps and the large furrows she left behind while sliding downhill, Joker’s curiosity drove him to address the newcomer in their midst. “As it turns out, we’re also on a mission, heading north through the desert. To that end I’d be interested in who hired you, if you don’t mind saying. Any information about the road ahead is welcome.”

A moment later, the party’s trip through the sugar-coated woods came to a sudden and unexpected halt as something exploded beneath Skull’s unwary boot. With a yelp the boy disappeared in a geyser of brilliant orange-gold sap, but rather than splatter all over the goop coalesced. In the span of a moment it hardened into a bulbous amber crystal, trapping the Phantom Thief inside. “No, Ryuji!” Panther yelled, sprinting to the front of the group. The others surrounded the inexplicable prison as she  beat her fist against it. To her surprise one blow was enough to spread a small web of cracks from the impact point. “Huh? It’s really...weak?”

“Let’s break him out!” Tora sang.

“Yeah! Hang on, Ryu...uh, Skull.” Despite her mask Panther reddened, realizing that she’d both gotten embarrassingly worried [i]and[/i] let slip her friend’s real name for what quickly turned out to be a momentary inconvenience. Everyone got a chance to chip in and chip away at the slab of amber, and in no time at all its captive was free.

Skull wiped his forehead, breathing heavily. “Phew! Thought I was a goner for a sec. What the hell was that crap?”

Tentatively, Poppi scraped at the icing grass with her foot, pausing to note with displeasure that the stuff stuck to her chassis. A furtive glance at her Masterpon’s overalls confirmed that, thanks to his tiny legs, they would need serious cleaning later. After a couple passes Poppi uncovered a tree root beneath the icing, tough to see in the dark, and poking out from its nutty chocolate bark was a nodule leaking viscous ichor. “Although Poppi’s botany database inadequate for proper classification, it seem like stepping on roots cause discharge of tree sap that quickly hardens.”

“So Poppi think it natural? Tora did wonder why someone set such easy trap, meh.”

Poppi tapped her finger against her chin, thoughtful. “Well, it break easy with friends, but if alone trap could totally immobilize.”

As he pulled his leg free, Skull couldn’t help but shiver at the possibility. “Man, if that happened I prolly woulda died of thirst. Thanks, dudes!” He threw the group a grateful smile.

Panther promptly punched his shoulder. “Watch where you step next time, jerk! I just about had a heart attack!”

The news only made Skull’s face more jocular. “For real? You oughta get that checked out!”

“Let’s keep going. Whoever it is is waiting,” Joker spoke up, trying to get the group focused. He set off at a brisk pace, keeping his eyes on the ground, and Tora ran to catch up. Not wanting to get trapped in amber, no matter how easily the others could free him, the Nopon tried to watch out for traps but found it difficult given his body type. 

He sighed and reached imploringly to Poppi. “Meh, meh. Can...can Poppi give Tora lift? It already hard wading through mucky icing, and-” With ease his companion picked him up, holding him like a stuffed bear in her arms. As much as he hated being carried, there was nobody better to do it than Poppi, who towered above him in Qt Pi form. And as her smile could attest, at least she liked it. With her watchful optics on the ground the pair made progress alongside the rest of the group through the candyland, following Midna’s trail. Taking in the scenery on the way only made Tora hungrier and hungrier, until finally he unfurled a wing to scoop up an [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/bugsnax/images/9/99/Instabug_sticker.png]Instabug[/url]. He watched it squirm for a moment, having second thoughts along with his misgivings. In the end, his stomach won out. “Sorry, Mr. bug. If not want to be eaten, should not be shaped like food.” With only a slight tug he pulled the creature in half and stuffed it -macaron, donut holes, cupcake, and all- into his mouth. His face filled with delight. “Mmm, that amazing!” he exclaimed, wiggling his arms and legs.

Poppi rolled her eyes. “Poppi hoped it would taste like normal bug.”

Laughing, Tora turned to scan the earth for more. “Sorry disappoint Poppi, but it just as good as real dessert! Tora could eat five, or ten, or twe-MEH?!”

When Poppi followed his horrified stare, she slid to a standstill. Tora slowly lifted his right arm, which for all the world looked to have turned into a chain of connected donut holes with a macaron hand and pocky thumb. “D-donut hand! Donut hand! MEEEEEEEH” he blubbered, flailing his limbs so much that Poppi toppled over, splattering both into the icing.

Given the problem that needed solving up ahead, and how late they were reaching it already, the team couldn’t afford to sort this new matter out if there was no immediate danger. Grimacing, Joker said, “Well...that sucks. Uh, Mona, see if you can heal...whatever happened. We can’t waste any more time.” He turned and ran ahead, Skull and Panther on his tail.

[hr]

When Midna disappeared, the metal giants resumed their lumbering patrol, and the Twilight Princess could explore the town without fear. Of course, to say that the fairy looked let down seemed like a massive understatement--she just about looked close to tears. Still, Midna had free reign at the moment to plan her next move, and began by peering into the various houses.

From the moment she first peeked through an open window she was greeted by the first of many surprises, although not in the form of enemies. In the first house she discovered a [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/f/f5/Crow_Indie_Pogo.png]armored ne'er-do-well[/url] trapped in a smooth, translucent orange crystal, in the next a [url=https://wallpapercave.com/wp/wp2772926.jpg]blue-coated raccoon[/url], a [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/skullgirls/images/e/e2/Pea_sLP.png]young girl with strange arms[/url] in the one after that, and then a [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/e/e1/CountBleck2_SPM.png]formal entity[/url]. There were also assorted animals that looked as though they belonged, like a [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/guilds/images/4/4b/Chocolate_Cybunny.png]rabbit[/url], a [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/guilds/images/1/15/Chocolate_Kougra.png]tiger[/url], and something vaguely describable as a [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/guilds/images/d/df/Chocolate_Blumaroo.png]kangaroo[/url]. Each and every one somehow trapped, frozen in their prisons of solid sugar. It took a good deal of observation to find the common denominator. Though composed entirely of edible sweets the buildings appeared to follow more or less standard sensibilities, yet ill-fitting chocolate tree roots snaked through them all. The captives all appeared to be touching the roots, suggesting that to do so would be to become encased as well.

As Midna figured this out, she became aware of a new noise outside, albeit one that she recognized. A look skyward revealed the arrival of Necronomicon on the search for her allies across the dessert landscape, and she appeared to have zeroed in on the confectionary town as a likely spot. The Goliath robots took notice of her too, their red eyes fixed unflinchingly on the craft as it drew closer. 

[center][h3]Ms Fortune[/h3]
[b]Level 3[/b] Nadia (8/30)
[b]Location:[/b] Limsa Lominscuttle Town – The Black Bay
Blazermate's [@Archmage MC], Bowser's [@DracoLunaris], Ace Cadet's [@Yankee], Hat Kid's [@Dawnrider], Frog's [@Dark Cloud]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1123[/center]

Flames burst across the water, the sky screamed with miniature planes, and Shippy rocked from the impacts of torpedo, missile, and cannon fire, but when a quartet of Abyssals threw themselves onto the deck Nadia was ready. She, Link, and Frog leaped into action, with Peach setting them off with a boomshot blast like a starter pistol to soften their foes up. After the spray of burning force came Link’s arrows to sink into one monster in quick succession. The hero himself followed a moment later, his weight driving the twin points of his bident as deep into the Abyssal’s flesh as its design would allow. To Nadia’s other side Frog cut into another with his blade, opening a handful of deep cuts before he took a shot from its arm cannon to the gut and staggered back. The rest Nadia didn’t see, as she had business to attend to for herself.

As her own Abyssal fired she went low, running on all fours, and reached her prey in no more than a moment. She popped her noggin off as she rose and struck the monster’s own in a headbutt that threw off both its aim and what little stability it had mustered. It reeled as its shot went wide, and Nadia pounced for round two. “Ears-pierced!” She lashed out and, rather like Link did with his fork, stabbed into its head with her rigid ears. Her body quickly dodged back out of the way of the monster’s flailing, leaving her head stuck there for a closer inspection. So little of this thing looked to be organic that she couldn’t discern a weak point at first, but as she noticed the tubes, graftings, and other points of connection between metal and flesh she began to get an idea. As the enraged Abyssal floundered her body grabbed hold of the rubbery tube and ripped straight through with her claws. The tube burst open with a spray of odorous gas, and through the haze her body lunged, tail in hand, to mount the monster’s back, sink her claws in and hack through its neck. It took a few swings, but in the end only a couple seconds passed before its head fell from its shoulders.

“One down. Millions to go, probably.” Not pausing to celebrate her little victory, Nadia retrieved her own and took stock of the situation. A couple reinforcements that appeared were just now meeting their ends at the hands of Peach and Chao. While the princess relied on her shotgun, the shipgirl moved with deadly grace, flourishing her enormous fan to release missiles that she directed toward her foes with acrobatic flip-kicks. Nadia flinched as a nearby section of the railing exploded in a shower of flame and splinters, and threw up her arms to protect her face. A handful of the fragments stuck in her bathrobe, and the one that didn’t she pulled out of her cheek with a pained grunt. “Owww!”

A [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/kancolle/images/c/cd/Light_Cruiser_Tsu-Class_Full.png]bigger Abyssal[/url] climbed aboard through the hole, one mostly humanoid except for the jaw that composed most of its head, and she bared her teeth at it. Both paused as a heavy impact shook Shippy, making the vessel groan in pain. Toward the prow, Brineybeard was roaring, “Me poor ship’s gettin’ eaten alive! She’s too easy a target, we need urgent repairs!” The monster looked his way.

Nadia’s scowl deepened. She couldn’t do that, but she could kill this thing. At once she and Chao moved to deal with it. As the Abyssal grabbed hold of the railing with her massive mitts to dull her cannons’ recoil, Chao interposed herself in the way and flourished her fan like a shield. The Abyssal accepted the challenge and let loose. Chao stood firm under the barrage, blocking as much damage as she could while Nadia leaped over her. She yowled and released a burst of blood from her ankles that hurtled her forward in a headlong dive. Nadia struck the Abyssal’s chest claws-first, sinking them up to the knuckle, and the impact tore both the monster and the railing it clutched from the ship. It smashed into the Abyssal waiting in the water to jump up behind it and crushed its domed head, which gave Nadia a reason to smile before she planted her legs and kicked off. 

As she climbed the side of the ship to get back on, another enemy opened fire. Most of the rounds shot through the wood around her, but one hit her left shoulder blade and the other the side of her left calf. Grinding her teeth to avoid yelling in pain, she hauled herself back onto the ship. “Guh! Bad idea, bad idea…” She glanced down to see the Abyssal that wounded her, and a few of its closest friends, get ripped to pieces by Heinrich’s cannons.

Though wounded herself, Chao helped her up onto deck. “The enemy is out there. If you can’t stay mobile you have to stay safe,” she cautioned before raising her voice to address the others. “We have to sustain the ship! They’re more focused on it than us, and if it goes down, so do all of you.”

Sure enough, the enemy was mounting a vicious attack on anything with less than stellar mobility. Only a few seemed to care about actually boarding Shippy, with most more than happy to just shoot and bite her. She was already taking on water, and in her belly a few unwelcome guests stirred. Of course, the Abyssals were just as happy to blast the Atomos. Its shoddily applied armor plating wilted under the combined firepower of many Abyssals. Ranger's seaplanes did what they could, Sakura's hadokens fried a few foes, and Bella annihilated high-value targets with the railgun shot from her tail, but it was not enough. Bowser rose to defend it, growing to great size to treat the entire battlefield to a braggadocious bellow. A moment later his supersonic wave rolled out to great effect, sowing enough confusion among the enemies to mitigate the onslaught facing Shippy and the Atomos despite the Navy’s best attempts. 

Fire, water, sound, and acid surged from the empowered Koopa King, dealing huge amounts of damage to the Abyssals and a few unlucky shipgirls as well. The beacon of activity drew every Abyssal eye, and they approached from more angles than Bowser could deal with, some even rising from beneath the water itself. Bullets and missiles hammered the airship’s underside, with a few intrepid monsters even leaped from cresting wave to attack directly, but Bowser’s spectacle reached even further than that.

The top of the fortress on Midway Island began to stir. Eyes opened wide as plumage ruffled and limbs extended, turning an indeterminable shape into a gigantic and very angry [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/1/1b/HelmarocKingHW.png]bird[/url]. It screeched, making Nadia go rigid from across the battlefield, and took to the skies headed straight for its fellow behemoth.

[center][h3]Western Coast – La Noscea Swamp[/h3]
[@Zavazggg][/center]

With a sneer at Sephiroth’s magic mine, the loathsome castellan clapped his hands. From the gloom appeared three more Sycophant mosquitoes, buzzing the intruder’s way. Rather than try to impale her, however, the gruesome insects intensified the whir of their verminous wings to a fever pitch, creating mind-numbing soundwaves that washed over their foe. Over the cacophony of agitation the gatekeeper’s sniveling voice reached her. “Ignoble harlot, to enter our domain yet reject our advances! That tender flesh will feed us one way or another!”

Against a battle-hardened warrior the provocation itself would reasonably have no effect, but something sinister lurked behind the gatekeeper’s slight, lending a dark power to his words. The enraging slight urged Sephiroth to move forward, problematic not just because of the Sycophants but also her own mine, and stress crept over her mind. So too did the lesser bugs impart stress, their pervasive song beating through Sephiroth’s ears and into her brain.

[center][i]Sephiroth’s stress: 37[/i][/center]

Sephiroth grit her teeth in frustration as the shrieking whine steadily increased, her head feeling like it was being pierced by a million flaming needles at once. Despite this, she was still able to retain enough awareness of her environment to be mindful of the mine she’d placed mere seconds earlier, and managed to stop no more than a few feet away. Shifting to a more aggressive stance, as she realized a cautious approach would only make matters worse, Sephiroth quickly sidestepped the mine to charge in close to the castellan. Upon getting within what she felt was a reasonably decent range, she allowed the guns on her rigging to open fire, while simultaneously charging up Megaflare. 

If this creature survived the initial volley of shots, it would most certainly fall to what was about to follow, or so she thought anyway.

The usage of naval armaments on land without water to push back against the vessel (or in this cast, for a shipgirl to slide across) immediately threw Sephiroth a ways backward from the recoil, but the discharge did far worse to the gatekeeper. Her barrage just about pulverized the stunted thing, sending him careening through the air and into a tree in a bloody, mangled mess with a reprehensible [i]splotch[/i]. He slid down the trunk, leaving a viscous streak. Around the spot their master disappeared from the Sycophants wheeled wildly, their noise muffled by the ringing in Sephiroth's ears. The mosquitoes quickly turned to fly her way, but even more shell-shocked by the sudden explosion than she, they moved too sluggishly to evade an opportune strike.

Seizing the moment, Sephiroth let Megaflare fly free, its bluish flame streaking ethereally through the moon-pierced darkness to hit the spot where the castellen had fallen. Watching it go, she did her best to halt her backwards movement in order to avoid both landing on the mine[i]--which was still somewhere to her rear--[/i]and becoming submerged in the murky depths.

The shadows filled with the glow of azure flame as the blast went off, devouring the Sycophants in an instant. When its light died down only three fading spirits remained, nestled amid the ashes, and Sephiroth found no further opposition. Yet as she composed herself, she quickly realized that she wasn't alone yet. Somehow, the mutilated gatekeeper lay alive among the gnarled roots of the tree now coated in his malodorous blood, choking for breath. On a clump of grass by his side lay a [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/darkestdungeon_gamepedia/images/7/76/Invitation.png]bloodied paper[/url], signed and sealed with formal care.

Sephiroth kept her blade held at the ready, just in case, as she took a moment to compose herself. Only after the majority of the attacking Sycophants whine had faded from both her ears and her skull did she approach, her guard almost wary. Upon seeing the castellen was injured to the point that he could do no more however, Sephiroth moved to inspect the paper instead, though not before quickly running her blade across his throat to ensure he was no longer a threat.

The gatekeeper gurgled and died, soon reduced to ashes. After undoing the royal seal, Sephiroth discerned the parchment to be a letter of invitation in a delicate script. It spoke of an evening of diverting games and entertainment courtesy of an esteemed Baron, along with victuals and vintages of the highest quantity the generous Viscount could supply, and even an extravagant dance at which the alluring Countess herself would appear. And most curiously of all, the name of the addressee was none other than Sephiroth's own.

In the distance, above the ambient drone of the swamp's winged legions, and in the direction of the mist that glowed crimson in the night, Sephiroth could hear for the first time the faintest suggestions of conversation and laughter

Sephiroth’s eyes narrowed into slits as she stared deeply into the north, a duo of emotions sparking deep within her, each suggesting she proceed to destroy these creatures for their slight. The former SOLDIER knew that these were not her emotions per se, yet she found the idea all too tempting regardless. Plus, if all these creatures were so weak, she could easily see herself walking into quite the source of power. Before she went anywhere however, Sephiroth had to decide the fates of the spirits her attackers left behind. Not finding the idea of additional fusions pleasant at the moment, she gave into her spite and attempted to destroy them instead.

Her flashing blade cleft the unworthy spirits asunder, but from the splintering, multicolored light they gave out new objects were made manifest. In front of her lay a handful of gold, a ridiculous collar, and a tincture of red liquid

[hider=For Sephiroth][center]You have Acquired: 
Gold Pieces x75 
Manservant Collar - [i]A garment best suited for the grovelling, beetle-like men who exist to satisfy and be made mockery of by their betters[/i]
[url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/darkestdungeon_gamepedia/images/c/cb/The_Blood.png]The Blood[/url] - [i]The call is unyielding; the urge is irresistible Only the Blood will quell this thirst. Gives varying buffs to those affected by the Crimson Curse and can change Curse stages.[/i][/center][/hider]

Looking over the assembled items briefly, Sephiroth decided to simply carry them with her, as she still wasn’t willing to chance any negative effects at this point in time. Stuffing the items in the nearest pockets available, she slid her blade back into its sheath and set out to the north.