All right, let's do this people.
Music!
There was an eerie mist throughout the estate this morning, though
@Computery Guy suggested it was simply poor jpeg compression.
With the smell of pancakes and carnage in the air, the soldiers of the (the) Kiwi Farms Estate sat nervously at their posts. Today would be our final stand... We would either emerge victorious, or the enemy in the courtyard would regrow like crabgrass and conquer what remained. After a morning of heavy drinking, our warriors of Autism made their preperations: Grabbing their mace and dog, their glaives and lutes, and advancing into the thicket.
An old team emerges from retirement -
@BOLDYSPICY!,
@Solzhenitsyn,
@KidKitty, and
@Ambivalenz. Their mission: To kill the Countess. On the way to her room, we got evidence that there was trouble brewing....
Countless wasted, blood-starved dregs lay dying along the path. To weak to do much more than plead for sustenance, the team spared a few flasks of blood but didn't get anything of real value in trade. Had the Countess leeched these fiends of life?
This is it. Don't get scared now.
With 400 HP, the Countess is unequivocally the most terrifying - and dangerous - threat so far. You know a boss isn't fucking around when she takes up all four enemy slots, but the Countess repeatedly switches between multiple forms mid-fight and is constantly nailing you with tons of problematic infestations. Her nastiest move is "Love Letter," which attaches a parasitic egg to a hero which, after several turns, bursts open, dealing damage and unleashing a cloud of bloodmote flies that gives her a passive buff. She also causes the unique status effect Stumble (which cannot be cured) that causes a hero to randomly stagger forward or backward before their turn starts. Horror, bleed, poison, this devastating woman bestows them all and the Kiwis are going into the fight of their lives.
This ain't gonna be no picnic.
Feeding his doggo a biscuit, Solz leads the charge, which does a paltry amount of damage due to the countess having a completely insane 30% Damage reduction by default. I get the distinct impression I did not choose the right party for this. Oh well, regret is for non-Kiwis. You sent us the invitation, so now let's waltz, you shit.
She has every high resistances but she can still be bled and can still be stunned and blighted, but it's unlikely to stick unless you have a stat boosting trinket equipped. Regardless, the fact that she has three turns means Bleed is uncharacteristically good here, and I quickly work out a plan: Use Solz, Boldy, and KidKitty to stack as much bleed as possible onto her while Ambi tries to make everyone
not die.
This was pretty much Ambi's every turn. It's why we even had a chance.
2 turns in, she engages her "Flushed" form:
In this form she doesn't use offense at all. Don't get too comfortable, because it's the calm before the storm. Also note that she's managed to implant both Solz and KidKitty. Because fuck you. Finally on Turn 3 she assumes her true form and then proceeds to cut loose for a bit, before turning back:
This form is the rape machine. In her basic form she actually uses the Love Letter ability and her OMGWTF-level stress-all ability, but her transformation induces Horror on
everyone, and then she gets 4 fucking actions a turn while in her walking wood-chipper mode. Thankfully, due to how bleed stacks work, you can see how my idea was starting to come together and the bleeds were starting to take their toll.
Which is offset by her draining HP, stunning the party, blighting everyone, and generally being really unpleasant.
And so it goes for 12 rounds: Her and the party going at it, changing forms, ripping the team to pieces as they desperately try to exsanguinate the bitch.
The girl does not fucking
stop with the massive stress buildup. The entire team is quickly broken except for Solz and all we can do is keep the pressure on.
Finally, the group is at their limit, mostly having broken from the onslaught, poisoned, blighted, and having all been at Death's Door at least twice. Without any ability to treat her wounds, Ambi is dragged to the front line by Stumble.
But she calls down the very wrath of god itself - and in a final reckoning, the beast is slain.
Everyone's at death's door and afflicted. I had originally intended to use the Green key to go treasure hunting, but
fuck that, the team is barely holding together at this point.
We leave, our mission successful.
Back at town, the Countess' death means
@Shuu Iwamine was able to synthesize a cure from her blood. Crimson Curse is now as treatable as any mundane disease at the Sanitarium, and a managable level of degeneracy has returned to the (The) Kiwi Farms Estate.
.....But it isn't over yet.
