Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This is the land of Miitopia.

It is place where everyone can live in peace and harmony.

Or at least... it was.

The darkness came without warning...

A great and terrible shadow threatening all of Miitopia!

An unspeakably evil fiend started stealing everyone's faces!

And to add insult to injury...

The fiend gave the faces to monsters!

Behold, a simple traveler, wandering- Wait, what? I think she's just on vacation with some other people.

Well, there goes everything else I was going to say...

But whatever. Anyway, they will now be the main focus of the story.

“Are we there yet?” Eliza asked again. Stella groaned. Eliza had asked this very question so many times Stella had stopped counting. Ann gave the same reply she always did, slowly getting more and more frustrated as time went by. What was supposed to be a relaxing vacation, had turned into the complete opposite. “No, we’re not there yet.” said Ann. And less than a minute after, Eliza asked again. “Are we there yet?” said Eliza. This time, Ann rolled her eyes. “Hey! Are we there yet?” shouted Eliza.

“We weren’t there a minute ago, what makes you think we’re there now?” Ann snapped, and it didn’t take long for Eliza and Ann to start arguing.

But Stella wasn’t interested in their arguing, because something else caught her attention. Something strange. It was a floating pair of eyes above a few butterflies on the path the three were on. It slowly started to glide downwards.

"Um...Eliza? Ann? Over there..." Stella called for the two and pointed at the pair of eyes.

However, the two were still arguing and it took a few moments for the both of them to stop bickering. When they looked, the pair of eyes was no longer floating and it had attached itself to a butterfly.

"...What is that?" Ann replied, confused.

"I don't know!" Stella panicked.

"Eh, I'm sure it's..." The butterfly charged at Eliza before she could finish her sentence. Thankfully, she quickly ducked out of the way before the butterfly could crash into her. "...nothing." Eliza finally concluded.

"Never mind. Let's just run." said Eliza.

And Stella, Eliza, and Ann did exactly that. They sprinted along the path, hoping to lose the butterfly along the way. And eventually, they reached a small town. "Is it gone already?" Stella panted.

"Probably." replied Ann.

"Not." Eliza added.

"Eliza, you're not helping." said Stella.

"But I guess we can relax here for a bit." said Ann, as Eliza grinned at this.

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea after what happened with the butterfly." Stella agreed.

But Stella thought there had to be more to that butterfly. She just had to know about this, so she decided to ask the residents if they knew anything. First, she asked a black-haired man standing at the entrance of the town. He wasn't particularly occupied with anything, so she thought it was a good idea to ask him about the butterfly.

Stella explained what happened to him, hoping he knew something. He did not. "Monsters with people's faces? That's a good one!" He burst out laughing.

"I'm not joking." Stella objected. He still continued.

"What's next, a dark l-" Suddenly, an ominous shadow was cast over the sky.

"...look up..." Stella attempted to warn.

"Huh? What is it?" said the man, failing to notice the change in the skies.

A voice came from above, surprising both Stella and the man.

"Mwa ha ha haa!" The voice cackled evilly.

Stella turned to face whoever was laughing, revealing a horned figure floating before all of the residents. He had black hair with purple highlights, coupled with a matching robe. Behind it, he wore a lilac cloak. His skin was pale blue and he had eyes the same color as his gold eye-shaped amulet.

Stella had no idea why he was here now of all times, but she assumed he probably didn't have good intentions. She might have been wrong but , either way, it was best for Stella to keep quiet. She didn't want to draw attention to herself. The horned figure continued his speech. Or at least he was going to, before he was interrupted by somebody. And that somebody was Eliza.

"Hey! You! Cut the monologuing, and explain yourself right now! Who are you, and what are you doing here?" shouted Eliza.

"I haven't even started my monologue yet. But if you must know, I am the Dark Lord, Dark Lord. And-"

"You're joking, right? What kind of self-respecting Dark Lord would call themself 'Dark Lord Dark Lord'?"

"I'm sure it's better than yours. And now, I have come here to wreak havoc and terror on this miserable little world! And I'm-"

"Ahem. I said to get to the point already! Saying that you're gonna 'wreak havoc and terror' barely tells me anything!" yelled Eliza.

The Dark Lord, Dark Lord scowled. Eliza saw this a prime opportunity to make a super lame quip. "I guess he can't even-" Suddenly, Eliza's face flew off of her body. Stella assumed Eliza was going to end with "come up with a lame comeback".

“Wait, what’s happening?!” Eventually, her face stopped to float beside Dark Lord Dark Lord.

“...Does anyone else have something to add? Anyway, as I was saying...” He continued his monologue, Eliza’s face now glaring at him. “I have come to wreak havoc and terror on this miserable little world! And I’m starting with you, people of Greenhorne! Say goodbye to your faces!” Then, some people’s faces flew off, though the only one she recognized was the face of the guy she was talking to just earlier. “Hmph. This should do nicely for now. Listen up, you faceless freaks! Get used to a life of wordless terror, because that’s what you’re stuck with! And for those who’ve been spared, take a good long look at your poor little friends... and DESPAIR!” the Dark Lord finally finished his monologue, before vanishing and taking the faces with him.

Stella didn’t know what to do. Just the thought of someone going around stealing everyone’s faces made Stella’s stomach do a metaphorical backflip. Stella had hoped something like this wouldn’t happen. That maybe she was wrong about this Dark Lord guy being evil, and she and Eliza could go on vacation. But no. Her vacation was ruined, and Eliza and some others were now faceless.

Frightened, Stella sprinted to Ann. “Ann! Eliza! Are you okay?” Stella called out, panicked.

“I’m okay, but maybe you should be more concerned whether Eliza’s okay.” Ann replied while Eliza attempted to nonverbally communicate “Does it look like I’m okay to you? Just try to go get my face back or something!“. Stella did not understand a single thing Eliza was trying to say. “I-I can’t just stand around doing nothing, I guess... I’ll try to get everyone’s faces back.” said Stella, trying to calm herself down. “Alright. But before you go, take this. It’s a good luck charm. I fear that Dark Lord still lurks nearby, so maybe you could look outside town for him?” Ann responded.

“Okay, Ann. Thanks for the charm. Bye!” Stella said as she set off to leave town and look for the Dark Lord.

She was still scared, but that wasn’t going to stop her. She at least had to try. 

Chapter Text

It didn't take long for Stella to spot the Dark Lord out of Greenhorne. She couldn't deny that she was terrified, but she had no choice but to push her fears aside if she wanted Eliza's face back. So she did just that, and ran up to confront Dark Lord.

“Mwaa ha ha haaaa! Is somebody trying to be the big hero?” Dark Lord taunted.

“Give Eliza’s face back! ” Stella yelled, stuttering a little, shaking in fear.

Whose face again?” The Dark Lord said, confused.

Oh, right. He didn’t get Eliza’s name earlier, Stella remembered.

“You know, that kid whose face you stole in that nearby town?”

“But what do they look like? You give me no physical description of them whatsoever, and you just expect me to know who this 'Eliza' is?"

“...I swear, you’re just as foolish as that girl who dared to mock me...” Dark Lord muttered.

“That girl is that Eliza I’m talking about.” Stella dryly remarked.

“Oh...In that case, if you want her face back so badly, then you’ll have to earn it.” He made a yellow slime appear, and Eliza’s face floated above it.

“How good are you in a fight?” The Dark Lord smirked.

Eliza’s face attached itself to the slime.

“Oh no, not again...” Stella said to no one in particular. The Dark Lord continued his monologue.

“Be seeing you! If you survive, that is! Mwaaa ha ha haaaa!” He said before he vanished once again.

Stella took a deep breath, took for her scarf holding the loose part of her scarf in both hands, planning to use it as a weapon. The slime prepared to attack. Stella then quickly slashed at the slime... only for her scarf to get stuck in the slime. The slime slowly started to pull the scarf back as the rest of the scarf was inside of the slime now, dragging Stella who was frantically trying to pull her scarf out of the slime. Stella was now getting dangerously near the slime. But near the end of this losing game of tug-of-war, the charm started glowing brighter and brighter. And soon, she closed her eyes as she was engulfed by the light.

The light faded just as quickly as it came. After a bit, Stella opened her eyes and found herself in a strange place.

“Stella, can you hear me?” A voice from above called out.

“Not another mysterious voice again...” Stella groaned, remembering the time The Dark Lord first appeared to steal the townspeople’s faces.

“Ho ho! It does seem like you’re hearing me... What good fortune this is!” it began. “Now you may or may not believe this, but I’m kind of a...guardian spirit-”

“Whaaaaaat!?” Stella interrupted.

“Please, just hear me out.” The guardian spirit continued. “It seems like you are in a bit of trouble, my child. Would you like a little help?”

“Um... yes?”

“Ho ho! Excellent, excellent! I, er, bestoweth upon thee the awesome power of the guardian! Hurrrrgh... HAAAA!!”

Stella was, once again, engulfed by light. At first, nothing seemed to change. Until she looked down at herself and noticed she was now wearing a blue and gold cooking uniform. The uniform had a white and gold tie, coupled with a matching apron. A chef’s hat now rested on Stella’s head, and her blonde hair was no longer tied in neat pigtails.

“Well, would you look at that...” said Stella.

“Hold on, I think I’m forgetting something.” the guardian spirit said. After they said that, a frying pan materialized out of thin air and slowly floated downwards. Stella took the floating frying pan. “There. Is that better?” the guardian spirit asked.

“No, not really. It’s just the same.” Stella bluntly replied.

“Well, this is just what you need to deal with the Dark Lord’s fiends! Now fight, O Stella! Make your foes fear ye!” the guardian spirit said.

There was yet another blinding flash of light. This time Stella, still wearing that cooking uniform, was standing on the plains she was standing on before and Stella still had her scarf. The slime from before was in front of her, and both of them got ready to attack.

Here goes nothing..., Stella thought before she went first, running at the slime with her frying pan in hand. She hit the slime with her frying pan before the slime retaliated and charged at her.

The entire fight went something like this as the two exchanged blows, with Stella barely managing to deal just a little more damage and defeat the slime. As the slime disappeared Eliza’s face floated off of it, stopping in mid air. “Thanks, Stella! See ya at the town!” Eliza said before her face continued to fly off to the town, and Stella followed after.

Back at the town, Stella returned to Eliza and Ann just in time to see Eliza’s face flying back onto her body. “Thanks again, Stella.” Eliza said.

"You don't need to thank me. But more importantly, what you did when that Dark Lord guy came over was incredibly dangerous and reckless!" Stella began. "But I was also really worried about you! I was basically freaking out!" Stella smiled warmly. "And it's great having you back." she finished. Eliza smiled back, and the three stood in silence for a bit.

"I guess I also have you to thank for getting Eliza's face back." said Ann, breaking the silence.

"As I said, you really don't need to thank me..." replied Stella.

After that, there was more silence. But it didn't last long, as the charm started glowing again and Stella closed her eyes.

Stella opened her eyes and found herself in that strange place again, and the guardian spirit spoke to her.

“Ho ho! Now, since that is already done, I have another task for you.”

“What is it?” Stella asked.

“Hold on for a bit, I’m getting to that part.” they began. “You have seen the deeds of Dark Lord Dark Lord. He’s made quite a mess, and that’s putting it mildly. And so I commission you to defeat the vile Dark Lord, and save this world!”

Stella shook her head. She definitely couldn’t save the entire world, and she most definitely wasn’t a hero. “Sorry, but saving the world might be a bit much for me...”

“Unfortunately, you have no say in the matter. I did save you from that slime, after all. But your new powers should help you contend with Dark Lord. Now, Chef Stella! Go forth! Defeat the Dark Lord! I expect great things from you! Ho ho!”

There was another flash of light as she found herself back in the town. With the quest on her mind, she explained to Eliza and Ann what had happened and that she had to go save the world.

“You’re going to go save the world again? Alright, but take this and make sure to keep yourself safe.” Ann said as she gave Stella a small pouch full of even smaller gold coins.

“Can I join you on your quest?” Eliza asked.

“No.” responded Stella, still worried about Eliza after what happened earlier.

“Awww... That’s too bad. But you can always come to me anytime you need someone to help you on your journey!”

And so Stella said her farewell to her sister and Ann before setting off for the plains beyond the town as she waved goodbye, pouch in hand.

Chapter Text

Stella had no idea where the townspeople's faces were. She had decided to go rescue their faces too, since it felt unfair to only save Eliza's face nor could Stella leave everyone else faceless. But she didn't know where to start. She wandered along the path for a beat, until she got an idea. It wasn't great, but the best one she had. She would just explore every inch of the hills and plains. After all, if she had found Eliza's face there, then maybe everyone else's faces might also be there too.

And soon after, Stella spotted a pink butterfly with eyes on its wings just like the one she saw before. The butterfly quickly charged at her, and she dove out of the way and hit the butterfly with her frying pan. The butterfly then tackled Stella shortly before she dealt the finishing blow, and the butterfly disappeared leaving a few coins on the ground. As the pair of eyes floated away, Stella heard a voice from the charm again.

“Ho ho! Those faces just fly right off of the defeated monsters, eh?” The guardian spirit began.

“You could talk outside of that place you kept teleporting me to earlier?” asked Stella, who had already started walking along the path.

“Yes, I could. Why do you ask?” The guardian spirit responded.

“If that’s the case, why did you send me to that strange place?”

“Well, I could only talk to you like this after you received the divine power. And you were also being attacked by a slime. But now, as I was saying...” The guardian spirit continued.

“Whoever owned that face has you to thank for freeing it. Just like with that youngster you helped earlier...put another way, defeating monsters helps people get their faces back. So keep defeating monsters, and help as many people as you can! Can you do that for me, Stella?” They finally concluded.

“...Do I really have a-”

Suddenly, two butterflies swiftly flew out of the surrounding bushes and Stella fell to the ground in surprise. “Umm... I don’t think I can fight two of these things...” Stella said worriedly. And Stella learned from her previous encounter that these butterflies hit surprisingly hard. So Stella--

“HOLD ON STELLA, I’M COMING TO SAVE YOU!” Somebody yelled.

Stella turned around to face them. It was Eliza. Again. And she was running at Stella, and waving around a microphone. She was now wearing a red and gold dress, matching gloves, and two ribbons rested on her hair.

Eliza swung at both of the butterflies with her microphone, distracting them. Stella took this opportunity to get back up, then hit one. That butterfly disappeared, and the pair of eyes flew off.

“So...uhhh... I know I said I’d be staying back at Greenhorne, but the guardian spirit you were talking about earlier said--” said Eliza.

“That’s nice but, please focus on the fight.” Stella interrupted right before a butterfly rammed into Eliza.

“Okay fine, I’ll focus...” Eliza responded, wincing.

After that, Eliza quickly defeated the butterfly with one more swing.

“Thanks. I don’t think we could have won without your help.” said Stella.

“It’s no big deal, really.”

“So are you gonna go back to town?”

Eliza grinned. “Nope! I’m going to save the world with you, whether you like it or not!”

“...Of course.”

The two walked along the path as they continued chatting.

“So what were you saying about the guardian spirit earlier?” Stella asked.

“They said that I could go save the world and that you needed help with your quest. They also gave me cool powers!” Eliza replied.

“So the guardian spirit put you up to this?”

“Yes.”

“...Why?” Stella asked the guardian spirit this time, not really expecting an answer. Surprisingly, the guardian spirit did answer.

“Well, she wanted to go save the world...” They responded.

“...So yeah! That’s the entire story of what happened earlier!” Eliza said cheerfully.

Stella and Eliza continued chatting along the path and defeating monsters, until the sun started to set.

“The sun’s setting already. Where are we going to sleep for the night?” Stella asked no one in particular.

“And all this walking is making me pretty tired...“Eliza groaned.

But soon, Stella saw an inn in the distance.

“Eliza, look over there! I think it’s an inn!” Stella exclaimed as she pointed at the inn.

“Praise be to the deity of well-placed inns!” Eliza joked.

The two made their way towards the inn. By the time they got there, it was already night. At the inn, they saw an odd blue-furred cat sleeping on a counter. They were wearing a white robe, and a gold necklace depicting a closed eye. A bell sat beside them.

Stella cautiously approached them , as Eliza was trying to pet the cat, and rang the bell. Immediately, the cat's single eye opened before closing again.

"...Sorry I was sleeping earlier. Anyway, hello there and welcome to the inn!" said the cat. Eliza smiled awkwardly.

Oh, they must be the innkeeper. Stella thought.

“You can’t just call your inn ‘the inn’. You need a better name for it, like ‘The Amber Lodge’ or something like that.” Eliza remarked.

“I’ve been told that by a few people and, don’t worry, I’m already thinking of good names for the inn!” The innkeeper responded.

“By the way, a stay for the night will cost you no gold per person so I guess there really isn’t a need for these formalities, is there? You can just enter the inn already and find a room if you want to! Ho ho!” They added.

“So, with that out of the way, do you have any inquiries?”

“This might seem weird, but you kind of remind me of this guardian spirit I talked to before.” Stella explained.

The cat-innkeeper gasped. "Stella, I am the guardian spirit! Were the closed eye motifs really not unsubtle enough, nor do you recognize my voice?"

"Okay, okay. You do sound familiar... So can Eliza and I have a room for two tonight?"

"Alrighty! Have a good night!"

Chapter Text

"Hey! Stella! Wake up already, it's ten in the morning! We really don't have the time to be sleeping in when we're supposed to be saving the world!" Eliza shouted, shaking Stella. 

"...okay, i get it...wait...it's already ten? Guess I'll have more time to sleep in after we save the world..." Stella said groggily; this wasn't the first time she was woken up like this.

"Alright let's get going, then!"

"But what about breakfast-"

"Eat it while we explore."

"Fine."

Eliza and Stella left the inn, and traveled along the path once more.

"Do you think Greg's face is around here?" asked Eliza.

"Hold on, who is Greg?" said Stella, trying to make a pancake out of nothing and actually making progress on it.

"You know, that guy you were talking to before the Dark Lord came over and stole everyone's faces? While you were talking to Greg, the mayor introduced Ann and I to everyone."

"Oh, okay. That makes sense. But if so then Greg's face must be attached to a monster, right?"

"Yeah, probably."

And sure enough, after not much time, they found Greg's face... on a large silver butterfly.

"...What is it with butterflies attacking us this vacation?" Stella remarked. 

Eliza shrugged. "No idea."

The silver butterfly rammed into Eliza who then swiftly swung at it with her microphone twice. Stella hit the butterfly with the back of her frying pan, before catching the now-ready pancake that fell from her frying pan. The butterfly tackled Stella, and Eliza and Stella swung at the butterfly. The butterfly rammed into Eliza onca again, this time knocking Eliza to the ground. Eliza barely managed to stand up.

"Eliza! Are you okay?" Stella called out worriedly.

"...I'm fine..." said Eliza.

"Really?"

"Okay... not fine... But I'm sure you can do the rest!" Eliza gave a thumbs-up.

But Stella couldn't just leave Eliza like this. So she tried something. She gave Eliza her frying pan with the pancake she had made. If her abilities as a chef were granted by magic, then maybe the food might be magic too. "Here, have this. I made it myself." Stella said.

"I'm not sure how this will help, but thanks." Eliza replied. She quickly ate the pancake while the butterfly attacked Stella, who tried blocking it with her frying pan. Immediately, Eliza's wounds healed and she got up. "Woah, Stella, you can make magical healing pancakes out of nothing now?" she asked, surprised.

"Apparently." Stella responded.

After that, the entire battle solely consisted of Eliza and Stella attacking the butterfly while it rammed into them and Stella healed herself and Eliza when needed. Then, after one final swing of Eliza's mic, the butterfly fell to the ground and finally disappeared leaving behind some coins and a jar of purple honey as Greg's face flew off to Greenhorne.

"Whew...That was tiring. But at least we managed to save Greg's face." said Stella, exhausted.

"Yeah, I want to rest up at the inn already." Eliza replied.

"Then what what are we waiting for? Let's go."

The two soon found the inn not too far ahead on the path. They quickly entered and rested up before setting off for the town in the morning. Back at Greenhorne, everything was mostly the same and a lot of people were still faceless. However the person near the entrance's face was back. "Oh! There you are! I was wondering where you were after I got my face back... What a relief." Greg sighed. "And sticking all those faces onto monsters... Who'd even do that!? But anyway, thank you both."

He gave Stella and Eliza a pouch with some coins. After that, the two returned to the inn. "Hey Stella... I've been wondering... We keep getting all these coins but what are we supposed to use them for?" Eliza asked.

"Honestly, I have no idea." said Stella.

"Well, there is a shop near here if you want to spend your gold on anything." the Guardian Spirit replied.

"Oh okay, I'll--" 

As Stella was speaking, a red-haired girl wearing a black crop top and shorts carrying a broom walked into the room. 

“Hi. I’m Firefly. …Am I interrupting something?” she asked.

“No, not really. We were just talking about some shop earlier. Anyway, I’m Stella,” Stella motioned to Eliza, “and this is my sister Eliza.”.

“So, what are you all doing here in the morning?”

"We were just talking about some shop."

"Nice! I'm here because I'm gonna save the world, and some 'guardian spirit' told me that there were going to be some people that could help with that."

Firefly paused. "...Hold on, are you two the people they were talking about?" she glanced at the Guardian Spirit. "And are you their cat?"

"Well, you got the first part correct, at least..." said the Guardian Spirit, slightly annoyed.

"Yeah, we're probably the people meant to help with saving the world. But the cat isn't ours. They're a guardian spirit, and is apparently also an innkeeper." explained Stella.

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!"

The sun was already starting to set, and even after a lot of walking (and fighting monsters), the three still had not found any of the other residents' faces yet. 

"...Is saving the world normally this slow?" Firefly asked.

"No, as far as I know." said Stella. "Though I've only been at this for a few days." she admitted.

"So should we go rest for the night already?" asked Eliza.

"That sounds like--" 

Stella went silent as the Dark Lord appeared before them.

"Is he that 'Dark Lord' guy I'm supposed to defeat?" Firefly whispered.

"Yeah. That's him, all right." Eliza whispered back, as the Dark Lord spoke.

"Oh, it's you again. Still playing the 'hero' act, aren't you?" 

"Dark Lord! P-Prepare to taste defeat!" yelled Stella.

"Pffffft...Aaaah ha ha haaaa! Oh, that was a good one!" He burst into laughter. Stella glared at him, how could he find this funny? "Well, since you want it so much... Let's dance!" The Dark Lord conjured a sphere of dark magic.

While Eliza readied her microphone, Stella just stared in fearful silence. She knew she couldn't win this fight; what was the guardian spirit even thinking, choosing someone like her to defeat this guy? She hasn't even eaten breakfast! So Stella was ready to accept her--

"Hold it right there!" Somebody said as a bolt of green magic destroyed the sphere.

"Who dares...?" The Dark Lord said, his voice a low growl.

Chapter Text

"Hold it right there!" Somebody said as a bolt of green magic destroyed the sphere.

"Who dares...?" said the Dark Lord, his voice a low growl. That somebody moved to where Stella, Eliza, and the Dark Lord could see her. She was a white-haired woman with dark green highlights, and a bright pink flower rested in her hair. The woman wore a white and turquoise robe, though it was more akin to a fluffy blanket than a robe. She also carried a silver staff with a blue gem floating inside it.

"...Of course you're this 'Dark Lord' I've been hearing so much about. You won't be getting your way for much longer!" She pulled her staff from behind her back, magic weaving around her.

"Didn't anyone tell you nobody likes a party pooper? And we were just getting to the fun part, too." 

"If anyone's a party pooper here, it's you." Eliza retorted.

"But I might just let you live... This time." The Dark Lord glared at the mysterious lady.

"Bye for now!" He vanished, cackling evilly.

"Whew... glad that's over." Stella sighed.

"Oh! Are the three of you okay?" said the woman.

"I'm fine..."

"Ugh, he still owes me that decent comeback..." Eliza groaned.

"Eliza!" Stella said, exasperated.

"I'm okay!" said Firefly.

"Glad to know that you three are alright. For a second I was worried that I was a bit late... but anyway, I'm Rosemary! I'm a traveling mage!" Rosemary glanced at Stella, Eliza, and Firefly. "And who might the three of you be?" asked Rosemary.

"I'm Firefly, the blonde girl is Stella," Firefly motioned to Eliza, "and the other girl is Eliza.".

Stella and Eliza then explained the events of the last few days to Rosemary. Firefly was also listening intently.

"So you're on a quest to defeat Darius  I mean, the Dark Lord?" Rosemary asked.

"I KNEW IT! 'Dark Lord Dark Lord' wasn't actually his real name!" Eliza whispered.

"It was pretty obvious, though." Firefly whispered back.

"Um... what are you two whispering about?" said Rosemary.

"Nothing." Eliza responded.

"So... about my question?"

"Oh, about that? Then that's basically it, but..." Stella trailed off, at a loss for words.

"But you feel that you're not quite strong enough?" Rosemary inquired.

"Pretty much." Stella admitted.

"...I sense a strange power within you, though." 

Makes sense, Stella thought. She was given powers by a divine spirit, after all.

Rosemary smiled. "You might not think it's much at the moment, but continue your journey and you'll grow and grow. So just hang in there."

Stella nodded. "...Okay." 

"What about me and Firefly?" Eliza asked.

"Same goes for the both of you! All three of you can definitely do this! And Eliza, I'm sure you'll also get that decent comeback the Dark Lord still owes you. He owes me a good comeback, too, after what happened." Rosemary reassured, chuckling at that last part.

"If fortune is on our side, we'll meet again. Until then!" Rosemary said as she left the scene. 

"Bye! See ya soon!" Eliza waved goodbye.

"So, what now? Back to the inn?" Eliza asked.

"Yeah." said Stella.

Back at the inn, Stella, Eliza, and Firefly were sharing stories and their experiences with their quest to save the world. And talking about lots of other stuff too.

"That Rosemary... I think I've seen her somewhere before."

Stella's eyes widened in shock, while Eliza gasped over-dramatically. "Whaaaat?" They said in unison.

"Yep. You heard me right!" Firefly began. "Before we met at the inn, I think I saw her while I was flying on my broom."

"You can fly on your broom!?" asked a surprised Eliza.

"I can. Why are you asking?" Firefly spoke as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"...Nevermind. What else happened before you decided to save the world?" Stella asked, changing the topic.

"Well, I received a letter from the cat, telling me to go save Miitopia from this 'Dark Lord' guy. So I went and flew here and met the both of you!" Firefly explained.

"Wow, that's way cooler than what happened to us before this quest thing happened!" said Eliza.

"It really is." Stella added.

"So, what about you two?" said Firefly.

Eliza and Stella then explained that they were on vacation before the Dark Lord attacked Greenhorne, after which the Guardian Spirit made Stella go on a quest to save Miitopia.

After that, they spent quite a bit of time just chatting about random topics and their conversation went on and on.

The next day, Stella actually woke up early along with Eliza and Firefly. The three did their morning routines before leaving the inn and going back to looking for the residents' faces.

During the walk, Eliza was busy introducing everyone in Greenhorne to Stella and Firefly. Eliza explained that ,aside from Greg and the mayor, there was this cheery old lady called Clarissa, a rude girl named Amy, and an overly lovey-dovey couple whose names were Pookiepie and Schmoopypie. Eliza wasn't joking. After a bit of walking after that, a new conversation started.

"Hey, I'm just wondering if you can cook magic food and you can cast spells, what am I supposed to do? Inspire people with my singing?" asked Eliza not too long after.

"You do exactly that. You inspire people, and I think Stella might really need it. And who knows, your singing might also be magic or something!" Firefly responded.

"...Rap battle people?" Stella suggested, as Eliza grinned. Eliza had a passion in rap battles (although she she was terrible at rap music), and Stella knew this.

"Okay, so what the both of you are saying is that my singing is probably magic and has weird other purposes? Cool!" said Eliza excitedly.

Eventually, Eliza, Stella, and Firefly came across a rock monster without a face. Though Amy's face appeared moments after. "Sakes alive!" said Amy as her face flew onto the giant rock and attached itself to the monster, and two clouds with eyes came out from the bushes.

The rock monster rolled into Eliza, Firefly, and Stella, with Eliza taking the worst of it. Then, Firefly waved her wand and cast a spell that called down lightning onto the monsters. The two clouds healed the rock monster before Eliza, clearly taking Firefly's advice to heart, sang a song to encourage Firefly. Surprisingly, Firefly went and cast a fire spell on one of the clouds causing it to disappear as the pair of eyes floated off and Eliza and Firefly high-fived. Finally, Stella hit the other cloud with her frying pan. 

Then once again the rock monster quickly rolled into Stella, damaging only her and Eliza this time. Firefly cast another fire spell on the rock monster, and Eliza swung at both the rock monster and the cloud. The cloud disappeared soon after. Stella quickly fried an egg (still making it out of nothing), and gave it to Eliza.

"Eliza, you can have this. I just made it." said Stella.

"Thanks! It looks even better that the pancakes you made last time." Eliza responded.

This went on for a bit, until the rock monster looked like it was about to crumble into dust. And then, Eliza... started rapping. Incredibly badly. So badly that Stella and Firefly had to cover their ears, and the rock monster rolled over and disappeared.

"What a waste of time..." said Amy as her face flew back to Greenhorne.

"Whew... Glad that's over." sighed an exasperated Stella.

"Yeah." Eliza agreed.

"Can we just get back to the inn already...?" Firefly asked, exhausted.

"That sounds like a good idea." Stella replied.

So Stella, Eliza and Firefly walked to the inn lying just ahead. Despite how tired Stella and Firefly were earlier, a lively conversation was going through the night.

"So, how was I?" Eliza asked eagerly.

"Your rap was terrible. But, I guess it also managed to damage that rock monster thing so... I guess we couldn't have won without you and you terrible rap skills." Stella said bluntly.

"Umm... thanks I guess? And also, Firefly, you were amazing too! Even with me and my skill at rap, there was no way we could have beaten that monster!"

"Thanks! And Stella, you did well too! We couldn't have survived without your support."

"...Nah. We couldn't have won without any of us."

"Oh well. Should we rest for the day already?" Eliza asked.

"Yeah, sounds like a good idea if we're going to wake up as early as we did today." said Stella.

After that, Eliza and Firefly went back to their room and Stella went to sleep.

Stella found herself in that strange place where she got her powers. 

"...Can I go back to sleep?"

"Wait! Hold on, if this makes sense I'm speaking to you through your dream!"

"What? But okay, I guess."

"So, how has your quest been so far?"

"It's really hard."

"Oh... I think I might be able to help, though! Just drop by at the counter in the morning, okay?"

"Okay. See you there!"

Chapter Text

Stella woke up with a start, after that dream. It was early in the morning, and Eliza and Firefly were still sleeping. So Stella went to the reception room, to meet with the Guardian Spirit. 

“Ho ho! So you remembered to meet me here today!” the Guardian Spirit said.

“I mean, if it’s a weird dream involving you for some reason, I had to check with you… so what am I here for?” asked Stella.

“Since you were struggling with your quest,  I felt I could help you out a bit. It's the least I could do after basically forcing you to go save the world.” The Guardian Spirit took out a satchel from under the counter.

“Here, take this.” They placed the satchel on the counter. 

Upon taking a look at the contents, Stella wasn’t sure how a bunch of sprinkles would help her. The sprinkles looked pretty, though.

“…Really? Sprinkle shakers? Thanks for trying, though.” Stella said.

“These have magical sprinkles. You’ll see what they’re for, later. There aren’t much now, but there should be more as you progress.” The Guardian Spirit responded.

“Is that all?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, thanks… guardian spirit… cat? Do you have any name that I can call you by?”

“Hm… I’ve never really thought about that before.” the Guardian Spirit paused, “What about… Spirri?” They suggested.

“That’s not too bad of a name.”

“Alright, so Spirri it is! Bye, and see you soon, Stella!”

"Bye, Spirri."

As Stella was going back to her room, Eliza and Firefly were walking out of theirs. They greeted each other, before preparing to set out again.

Not long after, Stella, Eliza, and Firefly left the inn and went back to Greenhorne. This time, Amy’s face had returned. They went to go check with her.

"Oh, it's you three. But you're not bad folk, I suppose. I guess you deserve at least something for getting my face back." Amy gave Stella a few gold coins. It wasn't much, but Stella appreciated the gift. 

Minutes later, Stella, Eliza and Firefly decided to explore a strange grove that they spotted not too far away from the inn. They wandered through the place, battling monsters, looking for the residents’ faces, and appreciating the scenery, until they saw a green-haired boy wearing a yellow coat fighting four butterflies.  Immediately, Stella, Eliza, and Firefly rushed to help him and the four of them quickly took down the butterflies.

“Are you okay?” Stella asked the boy. 

“Yeah, thanks for the help.” the boy responded.

"I'm Cosmosus." he added.

"I'm Stella, and these two are Eliza and Firefly." said Stella.

“So what were you doing here, anyway?” asked Eliza.

"I decided to set out to defeat the Dark Lord!" Cosmosus said proudly.

"We're on a quest to defeat him, too! Wanna team up?"

"There's no harm in having a few others help me with my quest, I suppose."

"Alrighty then! Let's go!"

The four of them continued to wander around the grove in search of the residents' faces, while Stella and Cosmosus were busy chatting along the way, with Stella explaining the events of she, Eliza, and Firefly's quest to him. 

After a little more walking, they finally found one of the residents' faces. It was Pookiepie's face, floating down to a large yellow mouse and attaching itself to it. Two mushrooms with eyes were next to the mouse as well. Everyone readied their weapons. Firefly called down lightning on the all the monsters, then Eliza swung at all of them with her microphone. Stella tried something this time, though. She readied herself and focused, while Cosmosus slashed at one of the mushrooms with his sword causing to disappear. 

The mouse swung its tail at Cosmosus, and the mushroom rammed into him almost instantly after. Despite this, Cosmosus seemed mostly unfazed. 

Stella, who was finally done preparing, hit the mouse with her frying pan. But this time, strangely enough, fire rose from her frying pan. Firefly called down lighting once again. The mouse fell over and disappeared, and Pookiepie's face floated away as Eliza and Cosmosus quickly took down the other mushroom. 

"Huh, that went better than normal." Stella remarked, "But I wonder what's up with my frying pan having fire now..."

"Of course the frying pan would be magic. If you had magical food, then why couldn't the frying pan be magical too?" replied Firefly.

"Not sure what it's all about, but it was pretty cool." said Cosmosus.

"Thanks. Anyways, back to the inn?" Stella asked.

"There's an inn? I haven't seen one around these parts before." asked a surprised Cosmosus. "Yeah, Stella just said there was. You can go check in and check it out once we get there." said Firefly.

Back at the inn, Stella, Eliza, Firefly, and Comosus were all talking and sharing stories again. Stella, Eliza and Firefly were all talking about what they've done before they went to Miitopia and had to go save the world. After Firefly's turn, it went to Comosus. 

"So, what made you choose to go save the world?" asked Firefly.

"Well, a few days ago, the Dark Lord destroyed my Tales of Cloudaria card collection! I had lots of really rare cards in there!" Comosus said angrily.

"...You're here to stop the Dark Lord because your cards were destroyed?"

"I'm not done yet! The Dark Lord also stole my friend Solanim's face!" Cosmosus added, his tone no less frustrated, "and ever since, I've been training as a warrior to defeat him once and for all!"

"Oh, umm... I just hope Solanim is still okay right now..." said Stella.

"And how could the Dark Lord destroy your card collection like that!? It must have been really difficult for you to just get a collection, let alone with a lot of really rare cards!" said Eliza.

"I know, right!?" Cosmosus responded.

"...what is this 'Tales of Cloudaria', and why are you two treating this as if it's serious business?" asked Firefly.

"It is serious business!" exclaimed Eliza.

"It's a really popular card game. It's just that Eliza and also Cosmosus are taking this super seriously." Stella replied.

"Oh, okay. Thanks." Firefly said.

After that, they went back to chatting with each other with each other before they went to sleep in their rooms, this time Stella sharing a room with Firefly and Eliza with Cosmosus.

Of course, Stella, Eliza, Firefly, and Cosmosus went back to Greenhorne to check with Pookiepie and her lover Schmoopypie. "They're the adventurers that got my face back!" exclaimed Pookiepie as soon as Stella opened her mouth to speak.

Schmoopypie turned around to face Stella. "Thank you so much. Please, take this.". He gave her three tickets for an arcade of some kind, before going back to talking to Pookiepie.

"Looking good!" said Schmoopypie. 

"Much better!" Pookiepie agreed. 

"... um... you're welcome?" said a confused Stella before giving the tickets to Cosmosus and passing through the inn. They took a short break, with Cosmosus using the tickets in the arcade at the inn and Firefly working on a painting. As for Stella, she was reading a book while Eliza watched Cosmosus play Rock, Paper, Scissors at the arcade.

After a bit, they left for an odd cavern to the east of the grove. Stella and her teammates traversed the cave as quickly as they could, hoping to still be able to reach the inn. It went fairly well, only having to defeat a few slimes along the way, until Stella noticed some thick blue hair on the ground. How did this get here?, Stella wondered. 

Stella bent down to take a closer look. But before she could think about it too much, the hair flew and hit her face. Something turned around, revealing itself to be a monster which the hair belonged to. Another one flew in, with the same blue hair. Stella immediately got to work on cooking something, while everyone else got ready to fight.

Chapter Text

Firefly cast a lightning spell, which hit both of the... um... whatever they were called. Stella would just ask Spirri about that. Spirri knew basically everything.

"...Spirri, what are these things called? Just wondering." said Stella to the charm.

"They're banshees. They're quite dangerous, so good luck to you and your team!" replied Spirri. Stella nodded and, right after their short conversation, a banshee's hair flew at her. Stella quickly ate her now-finished cooking, while Eliza swung her microphone at the two banshees before Cosmosus leapt at one with his sword. The banshee struck at Cosmosus and the other attacked Firefly, who called down lighting once more. Eliza sang a catchy tune... and one of the banshees started dancing? Afterwards, Stella prepared another dish and offered it to Cosmosus before he slashed at a banshee. It flew up to Eliza and started pretending to cry at her while the other banshee was still dancing.

"...Really? I can pretend to cry more convincingly than that." said an unimpressed Eliza. After that, Firefly cast a fire spell, and it finally disappeared, its face flying away to somewhere. Eliza swung her microphone at the other banshee and Stella hit it using her frying pan, flames rising up in the frying pan again. Cosmosus leapt at it with his sword. The other banshee's hair hit Firefly. Immediately, Stella started panicking. Stella wasn't sure if she'd be able to finish cooking anything before the banshee attacked again, and it looked like Firefly couldn't take much more of this. And Firefly had been such an important member of the team and also Stella's friend, she couldn't-- "Sorry to interrupt, but do you still have the magic sprinkles I gave you?" said Spirri.

"I do. Why?" responded Stella.

"Get the yellow sprinkles, and sprinkle some on Firefly."

"Um... okay?" 

Stella then proceeded to do exactly that, and few sprinkles landed on Firefly. "Stella, what are you doing-" Seconds after, the sprinkles started glowing and healed her wounds, before disappearing. "...thanks?" said Firefly as Cosmosus leapt at the banshee with his sword, defeating it.

“…Okay, everyone. Let’s go to the inn.” said Cosmosus. Everyone was too tired to argue, and the inn was just ahead. The four of them chose their roommates before resting for the night. However, Stella’s sleep was interrupted by Firefly. “Sorry, but what were those healing sprinkle things you used earlier?” she asked. 

“Just some magic sprinkles from the Guardian Spirit. They also said that their name is Spirri." replied Stella.

"Oh, alright. You can go get some sleep now."

Stella, Eliza, Firefly, and Cosmosus left the inn early in the morning again, and the end of the cave wasn’t too far ahead. Light spilled out from the exit, leading to… somewhere. There was a huge castle in the distance, though not much else. Nevertheless, the team of four traversed this new area. 

“We’ve only got one more face to find now! This is going to be easy!” said Eliza. 

“…But what if a big scary boss monster jumps out at us?” asked Cosmosus.

“Or even worse, four banshees.” Stella added.

"Just don't jinx it, Eliza. And also you two." said Firefly.

Seconds after, the Dark Lord appeared again. "Mwa ha ha haaaa! So we meet again!" He said. 

"Dark Lord! You still owe me a good comeback!" Eliza yelled, as Stella let out a small, terrified squeak. "And also Rosemary," Eliza added.

"... comeback for what again?"

"..." Eliza was speechless, and staring in shock.  The Dark Lord just smirked, much to Eliza's anger.

"Hmph. Pathetic... It's not even worth the effort to crush you myself." He summoned... some monster, which Spirri immediately informed Stella that it's called an imp, and Clarissa's face. "That pile of stone must be Greenhorne Castle, yes? And that useless king... I've got something special in store for him! Mwaaa ha ha haaaaa!" The Dark Lord vanished as Clarissa's face attached itself to the imp.

"... why couldn't he have just said that he's going to take the king's face?" Firefly asked, pulling out her wand from her pocket.

"I don't know, probably something about being more ominous and threatening or something. It’s really annoying." replied Eliza, while Stella ran up to the imp with a flaming frying pan after narrowly avoiding an attack. 

“…Anyway, we should probably go help Stella and Comosus already…” Firefly said before rushing to the scene and calling down lightning on the imp.

“Hey, wait for me!” Eliza responded, running after Firefly.

Finally catching up to Firefly, Eliza swung her microphone at the imp. The imp then struck its pitchfork at Eliza, though just before the attack connected, Cosmosus had thrown himself in front of Eliza, taking the hit instead. “Cosmosus!” Stella and Eliza cried out. “Are you okay?” asked Eliza.

“I… should be fine…” Cosmosus replied.

"No, you won't be fine." Stella offered Cosmosus her cooking. "Here, eat this." 

"Oh, thanks-"

"...A little help over here?" Firefly said, casting spells and trying her best to survive the imp's attacks. 

"Sorry about that! I'll get to work on cooking something right now!"  Stella responded as she, Eliza, and Cosmosus rushed to Firefly's aid. Eliza sang a high note, so high that it actually hurt everyone hearing Eliza sing. Everyone other than Eliza had to pause for a bit, and in that moment Eliza had swung her microphone at the imp. Stella quickly finished cooking, and gave her frying pan to Firefly as Cosmosus slashed at the imp. The imp struck at Stella, who at least blocked some of the damage with her frying pan. Soon after, Firefly cast a fire spell and the imp finally disappeared, Clarissa’s face flying away to Greenhorne. 

Stella and the team would have headed off to an inn or went back to Greenhorne by now, but there was no time to waste. The Dark Lord was (probably) going to steal the king’s face, and they had to go warn the king. They rushed to the castle, but came across a soldier stationed at the short path leading to the there.

“You are approaching Greenhorne Castle. I’m sorry, but I cannot let you go any further than this. If you need to pass by the castle, there is a side route through the cave nearby.” said the soldier. 

“Oh, okay th-“ responded Stella. 

“But it’s really important!” Eliza interrupted.

“As I said, you cannot enter the castle and proceed any further. Full stop.” The soldier said.

“…Fine. We’re going, then.”

"...Can't we just go into the castle anyway?" Firefly whispered as the team turned to leave.

"Of course not! We are not breaking into any castles while saving the world!" Cosmosus whispered back. 

The four went back to the town. Cosmosus checked in with Clarissa, while everyone else talked to the mayor.

"When did the town get back to normal? Oh, that's good news. Very good news indeed!" said the mayor.

“Yourewelcomebutnowthedarklordisgonnastealthekingsfaceandweneedtowarnthekingrightnow!” Eliza explained, speaking incredibly quickly.

“Hm… that explanation was a bit fast...” the mayor paused, “Wait, I think I get it… oh, no! The Dark Lord went to the castle? We're done for! Adventurers... would you go after the Dark Lord?"

"I'm up for it, but you might want to ask Stella about that." replied Firefly.

"It's not like we can just let the Dark Lord steal everyone's faces, so sure." said Stella.

"And especially not when he gets to be all smug about it, too!" Eliza added.

"Thank goodness!" The mayor handed Stella a piece of rolled up parchment, with a seal on it. "Here, take this. It's a letter of introduction. You'll need it to get in the castle."

"Okay, and see you!" said Stella.

"Oh... and please take care." the mayor replied, before Stella went to tell Cosmosus that they were going already.

After a lot of running, Stella, Eliza, Firefly, and Cosmosus were finally back to the place right in front of the path to the castle and the soldier from earlier was still there.

"I'm sorry, but again I cannot-"

"Hey, guess what, we have a letter of introduction from the mayor now." Firefly interrupted, showing the soldier the letter. He took the letter, and read its contents before looking at the team again. "Oh! In that case, go right ahead."

Now that the castle was close, Stella and her teammates slowed down a bit. "The castle looks so pretty up close... you think there's a princess living there?" said Eliza.

"Yeah... it's way prettier up close. And I've heard that there is, in fact, a princess there!" replied Cosmosus. 

"I wanna go see her... and would you look at that! We're already at the castle! I can't wait to go inside!" exclaimed Eliza, already running into the castle.

"Hey, wait for us too!" said Cosmosus, he and the others running after Eliza, and into a pristine-looking hall. As soon as they entered, Stella, Eliza, Cosmosus, and Firefly dashed to the throne room. Inside, the king, a... rotund brown-haired man eating a roasted chicken leg sat on a large pillow carried by two soldiers who then put it down. 

"Welcome, travelers! What brings you here?" the king asked. 

"Um... I'm here to tell you that the Dark Lord attacked the town of Greenhorne and stole the people's faces? And my sister's face as well?"

"And also my friend's face!" Cosmosus added, before explaining more about what had happened.

"...So you're saying that this 'Dark Lord' miscreant is now coming to steal my face?" The king burst into laughter. "We don't believe it. Of all the tall tales..." He said, burping right after. And then his face flew off of his body, to everyone's shock.

"H-h-heeelp!" He called out before his face flew away and everyone started panicking, except Firefly. "Guys. Calm down." As everyone turned to look at her, Firefly continued. "We have got to go out there, and save the king!" she said. She was right, and Stella bolted out of the door, to wherever the king's face might be now,  while still internally panicking.

Chapter Text

After a rest at the inn, Stella, Eliza, Firefly, and Cosmosus dashed through the rest of the path to the castle and into a forest. It didn't take long to find the king's face, as Eliza bumped into a large stone golem with the king's face floating above it. "Help the royal face!" he said before his face attached itself to the golem. The golem then grabbed Eliza.

"Eliza!" Stella cried, running at the golem with a flaming frying pan. Cosmosus started climbing the golem, and Stella followed. Meanwhile, Firefly was casting all her fire spells, careful not to accidentally hit anyone other than the golem. The golem started trying to throw Stella and Cosmosus, who were both standing on top of the golem, off of it. It managed to knock off Stella. Stella closed her eyes and waited for the sensation of her falling, falling, falling. But instead, Stella felt something grab her hand. She opened her eyes, and Cosmosus was holding her hand, desperate to not let her fall. Stella grabbed onto Cosmosus's other hand, and with a lot of effort and Cosmosus's help, she somehow pulled herself up. 

"... thanks." said Stella. 

"Please, just think nothing of it..." replied Cosmosus.

Cosmosus and Stella started running across the golem, as Firefly started whacking it with her wand. The golem tightened its grip on Eliza, causing her to wince in pain, and tried to knock off Cosmosus who swiftly dodged before slicing the golem's arm, followed by Stella lighting her frying pan on fire and hitting the golem. Its arm fell off, its now detached hand dropping Eliza, and Firefly quickly cast a spell that slowed down Eliza's descent. The golem punched Firefly after, knocking her back a bit. Eliza then swung her microphone at the golem, as Firefly slowed Stella and Cosmosus's fall while the golem crumbled into pieces. 

"Whew... This was..." said Cosmosus.

"Absolutely terrible. Everyone except you almost died today." Eliza added. 

"Well, back to the king I guess..." said Firefly.

Back at the castle, Stella, Eliza, Firefly, and Cosmosus were in the throne room. The king, who now had his face back, was busy looking at himself in a mirror. "...um... hello?" said Stella.

"Oh, travelers, thank you, thank you, thank you! The royal countenance has now been restored!" The king shoved a large pouch full of gold coins into Stella's hands. "Accept our royal gratituuuude!"

"Oh, wow... this is a lot..."

"At least we got money for all this..." remarked Eliza. 

The king sighed. "And now, we must replenish ourselves." He started eating the chicken leg he was holding, and Stella and her teammates excused themselves from the room. 

"So, what do we do now?" Stella asked. 

"Maybe we could ask the king if we can do anything else for him?" suggested Cosmosus.

"Nah, not really in the mood for that after that fight." replied Eliza.

"Me too." agreed Firefly.

"What if we take the rest of day off, then?" said Stella.

"Yeah... this whole saving-the-world thing does get really stressful." responded Firefly.

"Eh, why not?" said Eliza.

"If everyone else is on board, then so am I!" said Cosmosus.

"By the way, what are we going to be doing?" Eliza asked.

Stella didn't really think that through, when proposing the idea. "Umm..."

"We have lots of money now, so we're going shopping! After all, Spirri said there's a shop somewhere, right?" said Firefly.

"That sounds good. But we don't know where it is..."

"Oh, I know a market we could all shop at! I'll take you there!" said Cosmosus.

So the four of them traveled backwards along the path, with Cosmosus leading the way. However, they ended up bumping into a white-haired, hatted woman wearing a red dress. It was Ann! 

"Ann!" exclaimed Eliza.

Ann gave a small wave at Stella and Eliza. "Hi, Eliza," Ann glanced at Firefly and Cosmosus, then back at Stella and Eliza. "Are those two your friends?"

"Yeah! The girl's Firefly, and the boy with spiky hair is Cosmosus! The both of them are really cool!"

"They've been helping us with stopping the Dark Lord." Stella added. 

Ann glanced at Cosmosus and Firefly again. "... Thank you both for helping my daughters on their probably very dangerous quest to save Miitopia. Honestly, I don't think they would have made it this far without you two, getting everyone in town's faces back and all that."

"Yep, those two wouldn't have gotten this far without us." said Firefly, as Cosmosus thanked Ann.

"Well, you four were going to have a hangout session with each other now, right? I'll get going now, if you don't mind."

"Okay, bye Ann!" Eliza said, while Stella waved goodbye.

Immediately after, Firefly turned to face Eliza and Stella. "Ann is your mother? How come the two of you didn't mention that before?"

"Um... we forgot? It's a bit hard calling her 'Mom', okay?" said Eliza.

"... what?" replied a very confused Cosmosus.

"Wait, hold on, I think I get it, are you and Stella adopted?" Firefly asked.

"How did you know?" Stella responded.

Firefly winked. "Just a lucky guess from somebody who is also adopted. Anyway, will we get going already?"

"... okay." said Cosmosus, clearly surprised that everyone was adopted. Except him, clearly.

"Lead the way, Cosmosus!"

It wasn't a lot of time before the team arrived at the market. Stella was planning to cook something for all of them tonight, so she explored the bustling marketplace, weaving through the crowd, looking for any stalls that sold the ingredients she needed. This was going to be special, just for this night. Sure enough, Stella found a stall that sold some of the ingredients needed, and other stalls, offering the others. So she bought all the ingredients she needed, spending all of her share of the coins which had been split evenly with everyone. Stella then went back to the inn, where they all agreed to go to after they were done.

Everyone was back by nightfall, and they were all talking about what they bought. "I bought this fancy microphone stand! I bet I can kick monster butt even harder now with this!" said Eliza, proudly showing off her microphone stand.

"Oh, cool! For me, I just got some spell books and the latest book in this series I really like..." said Firefly.

"What's the series called?" asked Stella.

"It's called Keeper of the Forgotten Lands. You should read it! It's amazing!" 

"Okay! I'll check it out when I have time! And Cosmosus, what did you get?"

"I got some Tales of Cloudaria card packs! I'm rebuilding my collection after," Cosmosus looked away for a moment. " well... you know. I haven't opened the card packs yet."

"No way! can you open them already?" Eliza asked.

"Okay, why not?" Cosmosus tore open the card packs. "...Oh. Most of the cards here are really common," He smiled, "...but it's a start. It might take a while, but after all this is over, I will get another card collection and it'll be even better than my old one!"

"So Stella, what did you get?" 

"Hold on, I'll go get it..." Stella went to the inn’s kitchen, and grabbed two trays with two plates of roasted goblin ham each drizzled with honey before returning to the dining room and serving a plate to everyone. “… and here it is! I bought the ingredients for this when we were shopping.” 

Eliza took a small bite of the food. “This tastes even better than whatever you’ve made before!”

“Thank you!”

Everyone quickly finished eating. Cosmosus then asked a question. “How is the whole saving-the-world thing like, in your opinions? For me, I think it’s fine right now. I’m a bit worried, but I think we’ll be okay!”

“It’s fun, but it really sucks sometimes.” Eliza replied.

“It’s really difficult and stressful, and I never asked for at least one of us to almost die on a daily basis and just wanted to go on a vacation. But… at least going on this journey with you guys makes it at least somewhat tolerable.” confessed Stella.

“Awww, don’t worry, Stella! I’m sure that we’ll save the world quick, even if we’re going to be almost-dying a lot! And hey, we wouldn’t have met each other if it wasn’t for basically being forced to save the world. Plus, I’ve learned from yesterday that messing with Cosmosus is fun~” said Firefly. 

“Wait, what?” asked Cosmosus. Firefly chuckled in response.

“Count me in on messing with Cosmosus!” said Eliza.

“You too, Eliza…?”

“Don’t worry, you still have me. Just expect tons of pranks from Eliza, once we’re done saving Miitopia. Good luck surviving.” Stella reassured. Kind of.

“… thanks?”

Going on through the night, the four of them chatted on about random things, asked questions, and praised Stella’s cooking. In that moment, it actually felt… nice. Just hanging out with friends and having fun, without any pressure to save the world. Stella took in the moment, knowing that it wouldn’t be too often that they’d get to spend time like this. After all, they would need to get going tomorrow morning.

When Stella, Eliza, Firefly, and Cosmosus left the inn the next morning, they ran into the soldier who usually stood at the path to the castle. He said that the king had something to request of them, and escorted the team to Greenhorne Castle.

“What are we here for?” asked Firefly.

“That Dark Lord fellow is certainly no joke! We’re all in a lot of trouble with that scoundrel around. Go and warn Princess Regina while we take care of this.” the king answered.

Stella and her friends then went through the door to the left and saw Princess Regina, a blonde lady wearing a pink dress and a matching tiara, staring through a window. Upon noticing the team, she performed a graceful twirl to face everyone.

“And who might you be?” she asked.

Chapter Text

"I'm Stella, and these are my friends, Eliza, Firefly, and Cosmosus." Stella answered. 

"We're heroes on a quest to defeat the Dark Lord. He's been attacking Greenhorne, and he stole the townspeople's faces not too long ago." explained Firefly.

"The Dark Lord went to Greenhorne? What for...?" asked Regina.

"Umm... something about 'havoc and terror' ?" Eliza replied, as Regina continued.

"Is Terrin okay!?" 

Eliza raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

"He's my childhood friend in town. ... I'm worried about him, so would you check on Terrin for me?"

"Okay!"

"Oh, thank you, thank you! Please tell him that... Regina is worried about him."

When Stella and her friends got to Greenhorne, everything was mostly the same, and everyone in the town definitely wasn't this Terrin guy the princess was talking about. The team decided to split up and ask the townsfolk, with Stella asking Clarissa, Eliza asking the mayor, Firefly asking the hopelessly romantic couple, and Cosmosus asking Greg.

According to Clarissa, she had seen a boy run off somewhere looking for the princess. Stella told this to her teammates, who got the exact same story as Stella did. Except Cosmosus, as the couple was too enamored with each other to notice him there. So the four of them started traveling from the town to the path to the castle. 

Surprisingly, Stella, Eliza, Firefly, and Cosmosus didn't travel too far from the town until they encountered a raven-haired boy... getting knocked away by three goblins. He was now lying on the ground, and the goblins were getting closer. "There's nothing I can do... please, help me!" He begged. Immediately, Firefly called down lightning on the three goblins and defeated them all in one hit.

"Thank you so much for your help." the boy said. "My name is Terrin."

Stella immediately recognized that name. "So you're... Princess Regina said she's worried about you."

Terrin smiled. "The princess... is worried about me... ?" He looked like he was daydreaming for a moment. "Oh!" Terrin got up, and started looking around if there were any more monsters. "Focus! Just what in the world were those monsters?"

"They're monsters with people's faces."

"But why do they have people's faces on them now?"

"It's a long story..."

"Long story short, there's this evil Dark Lord guy who steals people's faces and puts them on monsters. He also attacked the town some time ago." said Firefly.

Terrin looked quite upset over this. "I turned my back and all this happened... but the way you handled those monsters... That was incredible!"

"Thanks." Firefly responded, with a proud expression on her face.

"I was as useful as a chocolate teapot. I-I think I'll be leaving now!" Terrin then set off for the castle again, and so did Stella and her friends.

Back at the castle, Princess Regina sighed in relief at the news that Terrin was safe and thanked the team, before they heard the king's voice coming from the throne room. "Now, now, child... you must forget about that Terrin chap. You are betrothed to Prince Yerdua, after all!"

"But, father..." said a dismayed Regina, trailing off. 

"Ah, since you're here... will you please see him to the castle?" asked the king.

Stella was hesitant, since it seemed that Regina didn't like whoever that Yerdua guy was, but it was the king who was asking this so she probably didn't have much of a choice to begin with. "... okay..."

"The princess's fiancé is from yonder kingdom. He should be waiting at the Arid Frontier. Could you head there for me?"

Stella nodded, and she and her friends set off for the Frontier.

The trek through the arid frontier was exhausting, and it wasn't helped by how hot it was outside and Eliza complaining about it nonstop. Cosmosus even offered her a piggyback ride at one point, though she refused. Stella even wondered how much longer she could be here and if they should give up. They didn't, thankfully, as moments later they ran into a redheaded boy with a yellow cap decorated with a jewel and a large feather on top. He was grumbling about the king 'keeping him waiting' and how he's the prince and how those 'imbeciles' shouldn't let this happen to him, before noticing the team and turning around, glaring at them. This guy must be Yerdua, Stella thought.

"You imbeciles! Take me to the princess, this instant! And don't you dare dawdle!" He yelled, as Stella finally realized why Regina didn't like him.

"Okay, okay, calm down..." said Firefly. Afterwards, Yerdua and the team traveled along the path as he was explaining why he was out alone since Cosmosus asked.

"Why was I out here alone, you ask? I was attacked by a monster. I made a valiant attempt at vanquishing the brute. But my pathetic servants couldn't handle it. Bah! They left me no choice but to flee from battle..." As Yerdua was about to explain further, Stella was hit by a large wing from a huge brown bird with three pairs of eyes on its wings.

One fight scene later, with a lot of almost-dying from everyone in the team and Eliza and Firefly being angry at Yerdua for not doing anything...

“The victory was hard fought, but my expert swordsmanship pulled us through.” Yerdua boasted, despite not doing a single thing to help the team for the entire fight. At this point, Stella wasn't sure how much longer she could endure being with him and Eliza and Firefly looked like they were close to punching Yerdua in the face. Cosmosus just let out an exasperated sigh. At least they were close to the castle.

“Oh, I spy the castle! Princess Regina! Your beloved Prince Yerdua will soon be by your radiant side!” Yerdua ran off to the castle, leaving the (incredibly annoyed) team behind who quickly followed.

"Ah! It seems that Prince Yerdua has returned safely. And so have all of you, we see. Splendid!" the king handed Stella another pouch full of gold coins. "Here is your reward.".

Stella, Eliza, Firefly, and Cosmosus went to Regina's room again. Terrin was there too, talking with Regina. "Ehehehe, I managed to sneak in here..." said Terrin, and Regina smiled, before giggling.

The two of them continued talking and catching up with each other for a few moments, while Stella, Firefly, and Cosmosus took the time to just enjoy that the two were able to meet. Meanwhile, Eliza contemplated whether she should find a way to ruin the moment.

Unfortunately, the peace didn't last long until Yerdua barged into the room.

"Princess Regina! It is I, your beloved Prince Yerdua!"

Regina and Terrin looked to see Yerdua standing at the door, and everyone's eyes widened in shock. "You... you dog!" Yerdua ran to the princess and shoved Terrin out of the way. "What are you doing with Princess Regina!?"

"And who are you supposed to be?"

"Oh, nobody special. Only the princess's FIANCÉ!"

"Princess Regina can't marry a jerk like you!" Terrin got up and glared at Yerdua. "I won't allow it!"

"Look me in the eye and say that, I dare you!" Yerdua said, returning his glare.

"Please stop... stop it you two!" Regina yelled, to no effect.

"What on earth is all this commotion!?" said the king, who then sighed. "Travelers, those three are clearly in a state. Maybe some calming fruit would help... Might we ask you to find one for us?" Stella nodded, and the king continued.

"It would help immensely. The fruit's somewhere in the forest. Be quick about it."

After finding the fruit shortly after, the team walked into the castle. It was in ruins, as banners were torn, tables, paintings, and stands were knocked over, and all the the lights from the candles were nowhere to be seen.

"Just what happened to this place while we were away... ?" Stella wondered.

"I don't know, maybe some weird accident happened. Or Terrin and Yerdua ended up fighting and destroyed the castle in the process." replied Firefly.

"I don't think those two would destroy an entire castle fighting over Regina, though..."

"Oh! Maybe it was attacked, then!" said Eliza.

"But how could it be attacked in the small amount of time we left?" Cosmosus asked.

"I don't know, but it's the most likely option here!"

"I suppose so... let's just hope that you're wrong."

Stella, Eliza, Firefly, and Cosmosus continued onward, to inform the king that they had found a calming fruit... only to see that he was being attacked by a green imp! "H-heeeelp!" the king cried out.

The team readied their weapons, and charged at the imp. Firefly cast a fire spell, and it struck at her with its large green spear. Stella got to work on cooking something, and Eliza swung the microphone stand she had bought at the imp. Cosmosus leapt at it with his sword, as the imp was making weird circular movements with its spear. Stella offered Firefly her cooking, while Stella could have sworn she had heard something about how "that pathetic band of so-called heroes won't be saving you this time" coming from Regina's room. But whatever. Stella would focus on those things later. She and her team had a fight to win. The imp struck at Stella, though Cosmosus took the hit this time. It also attacked Eliza, immediately after. Firefly cast another fire spell, and Stella started cooking something again, still trying to ignore the voice coming from princess's room. Eliza sang a song to encourage Firefly, who then cast another spell. Cosmosus slashed at it, as Stella gave Eliza the dish she had prepared while the imp had started to make weird motions with its spear again, before it attacked Stella. When Firefly ran to attack the imp, it was interrupted by Cosmosus tripping her.

"Ugh, Cosmosus, why would you do that!? We're on the same side here, remember?" asked a frustrated Firefly, who received no response from Cosmosus other than an evil laugh. Stella couldn't believe Cosmosus would do something like that, and clearly neither could Eliza. But despite all of that, Eliza sang an extremely high note which damaged everyone. Stella then ran at the imp with her frying pan ablaze, finally causing it to disappear. "Seriously, what was that all about earlier?" said Firefly.

"Wait, what happened earlier?" asked Cosmosus.

"You really don't remember?" 

"... you were acting really weird and also tripped Firefly." Eliza added.

"I did!?" Cosmosus said.

"You did. Seriously. You can ask Stella if you need to."

"Oh, then sorry about that. I'm not sure what came over me back then, if it happened at all..."

"It's fine, for now. Just don't let it happen again." Firefly glanced at the king. "So what are you still freaking out about, Your Highness?"

"The Dark Lord is here! He's right inside the princess's chamber! Please, help her! I implore you!" the king panicked. The team didn't have to be told twice before they rushed into the other room. As soon as they entered, the Dark Lord vanished, and Regina was facing away from Stella and her teammates. The princess turned around.

She had no face.

Chapter Text

"Goodness gracious me! What were those things!?" said Yerdua, who then noticed the now-faceless princess. "Oooohhh... M-m-m-m-m... Mama! I'm scared! Save meeeeee!" He quickly ran out of the room in tears, while Stella and Cosmosus tried their best to feel bad for him. 

"The Dark Lord... stole away my beloved's beautiful face... I saw him heading toward some creepy tower that just popped up out of nowhere... I'm so scared..." Terrin got off of the floor and giving Regina a determined look.

"But I must pursue the foul fiend! Wait here, Regina!" Terrin said, before running off to wherever that tower was. In the distance he could be heard yelling "I'll save the princess!" to nobody in particular.

Guess the team knew where they'd be going to now.

It wasn't too hard for Stella, Eliza, Firefly, and Cosmosus to find a strange tower that wasn't near the castle earlier. They immediately entered, and were greeted by a dark hallway, lit only by purple crystals on the walls.

"This place gives me the creeps. Feels like the ceiling's pressing down on me..." Stella remarked.

"It's okay if you're scared... I also am." replied Cosmosus.

"Hahaha, no! I'm not scared at-"

"Really?"

"Okay, yeah, I'm... terrified, honestly."

"You two are scared?" asked Eliza.

"Yeah..."

"Don't worry, I'll be here to help if things get too scary for you!"

"And so will I!" said Firefly.

"Thanks, guys. I'll be here if anyone needs me, too." Stella responded.

"And don't forget about me! Now, let's just go find Regina's face and get out of here ASAP." Firefly said, as the team continued through the tower. After a while, the team reached the top and found Terrin there, too. "Okay, deep breaths..." He muttered to himself before confronting a huge pink... buff gorilla-thing? 

"Um... Spirri? What am I supposed to call whatever that pink thing is over there?" Stella asked. 

"... what even is that? Just call it whatever you want." Spirri replied.

"But I don't know-"

"Okay! Good luck, now!"

"Princess Regina! Raaaagh!" Terrin yelled as he ran at the gorilla thing. "Give the princess's face back!" he said, punching the thing that the team later agreed to call a 'general'. 

"What beauty!" said the general, not seeming to notice Terrin. Terrin punched the general again, to no effect. "To think that the Dark Lord would grace me with such a face!" it continued. 

"Give it back!" Terrin shouted, now kicking at it finally causing the general to notice him there.

"This face is mine now! I'll never give it back!"

"...shouldn't we be doing something about this?" Cosmosus asked, watching the 'battle' unfold. 

"You'll never get away with this!" the general said, who punched Terrin afterwards. Immediately, Terrin was sent flying across the room and knocked into a pillar. Cosmosus and the rest of the team decided to take over the fight from here, while Stella started cooking something for Terrin and tossed Firefly the sprinkles. She then cast an explosive spell, quickly followed by a lightning spell, before the general punched Cosmosus, who swiftly dove out of the way. Cosmosus slashed at the general in response, as it swung its fist at the team, hitting everyone other than Stella, Terrin, and itself.

Firefly handed the sprinkle shaker to Cosmosus, and cast a lightning spell on the general and Eliza swung her microphone stand at it as Stella, who had now finished cooking something for Terrin, went back to the team, offered a dish she had just prepared (with some help from Eliza)  to Firefly as Cosmosus leapt at the general with his sword. The general then was about to punch Firefly, though Cosmosus took the hit this time. It tried punching Stella, and Cosmosus did the same. Eliza took the moment to sing an incredibly high pitched note, and Firefly cast another lightning spell as Stella prepared a dish for Cosmosus and offered it to him.  Eliza sang a song to to encourage Stella, and in response she hit the general with a flaming frying pan twice. Cosmosus slashed at it, before the general swung its fist at the team again and punched Stella, then Eliza. Firefly cast a lightning spell, and Eliza and Cosmosus attacked the general together while Stella ate her own cooking. The general punched Firefly after, to which Firefly responded by hitting it with her wand. Cosmosus tossed Eliza the sprinkles, which Eliza used on herself before giving it back to Stella and swinging her microphone stand at the general. 

Stella then lit her frying pan on fire and was about to run at the general, until she was interrupted by Firefly.

"Hold on for a second, I wanna try boosting your attack in some way." she said, before waving her wand, causing the flames around Stella's frying pan to rise higher, and Stella was sure they had just gotten brighter. "Alright, I'm done, you can go attack that thing now."

"... but what did you do?"

"I just cast a fire spell on your frying pan."

"Okay, thanks Firefly!" said Stella as she charged at the general. Upon hitting it with her frying pan, it fell over and disappeared. Regina's face flew away to the castle, and thanked the team as Terrin ran up to them. But before Terrin could say anything, the Dark Lord appeared. 

"Mwaaa ha ha haaaaa! This here is..." He paused, and glared at the team. "Oh, you've already defeated one of my loyal servants." the Dark Lord continued. "There goes my good mood." he grumbled. "You'll pay for this! Oh yes, you'll pay! Just you wait!"

He vanished afterwards, to... somewhere.

"Yeah, right." Eliza scoffed. The team soon started to set off to the--

"Wait!" Terrin yelled. Immediately, everyone turned around to face him. "I just want to say... thank you for saving me!" Terrin looked away. "Especially since this time, I was worse than useless." 

"No, you weren't. You at least tried to save Regina, and that's good enough already." Stella said. 

"That's probably more than whatever Yerdua did for her, anyway." Eliza added.

"And if anything, you weren't worse than useless, at least." said Firefly.

"... I don't think there's anything left for me to add..." sighed Cosmosus.

Terrin smiled. "Well, at least the princess is safe... thanks again, everyone. Let's check up on her right away!" 

"Oh, thank you! You don't know how good it feels to have my face back!" exclaimed Regina.

"I'm pretty sure I know, but okay." said Eliza.

"You've come through for us again, it seems." the king remarked as he was being carried into the chamber. "The least we can do is reward you!" he gave Stella a pouch full of gold coins. "We're most impressed with you as well, Terrin."

Terrin shook his head. "But your majesty, I truly did nothing..."

"Nonsense! We saw you rush off to save the princess in her hour of need. And in light if your noble, selfless deed... well, we might see our way into allowing your relationship with the princess." the king responded, much to everybody's shock.

Terrin and Regina started running to each other. "Oh, Regina!"

"Oh, Terrin!" said Regina as she leapt into Terrin's arms. Stella wiped her tears and Eliza and Firefly cheered while Cosmosus just watched the scene.

"But seriously, that prince Yerdua... what a pathetic specimen he turned out to be..." the king said. "We are greatly indebted to you, travelers. Now give that Dark Lord what for! Off with you!" he continued, while Regina and Terrin cuddled.

After that, the team left the castle and discussed where to go next.

"We've already seen all of Greenhorne, so now what?" asked Eliza.

"I don't know..." said Stella.

"Hmm... maybe we can try looking through Neksdor? It's right to the east of here." suggested Cosmosus.

"It's worth a shot!" replied Firefly.

"Same here!" said Stella.

And with that, the team set off, traveling through the woods and the arid frontier. 

"So what's Neksdor like?" asked Stella.

"Well, I won't spoil. You should really just see it yourself!" Cosmosus replied.

Eliza pouted. "Aw, you're no fun." 

"Thank goodness..." sighed Firefly, at the same time.

"Don't worry, it's not too far ahead, but it's getting late already so we'll rest at an inn first." said Cosmosus, before rushing to the inn just nearby where the team went to sleep at.

It was really late at night already, and Eliza couldn't sleep. Getting up, she went down to the counter, maybe to talk with Spirri or something. She didn't really know. When she got to the counter, though, there was a little note written by Spirri saying that they would be out for most of the night. She was about to just go back to her room, until she felt something grab her. "Hey! Let me go!" she yelled.

"I'm afraid I can't do that. I did promise that you and your friends would pay dearly for defeating one of my loyal servants, after all!" a voice said, cackling to itself... wait, hold on... it was the Dark Lord. Eliza responded by yelling at him, and hurling a few insults in the process.

"...and you're a-"

"What is going on here!?" Firefly shouted, bursting into the room. 

"... huh.. what is it..." Cosmosus yawned.

"What does it look-"

"Mwaaa ha ha haaaa! Your friends have came to join us, I see?"  the Dark Lord interrupted.

"Wait hold on, why is the Dark Lord here, of all places!?" asked Cosmosus, finally realizing what was going on.

"I don't know!" said Firefly.

"Alright, go wake up Stella!" 

Firefly quickly rushed off to Stella's room, while Cosmosus drew his sword.

Firefly didn't need to be told twice to wake up Stella. The Dark Lord was here all of a sudden, and there was no time to waste. Firefly quickly got to Stella's room, and found her still sleeping there, though she looked uncomfortable as if she was having a nightmare.

"Stella! Wake up!" she shouted, only to be met with no response. 

"Stella! The Dark Lord is attacking the inn!" At this point, Firefly could hear Cosmosus and the Dark Lord fighting, and it sounded like Cosmosus was losing. Firefly had to hurry.

"Stella!" Firefly yelled, desperately shaking Stella. Firefly could now hear footsteps getting closer, as she continued to try waking up Stella.

Cosmosus couldn't hold off the Dark Lord for much longer. He had used up all the sprinkles just before, so now the only option was to make a run for it and hope Firefly had woken up Stella. Though from the sounds of it, the chances of Stella being awake already didn't look good. But he still dashed to Stella's room, where he saw Firefly yelling Stella's name in an attempt to wake her up. 

"Cosmosus, Stella won't wake up for some reason and-"

"You're still trying to wake her up? You know, she probably won't be awakening in a few hours from that nightmare I made for her."

"Wait, what!?" was the universal reaction of everyone in that moment other than the Dark Lord, who then used that moment to cast some spell on Stella and quickly grab Firefly and Cosmosus. 

"No!" Cosmosus cried out as he, Firefly, and Eliza were taken further and further away from Stella and the inn.

Stella woke up with a start, after that nightmare she just had. But that didn't matter now. She, Eliza, Firefly and Cosmosus would be exploring a new land soon. She exited her room, and went to say hi to her friends.

Wait... where were her friends?

Chapter Text

Stella frantically searched the inn for her friends, hoping she would find them, somewhere, anywhere. She rushed to the counter, hoping that Spirri knew where her friends went.

“Spirri, where are my friends?” asked a panicked Stella.

“So you finally noticed?” they said.

“Yes, what happened to them?”

“I was outside for most of it, but judging from what I heard from your amulet last night, the Dark Lord trapped you in a nightmare for a few hours and kidnapped your teammates.”

“So where are they now? Are they okay!?”

“I... don’t know.”

Oh no. So according to Spirri, the Dark Lord had taken her friends and nobody knew what he could be doing to them or where they even were at the moment. For all she knew, they could be dead already. And even if they weren’t, there was no way Stella would be able to save them all on her own. But at least she still had her powers, Stella thought, before she reached for her frying pan.

It wasn’t there. She then looked down, and saw that she was wearing the same outfit from before Spirri gave her her powers as a Chef.

“Oh, and he also sealed away your Job.”

Great. Now there was definitely no way Stella would be defeating the Dark Lord anytime soon, with no friends or powers. And it wasn’t like she could just return to going on vacation with Ann and pretend nothing had happened. At the thought, Stella started tearing up.

“Stella, are you okay? You’ve been way quieter than usual.”

And Stella ran, way back to Eliza’s room and cried into a pillow, thinking over everything.

She’s said this before, but her friends were the only reason her quest to save Miitopia was at least okay. It was nice spending time with them, and she’s been with Eliza so long before all this. Now they’re gone, it left a sort of emptiness in Stella.

If anything, Stella wanted Eliza back. She wanted Firefly back. She wanted Cosmosus back.

She wanted her teammates back, and there was only one way she was getting them back. Whether she liked it or not, she’d have to go after the Dark Lord, and find them herself. She wasn’t sure how she was going to do that without any powers, but still. She was already starting to miss everyone. Especially her idiot of a sister. So she lifted her head from her pillow, and turned to face Spirri whose head was poking though the door.

“Stella? Have you calmed down already?” Spirri asked, their head poking through the door. Stella nodded. “Okay, good. I was actually going to tell you that I think I have a solution to the whole not-having-a-job thing.” they continued.

“Then what is it?” asked Stella.

“I give you another Job. You ready?”

“Yeah.”

Stella closed her eyes as she was engulfed by light coming from the amulet. When she opened them, she saw herself... wearing the exact same outfit she was wearing just before.

“... You did give me new powers, right?”

“I did! It’s just that I couldn’t come up with a new outfit for you, since the one you were wearing already fit so well with the Job I gave you. And here’s your weapon.” As soon as they said that, a conical flask appeared and floated into Stella’s hands.

“Alright, now you can go forth and save Miitopia once again, Scientist Stella!” said Spirri.

Eliza woke up, finding herself on the floor of... some place. It was a large stone chamber, with a single barred window and door. She quickly got up, and saw that Firefly and Cosmosus were there, too. There was no sign of Stella, though.

“Ugh... where on earth are we?” asked Eliza.

“The last thing I remember was the Dark Lord attacking us...” replied Firefly.

“... I remember now! He dropped us down here! We’ve got to find a way out!” Immediately, Eliza dashed to the barred door and tried opening it. The door didn’t budge. “... and of course the door’s locked.”

Firefly approached the door. “Eh, a locked door won’t be a problem to me.” She pulled out her wand from her pocket. “Alohomora!” she said as she tapped the lock with her wand before trying to open it. It was still locked. “... actually, this locked door might be a problem. Maybe Cosmosus knows something.”

“Cosmosus!” Eliza called.

“What is it... what just happened!?” replied Cosmosus.

“So basically, I’m pretty sure we just got captured by the Dark Lord and now we’re stuck here. Any ideas for an escape plan?”

“I don’t know... do you have any?”

“Hmm... what if we try breaking the door?”

“Okay, why not.”

The two of them ran back to the door, while Firefly was casting a multitude of fire, lightning, and explosive spells on it to no effect. “Firefly! We’ve decided that we’re going to try breaking down the door!” Eliza declared.

“Heh, took you long enough to come up with that.” said Firefly.

Multiple attempts to open the door later, they had to give up. Nothing was working, from simply destroying the door to Firefly trying to teleport outside the room.

“... nothing’s working...” Cosmosus panted.

“Yeah... guess we’ll have to wait for now.” Firefly replied.

“I just hope Stella's doing okay...” Eliza added.

The desert’s heat was starting to get to Stella, and there wasn’t anyone to talk to so she could at least distract herself from thinking about how difficult it was, trekking across Neksdor Desert, especially with all that sand. She tried her best not to think about her missing teammates, she would tear up whenever she thought of them. Thankfully, the sun was already starting to set, giving her an excuse to stay at the inn for the rest of the day.

When she got to the reception, though, there was a short white-haired girl wearing a blue cloak and a mask sitting on the counter. Spirri was there too, of course.

“Spirri, who is she? Is she working here or something?” whispered Stella.

“I don’t know her. She just came in earlier and she’s been sitting here.” Spirri glanced at the girl. “So are you going to get a room here?”

The girl let out a surprised honk. “Yeah, I will!”

“Okay, can you get off of the counter now?”

“Sorry...” the girl got off of the counter. “And I meant to ask, where am I exactly?”

“You’re at the Neksdor Desert.”

“Thank you!”

Stella then went to her usual room, only to run into the masked girl again.

“Oh, hello again!” she said.

“Sorry for entering your room... I’ll just excuse myself now.” Stella apologized.

“No, it’s fine! You can stay awhile!” the girl replied, placing down a tea set.

Stella sat down next to the tea set. “Okay...”

“So, what’s your name?”

“It’s Stella.”

“Cool name! Mine’s Marina. Nice to meet you, Stella!”

“Nice to meet you too! By the way, you got lost, right? Where were you supposed to be going?”

“I wasn’t gonna go anywhere for the rest of the day, until I fell into Neksdor!”

“Fell? From where?”

“Up there.” Marina then pointed at the sky outside the room’s window.

“You fell from the sky!?”

“Yeah... sorry if that sounds ridiculous.”

At this point, nothing sounded too absurd or ridiculous to Stella. If some evil guy who stole faces and a cat spirit that’s also an innkeeper existed, then people falling the sky probably wasn’t a long shot. “Well, it’s not the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen or heard...” was all that Stella said.

“Thanks for believing me. And could I tag along with you? Maybe you could show me around.”

“Sure, but I don’t know this place too well... I’ve never been here before.”

“I’ll still come with you! So even if we get super lost, at least we’ll be super lost together!”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, and what about you, Stella? Are you supposed to be doing something here?"

“I’m supposed to defeat this Dark Lord guy who is stealing people’s faces and putting them on monsters-”

“STEALING PEOPLE’S FACES!?”

“Yes. You heard me correctly.”

“T-that sounds terrifying! And I just got here, too…” Marina then muttered “megabird save me” under her breath.

“It is... it’s fine if you don’t want to travel with me anymore...”

“No, I still want to go with you! I’m not sure what I’ll do if I get attacked by a monster again... and again, stealing faces sounds terrible, and I want to be able to save all of the faces that are stuck on the monsters!”

“Wait, you got attacked by a monster?”

“Yeah! when I fell here, I was attacked by a weird cactus monster and I had to rush to the inn before I went to sit next to that cat spirit to recharge my light.”

“Recharge your light... ?”

“I lost a lot of light when I got attacked and also going to the inn, and I can only get more by being near a light source. And my kind needs light to survive, so...”

“Hold on, Spirri -the ‘cat spirit’- is a light source?”

“Yeah! It was pretty surprising, honestly.”

“Oh, and also, about you traveling with me... we’ll be setting off really early tomorrow morning, okay?”

“Okay! Goodnight, Stella!”

“Goodnight, Marina.”

Stella dreamt she was in the strange place where Spirri teleported her to at the start of her quest again. Spirri must have something to tell me… Stella thought, before she heard a voice from above.

“So you’ve already found a new teammate! Just make sure to keep an eye on her, since she isn’t very experienced, okay? Oh, and also make sure that you two check in with me before you go, since I’ll have to give Marina a Job first. Good luck, you two!” said Spirri.

Chapter Text

Stella jerked awake, after that dream. She was still a bit wary abut dreams, after what happened a few days ago. But nevermind all that. She went to wake up Marina, before they both prepared to set out. But first, they would talk to Spirri.

“So you came here! Before the both of you set out, I’ll have to give Marina a Job first.” they said.

“A job!? Already!?” asked a confused Marina.

“Don’t worry, Spirri means that they’re going to give you cool powers. Spirri just calls them ‘jobs’.” Stella explained.

Alright, here goes nothing!” said Spirri, just before Stella and Marina were engulfed by light. When the light faded, Marina was now wearing a tall hat. “And take this too.” they said, as a staff appeared and started floating in the air.

“No thanks, I already have one of those!” Marina then ran back to the room, and came back with another staff. “Is this okay?” she asked.

“It should suffice. Anyway, you two can go along and continue saving the world now! And once again, I wish the both of you good luck!”

After that, Stella and Marina set out for the desert again. Stella couldn’t say she was looking forward to it, but she still had to save the world. Even if it meant going through an entire desert. And at least she had Marina this time.

“Stella, I nearly forgot something! Here, take this!” Marina took a large white candle from... somewhere and gave it to Stella. “It means I want to be friends with you! You can give it back if you don’t want to, though.”

“No, it’s fine. We can be friends. But... where do I put this?” asked Stella.

“Oh. Um... usually the person receiving the candle stores its light inside their core or something, but... I don’t think you can do that, so maybe you can just put it somewhere?”

“I don’t even know that you mean by a ‘core’, so okay. I’ll put it somewhere.” Stella picked up the amulet and spoke to it. “Hey Spirri, is the satchel you gave me fireproof? Just asking.”

“... yes? It didn’t catch fire right now, did it?” said Spirri.

“Okay, thanks! By the way, it’s not on fire. I was just wondering if I could put a lit candle inside of it.”

“Wait, what?”

Stella put the white candle in her satchel. She wasn’t too worried about it burning her clothes, as her coat was probably fireproof now, if her time as a Chef was any indication. “Okay Marina, shall we get going now?”

“Okay!” Marina replied.

The two of them were chatting while traveling along the path, until Stella spotted Rosemary again. She looked as if she was searching for something with a worried look on her face.

Marina had also lost her hat sometime while walking, and she and Stella couldn’t find it.

“Where did it go... ? This is so odd. I can’t find it anywhere! But it had to be around here...” she muttered.

“Rosemary?” said Stella.

“Stella! So I’ve heard of what you’ve been doing in Greenhorne like saving a whole kingdom, for example.

“Oh... well...” Stella trailed off, wondering whether she should tell Rosemary about her team getting kidnapped.

“I’ve never heard of you. Who are you?” asked Marina.

“I’m Rosemary, a traveling mage who helps out Stella and her friends sometimes.” Rosemary replied.

“And I’m Marina! I fell from the sky!”

“The sky?”

“The sky!”

“Um... I’ll just take your word on that. By the way... you and Stella haven’t seen a lamp around you, have you?”

“Nope. Haven’t seen one.” said Stella.

“Oh, okay... the thing is, I lost a very important lamp! It’s really dangerous too so if you see it, whatever you do, please don’t touch it. Just be careful now, alright?”

“Alright! Bye, Rosemary!” Marina said, as Stella waved goodbye.

And of course, after more walking, Stella and Marina ran into a blonde girl with green eyes standing just ahead of Stella and Marina, complaining about how hot it was. And Stella recognized her. It was Betty, the jerk that’s somehow also super popular who she met in school. And in terms of being a jerk, she was worse than Eliza. Eliza still beat her at being more annoying, though.

Betty finally noticed Stella and Marina standing there, and glared at Stella. Stella returned the glare.

“Oh, it’s you. Now get out of the way, I have a world to save and I don’t have time for you dorks.” said Betty.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m out saving the world too.”

“Really, now? Well, I was chosen by a divine spirit to go save this world. What’s your excuse?”

“You said you were chosen by a divine spirit? Did they say anything about you teaming up with two other people?”

“Are you implying that I should team up with you of all people?”

“Hey, I exist too!” said an offended Marina.

“Shut up, and also, you’re short.”

“I’m aware, a lot of people say that...”

“You’re literally shorter than Stella’s sister. Now where we again? Oh, right.” Betty glanced at Stella. “Why should I team up with you?”

“Because I was also chosen by said spirit?”

“Then what are we supposed to be doing for the whole saving-the-world thing?”

“Easy. We’re supposed to defeat the Dark Lord, who is stealing everyone’s faces.”

“You’re correct. Still not teaming up with you, though.”

“But you just said-”

“And where exactly did I say I’d be teaming up with you if you got that correct?”

“Well, you implied it!”

“I did not!”

“Everyone, stop! I’m getting tired of you arguing, and can’t you two try to get along? Please?” yelled Marina, after a lot of arguing between Stella and Betty that the author skipped over.

“No, she’s a jerk.” said Stella.

“And why would I want to be friends with this loser?” added Betty.

“Um... I--”

“You know what, I’m going to say it, since the both of you yelling at each other is giving me a headache already. All three of you are supposed to team up.” Spirri interrupted.

“Why would you choose to have me team up with her, out of everyone you could have chosen!?” shouted Stella.

“There is no way I’m teaming up with Stella!” yelled Betty.

“Well, at least they’re agreeing on something now.” Spirri remarked.

“... weren’t they already agreeing about not wanting to be friends?” asked Marina.

“... it’s fine, better that they yell at me than they yell at you. Also, I've dealt with worse.”

“Whatever, we’re stuck with each other now, I guess. And also the other girl.” Betty said, after she and Stella finished yelling at Spirri for deciding that they have to team up.

“... let’s just get going already.” Stella replied.

Stella, Marina, and Betty silently continued across the desert, and when Stella thought this couldn’t get any worse, it got worse. She ran into Yerdua, as if running into one jerk wasn’t enough already. He was holding a golden lamp, which was probably the lamp Rosemary mentioned earlier, and a voiced seemed to be coming from it.

“... I am but a humble spirit, guardian of this great desert. I was minding my own business when an evil mage trapped me in this lamp! Would you kindly let me out?”

“Hrm, I don’t know...”

“I’ll grant you any wish you want. Your heart’s desire! All you need to do is rub the lamp.”

Yerdua started rubbing the lamp. “Nearly there...” said the lamp. “Keep going... WOOOOGGHHH!” Blue smoke started coming out from the lamp, which soon cleared up to reveal a large, muscular man wearing a fancy-looking hat and floating on a cloud of blue smoke.

“Wharharharhar! FREE AT LAST!” he yelled.

“Ahem. So about my wish?” said Yerdua.

“What, you believed that? I was totally kidding!”

“That was lying!”

“Lying, kidding... same thing. Anyhoo... it’s been too long. Time to party! Wharharharhar! See ya!” He vanished right after saying that.

“Oh. You.” said Yerdua, after turning around and noticing Stella’s presence. “I-I’m just minding my own business! I wasn’t doing anything wrong!” Yerdua shoved the lamp into Stella’s hands. “Here, keep this. Now leave me be!” Stella was too tired to respond, so she and the team did exactly that.

After a bit of walking, Stella, Marina and Betty arrived at the town. Immediately, Marina rushed to a concerned-looking woman and Stella and Betty ran after her.

“Are you okay? Did something happen?” asked Marina.

“The genie of the lamp attacked us! And he made off with my hard-earned gold!” the woman explained, as Stella and Betty finally caught up with Marina. “You look like battle-hardened warriors.”

“Well, that’s one way to put it...” said Stella.

“Could you my gold back for me, please?”

“Sure!” Marina replied, as Stella nodded.

“And what’s in it for me?” Betty asked.

“I’ll give you some of my gold, if you do, and I have a lot to go around~” the woman replied.

“Okay, sure. I’ll help you out.” Betty said, as Stella and Marina sighed.

“Thanks ever so much! His hideout’s in the underground maze. Just keep an eye out when you leave town. You can’t miss it. Best of luck!”

The three of them then left the village, and thankfully the area just ahead was much cooler and muddier than the desert they’d been traveling through. Somewhere along the way, they spotted a green-haired girl limping past them. Her clothes were in tatters, and two cat ears rested on top of her head. She passed out seconds after. Of course, Marina went to help her before Stella (and possibly Betty) could. “Um... can we bring her back to the inn first? The sun’s already setting.” Marina said. Stella and Betty agreed to this, before Stella went to check her satchel, mostly because she was worried about burning down the inn, and discovered that the candle Marina had given her had gone out. She then followed Betty to the inn.

“... should I even question what is going on?” Spirri muttered to themself as the team entered the reception. As soon as everyone got to a room, Marina put the girl down. After an hour and a few healing spells from Marina, she woke up.

“Where am I, and what are you planning to do with me!?” she hissed.

Chapter Text

“... please calm down, we’re not trying to hurt you...” said Marina.

“Oh, and also we found you unconscious outside, so we decided to take you to a room at the inn.” Betty explained.

The girl narrowed her eyes. “And how can I trust you?”

“If we wanted to hurt you, we would have just attacked you while you were out cold.”

“Point taken. Now, I’m going to leave--”

“It’s already getting dark out.”

“Nevermind. Guess I’ll wait till morning. Anyways, who even are you three?”

“I’m Marina! The one in all pink is Betty. She’s really mean, and the one that’s always wearing a scarf even if it’s hot out is Stella.” Marina replied.

“Hey!” Stella and Betty said in unison.

“What about you?” Marina asked, ignoring Stella and Betty.

“... the name’s Vanessa.” Vanessa responded.

“Oh, and what were you doing here?”

“Let’s just say I was running from a bunch of monsters and leave it at that.”

“Okay...? And me, Stella, and Betty are adventurers on a quest to defeat the Dark Lord, because he’s... well... s-stealing people’s faces and putting them on monsters!”

“Putting them on monsters... ? By any chance, are the faces on monsters what causes them to attack people?”

“Maybe? I don’t think people getting attacked by monsters was a common occurrence before the Dark Lord started stealing everyone’s faces.” said Stella.

“I’ll think about joining you on you quest then. For now, I’ll stay in this room for the night.”

“Join us on this journey? What? Why?”

“... does it matter?”

“... um...”

The next day, Stella, Marina and Betty were about to leave the inn until they were stopped by Vanessa.

“I’ve finally decided. I’m going to join your team.”

“... why?”

“Just accept my help. I’m not going to go into detail about why I’m helping you now.”

“... um... okay... ?”

“Good. Now let’s go.”

As the team of four looked for the underground maze, they ran into Rosemary again.

“Well now... fancy meeting you here!”

“Oh, hi Rosemary. Apparently there’s a genie running amok now, so... guess we’ve got to stop him.”

“So the seal is broken... ? That’s less than ideal.” Rosemary said, before noticing Marina holding the lamp Yerdua gave Stella. “Wait, what’s this lamp I see?”

“You mean this thing?” Marina said.

“Yes, that lamp! I was looking for it sometime before! You can use it to seal away the genie once again! You just have to hold the lamp, and recite the genie’s name over and over.”

“So we have to say his name over and over while holding the lamp?”

“That’s correct. I know you can do it!” And with that, Rosemary left.

“So, can somebody tell me the genie’s name?” Vanessa asked.

“Um… I don’t actually know what his name is.” Stella replied.

“What!? How are we going to seal him away now!?” said Betty.

“I don’t know!”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll think of it when we get there!” Marina said.

“But what if we don’t?” Stella panicked.

“We guess it.”

“… that has to be the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.” Betty responded.

“Do you have any other plans?”

“I don’t know, maybe asking Rosemary about it?”

“I guess that works too… oh, she isn’t here. Back to my plan!”

“… I thought we were trying to stop this Dark Lord guy, not chasing around a genie…” Vanessa muttered to herself.

“Guys, the underground maze is over there!” Stella pointed to the underground maze's entrance.

“We’re all girls here, in case you've forgotten.” said Betty.

“It’s over there? Alright everybody, see ya at the maze!” Marina replied at around the same time as Betty, before running to the cave.

“Hey, wait for us!”

Stella, Marina, Betty, and Vanessa very soon spotted the genie in the underground maze next to a pile of gold.

"What are you lookin' at?"

"I'm looking at you, and I want you to give all that treasure back."

"Pfft, come off it, kid! This whole desert is my turf! What belongs to the townspeople belongs to me! Now run along home!"

"Well, if you won't listen to reason... Marina, give me the lamp." Immediately, Marina handed Betty the lamp.

"Oh, snap! The lamp! H-heh... there's no way you could know how it works..."

"... actually, Marina, you do the--"

"Urk! How did you do that!?"

"Wait, where did I recite the--" Betty was interrupted once more by the lamp suddenly shaking. "Huh, I think I'm onto something here." Betty smirked. "The!" she shouted, much to Stella and Vanessa's confusion.

"Waitwaitwaitwaitwait, HOLD ON!"

"The!"

"I'll give all the treasure back! Every last coin! Please, I'm begging you!"

"The!"

"Lemme go lemme go lemme gooooo!"

"The!"

"Actually let me go, though! Actually let meeee gooooo!"

"Th-"

"Nope!" Stella interrupted, prying the lamp out of Betty's hands.

"What was that for!?"

"I want to listen to what he has to say first."

"Whatever. Just don't say you weren't warned if he doesn't actually give the treasure to the lady."

"I'll take note of that." Stella glanced at The. "... well?" she said.

"Look... I'm... I'm sorry. I'll return all the treasure to the townspeople. Wharhar." The responded, before vanishing along with the treasure. Guess the team could only hope that he'd return it.

Stella, Marina, Betty, and Vanessa returned to the town, only to find that many of its residents were faceless. The was faceless too, though there was a pile of treaure sittting next to him. As soon as they entered, an old man spoke. "You there, travelers! Hear an old man out, will you?" he said, before the team went to listen. "Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse... now the Dark Lord's gone and made short work of us! It was terrifying! Took the townspeople's faces clean off! Ffwap! Makes the genie of the lamp look like a pushover! Never seen a more dastardly evil mastermind in my life! What's the Dark Lord think he's playing at? He even stole poor Lanette's kisser! You can't just do that to people! She had the sweetest smile out of anyone I know! The Dark Lord zipped off to the pyramid to the north. Please... teach him a lesson, would you?"

"Um... okay." replied Stella, who wasn't paying attention to his rambling. 

"Hey, wake up, sleepyhead. We're going already." Betty said to Marina, since she fell asleep sometime while he was speaking.

"Oh, we're going now? Okay!" Marina responded.

"... so where were we supposed to go, again?" Stella asked.

"Oh, that's easy. It's... um... yeah, I don't know." said Betty.

"We're supposed to go to the pyramid to the north of here." Vanessa replied.

"Oh, right. Thanks, Vanessa." Stella said, before that team set off to the pyramid.

Chapter Text

"Faces have been stolen here, too?" Stella said, as she and her teammates looked for the pyramid.

Vanessa raised an eyebrow. "Too?"

Vanessa's response caught her off guard. Stella wasn't planning to burden any one of her teammates with details about what happened in Greenhorne. Stella still didn't want to think about the part where the Dark Lord kidnapped her previous teammates. So she tried to come up with something, anything else to say. "Um..." 

"... it's fine. I get it, you don't need to explain right now. So anyway, what could that Dark Lord want with those faces... ?"

"We'll never find out..."

"Unless we follow him! After that Dark Lord!" said Betty.

"Yeah!" Marina cheered.

"Wooo!"

"Hang on, I already see the pyramid right over there! Let's go, everyone!"

And of course, just as Stella, Marina, Betty , and Vanessa were about to the pyramid, they spotted a large purple snake near the entrance. It had somebody’s face on it, too. 

“Is that one of those monsters you were talking about—“ Marina was about to ask, as Vanessa rolled up her sleeves to reveal two claws and ran at the snake. She scratched at it twice, before the rest of the team caught up with her.

“Hey, at least wait for us!” said Betty as Marina swung her staff at the snake. Meanwhile, a blue holographic window appeared in front of Stella, along with a matching keyboard below it. The window appeared to show some sort of (incredibly limited) code, which Stella immediately decided to mess around with. She deleted some part of the snake’s source code, and and saved her work and that actually seemed to damage it?? What? Okay, this is actually pretty cool, Stella thought as Betty threw a flaming frying pan at the snake. Stella was pretty sure that was not how Betty was supposed to use it, but whatever.

It then called for two smaller snakes, much to Stella’s annoyance.

“Ugh, seriously!? More snakes?” said Betty, who was running to pick up her frying pan.

“Yes, there are three cobras now.” Vanessa replied dryly. “Less complaining, more fighting.” she added, as the larger cobra reared up to attack her. Vanessa noticed and quickly dove out of the way, pouncing on a smaller snake which caused it to disappear. Betty picked up her frying pan, as Stella tried deleting with some more parts of the code shown on the window. As she was about to hit the 'save' button, she stopped when she felt a sharp pain on her leg. She dropped the conical flask she was holding, which broke as soon as it hit the smaller cobra that was biting on her leg. Some of the highly acidic solution from the flask spilled onto the cobra, and it faded away, apart from the face on it which flew away. 

Immediately after, Marina cast a healing spell on Stella. She briefly thanked Marina before getting back to work on messing with parts of the cobra's code. Betty then offered Stella some food that she cooked as well, but as soon as she took a bite she realized it was spicy. Really spicy. It was so spicy, in fact, that she started to breathe out fire at the cobra.

"Betty! Why would you do that in the middle of a fight!?" Stella snapped.

"Well, you're not usually this mad about me or your sister doing something like this. Also, I think it's funny." Betty replied.

"This fight is a life or death thing, so of course it would be worse."

"Well, at least it managed to deal some good damage to the snake."

"... what? It did? But seriously, please don't give me some incredibly spicy food agan..."

"Okay, I will!"

"... you have got to be kidding me."

"Stella? Betty? Marina and I defeated that cobra while you two were busy with each other. Are you ready to go in the pyramid now?" said Vanessa.

"Yeah."

"Absolutely. Let's do this." said Betty.

As soon as the team entered the pyramid, they were greeted by a golem with somebody's eyes almost immediately attempting to punch Stella. Marina quickly dove in front of her, though. There was also another golem, but that wasn't important right now, Stella was more concerned about Marina.

"Marina! Are you okay!?" Stella said.

"Y-yeah... I'll be fine." Marina responded, placing down a tea set. She lit something below the kettle using a red candle, and sat down next to the tea set.

"... what are you doing?" Betty asked.

"If I'm remembering this correctly, this tea set should slowly recharge my light."

"What?"

"My kind needs light to survive, so I'm trying to use the tea set as a light source to replenish some of it."

"... I'm just going to question that later." Betty readied her frying pan as Stella sat next to Marina's tea set before opening the blue window again and got to work on trying to mess up the golems' code while Vanessa scratched at both of the golems. Moments after, Stella saved her work on deleting random parts of a golem's source code before Betty hit it, her frying pan ablaze and the golem punched her in response. Marina quickly cast a healing spell as Vanessa was about to scratch at the golem, but the other moved in front of it and took the hit instead. Stella deleted more of the golem's code, finally defeating it and the pair of eyes on it flew away.

Betty hit the other golem with her frying pan, as Vanessa managed to scratch it another time before she was attacked by the golem. The tea set Marina had placed then disappeared as Marina healed Vanessa. And since the tea set was gone already, Stella and Marina stood up afterwards. Marina ran up to the golem to attack it too. Stella just pulled up the blue window again, since there wasn't really much else she could do without the conical flask she had earlier.

Immediately after, Vanessa scratched the golem, before Betty hit it and the golem crumbled into pieces.

“Finally… it’s over… everyone, can we rest at the inn already? I’m starting to run low on light.” said Marina.

“Didn’t you just recharge your light on your tea set?” Vanessa asked.

“I remembered it wrong… it didn’t recharge a lot of light…”

“… really? But looking outside, the sun is setting, so sure." said Betty.

At the inn, Betty went over the events of the past few days and there were two conversations in particular that stood out.  Specifically, the one when she first met Vanessa and Stella saying something about the Dark Lord stealing faces "here, too". Marina was pretty odd too, with her probably not being human and all, but it wasn't like she was keeping it a secret to begin with. Anyway, there was much, much more to everyone (other than Marina) that what they're letting on right now. And Betty was determined to find out what it was, and reveal it to the world. Okay, maybe not that last part, but she was going to get to the bottom of everyone's secrets, no matter what it took. So first she went over her options.

Trying to figure out more about what happened to Stella before Betty joined the team probably wasn't possible right now, since everyone was fast asleep. Maybe she would just ask Marina about it tomorrow. But anyway, that only left her one option: to find more about Vanessa. It was thankfully easier than she thought it would be. Vanessa was her roommate, so she first tried snooping around their room. And sure enough, Betty found something. It was a small journal, but with a lock going through it in a way that made it impossible to open. 

Of course, this wasn’t going to stop her. She took a hairpin out of her drawer, and picked the lock. Betty opened the journal, and flipped to the latest entry. It also seemed that Vanessa had missed the entries for today, so this one was from yesterday.

Hello Journal or whatever I’m supposed to say,

I got attacked by monsters again. I passed out while running away, and met three other people today called Stella, Marina, and Betty when I woke up at an inn. They say that they’re trying to defeat this "Dark Lord" guy, who is apparently stealing people's faces and putting them on monsters. They think that he's the reason why monsters are attacking people too. I think those monsters those three are the same types of monster that attacked me, considering that those ones had human faces as well. But anyway, I said I might consider helping them on their quest. If this "Dark Lord" really was the reason there were monsters attacking people, then I had to team up with Stella, Marina, and Betty.

And even if what they said wasn't true, that quest they were on sounds dangerous, and I won't let anyone else die to those... things after, well... you know. And I won't let anyone else's faces get stolen either.

And if the Dark Lord was the cause of all this chaos, then I will help to defeat him.

But as Betty was about to flip to the previous entry, she was interrupted by a light from the hallway, somebody was there and Vanessa was tossing and turning in her sleep. Looks like Betty would have to wait, so first she locked Vanessa's journal and put it back in the drawer she found it in. For now, she would just bide her time until nobody was out. Though eventually, after half an hour, Betty called it a night and decided that she'd just have to try again tomorrow.

Chapter Text

“Stella, wake up!” said Marina, loudly honking.

“Oh… it’s time already? Okay.” replied a tired Stella. She was up late last night, looking for a replacement to the conical flask she broke before deciding on using an empty ketchup bottle. She then experimented with some chemicals to see if any could be useful in battle, before going to sleep.

But back to the topic, Stella woke up and started preparing to set out as Marina went to Vanessa and Betty’s room to wake them up, since apparently nobody except for Marina was able to sleep early last night. 

After some time, Stella, Marina, Betty, and Vanessa left the inn and went to explore the pyramid.

"So this is the Great Pyramid..." said Vanessa.

"Yeah, it's really pretty, right?" Marina replied.

"Not really, I've seen better photo spots." said Betty.

"But more importantly, the Dark Lord must be here, right? And also more monsters with the townspeople's faces..." Stella responded.

"Y-yeah..." Marina said.

"Okay, good. Let's get going, everyone. And Marina, it'll be fine, try not to worry about it too much, alright?"

"Okay..."

The team soon ran into a large floating painting, with somebody's face on it which Stella, Marina and Betty could recognize as the face of the dancer near the entrance of the town. The team readied their weapons, before Vanessa scratched at it twice with her claws. Marina was then about to swing her staff at it, until Stella called for her to wait. 

"Hold on, I want to try adding this. I think it might make your attack stronger." said Stella, pouring some of the solution in her ketchup bottle onto Marina’s staff. Marina swung her staff at the painting afterwards, and when her staff made contact with the painting, it caught fire for a few seconds before the flames faded out. While that was happening, Stella was deleting parts of the painting's source code and saved her work and dealing some damage to the painting as well. The painting flew into Vanessa's face.

Betty offered Vanessa some food she cooked. "Here, eat this. It should heal you."

Of course, the food was spicy and Vanessa breathed out fire at the painting for a bit. "... ugh... really, Betty? You're doing this again?" she said once she stopped breathing fire. 

Betty giggled. "Yep~" 

"... we don't have time for this right now, I'll scold you once we get back to the inn." Vanessa said as she scratched at the painting again, and Marina healed her. And as Stella was about to continue deleting the painting's code, she thought that it looked pretty, despite all its damage now. She went to get a closer look, only for it to hit her.

"... what were you doing?" Vanessa asked.

"I don't know, I just wanted to get a closer look at the painting..." responded Stella, who was about to move back and try deleting more of the painting's code again until she was hit by the painting once more and Stella nearly fell down. Betty hit it with her frying pan that she had set ablaze, while Marina healed Stella who then pulled up the blue window and started trying to delete more of the painting’s source code. Meanwhile, Vanessa walked up to the painting and looked at it curiously. Of course, the painting flew at her again.

“I thought you were the one who said to focus on the fight yesterday, now you’re getting distracted?” said Betty.

“I’m sorry, I thought there was something interesting about it if Stella was admiring it… there wasn’t.” Vanessa replied.

“Okay, whatever, just follow your own advice.”

The painting then breathed fire at the team, and before the fire was able to get close to Vanessa, Marina flew in front of her as Vanessa ducked behind Marina. Stella threw her ketchup bottle at the painting as well, since the solution inside it was highly flammable and Betty just tried to block it with her frying pan. 

“Is e-everyone okay!?” said Marina.

“You should probably be worried about yourself too…” Vanessa replied.

“No, I’m fine, really!”

“Well, I can heal myself at least…” said Betty before cooking something for herself.

“Yeah, I-I’ll be fine…” Stella lied, going back to deleting some of the painting’s code.

“No, you won’t. Here, I hope this helps.”Marina said, and healed Stella.

Vanessa then scratched the painting twice, and Stella saved her work, finally defeating the painting as the dancer’s face flew back to the town.

"We... we did it, everyone!" said Marina.

"Yeah, we did... it was pretty difficult this time around, wasn't it?" Vanessa replied.

"Hold on, I'm looking for a ketchup bottle... okay, I see it already, I'm going to go get it. But it was pretty difficult." Stella said, running off to pick up the thankfully not broken ketchup bottle not too far from her and the team.

"So, are we going to continue, or do we go back to the inn?" 

"Maybe we go back to the inn, and then rest?" Marina suggested.

"Sounds good to me."

"Hey, wait for me!" Stella shouted, running back to the team with her ketchup bottle in hand. "Anyways... yeah. I spilled the entire solution I made onto the floor, so I'll need to go back to the inn to make more." she continued.

"So what are we waiting for? Let's go to the inn already!" said Betty.

Marina was decorating her and Stella's room, when Betty entered.

Marina turned to face Betty, and waved her hand at her. 

"Oh, hi Betty!"

"Hey, Marina."

"Do you need anything?"

"Nah, I just wanted to ask something."

"What is it?"

"Before I teamed up with you and Stella, did you notice anything... weird about her? Because, some time ago, she mentioned something about the Dark Lord stealing faces in Neksdor 'too', and that's really odd."

The question caught Marina off guard, considering how sudden this was and Marina was confident that Betty did not care all that much about Stella. "... um... not really..." Marina trailed off, before she remembered the moment she met Stella. "But... she seemed a bit sad when I met her."

"Huh, okay... thanks." Betty responded.

"So, do you want to stay for a while, and maybe have some tea?"

"I'd love to, but I need some beauty rest, and Stella's probably coming here soon. So bye, and good luck with decorating the room.

"Bye, Betty!"

Sure enough, Stella did enter the room minutes later. Marina decided she'd ask her about what events unfolded before they met maybe tomorrow or in a few days, and the two of them went to sleep shortly after.

Finally, it was time to uncover the secrets hiding inside Vanessa’s journal. Betty’s been waiting for this, and now she picked the journal’s lock once again, and flipped to the entry right before the one she read last night.

Hello Journal or whatever I’m supposed to say,

Today… hasn’t been the greatest, and I’m 

“Hi, Betty!” Marina said, as Betty quickly closed Vanessa’s journal and placed it on her lap.

“Oh! Um… hi.” Betty replied.

“What are you reading?”

“Nothing interesting, it’s just some boring cookbook.”

“That sounds really interesting, actually!”

"Not really."

"Aw, okay. But anyway, I figured we could continue our conversation from earlier now?"

"Maybe we could continue tomorrow? Everyone's asleep already."

"Alright," Marina moved closer to Betty, who still had Vanessa's journal. "but I'll just have a peek at this first. Just a page."

"Wait, no-" Betty called out, but it was already too late. Marina had already started flipping through the journal's pages, and Betty tried to pry the journal out of Marina's hands. 

"What are you doing!? It's just a cookbook, why are you... wait... hold on... this is... VANESSA'S SECRET DIARY!?"

"... surprise...?"

And to make matters worse, Vanessa woke up as well. "... huh... my journal? Wait. Betty, hand that over immediately." Vanessa glared at Betty, before taking her journal from Betty. "You. How did you even open my journal?"

"I-"

"Never mind that. I was willing to put up with your previous antics, and now you're-"

"I'm trying to sleep here, what is going on?" Stella asked, entering the room as well.

"Betty was reading my journal."

"I didn't even get to the exciting parts!" Betty complained.

Stella facepalmed, before continuing. Admittedly, she was curious about Vanessa's jornal, now that she mentioned it. "You have a journal?" said Stella.

"Yes, I do!" Vanenessa replied, audibly frustrated.

"Can I read it?"

"No."

"... can you read it out to everyone?"

"No!"

"If I'm too much of a jerk that doesn't deserve to know what your past is, then you should give it to Stella, I'm sure everyone's been wondering what happened before we met you." Betty chimed in. 

"... sure, if you all want it so much... on one condition though. After I read what's in my journal to everyone, Stella has to tell us what she's been through before we joined." Vanessa glanced at Stella. "I'm sure everyone's been wondering what happened before we met you, too, Stella."

Chapter Text

Stella panicked. She wanted to know what’s been going on with Vanessa that made her decide to join the team, but having to tell everyone about her previous team getting kidnapped? Stella really didn’t want to bother everyone with all that. But if they wanted it so much, then maybe, just maybe it would be fine to tell them. 

“So do you still want me to read out some of my journal entries? Or do you want to back out?” asked Vanessa.

“I-it’s fine. I’ll continue with this.” Stella replied.

“Alright, here goes nothing. I’ll start reading now.” Vanessa said, before continuing.

“Hello journal or whatever I’m supposed to say, today… hasn’t been the greatest to say the least and I’m not sure what to do, honestly. It’s just that… well… my village… everyone there… and Vince… they're all gone. But I'm getting ahead of myself, right? ... I'll have to explain a bit more first."

"Now, dear Journal, I was helping out Vince at the shop as usual, until our little shop was overrun by monsters. We fled, only to hear the bell ringing, as Cassie announced that the whole village was under attack. Vince and I continued running, narrowly avoiding some of the monsters' attacks, with some of my hair being sliced off and clothes torn. And I'd never forget what happened this day. We were still running, as I saw the twins Lizzy and Lilac struggling to defend themselves against some monsters."

"But as much as I wanted to go help them, Vince and I had to continue on, and get out of the village. I thought it was simply too risky to stay here for long."

"Yet soon, we were spotted by a group of them, and there was no running away from this. Vince and I could definitely fight off a few monsters, but this many? That was out of the question." Vanessa paused, and teared up. She knew what would happen next, and it wasn't anything good.

"And before I knew it, Vince walked in front of me, and told me to leave and go to the cave we sometimes hung out at, and that he’d meet me there after he dealt with the monsters. Of course, I protested. I knew he'd die on his own. Maybe somehow the two of us could make it out of this village alive. But I ended up running, after receiving a slash across my eye from a monster."

"And so I ran. I ran as far as I could, and I ended up at this cave I'm writing this in. I've been waiting for hours, Vincent hasn't came back, of course he hasn't. It was silly to think that he would. He's probably dead already."

"... I'm such a coward, aren't I? Maybe I could have helped protect the village, maybe Vince wouldn't have to sacrifice himself for me. Why couldn't I have been the one who takes on all the monsters so Vince could get away instead?" Vanessa finally concluded. She was in tears at this point, and Stella realized that Marina had left the room at some point while Vanessa was speaking.

"T-there, I said it. After that, I was attacked by a minotaur, had to run away, passed out, and met you three. I joined you because I thought the Dark Lord might have been responsible for... well... all of that, and I wasn't going to let him get away with all that. Besides... I didn't want to run away and let the same thing happened to Vince and probably most the people in my village happen to you, too."

"... I never asked this, but who's Vince? Sorry if I'm being inconsiderate... you don’t have to answer…" asked Stella. She was probably being inconsiderate.

"Vincent was my brother. If only I wasn't such a coward... or I was stronger, maybe I wouldn't have to do all this alone..." 

"Vanessa. I may not completely understand what you're going through, but you are not a coward, and nobody's death was your fault here." said Betty.

"But why couldn't I have stayed and defeated the monsters back then?"

Marina entered the room right after, though. "... everyone, sorry I was gone, I just went to brew some tea." She said, carrying four cups of tea and a kettle on a tray. She placed the tray in the middle of all of them, and took a cup before continuing. "And Vanessa... no, you couldn’t have! If what I was hearing from you was correct, the both of you would have gotten killed! And also... I'm sorry you had to go through all that. But if you need anything, you have us, okay?"

"... okay."

"And Betty is right. You're not a coward, you willingly went on this incredbily dangerous quest with us, that alone takes a lot of courage, even if it was only for the reasons you mentioned before."

"... thanks, everyone. Wait. Hold on. I willingly went on this journey? Were you three forced to go save the world or something!?"

"Well, Marina wasn't at the very least." Stella responded.

"So you and Betty were forced to!?"

"Yeah, pretty much. That guardian spirit basically just said that I was saving the world anyway after I told them that I was on break." said Betty.

"What!? Why would they!? You could have died trying to save the world! And they decide to force you two to save the world while you're on break..."

"Yeah, it sucks... but I guess that means we'll just have to get it over with quickly."

"I guess so... I hope we'll come out okay."

"... yeah."

“So, Stella, I guess it’s your turn to explain what’s been going on before anyone joined the team. But if what I told you kinda ruined your mood, I guess we can leave it for tomorrow.”

In truth, Stella wasn't sure if she'd be able to explain the story right now. This was all a bit sudden, and... would she really be able to just tell everyone that her team was kidnapped? But whatever, she was going to just deal with that tomorrow instead. "Okay, let's just do that." she replied.

“Okay, good night, everyone.”

The next day, the team set out to explore the pyramid again, until they encountered a floating sword and shield with one townsperson's face each. Vanessa scratched the sword, while Stella started trying to delete the sword's code. The sword then slashed at Vanessa, and Marina... wait where was Marina? Oh no, she could be in danger! Or she could have just gotten lost or something, it could be anything, really. But this was really no time to be focusing on that, so Stella just saved her work and decided not to think about what happened to Marina. Stella already had enough things to think about. And right after she deleted some of the sword's code, Betty was about to hit it with her frying pan, before the shield moved in front of the sword. It took the hit instead, and flew at Vanessa. Vanessa scratched it twice in response, as Stella just continued to delete more of the sword's code and Betty cooked something which was probably spicy. 

"Here, take it, it's not spicy this time." said Betty.

"Okay... ?" Vanessa replied.

And to everyone's surprise it was, in fact, not spicy.

"... thanks." Vanessa said, before the sword quickly flew up to Stella and slashed at her. Stella responded by spraying some of the solution from the ketchup bottle she was holding, and then ran from the sword and tried working on deleting its code after. The shield flew at Stella as well, as Vanessa ran at the sword and scratched at it. Betty set her frying pan ablaze and tried to hit the sword too, but the shield flew in the way once again, also hitting Stella in the process.

"I swear, if this happens for a third time..." Betty muttered, while cooking something again.

"Eat this, you look terrible and you really need it." said Betty as she offered her cooking to Stella. Of course, she ate the food, she just took a few hits and she likely needed the healing right now.

"Huh. It's not spicy. Thanks, Betty." Stella replied.

"It's nothing. We're stuck together with this whole saving-the-world thing, and we'll probably have to support each other on this quest. This is a life-or death thing after, right?"

The shield then flew at Betty, and so did the sword. Immediately after, there was a faint light around a very confused Betty, and she was healed. 

"Sorry I'm late! What did I miss?" Marina said, running to the scene.

"About half of an entire battle." Vanessa responded, scratching the sword twice and finally defeating it.

"Okay, glad to hear that!" Marina said, before Stella deleted some of the shield's code and Betty offered Marina some of her cooking as the shield flew at Vanessa. Marina took off her mask and ate the food... and it was spicy this time. Marina breathed fire at the shield, which diasappeared as the face on on the shield flew off. "Betty, what was that for!? That was really mean you know! And I just got back too..."

"I had to actually heal everyone since you weren't here earlier." Betty replied.

"... really? That's why?"

"Yes."

"Anyways, should we go back to the inn already? Exploring the pyramid did take us a while, and we all got up a little late today..."

"I don't see any reason not to." said Vanessa.

"Alright, let's go!"

Back at the inn, after everyone prepared to sleep, they all gathered at Vanessa's room again. Stella still had to explain what happened in Greenhorne, after all.

"Stella. You are explaining what happened before everyone joined, for real this time, and there is no backing out from this." Vanessa said.

"... okay, here goes nothing." Stella replied.

Chapter Text

“I think it’s a bit obvious, but I’ve been traveling for a long time before all of you joined the team. And I was traveling with some other people too.” said Stella.

“Who were they?” Vanessa asked.

“My sister Eliza, this girl called Firefly, and Cosmosus.”

“Wait, hold on. Eliza was with you before!? Where is she? I need to know right now!” said Betty.

“… I’m going to get to that part.”

”Our travels were going fine, we rescued some townspeople’s faces, and saved a kingdom before we continued on to Neksdor. But just before we arrived there… well… the Dark Lord kidnapped my team and sealed away my previous job. ” Stella continued, holding back tears.

”That’s it. Sorry it’s not that long…” concluded Stella.

”It’s fine, it doesn’t have to be super long!... and are you okay after all that?” asked Marina.

“I’ll be okay, I'm fine, don’t worry. I’m just trying not to think about it too much.”

“But... then why haven’t you told us before?”

Stella teared up a little at this. “Honestly, I still miss everyone... it’s a bit sad without them. They made the journey through Greenhorne at least bearable, and now they’re gone. And I didn’t want to burden you with this stuff, too.”

“Don’t worry, we can listen! You have us now, and hopefully we made your journey here bearable too!”

“At least you might have a chance of getting your teammates back, if that’s any consolation.” Vanessa addded.

“Just a chance. It’s likely that they’ve gotten killed by now or something...” replied Stella.

“Well, you don’t know, right? But… I guess that still doesn’t change anything, does it? I’m not good at giving advice, or comforting anyone, really.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t. But all we an do now is to keep going and hope my old team isn’t dead. They could be, but they could just as easily be okay.”

“… okay… but when we run into the Dark Lord... he is going to pay for taking our friends away from us.”

“So that explains why you looked kinda sad when you and Marina first met. I asked her about it.” said Betty.

“She told you?” asked Stella.

“I did...” Marina responded.

“Anyways… HOW COULD HE!? How could he interrupt me and Eliza’s plans of proving who’s more annoying!? We need to get Eliza back ASAP!” Betty said.

“Yeah! Wait… only Eliza? What about the others!? They’re probably important to Stella too, right?”

“… well… the others are important, too, I guess. Stella, where is Eliza being kept!?”

“I don’t know! That’s the problem!” Stella replied.

”Oh… okay. Guess that means only one thing. Once we find that Dork Lord, we are going to walk up to him and demand that he tells us where Eliza-- I mean, your team is right now!”

”And then what? He’s probably going to say no, and just put a face on a random monster before leaving!”

”... I’ll come up with something about that later.”

Stella then remembered something else that she should probably mention to her current team. "Oh, and I forgot to mention... I was trapped in a nightmare for a few hours when my team was kidnapped, according to Spirri, or the Guardian Spirit, whatever you want to call them. So if the Dark Lord comes to kidnap you three, and if I'm asleep... please don't try to wake me up."

"Huh, okay."

“So, is that all for tonight?” asked Vanessa.

“Yeah.”

“Alright, let’s go get some sleep already. And Stella, you can go talk to any one of us if you want to or if you need anything, okay?”

“... okay, thanks, everyone. Good night.” said Stella.

The next day, Stella, Marina, Betty, and Vanessa continued to explore the pyramid.

"Ugh... I can't find any of the faces anywhere..." said a frustrated Stella.

"Wait, hold on! We still haven't been at the place I got lost at yesterday! I'll take you there, I think that other lady's face might be there!" Marina then held Stella's hand, and led the way as Betty and Vanessa followed after.

And sure enough, the team ran into yet another floating painting, with the face of the lady that the team first talked to.

"Another floating painting? The Dark Lord must be running out of ideas for monsters." Betty remarked.

Vanessa then scratched at the painting, as Marina swung her staff at it and Stella deleted some of its code before the painting flew at Betty, to which she responded by hitting it with her frying pan. Vanessa ran up to scratch the painting, while Stella continued trying to delete the painting's code. Afterwards, Marina went to admire the painting, and got hit by it.

"... again? People are getting distracted?" said Vanessa.

"Hey, you got distracted with the painting too last time we fought one!" replied Betty.

"... the painting was way prettier than the last one though... sorry." Marina apologized.

"It's... wait, Stella, what are you doing!?" Betty said, noticing Stella walk up to the painting in order to get a closer look at it.

"I'm trying to get a closer look at this painting." Stella got hit by the painting twice soon after she said that.

"... didn't you learn anything from the last time we faced a painting with a face on it?" Betty said in an annoyed tone while preparing some food as Stella smiled awkwardly. "But whatever, just take this." Betty gave Stella the food that she had prepared, and when she ate it, it turned out that the food was spicy and she breathed fire onto the painting.

"Trusting you after yesterday was a mistake." said Stella.

Betty smirked. "It definitely was, for you."

Vanessa scratched the painting again, as Stella deleted a bit of the painting's code and poured some solution from her ketchup bottle onto Marina's staff before she swung it at the painting. The painting flew at Marina, followed by its corner striking the ground, causing rocks to appear from the ground and hit everyone. Betty ate some of her cooking, while Marina healed Stella and placed down a lit torch as Vanessa was still scratching at the painting. Stella tried spraying the solution at the painting, burning it a little. Shortly after, the painting flew into Vanessa twice, and Betty hit it before it could get a third attack in as Marina healed Vanessa while Stella deleted some of the painting's code again, defeating it. The painting fell to the ground, and the face on it flew back to the town. 

"Alright, everyone! Are we going to go back to the inn?"

"No, not yet. We still haven't explored all of this pyramid, and I think we might still have a bit of time."

"Alright then, further into the pyramid we go!"

The team soon encountered a large gate with four diamond-shaped holes.

"... any idea what this could be?"

"Well, I think it's a door?"

"We can't get past it though..."

"I guess we should go back to the inn for now, we'll figure it out later."

"Wait, what about the people at the town? We got most of their faces back, can we go talk to them before we figure everything out at the inn?"

"Sure, we can do that too."

Back at the town, Stella, Marina, Betty, and Vanessa split up and went to talk to the residents. Stella went to talk to the fancily-dressed lady who had lost her gold the first time they met. 

"Gosh! I can feel my face again! I'm indebted to you, I truly am. Here's a little token of my appreciation." The lady handed Stella a diamond-shaped jewel. "Oh, and you know what? Take this too. For getting my gold back." she said, shoving a pouch full of gold pieces.

"Oh... wow. That's a lot. Thanks." Stella replied, as she went to meet up with her friends at an inn.

"So, how'd it go? For me, I just got this gem." Vanessa said, taking out a diamond-shaped jewel.

Stella showed her jewel to the team, as well as the pouch full of gold pieces she received. "I... also got a jewel, and a lot of gold."

"Can I keep the jewel? I bet we can sell it for even more money." asked Betty.

"No."

"Aw... guess I'll just sell mine."

"The jewel might be important or something. Also, I think we have enough money already..."

"Wait, everyone got a shiny rock too? What do we even do with these?" Marina asked.

"Sell them for more money, obviously!" replied Betty.

"We aren't selling them, are we even old enough to sell things?" Stella said.

"Then what are we supposed to do with these?"

"... I don't know, but I think the shape is a bit familiar... hm... we saw something similar on that door we saw, if I'm remembering it correctly." Vanessa mused.

"There were a bunch of oddly-shaped holes there, right? I think they were diamond shaped... wait. Maybe the gems have something to do with that door!" said Marina.

"Okay, let's go check, then. Maybe that genie's face is behind there."

"But isn't it getting kinda dark already?"

"Fine, we can wait till tomorrow."

Chapter Text

The next day, Stella, Marina, Betty, and Vanessa arrived at the gate again. Marina glanced at the four diamond shaped holes inside, and looked back at the jewel she was holding.

”Everyone, can you please give me those gems you received yesterday? I want to try putting them in the holes of the big door, I think they would fit.” asked Marina.

As soon as she said that, Betty walked up to the gate and placed her jewel in one of the holes and , as Marina suspected, it did fit. “… guess it does. I’ll just place mine in the door.” she said, doing exactly that before Stella and Vanessa placed theirs in the gate as well. As soon as the two placed the jewels inside the gate, the doors opened, leading to yet another hallway. The team continued onwards, hoping that The’s face would be somewhere around there. After a few minutes of walking and fighting monsters, Marina nervously tugged on her sleeve. Stella thought she had just seen a full face fly away earlier, but she brushed aside the thought and glanced at Marina.

“... Stella?” said Marina.

“What is it?” asked Stella.

“... I’m getting this feeling that the Dark Lord is somewhere near here...”

“Hopefully he isn’t...”

“Either way, this feeling is really freaking me out right now...”

But unfortunately for the team, the Dark Lord was near, and after a bit more walking, he finally appeared. Marina quickly hid behind Stella, and Vanessa started rolling up her sleeves.

“Mwaa ha ha haaaaa!! So we meet again!” said the Dark Lord, his voice echoing through the pyramid.

“... i-is he that “Dark Lord” guy we’re supposed to go defeat?” whispered Betty.

“... he is...” Stella whispered back.

“I thought I’d sealed away your powers...” the Dark Lord continued.

“Can’t we just demand he cut the monologuing, give your team back, and tell him that he’s an emo loser and call him the Dork Lord?” asked Betty.

“Not unless you wanna get your face stolen or something.” Stella responded.

“Won’t it probably get stolen later anyways?”

“I suppose... wait, you’re not planning to interrupt his monologue, are you?”

“You’re a gl-” the Dark Lord was about to say, until Betty interrupted him.

“Hey! Dork Lord! We don’t care about your stupid monologue, just give back Stella’s team right now!” As Betty said that, Stella started panicking. She didn’t want her to pull an Eliza and get her face stolen for this, Stella would probably need everyone if she was going to defeat this guy.

“And if I don’t?”

Betty brandished her frying pan. “Then you’ll have us to deal with!”

“...can’t I just go attack him already? Please? We really don’t need to be exchanging speeches.” said Vanessa.

“Ahaha... how pathetic. You really think you can defeat me. Arise, mask of the ancient king!” A large golden pharaoh mask then appeared, and so did The’s face. “This here fiend is one of my most powerful minions.” The’s face attached itself to the pharaoh mask, and the Dark Lord continued his monologue. Thankfully, he wouldn’t be monologuing for too long after this. “Go! Smack them into next Tuesday!” he said to the pharaoh mask and then vanished.

“Hey, look, I didn’t get my face stolen!” said Betty.

Stella sighed in relief. “… I guess, we’re pretty lucky that didn’t happen.”

”… i-is the Dark Lord gone already?” asked Marina.

”He is, I can’t believe we just let him get away like that though…” grumbled Vanessa. She then scratched at the pharaoh mask, as Stella poured some solution on Betty’s frying pan before starting to work on deleting the mask’s code. Betty hit the pharaoh mask with her frying pan after, followed by Marina swinging her staff at it. The pharaoh mask responded by doing… something. Marina’s hairstyle changed, and her eyes glazed over.

“Marina? You okay?” Betty asked, only to be met with no response. “Hello? Earth to Marina! You can hear me, right?” Betty tried again, she still got no response. 

"I. Am. Pharaoah." said Marina as she knelt before the mask, and then... healed it!? What the!?

“What-no, why is Marina healing that thing!?”

“I know, right!?”

“… umm… maybe there’s some sort of logical explanation?”

”Then what?”

”… maybe the mask-thing brainwashed Marina or something?”

”Sure, let’s just go with that, why not.”

”Well, do you have any other ideas?”

"Nope, but yours is pretty crazy.

”Everyone, I just remembered something. I think I've read some story about this somewhere, I think the pharaoh mask cursed Marina.”

"... Vanessa, what sort of stories are you reading?"

"It was just some myth I read about as a kid, nothing much."

"Well, then how do you un-curse Marina!?"

"I... don't know. If I had to guess, we would have to defeat the pharaoh mask."

"Oh, oka--" Suddenly, the pharaoh mask flew into both Stella and Betty, with Stella taking the worst of the hit. She then saved her work, and deleted part of the pharaoh mask’s code while Vanessa continued to scratch at it and Betty hit the mask again.

Meanwhile, Marina was still standing in the exact same spot she was in earlier and said “I. Am. Pharaoh.”. The rest of the team had no idea Marina meant by that, but before they had time to express their confusion, the pharaoh mask flew into the three. Betty started cooking something immediately after, as Stella reached into her satchel for the sprinkle shaker, only to realize that the sprinkles had melted a little and stuck together. There goes that idea. So instead, Stella tried to mess with her own code, increasing her "HP value", whatever that was and hoped that this would heal her. It worked, and Betty ran up to Stella, to offer her cooking to her.

"Take this... oh, you've already healed yourself. Now what do I do with this?" Betty used her free hand to motion to the frying pan with some food in it.

"Maybe just eat it yourself? Or give it to Vanessa."

"Okay, fine." 

Stella then went back to trying to delete the pharaoh mask's code, while Betty ate her cooking as Marina healed the pharaoh mask, just before the it flew at Vanessa and Stella. Marina was also hit, but Stella and Vanessa took the worst of it. Stella saved her work, before Betty started cooking something again, while yelling at Marina to "snap out of it". Marina did not, and Vanessa pounced on the pharaoh mask and Stella healed herself as Betty offered Vanessa her cooking. The pharaoh mask then flew into Marina, as Betty lit her frying pan ablaze and hit the mask.

Marina’s hairstyle finally reverted to its usual appearance, as the mask was finally defeated and The’s face flew back to the town.

”… everyone, what happened earlier? Did we win?” Marina said as she healed Vanessa.

”… yes…” replied Stella.

”Marina, you owe me a lot. I had to actually heal everyone! Again! Can you imagine—” said Betty.

”Wait, what— why? What happened!? Did I get lost without knowing it!?” Marina interrupted.

“… you got cursed and started healing the pharaoh mask.“ Vanessa answered.

“I WHAT!?”

“… you got cursed.”

“I know that, you said it earlier… but how did that even happen!?”

“I don’t know.”

“… can we just go back to the town already? Please?”

“Okay.”

Back at the town, Stella, Marina, Betty, and Vanessa went to check with The. The team saw The’s face flying back onto his body, after which he looked around, and spotted Stella and her teammates.

“Wharharharhar! The G is back in action! You’re a facesaver!”

“Aw, it was nothing…” Marina responded.

“Says you. You didn’t even do anything.” said Betty.

“Ouch… you’re still mad about that?”

“Fine, I guess I can let that slide… for now.”

“Please excuse those two’s behavior, the whole saving your face thing was no problem.” Vanessa said.

"Wharharhar, it's fine! But seriously though... who steals a face? You just can't trust Dark Lords these days... and in all honesty... I've been thinking about the things I did to everyone. A lot. Now I know how it feels like to lose something important to you. So I've decided, I will steal no more! I'm going to be straight and narrow from now on!" The explained.

"Alright, good luck with that!" Stella replied.

"Yeah, I hope it goes well!" agreed Marina.

"Yes, ma'am! A thousand thank-yous to you all!" said The.

"... i-it's nothing, really..." said Stella before she and the team set off, to wherever the Dark Lord was. 

"Stella, where are we going? I think we've just gone in circles for the past thirty minutes."

"I don't know, how am I supposed to know where to find the Dark Lord?"

"... we can get out of Neksdor?"

"Okay, sure."

The team set off eastwards, away from both Neksdor and Greenhorne and to who-knows where. Though as they traveled, their path was blocked by a pile of large boulders. 

"... um... any ideas on how to get past these rocks?" asked Stella.

"Well, I can probably fly over it, but I'm not so sure about the rest of you. Maybe I could carry you over or something?" replied Marina.

"I'm good, I'll just climb over--" Vanessa was about to reply as The flew over to the team.

"Leave that to me! I'll sort this in a jiffy." The said, before he took a deep breath and blew away the boulders. 

"... I guess that works too."

Stella and her friends continued traveling, and eventually, they spotted the end of this desert in the distance. However, the sun had already started to set, so Stella, Marina, Betty and Vanessa decided to stay at the inn for the night before continuing.

Back at the inn, everyone prepared to sleep, and gathered at a room. 

"So... we've finally made it out of Neksdor!" said Stella.

"We've really gone through a lot together, haven't we?" Vanessa replied.

"Yeah, and we don't even know how dangerous whatever is ahead will be..."

"Don't worry, I'm sure it'll be fine if we've already manged to get this far!" assured Marina.

"And we can take our minds off of this quest with some..." Betty took a dramatic pause.

"Some what?" asked Vanessa.

"Some celebratory clothes shopping!"

"I'm not into clothes shopping." Stella responded.

"Then just stay at the inn or go somewhere else while we do shopping. And besides, what are going to do with all this money we’ve gotten?”

“I was planning to use all that to buy all the books in a series I read once I get back home… but sure.”

“Okay, thanks!”

“So when is the shopping trip?”

“We’re saving it for tomorrow, and then we leave Neksdor.”

“Alright, good night and have fun tomorrow, everyone.” 

“Goodnight!” replied Marina.

And with that, the team returned to their rooms.

A strange, ominous feeling kept Betty awake this night. It was as if something bad was going to happen, but she couldn’t figure out what. Clearly nobody felt the same, so maybe she’d just go take a walk, hopefully that would calm her down. It looked like the Guardian Spirit was out for the night, and as Betty stepped into the reception, a hole was blown into the wall, revealing a faint silhouette. It was large, wearing a cape, and two horns— wait. That was the Dark Lord, wasn’t it?

Betty ran to Marina and Stella’s room, and and prayed that Stella wasn’t stuck in some nightmare like she said she was the last time this happened. 

Vanessa looked around the room, and Betty wasn’t there. Now, Vanessa had just been woken up by an explosion in the night, and so she ran out of her room to look for Betty, she probably caused the explosion.

“Betty, is that you who caused the—“ She said, before she saw the hole in the wall of the reception, and the Dark Lord floating in front of it. Vanessa also saw Betty running to Marina and Stella’s room, before the Dark Lord started monologuing. Vanessa wasn’t interested in talking though, so she responded by pouncing on him in the middle of his monologue and said, “Please, cut the monologuing, we already know what you’re here for.” In truth, Vanessa didn’t actually know, but chances were that the Dark Lord was going to kidnap her, Betty, and Marina, as Stella said some time before.

“… do any of you know to respect a proper monologue!?” said the Dark Lord, before throwing Vanessa into a wall. “… ugh, can people stop interrupting my monologues!?” he muttered under his breath.

“Marina, wake up, we’re going to get kidnapped!! I’m not kidding!” Betty yelled, shaking Marina. Stella was also there, but as she said, she was having a nightmare and was likely trapped in it for a while.

“… what?” asked a confused Marina.

“… um… no time to explain!” Betty replied as she dragged Marina to the reception.

“Wait, where are we going!?”

When they got there, Vanessa was already awake and at the reception, though she was barely standing. The Dark Lord was there too, of course. 

"Hey! Emo loser! If you're going to take my friend, then you'll have to deal with me first!" Betty yelled.

"You again? First, you interrupt my monologue, and now you call me 'emo'!? And interfere with my plans!?" the Dark Lord snapped, as Betty smirked proudly in response and Marina healed Vanessa.

"... thanks." Vanessa then turned around to see Betty facing off against the Dark Lord. To protect her. No. Not again, she wasn't going to have more people taken from her so she could get away! Vanessa couldn't just let this happen! "Betty, I'll fight him. You and Marina get as far away from here was possible."

"We're not abandoning you!" Betty responded, she wasn't going to have Vanessa pull the same stunt as her brother! Sure, it wasn't going to kill her, but why couldn't she see that she's important too!

"... then what do you propose we do?" asked Vanessa.

"I... I-I'll stay back instead and you two run away!" Marina said.

"No. I won't let you." 

"And neither will I, because we're all running away together." Betty declared.

"Wait, what!? That was your plan!?"

"Yeah, it was, now let's go!" Betty ran out of the inn along with Marina and Vanessa.

“For the record, this is a terrible plan.” said Vanessa.

"And just so you know, this is a tactical retreat, and most definitely not me being terrified for our safety."

"... the plan still sucks, the Dark Lord is probably going to follow after us or something. Just let me lead, I know some hidden places around here." This plan was also the textbook definition of cowardice, but at least Betty and Marina bothered to bring Vanessa with them, and Stella probably wouldn't be harmed. Probably. The Dark Lord cast some spell over the inn, and flew after the team of three. He caught up with the team quickly, clawing at them. The team made their way across the desert for a few moments, before the Dark Lord was able to grab Marina. 

“Marina!” cried Vanessa.

“… sorry…” Marina apologized, it wasn’t like she would be able to convince Vanessa to leave her…

“Change of plans: We’re defeating the Dark Lord and getting Marina back.”

“Wait, no— Vanessa, look out!“ Betty called out, but it was too late, the Dark Lord grabbed the both of them.

Stella shot out of the bed, according to Spirri, her friends were getting kidnapped again. Well, if her dream was to be belived anyway. Sure enough, the team wasn't inside the inn, and there seemed to be some commotion outside. Stella immediately rushed out of the inn, and she saw her friends being taken further and further away from her. She tried pulling up the blue window, nothing came up. The Dark Lord must have sealed away her powers already. Stella probably wasn't going to save her friends like this, but she ran after them anyway. And unsurprisingly, it was of no use. The Dark Lord and Stella's team had disappeared from her sight, and Stella fell to the ground in defeat.

"... no... not again... my friends..." she muttered, tears flowing down her cheeks.

"... so, I've heard your team got kidnapped and your Job got sealed away! Again. ... wait, Stella, are you okay? Should I save the giving you a new Job thing for later?" asked a voice coming from behind Stella. Turning to face it, she saw the Guardian Spirit behind her. Where were they earlier? And how did they get here so quickly? 

"... leave me alone right now." Stella was in no mood to talk to anyone, she didn't want to be seen crying in front of them like this! She'd go back to her room at the inn first, maybe she'd calm down.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Stella barely managed to get herself out of bed. She barely slept last night, she couldn’t stop thinking about her teams. She still wanted them back, but if the Dark Lord was going to keep taking them away from her, what was the point? She’d have a somewhat decent time, get closer to her team, and then they get taken. So did her powers. But she didn’t other choice to keep going, she supposed. It’s not like she could just go home, no matter how much she wanted. No choice but to act as the hero Miitopia probably needed, she supposed. So she finally went to the reception to talk to Spirri.

“… you can give me new powers now.” she said.

“That really took you a while, it’s about time I did.” they replied.

“It’s been one night.”

“Sure, sure. Whatever you say. Anyway, here’s the new Job, good luck with your journey!” Stella was then engulfed by light from her amulet. When it faded, she saw herself wearing a ridiculously oversized wizard hat, and some robes.

“… okay, thanks.” said Stella before she set off for whatever that was ahead.

Eliza was bored. She and her friends had tried every single way to escape this dungeon, nothing worked. There really wasn’t much to do, well other than annoying Cosmosus and—

Suddenly, the door swung open, and three other people were thrown in the dungeon as the door locked behind them. The short white-haired one with a light blue cloak got up first. “… huh? What’s going on? Wait. Hold on.” She seemed to realize something, before running to the green catgirl and clutching her sleeve in fear. “Vanessa! What happened!? I-is the Dark Lord gone now!?”

“Yes… wait, where are we!? Where did the Dark Lord take us!?” Vanessa replied.

“He took us here, do you really need to ask? Chances are we got captured and thrown in here.” said the blonde girl— wait, that was Betty, wasn’t it!? What was she doing here!?

“Oh. Then… I’ve failed, haven’t I? Failed to avenge Vincent, failed to protect you and Marina.”

“Hey, it’s not over… yet, at least. We’ll find a way to break out of here, okay? And at least Marina and I aren’t dead!”

“I suppose… we can talk about this later, there are others here.”

“Betty!? What are you doing here!?” said Eliza.

“What do you think?” Betty responded.

“You were traveling with Stella and got kidnapped?”

“Yep.”

“Anyways, this is-“

“It’s fine, you don’t need to introduce your friends, Stella told us already. The redhead is Cosmosus and the other guy is Firefly, right?”

“Sure, let’s just go with that. I’m totally Cosmosus and not Firefly.” Firefly said in a sarcastic tone.

“… oops.”

“So anyway, I know that the green catgirl is Vanessa, but who’s the short girl with a blue cloak? Were you teamed up with the both of them?” asked Eliza.

”Yeah, we were in a team together.”

“Oh… I’m Marina, nice to meet you… are you Eliza? You have the same eyes as Stella, and you’re short. Betty said you were short.” the white-haired girl said.

“It’s not like you’re any taller, but that’s me! And you probably already know who everyone else is, right?” replied Eliza.

“Yeah!” Marina and Eliza went to talk to the rest of Stella’s previous team after.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go find a way out of here.” Betty then walked up to the door and took out one of her hairpins and tried picking the lock with it. It didn’t work.

“… may I have a go?” asked Vanessa.

“Sure, why not. Betty replied. Vanessa started violently scratching at the door, though when the attack ceased, the door wasn’t even damaged. “... what will it take for this stupid door to be sliced into pieces!?” she panted.

“Um... maybe we should take a break first?”

“No. We have to get out of this place.”

“We don’t have to do it right now--”

“Marina, get over here!”

“Oh, it looks like I’ll have to leave for a bit, my team’s calling me!” said Marina, who was talking to Stella’s previous team before running to Betty and Vanessa.

“Marina, we need you to find some way to get us out of here.”

“... hm... i dunno.”

“What do you mean!?”

“W-what do you expect me to do to this door!? I’m not even strong like you and Betty!”

“I don’t know, just anything! Please. I need to get out, and Stella’s probably worried sick about all of us.”

“... sorry... but maybe I can try something else? It’ll probably take a lot of time though, if it even works.”

“And we’ll have a go at breaking out of here again, Stella is probably worried about us, despite you totally overreacting about this.”

“Overreacting? Overreacting!?”

“I-- uh--”

“... but thank you for the help nonetheless.”

“... I am so sorry about Vanessa, she’s a really nice person, I swear! She’s just... desperate to get out right now, I think it’s because she doesn’t want herself to think she’s failed to protect us. I’ll explain it later.”

Stella trekked through the land ahead, at least it was better than going through the desert. It was relatively cool, and there were giant blades of grass with dewdrops hanging from them all over the place. Giant tomatoes and leaves were also littered all around too, and Stella soon ran into Rosemary, who seemed to be thinking about something. Absolutely great. Stella was in no mood to talk to her right now, Stella didn’t want to be seen crying in front of her!

“Hello, friend!” she said.

“Oh! Um… hi, Rosemary.” Stelka replied.

“So I’ve heard you’ve been keeping yourself busy,. You even showed The theerror of his ways! Wow… that last point was kind of confusing out loud. But anyway, you’ve done a great job!”

“Haha… yeah.” At least this conversation was going better than Stella expected it to.

“By the way… how’s your quest going?”

“I… um…” It seems Stella spoke too soon, how was she going to explain all this to Rosemary! She didn’t even need to know her friends have been getting kidnapped! “… it’s going well!”

“Thank goodness, can you fill me in on what’s happened so far?”

“Well, it’s a long story…”

“It’s fine, I like long stories!”

“It’s super long though.”

“No worries, I can listen!”

Stella just stood there awkwardly and holding her wand, trying to find some way to avoid telling Rosemary about what happened to her friends. It would probably at least strike her as odd that her team wasn’t here anymore, if only there was some way to disappear from the conversation—

Suddenly, Stella found herself somewhere else further along the path, away from Rosemary. That was certainly strange, but at least she wouldn’t be telling Rosemary about her team. Stella continued on, and she soon encountered four floating… puff-things. She cast a fire spell, taking out the first one, before dodging two of them and getting hit by the other. She cast another spell, defeating another one, and before the other two could move something hit them from behind, defeating the two puff-things and revealing a bespectacled, pink-haired girl holding a dagger behind them.

“… oh… are you okay?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“Yeah.”

“okay… um… my name’s akira. i’m apparently supposed to defeat... some ‘dark lord’ person… why did i choose to travel the world now of all times?”

“So a Guardian Spirit forced you to save the world too?”

“… yeah…”

“Then I guess we’re probably going to have to team up. And my name’s Stella, by the way.” As much as Stella didn’t want to team up with anyone out of fear they’d get kidnapped again, she’d have to.

“… okay…”

Stellaand Akira then set off to… somewhere, just the same way Stella was going earlier.

“… do you know where we’re going?”

“No, have any leads on where to go?”

“not really…”

And with that, the two continued in silence, before the sun started setting and the team went to an inn to rest for the night. There was a village further ahead, they’d go there tomorrow.

The next day, as Stella and Akira were about to leave the inn, the door opened, anda brown-haired boy walked in.

“Stella! Sorry I’m a day late, I won’t disappoint you, I promise!” he said.

“um… so you’re teaming up with us? Who even are you?”

“Oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Solanim T. Buckfutter, I’m sure Cosmosus mentioned me at least once.”

Chapter Text

Absolutely great. Someone's here. Another teammate, just another person going to get taken. And Cosmosus was so concerned about his safety the time she’d heard of Solanim-

Wait, didn't Cosmosus say Solanim's face was stolen??

“… hold on… you’re that Solanim!? I thought Cosmosus said you were faceless.” said Stella.

“Oh yeah, that happened, I got it back so it’s all good now!” he replied.

”Well, are you sure you want to join us on this incredibly dangerous quest? You should really just go home, you know...”

”I'm not going home! I need to get Cosmo back and I’ve heard he’s been kidnapped by the Dark Lord, so let me help you defeat him!” Wait, how did he know about what happened to Stella’s previous teams!?

”… how did you know about all that?”

”I found a diary in one of the rooms of this inn, said something about a Stella and how she said Cosmo and some other people were kidnapped.”

Solanim read Vanessa’s journal too!? Stella thought Vanessa brought it with her! ”Oh. Okay. Do you still have it, by any chance?”

”Yeah! Is it yours?”

”No, but I’d like to hold on to it for safekeeping.”

”Okay!” Solanim handed Stella Vanessa’s journal.

Stella was surprised how quickly he agreed to giving her the journal, at least Akira and the other party member that will show up eventually wouldn’t know. They didn’t need to.

“wait… um… am i missing something here? who’s cosmo?” asked Akira.

“Right, so you’re traveling with Stella right now? Basically, all you need to know is that I’m friends with Cosmosus, who was traveling with Stella before… y'know.” Solanim explained.

“oh… okay. i’m akira.”

“Okay Akira, nice to meet you, now let’s get going!”

And with that, Stella, Akira, and Solanim set off for the village just ahead. Though just before they stepped through the gate to the town, the current team spotted an injured… person lying on the ground. He had pointy ears, and wore a hat. Akira knelt down next to him with a worried look on her face.

“Ugh… it’s terrible! The D-Dark Lord… he’s headed for the Retreat… but at least… we have our champions to protect us… Lady Adora…”he gasped, before closing his eyes and Akira started panicking. Oh no. Was he dead!? Thankfully, he wasn’t, as Stella’s current team heard the sound of him snoring.

A very relieved Stella and her current teammates walked past, and into the retreat.

“… i-i can’t believe it… a whole village of elves… i thought they were just fairy tales…” said Akira.

“I know, right!?” Solanim replied.

Stella, Akira, and Solanim then continued through the retreat and encountered a short, winged elf panicking about something.

“Cheese and crackers! Somebody, anybody! This is awful!”

“What’s wrong? Can we help you with whatever is going on?”

the elf spoke incredibly quickly, the only words Stella could understand were, “The D-D-D-Dark Lord! My sisters! Attacked! Taken! Gone! Words failing!” she continued on about it, not a single word Stella could understand after that.

“… what is she saying?” asked Stella.

“I don’t know.” replied Solanim.

“wait. i can explain!” Akira said.

“Then go ahead.” said Stella.

“… basically, the dark lord attacked the retreat, she and her sisters faced off against him, after the battle he fled by the east gate… but when the sisters’ guards were lowered, monsters came and took her sisters.”

“Whew, feeling a bit calmer now. Hey, you. Help me get my sister Mimi back.” the winged elf girl concluded her rant.

“Sure thing, you can count on us!” Solanim replied.

“The right answer. Now let’s get going!”

“… so… um… what’s your name?”

“The name’s Peridot. Now no more talking, we’re off to the Citrus Cave now.”

“And we’re here! Mimi, my sister is here somewhere.” Peridot said after what must have been an hour of walking.

”How do you know that she’s here?” asked Stella.

”Meh, just a feeling.”

“... oh, okay. I hope you’re right that Mimi’s here...”

Meanwhile, Solanim and Akira looked around and admired the scenery.

“So this is Citrus Cave! It smells so sweet! Oh, and what’s this orange liquid here?” asked Solanim.

“… um… it’s orange juice… probably….” replied Akira.

”Oh, okay! I’ll try some!”

”… wait no, you can’t just drink weird orange juice from the floor of some random cave!”

”Well, you know what they say, you only live once!”

”… stella, help, please tell solanim to not drink the orange juice here…”

”Okay— actually, I think it might be a bit late for that.“ Stella replied.

”Hey Akira, the orange juice is safe! It tastes great too!” Solanim said, though Stella was pretty sure she only saw a floating sword.

”… um… where are you?” asked Akira.

”I’m here! Do you see me?”

”… no…”

“Huh? But I just went right in front of you!”

”What!?”

“Haha, calm down you two, it just seems like this ‘Solanim’ tried the orange juice here. He’ll be fine, he’s just going to be invisible for a short while.”

”I’m invisible now!? Cool!”

”Yeah, it’s great, right? The orange juice itself tastes good, and the invisibility makes pranking my sisters easier!”

”Yeah! Wait, what was that last part again?”

Not long after, Stella’s current team was nearing the end of the cave. They soon spotted a faceless elf, with orange hair and wings like Peridot’s.

“Mimi!” Peridot called out.

Mimi’s face then flew right next to her as a giant spider appeared next to it. Mimi’s face attached itself to the spider, and Stella and Peridot readied their weapons. Stella wasn’t too sure what Solanim was doing at the moment, he was still invisible.

”… um… w-we have to fight that thing!?” said Akira.

”Yes, if you want my sister’s face back!” Peridot replied as she shot an arrow at the spider, causing it to start dancing for some reason, followed by Stella waving her wand around and casting a fire spell on the spider. Akira then ran at the spider slashing at it and something else, though it was probably just Solanim, slashed at it after. The spider stopped dancing, and Stella tried casting a lightning spell at it before Peridot shot it again. Akira ran at the spider again, this time tripping on something and falling over. “Akira! Are you okay? I’m so sorry!” said Solanim, extending his hand towards Akira, forgetting he's invisible.

“… yes, it’s fine…” Akira responded as she got up and the spider slashed at Solanim. Akira backed away. “S-solanim?”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m fine, if that’s what you’re worried about!”

“… it doesn’t sound like it… but okay…”

The spider then spit smaller spiders at Akira, much to her horror. She immediately started brushing them off, as Solanim leapt at the spider with his sword and Stella cast a spell to temporarily enlarge the sword. The attack missed, but Peridot was able to shoot the spider again. The spider slashed at Stella twice, though Stella dodged one hit, before Stella responded with another fire spell and Akira, who finally finished brushing off the spiders, swung her dagger at it from behind. Peridot shot at the spider, finishing it off as Mimi’s face flew back to her body.

“Heavens! Oh, that was getting intolerable! Fair adventurers… I must save my sister Adora. Would you please help?” asked Mimi.

“Sure thing!” said Solanim.

“Then I hope you don’t mind another companion! Peridot, you go and protect the Retreat.”

”Yes, ma’am!” Peridot turned to face Stella. “You look after my sisters now!”

“Adora should be in Bigg Forest… maybe. Off we go!”

Chapter Text

“solanim… um… can you tell me a bit more about that journal you found… please? … sorry if i’m being rude…” asked Akira at the inn, the team was going to rest for the night first. She thought she would ask Solanim about the journal, how did the author know about Stella’s team? And where was the author, if it wasn’t Stella or Solanim!?

“It’s fine, I can tell you some of it!” Solanim replied.

“… thanks…”

“So basically, the author passed out, woke up in an inn, met with Stella and some people called Marina and Betty. The author teamed up with them to defeat the Dark Lord, then in a later entry, said that Stella told them that Stella had another team before they, Marina and Betty joined and that other team had gotten kidnapped. And Cosmosus and some other people were in the first team, but you know that already. There are a few other entries after that, but they’re not that important. Also, they just stop at a certain point, I think the author left the journal here by accident.”

So Stella had two other teams before this? If so, where was the second one? “… okay… thanks...” Akira replied, she wanted to ask more, but chances were that Solanim didn’t know any more than she did.

“No problem!”

Akira then went to the reception, if the cat was the innkeeper, then maybe they knew something about the author, Marina, and Betty.

“… sorry to disturb you… but do you know anything about these two people called marina and betty?” asked Akira.

“It’s fine! I think I remember them staying at this inn for a while with Stella.” the cat replied.

“… okay, thanks…” The cat didn’t really tell her much, but it was fine.

And with that, Akira ran back to her and Solanim’s room. So now she knew that Stella had two teams before, one which has been confirmed to have gotten kidnapped, and the other missing. The missing team had stayed at this inn for a while with Stella, before disappearing. And the other team had stayed with Stella up until Stella entered Neksdor, they got kidnapped just before that happened. So Stella’s second team might have been taken as well, it wasn’t clear though. She’d still need more information.

“Hey Akira, you okay?”

“… yeah…”

“You kinda spaced out a little.”

“oh.”

“So anyways, goodnight, I’m gonna sleep now.”

The next morning, as Stella and her current team were about to set off for the Bigg Forest, another… person, or whatever they were showed up at the door.

“[I apologize for my tardiness. I do not have much knowledge of this area.]” they said. “[I am A1, and I have been sent to assist you with defeating a ‘Dark Lord’.]”

“Oh… I suppose I can’t just tell you to go home, can I?”

“[Unfortunately, you cannot.]”

“Anyways, I’n Stella.”

“Welcome to the team, A1! I’m Solanim, and this is Akira. We’re traveling with Mimi too!”

“Hello there!”

“[It is a pleasure to meet you. Now I suppose you had somewhere to be going earlier?]”

“Oh yeah, we’re exploring the Bigg Forest to look for Mimi’s sister’s face. Now let’s get going!”

Stella, Akira, Solanim, A1 and Mimi traveled through the forest, searching for Adora’s face as Mimi asked Stella something.

“You four are chasing after the Dark Lord, right?”

“Yeah, we are.”

“You’re so brave… I’ll have to learn how to be brave too.”

“… I wonder where he is though…”

“I say he’s in his castle… it’s on top of the volcano far in the east.”

”Volcano?”

“It’s a very scary place… but you’re going there anyway, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“The gates in the east are sealed by powerful magic, though. But… I’ll remove the magic if you’re going after the Dark Lord.”

”Oh! Thank you.”

”But first we’ll have to help my sisters. We’ll need all three of us to remove the magic.”

”Oh, okay. Let’s do it, then.”

“Okay!”

Soon after, Stella’s current team encountered a giant owl, with Adora’s face on it and a faceless Adora stood next to it. Stella cast a lightning spell on it, as Akira quickly ran at it before slashing at it with her daggers. Mimi shot it, A1 followed soon after. The owl turned its head around and did… something, followed by it scratching at Solanim, who was not focusing on the fight at all, with its beak. Solanim, who was still not focusing, slashed at it. “Hm… I wonder what’s for dinner…” he wondered.

“… solanim… ?” said a confused Akira, to no response from Solanim. After a second, she set up a trap as Stella cast a fire spell on the owl. A1 and Mimi shot at it again, before it caused Akira to lose focus, and did the same magic-thing to Stella. Suddenly, Stella’s mind started to drift off topic, like when the next update of a webcomic she was reading, called Before the Story, would come out. It had a pretty slow update schedule, after all-

No, wait, she should concentrate on what’s actually important here. Akira swung her dagger at the owl, Stella cast another fire spell, and Mimi shot at the owl. “[Please focus on the task at hand, everyone. And why are you all daydreaming out loud?]” asked A1, as they shot the owl. But everyone was daydreaming out loud? Stella didn’t even notice!

[“We were?” asked Stella, one of the daydreamers.]

[“[Yes.]” confirmed A1, as Solanim slashed at the large brown owl, to which it responded by scratching him with its beak, and then scratching A1. It quickly backed away to a more comfortable position for it to shoot at the owl as it tried to cause A1 to start daydreaming out loud. It then did exactly that, and Akira slashed at the owl, and it disappeared as Adora’s face flew off and attached itself back to Adora’s body as Stella, Akira and Solanim seemed to have finished daydreaming too as well.]

Stella finally got herself to focus, though the owl had been already defeated by then and Adora now stood in front of her.

Adora turned to face Mimi. “I wondered what was going to become of me, haha!” Adora giggled.

“Sister…” Mimi whispered something to Adora, nobody could make out what she was saying.

“Oh, that’s right. You want to head east after the Dark Lord?”

“Yes.”

“Haha, very well! Then I’ll wait for you at the Retreat’s east gate.” She started walking back to the Retreat. “This way, Mimi.”

“Hold on!” Mimi turned to Stella. “Erm… thank you for helping us!”

“No problem.”

“At last, darling!” Adora turned to face the other Fab Fairies. “Ready, girls?”

“Okay!”

“You got it!”

The three of them started dancing together in front of the gate, their skills were impressive, though Stella had no idea how dancing would make a door open. But they did and—

“Mwaa ha ha haaaa!” the Dark Lord cackled evilly.

Chapter Text

“Thanks for opening the door, ladies! You’ve been a great help. FOOLS!”

“Meep!”

The Dark Lord then cackled evilly as Peridot’s face flew off of her body. “Let’s see you try that wimpy fairy magic now! And now it’s time… to pay a visit to all your little elf friends! Mwaa ha ha haaaaa!” And with that, he vanished.

“Poor, sweet Peridot!” Mimi sobbed.

“You’re not exactly catching us at our very best… we’ll have to take her home.” said Adora before the three Fab Fairies left.

Looks like Stella would have more faces to save. Again. Stella, A1, Solanim, and— wait, where’s Akira? Stella’s current team rushed back to the retreat, maybe the team could still stop the Dark Lord and maybe find Akira. When the team got to the retreat, though, Akira was already there, staring in horror at the faceless elves.

”… oh… hi…” she said, her voice softer than usual.

”Akira! Where were you!?”

”i hid back here… sorry…”

”What happened? Are you okay?”

”i’m fine… it’s just that i saw the dark lord... he stole those poor people’s faces and flew off...”

“But don’t worry about that, darling, it’s my duty as the eldest to clean up this mess. Are you with me, sweeties?”

The team all agreed to help out Adora. “I knew you wouldn’t let us down!” she said, before turning to face Mimi. “Mimi, you look after the others.”

“Understood!”

“Right, then. Let’s be off.”

Stella, Akira, Solanim, A1, and Adora went to rest at an inn first, they had fought a spider a few hours ago and there were no healers on this team. Stella sat down alone in one of the rooms and started reading a magic grimoire that Spirri had given her when her current team got to the reception, maybe she could some spells that can dispel magic or something. But soon, her reading was interrupted by Solanim barging into the room.

“Hi Stella!”

“What?”

“Wanna hang out?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, you just seemed a bit distant, I wanted to spend time with you! Because if we’re saving the world together, we really have to get to know each other better! Maybe—”

“I-I’ll be fine alone, thank you very much.” Stella was not spending time with Solanim, nor any of her current teammates, not if they’re just going to be taken away from her again. Stella wasn’t going to let herself get hurt again, either.

”Oh, alright, I hope you enjoy that book you were reading! Bye!”

Stella then teleported just outside of the inn, before finding a giant blade of grass to lean against as she held back tears. Why was she even remembering her previous teammates right now!? Why was she crying!?

But, that was why she couldn’t get too attached to this team, no matter how much it may disappoint them.

Stella decided to pick up where she left off reading her grimoire, she was reading a section on protection spells.

“… so… um… you’re a robot, right?”

“[Yes.]”

“do you have laser eyes? can you manipulate electricity? sorry if i’m asking too much… i’m a bit curious.”

“[As impressive as that would have been, I do not. I was originally made with the purpose of having conversations with people, before I received a task to save Miitopia, so it simply would not have been practical.]”

“oh… okay, thanks for telling me. so… um… wanna talk about anything?”

“[Not really, unless you have something to say.]”

“alright, bye a1, see you next morning.”

“[Goodbye, Akira.]”

Akira had looked through the door of Stella’s room, nobody was there after Solanim left. Akira was still wondering about the missing team, this would be the perfect time to snoop around in Stella’s room. She probably kept the journal there, Akira could get some information from it. So she snuck into Stella’s room, found the green journal in her drawer. There was a lock on the journal, though the journal appeared to not actually be locked.

Akira hesitated a bit though, what if Stella came into her room and saw the journal gone? How would Akira explain that? And Stella would be furious!

But… this might just be the best chance Akira had to get more information about the missing team. Stella might learn that Akira stole the journal here, but the chances of that happening are less than if she tried stealing it later. So as risky as this probably was, Akira took the journal and started flipping through its pages. Most of the entries didn’t have any clues at where the previous team ended up, though.

However, the very last entry before the missing team got to the Realm of the Fey, it suddenly cut off. There was a short note that the author would come back to write more later since there was a commotion outside, but there was nothing after that. The entry mentioning Cosmosus getting kidnapped was there too, Stella said that the missing team might get kidnapped as well in the entry.

As Akira finished reading the last entry, she placed the journal back into the drawer before leaving and hoping Stella didn’t notice.

The next morning, Stella’s current team set out to look for the elves’ faces. They searched the Bigg Forest, there was a part of it that the team had ignored before.

"So the Dark Lord was waiting for us." Adora mused.

"... who could have guessed?" said Stella.

Adora looked away. "We really can't let our guard down. Do you think I'll be kicked out of the Fab Fairies?"

"Of course not, there wasn't a way we could have known."

"... ah, I suppose..." Adora glanced at Stella. "thank you, sweetie."

Stella’s current team soon ran into a silver slime after that.

Another slime? Really? First, it was that yellow slime, the small slimes she fought in Greenhorne, and now this one. Betty was right, the Dark Lord really was running out of ideas for monsters.

Wait, why was she remembering her previous teams again? But back to the scene, Stella cast one of the protection spells she read about on herself. It seemed to work, considering that nothing disastrous had happened yet. As she cast the spell, Adora shot an arrow at the slime. Akira seemed to have disappeared entirely, with her nowhere to be seen. The slime then charged at Stella twice, Solanim slashed at it before it could get another hit in. Thankfully, the protection spell did block some of the damage, at least it actually worked. A1and Adora then shot at the slime, and Akira reappeared and attacked it from behind before Stella cast a fire spell on it. The slime attacked Akira and Solanim, and Akira was frantically slashing at it as A1 shot at seemingly random places, damaging the slime and also Stella in the process.

“[My apologies, Stella.]” A1 said, to no response from Stella, who cast another fire spell on the slime as Adora shot at it and the slime suddenly lunged at A1. They immediately shot it, finally causing it to disappear and the face on it flew off.

“Excellent job, everyone!” she said before she played some music and healed the team. “Now let’s get back to the village, shall we?”

Stella’s current team and Adora got to the retreat and after talking to the elf, she gave them a jewel, maybe it would be used on some door later on. The team went to the inn to rest for the night before going off to save more faces, though.

Akira pondered over the meaning of all clues she gathered, chances were that whatever happened to the missing team before they entered the Realm of the Fey was that they had gotten kidnapped by the Dark Lord, just like the other team, it was more obvious now. And if that was the case… well… she, Solanim and Akira were going to have the same happen to them, weren’t they?

Chapter Text

No, that couldn’t be true! Akira wouldn’t be getting kidnapped by the end of this! But… that kinda made sense. Stella was a bit… reluctant to let Solanim and A1 join the team, the kidnappings could easily be the reason. The three were definitely being taken just before they entered whatever the next region is. Or not, maybe they could break the formula or Akira was just jumping to conclusions, but Akira couldn’t get her hopes up. What was I signed up for… ? , Akira thought to herself, but she supposed that she had no choice but to go on with doomed journey, it wasn’t like she had any choice for even joining to begin with.

The next morning, Stella, Akira, Solanim, A1, and Adora set out to find the rest of the elves’ faces.

"... so, the Dark Lord is in his castle?" said Stella.

"That's right. The one up on the volcano." replied Adora.

"And it's off to the east?"

"Mimi must have told you, right? But we can't go now, I'm afraid."

"Because we have to get everyone's faces back?"

"Well, that, and the fact that the road there is hidden by magic. And we wouldn't want to get lost, would we?"

"I suppose--"

“Huh!? Giant tomatoes!?” Solanim said.

"What?" Stella glanced where Solanim was pointing to and, sure enough, there was a stack of three giant tomatoes each with a face on them. "Oh."

“Is this your first time seeing these? Giant tomatoes are quite common here! They’re not usually aggressive, though. I believe it might have something to do with those faces on them.” Adora informed the team.

“[But by all accounts, having naturally growing tomatoes of this size should be impossible outside of Peculia, at least.]” said A1.

“It’s a normal Realm of the Fey thing, are you new here too?”

“… we’re all new…” Akira responded.

“Alright dearies, now let’s get to defeating this monster, shall we?” Adora replied as she shot an arrow at the stack of giant tomatoes.

Akira slashed at it, before it rolled into her and Solanim. He swung his sword at it, as Stella cast a lightning spell on it and A1  and Adora shot the topmost tomato. The stack then squirted tomato juice onto the team. Stella could not care less about it, though it would be a hassle to wash off, while A1 seemed mildly annoyed about getting drenched in tomato juice.

“No, not tomato juice of all things! Not after last time! And—“ Solanim looked at Akira, who had collected some juice and was drinking it. “Akira, I thought you were against drinking random liquids we find while adventuring!”

“… i… um… like tomato juice?” responded Akira.

“Then what was you trying to stop me from drinking the orange juice last time about?”

“… but you just drank it anyway. i figured i had to try drinking tomato juice that a giant tomato monster sprayed onto me, if you could drink weird orange juice that came from a random cave.”

“That’s completely different from weird orange juice that came from a random cave!”

“… it isn’t that different… and i’m fine… right?”

“I guess you’re okay… I’ll make sure to end this quickly.” Solanim thought tomato juice was kinda gross, but whatever, he didn’t want to ruin this for Akira, who seemed to be enjoying it.

The stack of tomatoes then rolled into the team, knocking everyone to the ground. Solanim reached for his sword, and leapt at the stack of tomatoes, finally causing them to disappear, as the faces on them floated away.

“Okay, that sucked, we’re going straight to the inn.” Solanim said, drenched in tomato juice.

“Vanessa. You have to stop this, I don't want to see you destroy yourself like this!” Betty protested, ever since Vanessa insisted on the team finding some way to break out of this godsforsaken dungeon, she's been overworking herself,  Vanessa barely slept, with most of her time spent on trying to destroy the locked door keeping everyone inside. Everyone else was trying to break out of here too... but they gave themselves breaks! 

“No. I'm going to find a way out of here.” Vanessa replied, it was probably nearly pointless reasoning with her at this point.

“… and how long have we all been doing this? We’ve made no progress whatsoever.”

“I don’t care, I need this! I’m doing this for the team!” There had to be some way out of here, maybe if Vanessa kept at trying to break out of here for long enough, they'd find a way out.

“But this is going nowhere, why can’t you see that!?”

“It might! This is the only thing we can do!” What did the team want, just to lay down and wait for someone to save them!? Well, that probably wasn't happening!

“Well, then this probably isn’t the solution! Can't you at least take a break, and then find some sort of way out of here!?” Sure, the team had to break out of here, Betty knew that, but she wasn't going to let Vanessa destroy herself over it!

"No, I can't waste any more time sitting around when I could be stopping the Dark Lord!"

... why was Betty even bothering with this anyway? "If you're gonna be like that, fine!"

"Fine!"

Meanwhile, Marina looked longingly out of the barred window. “I wanna go home…” Marina sobbed. She didn't ask to land in Miitopia of all places, she wanted to help it, but now she and her friends here were stuck here, and she still missed home! She thought she would forget a bit about it for a while in the Neksdor Desert, but no, she still missed it! Navi... Moffo... Sparrow... even Scarlett... Marina just wanted to see them again!

“Marina?” said Firefly. 

“Betty and Vanessa are fighting, and we’re stuck here… I just wanna spend time with my friends back home… maybe have a picnic or a tea party or something… I miss them…”

Firefly walked up to Marina, and looked out of the same window before turning to face Marina. “Hey, it’ll be fine, okay? You have friends here, and maybe, when this is all over you’ll find a way to the sky! I know you came from some different world in the sky and all that, if you're worried about anything, you can come to us about it, okay?“

“… o-okay. And... you really think that I'll find a way back home?” Marina did have friends here... they were nice... but Marina still missed her friends back home, but she could just talk to her friends back here if she was worried, and maybe she could make her way back to the sky once this was all over.

“Eh, it’s just a bit of wishful thinking on my part. But I’ve seen this tower high up on the clouds on my way to Miitopia, if there’s a way for you to get home, then it’s probably up there.”

“… thanks. But I still wanna help everyone here with the whole Dark Lord situation! I don’t want everyone to be faceless!” Marina couldn't just leave Miitopia in this state once the team found a way out of here!

“Alright, you do you. We would really appreciate the extra help too. And hey, even if you don’t find a way home, you have us! We’re your friends too! Plus, Miitopia seems like a nice place, when it's not being attacked by dark lords. It's a shame you had to fall here at such an inconvenient time...”

“It’s fine, and thanks, Firefly.”

”And we will find a way out of this place… eventually, mark my words!”

”Okay! I’ll see to it that we do! …well, maybe after I get Vanessa to stop pushing herself so hard…”

“Hey Stella, are you okay after yesterday? You looked like you were about to cry when you teleported away for some reason.” Solanim said.

“I’m okay, don’t worry.” Stella lied.

“Ah, alright. Sorry for being a bit pushy with the hanging out thing yesterday, if that’s why you teleported away.”

“No, it’s fine, that’s not the reason.”

“… do you wanna… talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay, see you soon, Stella.”

And with that, Solanim left Stella’s room.

He was confident Stella was hiding something about the reasons for her nearly crying and then teleporting away but, oh well, the two haven't even been traveling together for that long, he supposed it was stupid to think that she would tell her so early. Maybe she'd tell him or Akira or A1 later on, or maybe not, nobody knows.

Chapter Text

“Hi Akira and A1!” said Solanim, he had went to hang out with Akira and A1 tonight.

“[Hello, Solanim, what is it?]” A1 replied.

“I just felt like spending time with you guys.”

“… oh… alright…” said Akira.

“So… how’d everyone get here? Like how did you end up joining the team? For me, I was at an inn, realized that my friend got kidnapped by the Dark Lord after reading a journal, then begged the innkeeper, who was also a guardian spirit, to let me help defeat him. It worked, then I had to travel all the way here.” asked Solanim.

“[I simply received a task to defeat the Dark Lord, and I arrived here as quickly as possible.]” A1 responded.

“… i decided to explore the world, but then some spirit cat made me go save the world… i don’t want the attention that’ll come from it…” answered Akira.

“Why not?” Solanim inquired.

“i’ve never been good at talking to people… it’s probably a bad idea to end up being famous, if i’m bad at talking to people…”

“You seem okay at it to me!”

“i just end up second-guessing everything i say… so i end up not saying anything at all...”

“Then you can try to get better at talking to people! Maybe start with just talking to us, it doesn't have to be a lot, maybe eventually you wouldn't second-guess yourself as much, and say what you're thinking of."

"... but... what if i mess up a conversation?"

"It's fine, not every conversation has to go perfectly."

"... okay... i'm still a bit nervous about talking to people though..."

"Maybe you can try talking to people when you feel confident enough?"

"... alright, thanks."

Akira was still up tonight, she was supposed to be sleeping right now, but she was still pondering over her converstion with Solanim. Did she mess it up? No. He was right, all this time she had been waiting for people to start a conversation with her to no response, maybe she could try to start now. It might go terribly, but the team seemed to tolerate her presence enough, A1 probably wouldn't mind if things got awkward, Solanim did say it was fine if she messed things up, and Stella... actually, she wouldn't even hold any sort of conversation with her.

Besides, Akira was sure her class thought she was crazy, maybe if she saved the world she would actually be respected... she supposed finally having people look up to her would be nice...

The next day, Stella, Akira, Solanim, A1, and Adora set out to find the last of the elves' faces. 

"Can I ask you something?" said Adora.

"What is it?" Stella replied.

"Once you've saved the village, what will you do?"

"Go after the Dark Lord, of course."

"Ah... so you're going to leave, then."

"Well, um..."

"It's okay. You'll be heading for the volcano then. I'll help you get there. That's a promise, darling!"

Soon after, the team encountered a large butterfly with one of the elves' faces on it. Akira immediately ran and sliced at it, Stella then casting a lightning spell on it before the butterfly blew some multicolored dust at the team, just breathing it in hurt. Solanim leapt at the butterfly, slicing it with his sword, followed by A1 shooting at it from their helmet (head?? hat?? idk). The butterfly rammed into Stella, who responded by trying to hit it with her wand. Akira slashed at the butterfly as Adora played a healing melody for the entire team. The butterfly was now trying to attack Akira, who was barely dodging each lunge, she was nearly hit but Solanim jumped in front of Akira, taking the hit for her.

"... why would you do that? please be concerned for your own safety!" said Akira.

"But it's my job as a warrior to protect people, isn't it?" Solanim smiled.

Adora shot an arrow at the butterfly, it rammed into A1, they shot a laser through it, causing it to fall to the ground and disappear, leaving behind the last of the elves' faces which floated back to the Retreat and another triangular gem.

“Vanessa!” shouted Marina.

“What!?” Vanessa replied.

“You really have to stop pushing yourself so hard!”

“I’m not—“

“Just look at yourself!” Marina paused, “… well, technically there are no mirrors so that’s probably impossible… but you get my point. You’ve barely slept, and you’ve hurt yourself with all these attempts to break out of here! It’s good that you’re finding a way out, but you really need to stop pushing yourself too hard!”

"But if I don't try to break out of here, who would!? Most of you seem fine with being trapped here for possibly forever!"

"We are trying! Just not as much... it's been a while, okay?"

"Well, clearly we're not trying enough!"

"Yes we are! We've ran out of all immediate ways out, we're trying to come up with new ones, nothing's working so far."

"... then what else can I do!?"

"As much as I hate to admit it, we might have to slow down a bit with our escape plans, and we really can't bear to see you destroying yourself like this!"

Did her tirelessly working at trying to break out of here… hurt the team? Did Vanessa hurt the team? "I… I have to…”

”And besides, all you’ve been doing is striking at the same gate, to no avail! Keeping at this won’t change anything, as no matter how much you wish it would!” said Betty.

”No… this has to be the way. It’ll work eventually.”

”And when is ‘eventually’? Years?”

”… understood. I’ll stop… for now.” Vanessa backed down, and sat in front of the hurt/comfort window.

”Hey, Vanessa? It’s fine, you haven’t failed us. I’m sure we’ll find some way out of here, I swear!" said Marina.

"... no, it's hopeless."

"It's not! We just need to find a different way to escape!"

"Then how do we escape?"

"... we'll figure it out. We're bound to find a way out eventually!"

"You don't really have any plans, do you... ? I've really failed you, haven't I?"

"For the last time, you haven't. You really tried, we saw that! Besides, we've all tried breaking down that one door anyways, and there are still way more escape methods to try! It's not over yet, okay? Just... uh... please don't destroy youself like that again, we were worried sick about you."

"Alright, I'll try not to. Sorry to worry you."

"It's fine, really!"

Stella, Akira, Solanim, A1, and Adora returned to the Retreat, checking in on the elves whose faces they had saved. They thanked the team, receiving some gold and another triangular gem. But before the team left to save Peridot's face, they went to talk to Mimi. 

"How are things here?" said Adora.

"They're fine, for now. But what do we do if the Dark Lord returns?" Mimi responded.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

And with that, the team returned the inn, with Stella planning to explore the Realm of the Fey in hopes of finding a door with openings where she could insert the three triangular gems.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Stella, Akira, Solanim, A1, and Adora set off to look for a door to place the three gems they had in. Adora ended up leading the team to the door, and as Stella placed the gems inside the openings, it opened, leading to a path over a lake. Lilies were growing on it, and the team had to walk across the leaves, which were surprisingly strong. A few minutes later, the team heard the sound of Peridot’s voice.

”Eeeeeek! Sis!” she yelled.

”Peri! Where are you, darling?” Adora replied.

“Stay there! I’m coming for you!”

The team ran after Adora, finally stopping when they encountered a giant frog and Peridot’s face.

One fight scene later, with a lot of almost-dying from everyone, the team defeated the frog and Peridot's face floated back to the Retreat.

When Stella, Akira, Solanim, A1, and Adora got back to the Retreat, Peridot’s face flew back onto her body.

“About time! Ugh, that’s an experience I won’t be repeating! Thanks, Sis.” Peridot looked at Stella. “You did a good job too, sunshine. Take this. Use it wisely.” Peridot shoved a cake into Stella’s hands.

“And that’s everybody that needed rescuing.” Adora announced.

“Oh, bravo!” congratulated Mimi.

“Not bad, you!” said Peridot.

“Well, that’s the end of my little trip. It’s been fun, haha! Well then. Your journey is far from over.” Adora turned to face her sisters. “Let’s show her the way, girls!”

“Yay!”

“Right on!”

The Fab Fairies did the same dance they did to open the gate, with Stella’s teammates slowly joining in. Stella sighed to herself, Miitopia was weird, she might as well join in on the weirdness of it all. The seven of them danced in front of the gate, until the way forward was revealed. When that happened,    Stella, Akira, Solanim, and A1 said their goodbyes to the Fab Fairies, before they left the Retreat, the Fab Fairies bid their farewells to the team too.

“You take care now, darling!” said Adora.

“We’ll hope for your safety!” Mimi added.

“Give that Dark Lord a whupping!” concluded Peridot.

"Good luck!" the three of them said.

"Thanks, everyone!" Solanim replied.

"We'll be sure to make it out of this alive." said Stella.

It was finally the night before the team would leave the Realm of the Fey and enter Karkaton, Akira had been dreading this moment. Interestingly, Stella insisted the team camp out for the night, so there’s that. She, Solanim, and A1 were likely going to be kidnapped by the Dark Lord tonight, if the journal was any indication. So she put on her cloak, stepped out of her tent, and ran. She only knew she was going somewhere in Karkaton, maybe he wouldn’t find her if she was far away from the team. It was honestly sad leaving her team behind like this, but this was necessary. They’d just get kidnapped anyway. She couldn’t shake off this feeling of guilt, knowing her friends would get taken, though…

Solanim got out of his tent, he was sure he had heard someone saying something that vaguely sounded like “I’m sorry”, it was incredibly soft, and then footsteps. There was nobody out though, but as the looked around, he spotted a large horned silhouette. Noticing it, he went to his and A1’s tent and looked for a power button at the back of their neck, which they told the team about if they ever needed to wake them up. He pressed the button for a few seconds, and A1’s eyes lit up.

“[Hello, Solanim. What could possibly be the reason you turned my system back on at this hour?]” they inquired.

“A1! You won’t believe this, but you gotta believe it! I saw some horned figure outside, I couldn’t see it clearly, but I’m half sure that was the Dark Lord!” Solanim explained.

“[… only half-sure? I suppose I can check for you.]”

“Okay, thanks, but can I go with you? I wanna check again too.” Solanim took his sword.

“[Alright.]”

The two stepped outside, A1 looked around and faced some random corner.

“Huh? What is it? Did you see anything?” Solanim asked.

“[So we meet again, Dark Lord.]” A1 said.

“Wait, he’s there!? Hold on for a moment.” Solanim took a deep breath. “Dark Lord! Give Cosmosus back right now!”

“And why should I? And haven’t I seen you two before?” The Dark Lord paused for a moment. “… ah, right. It’s one of those so-called ‘heroes’ I’ve destroyed, and I’m sure I’ve seen your face on a monster somewhere. It’s a surprise that the both of you are even here. But this is where your journey ends.”

Huh?? A1 and the Dark Lord knew each other?? Solanim was surprised, but he could ask them about that later, he was taking down the Dark Lord and getting Cosmo back first. “Nope! This is where your reign of terror ends!” Solanim glanced at A1. “A1, go wake Stella.”

“… it worked? Good.” Stella walked out of her tent, the protection charm she cast on herself worked, she was actually awake at this time. And she still had her powers. Apparently the Dark Lord was still able to find them, despite her team not being at the inn. Guess they’d have to prepare for a fight. “Now then, I won’t let you take my team this time!” Stella said, in all honesty, her team would probably still be kidnapped, but as much as she hated to admit it she was still attached to them.

”This night is just full of surprises, isn’t it? But it’ll all end the same way once it’s over.” said the Dark Lord.

”Huh?? Stella?? What’s going on??” asked Solanim, he had no knowledge of the situation whatsoever.

”[I have to quote Solanim here: What is going on?]” A1 agreed.

”Leave this place, I’ll hold him off. And go get Akira.” Stella replied.

”Akira’s missing! And I won’t leave you!” said Solanim.

”Get out, trust me on this. Please.”

”… fine. But I need an explanation later!”

”You think you can stop me from taking your friends? Because you’re not a hero, we both know that.” said the Dark Lord.

The Dark Lord was right, Stella wasn’t a hero, but she still had to try to protect her friends this time. “What choice do I have? As you said, they’re my friends.” Stella cast a fire spell. The Dark Lord responded by swiping at Stella, she dodged, then he conjured an orb of dark magic which Stella tried to destroy, like what Rosemary did when the two of them first met. Stella failed, of course, she wasn’t Rosemary. Stella was knocked away, she got up as quickly as she could, but before she could attack the Dark Lord, he had vanished. Stella ran in what was probably the same direction Solanim went, hopefully she could still stop the Dark Lord from taking away her teammates.

Solanim and A1 ran, they didn’t know where, just as long as it was away from the scene. He could barely see a horned silhouette—

Wait, that was the Dark Lord wasn’t it? Wasn’t Stella supposed to hold him back so Solanim and A1 could get away? But that could only mean one thing… Stella was defeated, wasn’t she?

But before Solanim could react, he was nearly hit by an orb of dark magic, as a cloaked figure pushed him out of the way. He looked at them, and wait, was that Akira!? What was going on!?

”Akira!? Is that you!?” said Solanim.

”… um… yeah, sorry, i’ll explain later.” Akira replied.

”Stella told me the same thing, what the heck is going on!? And where were you!?”

”so i may or may not have read that journal you gave stella, it turns out that the dark lord kidnaps stella’s teams just before they enter a new area, i knew this would happen so i ran.”

Solanim paused, “How come you didn’t tell us sooner?”

“… i-i didn’t want you to—” Akira was suddenly grabbed by a massive blue hand, Solanim slashed at it, but it still held onto Akira.

“Akira, we’ll get you back, I swear!”

“[Oh dear.]” said A1.

“No— just get away from here…” Akira responded, but Solanim was getting Akira back no matter what. He wasn't going to have another of his friends taken by the Dark Lord.

“I’m not leaving anyone else behind!” Solanim declared.

“[Our chances of winning here are slim, but I shall remain. Unless Solanim changes his mind and leaves, that is.]” A1 stated.

“Nope! That’s not happening!” Solanim slashed at the Dark Lord again, and A1 shot at him, and barely missed. The Dark Lord then swiped at Solanim and A1, knocking them over, and before they could do anything, he gradded the both of them as well, and they were being taken further and further away from Stella and the campsite...

Stella looked everywhere for her teammates, there was no trace of them, the Dark Lord must have already kidnapped them, Stella was too late, it kept happening and she couldn't stop it... She dragged herself back to the campsite, defeated.

“So this is where you were tonight! So you felt like camping?” said the Guardian Spirit.

”… I was hoping the Dark Lord wouldn’t find my friends here. You can see how that worked out.” replied Stella.

”Well, at least you didn’t have your Job sealed this time… now go get some rest, we’ll go to Karkaton and save your friends soon.” 

“But… I’ve been thinking… why’d you choose me to save Miitopia? I’m just some girl!”

”Hm… let me remember… it was because you were going after the Dark Lord, and just so happened to be carrying my amulet with you. And I have a bit of history with him, so I thought ‘why not make the girl with my amulet stop the Dark Lord?’.”

So… Stella was only chosen for this because of some weird coincidence? She really was just some girl, not the hero of Miitopia or whatever. She couldn't do this, if she couldn't stop the Dark Lord from taking her teammates, how could she hope to defeat him? "... oh, alright." she said, Stella probably couldn't tell the Guardian Spirit, they were the one forcing her on this adventure anyway.

"Um... did I say anything wrong?" Spirri said, of course they noticed she was upset. 

”No, I’m fine.”

”Sure, if you say so. It’s just… you can talk to me about this stuff, okay?”

”Okay.” Stella wasn’t going to, and she went back in her tent. 

Chapter Text

“Marina, any progress on finding a way to escape?” asked Vanessa. The team was still here, even after all their efforts to escape.

“Nope…” Marina gave her usual answer.

 “Ah, alright, guess we’ll have to wait a little longer— huh!?” the door briefly swung open and three more people were thrown into the dungeon.

“Ugh… oh, hi Cosmo!” said Solanim.

“Solanim!? What are you doing here!?” Cosmosus replied, clearly shocked at Solanim’s arrival here.

“I was going to stop the Dark Lord and get you out of here!”

“… and you got thrown in here instead?”

“Um… yeah.”

“Now words cannot express how relieved I am to see you with a face, but why!? I was saving the world specifically so you’d be safe, not so you could go off and get yourself stuck here too!”

“… i mean, at least I have a face.”

“I was trying to get it back when I went saving Miitopia!”

“Well, I learned you were kidnapped so of course I’d try to rescue you!”

“Oh— um, thanks. I appreciate the effort. That was still really reckless though! But where did you even learn I was kidnapped?”

“I found this journal that was left at an inn, it said something about Stella’s previous team getting kidnapped and you were in it.”

“What did that journal look like?” asked Vanessa, could this possibly be about her journal?

“Well, it was green and had the word ‘journal’ on it.”

“Then please give it to me.”

“I-I don’t have it! Is it yours?”

“Yes, so give it back, I’m sure you have it.”

"Good luck convincing Vanessa of that."

"Betty!"

"What? It'll be difficult!"

“I really don’t!”

“… it’s true, stella has it…” Akira chimed in.

“Alright Solanim, I believe you.” Vanessa said, Solanim was probably telling the truth if the other girl was vouching for him. “Stella better not have read anything in it…” she muttered under her breath.

“So, uh, welcome to this place, Antenna. I’m Betty, and that catgirl you met earlier was Vanessa.” Betty introduced herself, before leaving to talk to Akira and Cosmosus.

"... and sorry about being really weird about my journal."

"It's important to you, right?"

"It is."

"Then no worries about that, you did think I stole it... which I kinda did? I just gave it to Stella."

"Alright. And how much of it did you read?"

"I only read from the first page to the part where you mentioned Cosmosus. I also did skip over a few of the earlier pages. By the way, Stella was way different from how you described her. She seemed... distant."

"... okay." Vanessa looked away, did her failure to not get kidnapped damage Stella that much? It'll be fine, we'll get back to Stella eventually, is what the team thought... but, nothing's been happening. It was very much possible that they never got out of here. And Stella was hurt, too...

"Vanessa, I'm sure we'll get out of here! we have new people, maybe they could help!" Marina tried to reassure, to no response from Vanessa. How much longer could Marina hold on to some faint hope? "So, Solanim, I'm gonna introduce you to everyone here! So first, I'm Marina!"

“I think I know the other two's names from Vanessa’s journal the redhead is Eliza, and the other one is Firefly.” Solanim said.

“Hey, I’m Eliza!” Eliza corrected.

“And I’m Firefly!” said Firefly.

“Oops, sorry about that, haha. The journal didn't really describe what you looked like.” Solanim apologized.

“It’s fine, don’t worry.”

“Anyways, we’re trying to find a way out before Stella gets here, have any ideas?” Eliza asked.

"Aren't you playing cards though?"

"We're just taking a break."

"An unauthorized one." said Vanessa.

“I authorized it! I’m the leader too, Vanessa!”

”… shouldn’t it be a unanimous decision between us?”

”Fifty-fifty still counts!”

”It does not.”

“So, what about possible escape routes?”

"I don’t know any yet, sorry to disappoint.”

“It’s fine! You don’t need to apologize for that! Oh, and who’re the other two that came here with you?”

“The one wearing glasses is Akira, and the one with a hat that kinda looks like a top hat but probably isn’t is A1.”

“So you mean that one who hasn’t moved since they got here is A1?”

“Oh, um… hold on for a moment. Akira, feel free to introduce yourself to Stella’s other teammates! … when you feel like it, of course.” Solanim turned A1 back on, they had shut down sometime while they were caught.

“[Is it over already?]” A1 asked, they had shut themselves down when being taken to the dungeon.

“Yep, we’re stuck in this dungeon with Stella's previous teams.” 

“For now! We’ll find a way out… eventually! So you’re the weird one? I’m Eliza!” said Eliza.

“[The name’s A1.]” A1 replied.

“… were you not listening when Solanim was introducing everyone?” said Vanessa.

“Nope~” Eliza responded.

“You should really pay attention to these sorts of things, you know… but the one with the hair antenna is Solanim—“

“I know about that, Cosmo was kinda mad at him for a bit for… going out to save him? I don’t get it myself.”

“Also, I’d like to say that Eliza was listening, since you asked her if she wasn’t listening, and she said no so therefore she was listening!” Firefly said.

“… okay, so let me rephrase my question to Eliza: Were you listening to Solanim when he was introducing everyone?” Vanessa replied.

“Still nope~ I’ll just figure it out later.” 

“So um… make yourself at home, you three, at least until we find a way out of this place.”

“oh… um… if we’re talking about ways to escape, t-the door is being held open right now… i think…” Akira said, she had just barely managed to hold the door open using one of her many daggers. 

“[And I do have a rough idea of the layout of the castle, in case you need it. Apologies that some of it is incomplete.]” A1 said.

“Where’d you get that? But anyways, thanks, and show me the map.” said Betty.

A1 created a projection of a map of a castle.“[Here is the map. Strangely, I cannot remember how I got this.]”

“Whatever, it works for me.”

“How can we know this is accurate?” asked Vanessa. For all she knew, she could end up heading straight to wherever the Dark Lord is instead of exit if the map was wrong. 

“[We cannot. We can only hope that it is.]”

“So we should at least try to plan around this as quickly as possible, since we don’t know when the Dark Lord - or a monster around here - will notice the door isn’t fully closed. Everyone, gather around here, we’ll be discussing escape plans. And Eliza, please pay attention.”

”Okay!” Eliza said.

“But… we still don’t know anything about what’ll be stopping us from leaving.” said Firefly.

“That’s right. So we’ll just plan an escape route from here, and hope for the best. Oh, and try to be sneaky about it.” Vanessa responded.

“Wow, I didn’t know that this castle had so many floors!” Eliza said.

“It’s a castle, of course it has a lot of floors.”

“Well, the one I went to didn’t!”

”It does. you’ve just seen the ground floor!” Cosmosus replied.

”… then why is the princess’s room on the ground floor?”

”That’s… a really good question.”

“Anyways, we’re obviously being held on the top floor, there's a bunch of ways to the main entrance from the floor just below, but we're taking the route through the grand hall and try to make our way down from there. And whatever you do, do not take the staircase opposite the gallery, it will lead you close to the Dark Lord's chambers and we're only planning to escape and reunite with Stella. Not defeat the Dark Lord, that would likely be a suicide mission considering he overpowered those of us who didn't just immediately run away before we were taken here." Vanessa explained.

”It was a tactical retreat! Marina and I were very obviously outmatched!” Betty argued as Akira looked away, though she probably just caught a stray with that statement about immediately running away.

”Okay, fine.”

“Excuse me, are the other windows barred?” Marina asked. She could fly out of the windows if they weren’t barred if worst came to worst, hopefully it wouldn’t have to come to that though.

“[They are, however the gaps are much larger. Why do you ask?]” A1 asked.

“If things get really bad, I can just fly out through the windows. I really hope I don’t have to, though… I want to know that everyone is safe!”

“Anyways, we’re going through the painting gallery, and down from there to the exit.” Vanessa concluded.

“That’s… way too simple to need a briefing.” Firefly commented.

“Well, it doesn’t hurt to have one, right? So, any objections?”

“You don’t just sneakily exit from the main door! You’re supposed to take some really cool alternate exit! A1, know of any alternate exits?”

“[Unfortunately, no.]” A1 replied.

“Wait, hold on, doesn’t Firefly have that slow falling spell? And Mari mentioned something about falling through windows…” said Eliza.

“I do… but isn't this castle on top of a volcano? My spell can't last that long, especially not on this many people." Firefly responded.

“Oh, alright.”

“[May I suggest that we find a different means of escape?]” A1 suggested.

“So, back to leaving through the main gate?” Vanessa asked.

“Hm… yeah, but I’ll look for other escape routes on the way.” Firefly answered.

“… this whole briefing was pointless. So, is everyone ready now?” said Betty.

"No! I have an important question! Are we going to stay together or are we going to split up in groups?"

"We're staying together." said Vanessa.

“Oh, good.”

“So is it time to put our escape plan into action?”

”… may i speak?” asked Akira.

"Wouldn't staying together make it easier for us to be found? There are nine people on this team, after all." Akira spoke, with a higher than usual volume.

"I... don't want to leave anyone behind." If anyone didn’t make it out of the castle in one piece because Vanessa chose to split up, she wouldn’t forgive herself for it.

“… oh… um… sorry the plan sucks…”

"We can all regroup somewhere!" Solanim said.

"But we don't have any means of communication in case something happens." Vanessa countered.

“but… at least some of us will get out of here.” Akira said, this time at her usual volume.

"Well, usually the group that splits up like that ends up getting picked off one by one until nobody is left, so maybe it'd be safer if we were together?" said Eliza.

"Where'd you get that!?" Betty questioned.

"Movies."

"… why are we relying on movie logic for this… ?” asked Akira.

”I dunno.”

”you do have a point about that though… but wouldn’t it be better if it took longer for us to get caught? because we probably stand no chance trying to take down the dark lord, if our previous encounters barring betty and marina’s are any indication.”

”Why are any of you even planning to leave anyone behind, possibly to their deaths? We should all get out of here!” said Solanim.

”but couldn’t it fail more easily?”

”Well… not really. There are nine of us, right? That means we’re stronger together now! We could try to overpower the Dark Lord if we do get caught, it’s not impossible.”

“We’ve trained too, right? We have better chances at defeating the Dark Lord now!” Cosmosus added.

”Huh?? What?? We just got here!”

”Oh, yeah, that was just me and the others that did training, hopefully you’ll be fine during the escape.”

”Ohh, that explains a lot, thanks!”

”[And if we are required to leave someone behind, leave me. I can be fixed later on.]” said A1.

“what if you’re damaged to the point you have to shut down or something? what will we do then?” Akira questioned. Solanim clearly stated he wanted everyone to come out from this alive, he’d probably be devastated if A1 was permanently destroyed.

“[A message will be sent to my creator’s devices that I have been damaged to that point. My creator will know what to do then.]”

“… okay.”

“Why are we planning for anyone to get left behind?” Solanim asked.

“This is just a what-if thing, it’s not guaranteed we’ll have to leave A1 behind.” said Firefly.

“So… are we staying together, or splitting up?” Vanessa asked.

“… why don’t we do both? We can just split up in groups, right?” said Marina.

“We can, I suppose that does making splitting up less risky. We’ll be splitting into groups of 3.” Firefly replied.

“That seems fine by me.” said Vanessa, the team would likely be here forever if the only chices were to split up alone or stay together.

”At least I still get to stay with some of my friends!” 

“Just choose your groups, only three people are allowed in, I will not be tolerating groups of 1, 2, or 4.”

”… doesn’t that go without saying?”

”Some people at my school before all this didn’t get the memo, so it’s fair.” said Eliza.

“Also, the groups can’t all be from the same team!”

Everyone started trying to decide who to group with, it didn’t take too long for them to decide.

“Hey Cosmo, let’s team up with Akira! She’s one of the people I’ve been traveling with when looking for you!” said Solanim.

“Alright, but does she want to though?” asked Cosmosus.

”Hold on, I’ll ask! Hey Akira, wanna team up with us?”

“okay." Akira replied.

"That settles it, this is our team now!"

"... so who else should we get to join our team?" Betty asked.

"Maybe we could convince Firefly?" Eliza replied.

"She's already in a team with Marina."

”Alright, I don’t know who to add.”

"I think I know who to convince to join us.” Betty turned to face Vanessa, who was just nearby. “Hey Vanessa, join our team!”

"Alright, I guess someone needs to make sure the two of you don't do anything stupid." Vanessa replied.

"We won't!"

"Okay, sure.” Vanessa continued, “Everyone, since two groups are already formed, everyone else who isn’t in one yet teams up.” she announced.

That left Marina, A1, and Firefly as the last group.

“Alright, good luck, everyone!” said Firefly.

The team then spilled out through the door, and into a  small room with a spiral staircase leading downwards. The team started descending the stairs, as Marina jumped into the middle and floated down.

“Marina!? You could do that!?” said Firefly.

“I can! See you in a bit!” Marina replied.

Once the team got to another floor, that was when they split up; Solanim’s group went down the staircase opposite the grand hall, with Solanim rushing down while Cosmosus and Akira tried to catch up, Vanessa’s group going through the grand hall, and Firefly’s group running to a different room entirely, which was not marked on the maps at all.

"Solanim, are you sure we're going in the right direction?" asked Cosmosus.

"No, but if we keep going around, we're sure to get somewhere!" Solanim replied.

Solanim’s advice was incredibly unhelpful, but nobody else really knew where they were going either. "Ah well, I didn't memorize the map, so I suppose we have no better option."

The trio ran around the castle for a bit, getting lost and trying to find an exit. Eventually, the team spotted the Dark Lord around a corner of a hallway. Why did Solanim have this terrible luck!? "What do we do!?" Solanim whispered to the team.

"I don't know, just make a run for it.” Cosmosus whispered back.

“And Akira-- she's gone again?"

Solanim and Cosmosus attempted leaving, the Dark Lord ended up noticing their presences, and struck at Cosmosus.

”Cosmo! You okay!?” Solanim called out.

”…  so your lot has somehow broken out of the dungeon? Just don’t think you’re going to get very far in your little escapade.”

Akira got out of that hallway as quickly as she could, she went back the way she came to warn the other teams, they couldn't have gone too far. But it might be too late, what if Akira returns, and Solaim and Cosmosus are faceless? No, she couldn't think like that! Not now! Thankfully, she soon ran into Vanessa’s team. 

"vanessahelpithinksolanimandcosmosusareindanger!" Akira said, she was speaking incredibly fast, but Vanessa could kind of make out what she said.

"Akira? What happened?" asked Vanessa.

"... we saw the dark lord, and i-i don’t know if we can fight him, so please help. sorry to ask..."

"Where were they?" said Betty.

"i- uh- just follow me."

"Actually, I don't think you need to do that."

Solanim and Cosmosus were trying to fight the Dark Lord, and apparently it led them to the exact room Akira, Vanessa, Betty, and Eliza were in. At least those two weren’t faceless. 

“Now you’re leading me to the rest of your group? How nice of you!” said the Dark Lord.

”Akira!? Vanessa!? Everyone else!? What are you doing here!?” Solanim questioned.

”I could ask you the same question.” said Betty.

”It’s not what it looks like, I was planning to get help from Vanessa’s team!” Akira clarified, to be met with confused looks from everyone in the team barring Solanim, who was aware of what she was talking about.

”That’s good to know, but you really need to tell us when you do these sort of things! It’s really worrying when you suddenly disappear!” Solanim replied, dodging an attack from the Dark Lord.

”Okay, fine!” Akira wasn’t too sure if she actually would, but she’d prefer to focus on fighting. Just trying to evade or at least block the Dark Lord’s attacks was difficult enough already, let alone landing a hit.

“Alright, I’ll handle this from here.” Vanessa announced, joining the five in trying to defeat the Dark Lord.

“No, you won’t! We’re handling this from here!” said Solanim. Why did all his team’s leaders (and Akira) exclude him from the fights against the Dark Lord!?

”As leader, it is my duty to put my team first. And you two seem to be doing pretty badly. I won’t risk all of us losing our faces.” Vanessa saw how Solanim and Akira performed, they were actually pretty okay in a fight, but it would be hopeless for them to remain. 

Solanim glanced back at Akira. “… why are all our leaders like this?”

”i don’t know…” replied Akira.

“Stella’s not… oh, right.” Cosmosus replied. Solanim said that Stella acted differently, was this what he meant?

“Anyways, I’m not leaving! People keep telling me to leave while this kind of stuff happens, and I wanna try to fight with everyone else!” declared Solanim.

There was no convincing this guy, was there? “… fine, if you want it. Just try not to get your face stolen.” said Vanessa.

“I agree with Vanessa, I’d hate to relive that again.” Cosmosus added.

“I won’t get my face stolen, I swear!” said Solanim.

Akira tried slashing at the Dark Lord, her dagger drew near his amulet and… he moved his amulet away from the dagger before she could hit it?? Was he that vain?? Akira really didn’t think he was the type to care about that in a fight. At the very least she was able to land a blow. Akira tried stabbing the Dark Lord’s amulet again, she ended up getting picked up and thrown across the room before she could instead. If she wasn’t already sure he was defending his amulet, she definitely was now. And it seemed that Vanessa had picked up on this, as she tried to scratch the amulet twice, and actually managing to hit it once, while Eliza supported everyone with her admittedly terrible singing and Betty tried hitting him with her frying pan that was set ablaze, while berating Eliza for her singing skills.

“For the last time, my singing does not suck! And too bad you hate it, I’m still gonna sing anyway! You… you’re the one whose singing is awful!” said Eliza. Betty’s always highlighted her singing being terrible, but Marina seemed to like it! And Stella never said it sucked! And why now?? Eliza needed to help her friends, dang it!

“Excuse me?? My singing does not—” Betty, who was cooking something, replied.

“Betty, yes, Eliza’s singing skills suck—” Vanessa interrupted, there was no way the argument would end if she didn’t do anything.

”They do not!” Eliza said before Vanessa continued her statement.

”… but the kid’s trying her best here and actively supporting us, why do you need to keep causing conflict?? How are we supposed to fight the Dark Lord if you’re actively fighting everyone else!?”

“… not to interrupt but we need support from all of you, so can you please leave arguments about Eliza’s singing skills and harshly scolding Betty for after this!? And Vanessa, how come you’re attacking the Dark Lord’s necklace too? I’d ask Akira, but…” said Cosmosus.

”… I don’t know, it just seems important with the way he’s defending it.” Vanessa replied.

”Maybe it could just be some precious, one of a kind jewellery?” added Betty.

”That’s fine with me too.”

”… so it’s a fifty-fifty chance of it actually being important?”

”It’s one hundred percent, as long as breaking the amulet hurts him, whether it be physically or emotionally.” said Vanessa.

”… Nooo, I wanna take the amulet and sell it to a museum or something…” Betty complained.

“First, we’re not old enough for that. Second, just sell the broken pieces of the amulet. And third, why is this the first thing you think of!?” Vanessa chastised, first Betty gets into fights with Eliza, now this!? Why was being a leader so difficult??

”Money is important! And  a broken necklace would be worth less and we still have to split the earnings and that’ll be a hassle… wait… we’re saving Miitopia for Spirri, how come they don’t give us a paycheck!?”

”… yeah, why don’t they??” Vanessa hated to agree with Betty right now, but the Guardian probably should be giving the team a paycheck, for what they have to go through.

”… w-what are you doing…” Akira finally said, why were those two even worrying about their finances in the middle of a fight that Solanim and Cosmosus were currently losing!? She agreed with them though, why didn’t they get a paycheck for their efforts? That was the least the Guardian Spirit could do after forcing her to save Miitopia… “… sorry for being kinda rude…” she added, at a much lower volume.

”She started it. And it’s Betty who should be apologizing for being rude.”

”You contributed to it. Anyways, take this.” Betty offered Akira her apparently magical cooking, as Vanessa dashed to Cosmosus and Solanim. “Sorry for the wait.” she said as she finally reached the two, slashing at the Dark Lord.

“What were you doing!?” said Cosmosus.

“Arguing with Betty about finances. She’s currently still back there, helping out Akira.”

Vanessa's response earned her a collective "... what?" among Solanim and Cosmosus.

“But at least Akira will be fine…” Solanim sighed in relief.

“Hopefully.”

“We’re back, everyone, take some of my cooking.” Betty conjured a bunch of plates and utensils as she said that. Everyone quickly ate the food, before the Dark Lord conjured an orb of dark magic, and it flew into the team and knocked everyone to the ground, damaging them quite a bit.

“Well, this was fun, it’s shame I’ll have to end it already.” the Dark Lord said as he was reading some spell, not one that the team had heard of at least.

No, not again. Eliza’s face was flying off of her body, being faceless was horrible the last time that happened, but at least the Dark Lord’s reaction to Eliza interrupting his monologue was amazing. This time? Nothing to it, she just had her face stolen. Again. Akira’s face was stolen as well, while her faceless body looked for a corner it could curl up in as Betty immediately got to work on cooking something for the team.

”Eliza!” everyone other than Solanim, who instead yelled Akira’s name, called out. 

“… so, maybe we should run?” Betty suggested, as the team definitely wasn’t making it out of this in one piece.

“N-no. I can keep fighting.” Vanessa (very badly) lied.

“Alright, but I can’t cook anything anymore. Nor can I do the fire thing. And really, you should look at the state you’re in.”

“… so, mana burnout?”

“Yeah, is that what it’s called?”

“It is. Anyways, I can’t leave Eliza and Cosmosus’s team behind.”

“Hm… it wouldn’t be leaving us behind if we also ran, right?” Solanim inquired.

“Then what about Eliza and Akira?” Vanessa shot back.

“They’re already faceless, right? Chances are, we’ll find their faces on a monster somewhere like we’ve did before. We can get it back. Not now though, the Dark Lord is crazy strong, and we are still outmatched. We’re doing better than before though.”

”But what if they die like this?”

”…I don’t know, but Cosmo and I are taking Akira with us, if that helps.”

“Okay, fine, you leave first, then Betty and I run.”

Solanim and Cosmosus had managed to escape, and Vanessa had said she’d run after but… maybe she could stay? Maybe she could finally avenge Vincent and save Miitopia? Vanessa—

Betty held Vanessa’s arm before she could do anything impulsive, because this place was not where the two of them were going to die. Did Vanessa have any sense of self-preservation at all? Hell, did any of the people here have a sense of self-preservation? Obviously, the answer to both questions was no, but still. “Vanessa, we have to leave! We are going to die at this rate!” … but Betty didn’t want anyone’s faces to be stolen! She wouldn’t allow it!

”… fine.” Vanessa supposed that she wouldn’t want to get Betty killed with her, and Vanessa didn’t want to see the team worry either.

Vanessa and Betty ran away, well, as quickly as they could anyway. Which was not very quickly, considering that Vanessa and Betty were both injured. The Dark Lord was closing in on them, but a bunch of rocks that fell blocked the Dark Lord’s path, but also forced Betty and Vanessa to split up. Their situation was dire, but at the very least the Dark Lord wouldn’t be able to take their faces for a little longer.

Marina, Firefly, and A1 made their way back to the hallway they started in, they have not had the best luck with escape routes and have gotten lost at dead ends, found Eliza faceless, realized that Marina in fact could not fly out through the windows of the castle, and ended up back here. The trio took the path through the grand hall, surely Vanessa and Betty wouldn’t mind them taking the same path as them. They then found a broken crown, which A1 picked up.

“Huh? A1? What are you holding? Is it important?” asked Marina, who was riding on the top hat-shaped cannon on A1’s head.

“[No. It is a broken crown, it seems… familiar to me for unknown reasons. I will be keeping it with me.]” replied A1.

“Okay!”

The team continued on without too much difficulty, before encountering Akira, who was alone and wandering around the grand hall. But where were Solanim and Cosmosus? It became clear what had happened upon further inspection, she was faceless so the Dark Lord was somewhere around here for sure. The other teams clearly weren’t doing so well, if the Dark Lord had found them already. Hopefully everyone other than Eliza and Akira were fine. Firefly and Marina steeled themselves for whatever might be ahead, before the Dark Lord returned to notice the three and stole Marina’s face. 

“Hey! Get back here, I’m not just letting you steal my friend’s face!” Firefly cast a fire spell, just to be clear that she will be getting Mari’s face back, even by force.

“You want the dwarf’s face back?” the Dark Lord said as Marina’s face appeared, Firefly tried reaching for it before the Dark Lord moved it back a bit in response and made it disappear, much to Firefly’s anger.

“Marina’s not a dwarf! … okay, well, she is, but… yes, just give her face back!”

“What if I don’t?”

“Then I’ll fight you, right here and now!”

“And here I thought that this was an escape attempt.”

“[Why are we needlessly engaging in a fight that we cannot possibly win?]” A1 asked. [The team had lost to the Dark Lord once already, it was not likely that they would win this time. Sure, they have trained, but they were also one member short this time.]

“I don’t care, I’m not standing around when Marina’s face is stolen!” responded Firefly.

“[Very well then, I will assist you with this.]” [Firefly was clearly acting out of anger of seeing the face of her friend stolen, something A1 could not quite understand itself, but A1 was tasked with assisting Stella and her allies in defeating the Dark Lord, and with keeping the team safe.]

Sure enough, A1 was right, as Firefly and them were currently very badly losing this fight. Firefly looked around for any means of escape, and maybe that hole that had been made in the wall behind her could work? She did have her magic, which she could use to slow her fall. “Ah well, I guess this is goodbye!” Firefly and A1 stepped backwards, and fell from the hole in the wall. This was undoubtedly an incredibly dangerous way to leave the castle, but it was either this or having their faces stolen. A1 fell past Firefly before she could cast the spell, Firefly did say it could only work for a few floors, but… she has trained, and she only had to cast the spell on herself. Firefly waved around her wand as she was falling, while muttering the name of the spell. It did slow her fall, she didn't know how long she could hold the spell for, as it was taking a lot of concentration to extend its length past a few seconds. Thankfully, or possibly unfortunately, she ended up landing on a balcony in the castle instead. A1 was also there, they were incredibly damaged though. 

"A1! I am so sorry about that! I-I really didn't have any time to cast the spell on you at all!" Firefly apologized.

"[I-it is fine. There is no need to worry about me. At the very least, you are s-safe. Now we should get going before we are found again.]" A1 responded.

“And here I thought this place would be at least somewhat structurally sound.” Betty remarked.

“Now is not the time to be making remarks about the structural integrity of buildings.” Vanessa replied.

“Alright, but on a serious note, just wait for me wherever you are, okay?”

“… okay, fine.” Vanessa was injured, and it was possible that it would be easier for Betty to find her if she stayed in one place, so Vanessa supposed it wouldn’t hurt to do so. Vanessa ended up somewhere near a balcony, maybe she’d go there first while—

A1 and Firefly fell onto the balcony, Firefly was mostly okay, but A1 was in terrible condition, multiple parts of them were broken or damaged. They were talking to each other, before noticing Vanessa standing just outside the balcony. 

“Hey, Vanessa. So your team hasn’t been doing too well either? And what happened to you?” Firefly asked.

”We were trying to help Cosmosus’s team after we heard that they might be in danger, and we all ended up losing a fight against the Dark Lord. Betty and I just barely escaped, Eliza’s face was stolen, and I don’t know what happened to Cosmosus’s team. Also, why did you fall onto a balcony!? I thought you said you wouldn’t pull stuff like that!” said Vanessa.

”Desperate times call for desperate measures! It was either that or having our faces stolen!”

”… you at least knew there was a balcony here, right?”

”Yeah, I did.” Firefly lied, “So, want to travel with us?”

”No, Betty said she’d be looking for me, so I’ll just stay here.”

”Oh, alright! Bye!” And with that, Firefly and A1 left.

Betty wandered through the halls of the Dark Lord’s castle, hopefully she would find Vanessa soon. Or that Vanessa actually stayed put. At the very least, Betty hasn’t been attacked yet. She continued to get lost in the hallways of the castle, it would probably be a while before she found Vanesa again. 

Unfortunately, the person Betty ran into first was the Dark Lord. Yeah, no. She was not staying around to fight, but she couldn’t exactly leave without fighting him either. She had no choice but to ready her frying pan and hope for the best, if there was any best-case scenario here.

Vanessa waited, and waited, and waited, and waited for Betty to show up. It had been an hour already, and Betty still hadn’t showed up. Vanessa’s patience couldn’t last any longer, what if something had happened to Betty? What if her face was stolen? She really couldn’t deal with any more of those nagging questions at the back of her mind, so she left her spot in the hallway and decided to explore the castle on her own. She wasn’t exactly going at the fastest pace, considering her injuries, but who knows, Betty could be just nearby. Or not. Either way, considering that Firefly and A1 literally fell near where Vanessa was staying meant that the Dark Lord might end up searching around that area.

But apparently the worst of Vanessa’s fears had become reality: She had found Betty, but she was faceless.

Vanessa wasn’t just going to abandon more of her teammates, she was supposed to prevent things like this from happening! She wanted to get her friends’ faces back! However, she didn’t even know where the Dark Lord was, maybe Vanesssa would find Betty’s face somewhere since she had failed, failed to avenge her brother, failed to protect her team.

There really wasn’t much Vanessa could do, really, other than just to leave Betty behind as she made her way out of the castle.

The rest of Solanim and Cosmosus's escape attempt went mostly okay, there were a few monsters here and there, but it wasn't anything they couldn't handle. They got lost a lot, but it was fine, they got out… eventually. Solanim had really hoped that all three of them could get out, but he and Cosmo had to continue on. They eventually did find the exit, which led to a cavern with bridges suspended over lava. Vanessa was already there, and Firefly and A1 found everyone soon after.

“Hi! Also, Vanessa, I thought you said you’re waiting for Betty. What happened? Wait, don’t tell me…” Firefly trailed off, the both of them knew what Firefly was going to say, though.

“Yes. Betty had her face stolen…” Vanessa answered, looking away with a wistful expression.

“I’m sorry for your teammates. If we hadn’t gotten you to help, this would have never happened…” said Solanim.

“No, it’s not that. I was supposed to keep those two from getting their faces taken, I failed to protect them again.”

“Well, Cosmo and I probably wouldn’t be here right now if it wasn’t for you, so I guess you prevented our faces from getting stolen, if that helps.”

“But Akira’s faceless and now missing…”

“That had nothing to do with you! We sort of just had an unfortunate run-in with the Dark Lord again and had to leave her behind... I guess I’ve always been a bit of a trouble magnet, haha.”

”And I’m just sort of here for the ride.” Cosmosus added.

”… okay, thanks. Anyways, since we're out of the castle now, we’re all leaving together. After that, we can patch up and try getting everyone’s faces back.” Vanessa anounced.

”Alright, let’s go!” declared Solanim.

”Wait, what about my say in this? In which case I think it’s a good idea!” Firefly said.

The five of them continued on to the exit, and they were thankfully not attacked by anything. It was going well… too well. And since thing’s couldn’t go too well, they ran into two blue minotaurs just past the exit. 

“… There’s another exit, right?” asked Firefly.

“[Judging by our surroundings, there is none.]” A1 responded.

”So… maybe we just make a run for it?”

”… Aren’t you and Vanessa injured?” Solanim asked.

”So are you.” Vanessa replied.

”Oh, don’t worry about that, we can get out just fine!” Firefly took Vanessa’s hand, and teleported a decent distance away from the minotaurs… but still in their line of sight. The minotaurs started to give chase, Firefly teleported back to the rest of the team and managed to teleport Cosmosus and A1 before the Dark Lord had finally found the team. Yeah, the team was screwed, considering that  she got pretty badly splinched, clearly her left arm did not travel with her during the Apparition process. Firefly cursed under her breath, as she borrowed Solanim’s sword to cut off part of her sleeve, revealing her severed arm. She then returned Solanim’s sword used that part of her sleeve she cut to try to stop the bleeding. The two prepared to attack after, but before they could do anything like that, the Dark Lord stole Firefly’s face and tried attacking her, instead attacking Solanim, who had jumped in front of Firefly and stole Solanim’s face as well.

“Solanim! Firefly! No! And just when Solanim and I reunited, too…” said Cosmosus, who was watching the tragedy unfold.

”I know, it’s terrible, there’s no time and we are in no state to help out… but…” Vanessa, who was leaning on Cosmosus, trailed off. No. Not again. She wouldn’t let history repeat. “I’m going back. You two can leave.”

”[It is unadvisable to return to the rest of the team in your current state.]” A1 said.

”Yeah, what A1 said. You can barely even stand already.” agreed Cosmosus.

“No— I have to— what if they die because I didn’t defend them? We’ve left so many others behind too, what if they also die??“ Vanessa protested.

“They won’t. Well, I don’t know if having their faces stolen is better or worse, but they won’t be killed intentionally at least.”

”Firefly lost her arm, now you’re saying that our team won’t die??”

”[In the s-scenario that they do die, you did n-not cause their deaths. T-that would be caused by the Dark Lord or the monsters around outer Karkaton.]” A1 stated.

”But— what if I could have saved them…”

”… you are literally leaning on me for support right now.” Vanessa responded to Cosmosus by trying to stand without using Cosmosus as support. “… the point I’m trying to make still stands. If you rushed in, you would certainly be faceless or dead.”

“… yeah… it was a stupid idea…” Why did Vanessa think she could save them? She couldn’t save her brother before, why could she save someone now?

”That’s not what I—“

Cosmosus was interrupted, as the Dark Lord had caught up to the last 3 members of the team, he readied an sphere of dark magic and it flew at the team, knocking them away as Vanessa lost consciousness and the team of three’s faces were stolen. 

Rosemary finally arrived in Karkaton, and why was the first thing she noticed three of Stella’s faceless teammates? This did explain Stella’s team being different every time they met though. Rosemary took the three to a cave nearby, where they wouldn’t be found by monsters and healed two of them, as the other was not affected by healing magic. She’d look after the three for a bit, until she - or Stella- found their faces.

Chapter Text

Stella was still holed up in her tent, the Dark Lord’s castle was up ahead, but… could she even stop the Dark Lord like this? Stella’s friends teammates kept getting stolen from her, if she really was qualified, shouldn’t she be able to prevent this? And what if her teammates were dead by the time she found them? What if they resent her for not doing anything? Stella didn’t know what could be happening to her ex-teammates! For all she knew, the team was being tortured as she thought up this internal monologue! Oh… that would be a reason to save them, wouldn’t it…? She truly, desperately, wanted to be the hero Miitopia needed, but that wasn’t happening any time soon, so she’d have to just act as one again, as she always had been since the beginning. So Stella forced herself out of her tent, she’d been sulking about her teammates for long enough.

She was sick of this, and if she’d have to take down the Dark Lord alone, that was fine by her.

“So… uh… do you want to talk about it now?” the Guardian Spirit asked again. They wouldn’t normally do this, but it’s been awfully long, and Stella looked like she’d been sobbing for a while…. She’d be fine though, everything will all be fixed when she destroys the Dark Curse! It’ll all be fixed! It had to be! If Stella needed a bit of support right now, it’d be fine.

“I already told you, I don’t.” Stella replied, why was the one who forced her into this situation actually caring about her? “I’ll be going now, thank you very much.”

Stella arrived in Karkaton, she quickly defeated some monsters before noticing a nearby cave. It wouldn’t do her any harm to check it out, she could take a small break since Karkaton’s heat was already getting to her. Sadly, like the start of her adventure, her break was interrupted before it even started.

But instead, she would be horrified by her discovery there. Cosmosus, Vanessa, and A1 were in the cave, faceless. Not to mention A1 being very damaged, with the windows appearing around A1’s lack of face glitching out, their top hat-shaped cannon being slightly dented, and random pieces of A1 being missing, with some wires poking out of the gaps left, as Vanessa curled up against a crate. Stella was right, well, not exactly since her teammates weren’t dead, but they were faceless. Something had happened to them when they were taken from her. Stella broke into another sob, it was surprising she had even had any tears left to cry at this point.

“Stella?” a familiar voice called out. Oh, that was Rosemary, wasn’t it? Stella couldn’t believe that Rosemary saw her at her worst moment, Stella quickly readied a spell to teleport—

“Stella, please, I want to know what’s going on after you suddenly teleported away when we last met… maybe I could help?” Rosemary said. Stella was clearly upset and Rosemary could make her feel better, because she was perfect, but she needed Stella to stop avoiding her first. 

Everyone around Stella seemed too concerned with her well-being, if this makes them shut up then she’ll tell Rosemary about her ordeal. “… fine. I’ll stay.” Stella begrudgingly replied.

“Those people… they’re your teammates, right?”

“They are. Every time I enter a new region, the Dark Lord kidnaps my team. I get new teammates, but… it still hurts, being separated from them like this. I tried stopping it this time, but I failed. At this point, am I really qualified to even act as the ‘hero of Miitopia’?”

“Hm… well… I can’t really give a straight answer to that, but maybe you could do something to prove you can be the hero of Miitopia? Like, if you do something big for people, like saving their lives, they can ignore all your other failures. And you’ll have to appear strong, not show any weakness in front of others, because people need a hero that they know is reliable. So you just have to get your friends’s faces back, and defeat the Dark Lord, that’s all to being considered a hero, really.” Rosemary knew it was probably messed up to encourage, let alone allow, a literal child to fight Darius - who had somehow turned into the Dark Lord - but Rosemary couldn’t bring herself to hurt her older brother, and how could Rosemary, the Great Sage show any weakness like being unable to take down the Dark Lord? It wasn’t exactly public knowledge that she and Darius were siblings, after all.

“What about actually being a hero, like you are? And I’ve been relying on my team this whole time, how can I save them by myself?”

“You won’t have to do this alone. I’ll assist you with rescuing your friends. And as for actually being a hero, that’s a matter of perception at this point, you’ll gain confidence that you are once you are seen as that.”

“… thanks. Now let’s go, we’re off to find my teammates.”

“Um, Great Sage Rosemary…” Stella trailed off, the two were still looking for her teammates’ faces, but this was a random question that came up in Stella’s mind.

“Yes, what is it? Rosemary asked.

“Why are you known as the Great Sage?”

"That's a good question... I'm really just a magician who's traveled the world. I've taught lots of people during my travels. After a while, people began calling me by other names. Wise One, Great Sage... That kind of thing."

"Hmm, I see. You're so cool, Great Sage Rosemary!”

“It’s nothing, really…”

Stella and Rosemary soon encountered… yet another slime but with A1’s face this time around. How’d their face get stolen, anyways? Weren’t they a robot? But Stella supposed they did have a face, so it could be stolen…

 A fire or lightning spell obviously wouldn’t work on a magma slime, so Stella tried casting a spell that she had read about in the grimoire which didn’t look like another fire or lightning spell and could be used and mastered regardless of the user’s specialty in magic. But it failed and the part of the spell that Stella had conjured burst causing Stella to fall backward. The slime then attacked Stella as she attempted to get up quickly, before Rosemary helped Stella up and healed her. “Are you okay?”

”Yeah…”

”That’s good. Now try casting that spell again, but this time try not to focus too hard on casting it, balance is important when casting that one.”

 Stella tried casting that spell again, it succeeded this time.  “Good job, Stella!” Rosemary said as she cast the same spell on the slime, damaging it a bit more than Stella did. 

“And I’ll be holding back, so you can learn more.”

Stella nodded, before Rosemary quickly dodged the slime’s attack. The fight after was mostly just Stella casting spells on the slime as it attacked her, while Rosemary would heal Stella when she needed to and cast some weak offensive spells, holding back as to let Stella handle the fight. After Stella finally defeated the slime, A1’s face flew back to the cave, and Rosemary congratulated Stella. The two then returned to the cave to reunite with A1.

“I don’t get it, Great Sage Rosemary. What exactly is your specialty in magic? You seem amazing at everything.” said Stella, on the way to the cave. 

”Thank you! My specialty is… basically all the major types of magic, otherwise known as healing and nature magic, water or ice magic, and light magic. I don’t normally use that last one, though.” Rosemary replied.

Rosemary had not one, not two, but three specialties?? Stella knew Rosemary was the Great Sage, but this was amazing! “What??”

”I know, it’s a lot.” Rosemary chuckled. 

When Stella and Rosemary got back to the cave, A1's face was back as expected. "A1?" Stella called.

“[Ah, h-hello, Stella. I-it is g-good to know that you have arrived to our rescue.]” A1 said shakily.

“… what happened to you?” asked Stella. If Stella lost A1 and ended up like this, it didn't bode well for the state of Stella's other teammates.

“[This is simply some damage I have s-sustained during your teammates and I’s attempt to escape from the Dark Lord’s castle. Do not w-worry about me.]” This did nothing to ease Stella's concern.

“So… we’re returning to the inn first, then we’re going to find everyone else’s faces. I'll see if I can help you.” Stella probably couldn't, but it wouldn't hurt to try, and she could ask Rosemary for help with that.