The wind began picking up violently, bringing along with it a new onslaught of rain. As Sam, Sebastian, Abigail, and Penny fought against nature, the rain pricked them like needles all over. Ahead of them, the town was glowing an ominous purple like a baseball stadium at night.
"You just had to live up in the mountains, eh Seb?" Sam puffed as he squinted through the wet curtains.
"Sorry we're a family that likes weird nature and privacy," came the retort as Sebastian whipped his soaked hair away from his face.
"Anyways, you don't suppose we have to fight Faye, do you?" Penny asked nervously.
"Yeah. Now it's like we don't even know the first thing about her," Abigail added, having been quickly filled in with Sebastian by Sam and Penny from the mountain.
"I think I do," Sam muttered as they finally reached town.
The shield from Faye's mysterious bottle still held incoming monsters at bay, but it did not hamper any force of nature one bit. The town was slowly starting to flood due to the river nearby beginning to overflow from the downpour. The wind was whipping in all directions, helping to displace what little else of the diseased mist was not yet sucked by the tainted Stardrops hovering above them.
On the roof of Pierre's store was Faye, surrounded by said Stardrops and definitely not in control of herself. Her arms waved in snake-like movements, controlling the direction of the wind and rain. From afar, the four of them saw the emptiness of her eyes as though she were accepting of her new blindness contrasting with her alabaster skin.
Her gaze whipped in their direction, and the four of them froze as the rain pierced right through them in painful surprise. They ducked behind a bush for some form of cover.
"Great. Now she's a weather-bender," Sebastian groaned as blood appeared through his now-torn hoodie, "How do we top this?"
And right as though to answer his question, a flash of light materialized in front of them. Through their squinting, two figures appeared, and when the light died down, the Witch and Wizard Rasmodious appeared. Both of them were battle-weary.
"Home sweet home, Razzie-pie!" the Witch sneered as she aimed a red blast in his direction. The Wizard ably deflected it up into the sky with a muffled grunt.
"You're the Wizard in the forest tower!" Abigail exclaimed excitedly.
"You guys have the same hair color," Penny and Sebastian pointed out with blank stares. The Wizard fought back a smirk.
"Kids! Stay out of the Witch's way!" he warned as he aimed yet another spell in her direction.
"Those kids would NEVER listen to you once they find out that ALL OF THIS IS YOUR FAULT!" the Witch cackled as she gestured all around her. Indeed, the town was slowly wearing and tearing under the brunt of nature and the previous monster attacks.
"You mean all this destruction was you, Wizard?!" Sam asked frantically as a tree branch came close to impaling him in the face.
"It's complicated! The Witch had a hand in this!" came his reply, "Where's young Faye?"
"Controlling the weather. Can you help us?" Penny asked anxiously, her hair coming undone in matted tangled from her usual buns.
"I need to subdue the Witch first!" He Wizard called back as he got struck in the face with a face slap of a spell. As his hair singed at the tips, Penny hoisted him up until she was struck squarely in the back.
"We almost forgot," Sam growled as he looked to Faye, who had formed more rain needles to strike them all. They immediately disintegrated once they embedded themselves in their flesh. "Ugh. Don't know how to feel about these. Freezing, burning, then hurting."
They dragged the Wizard back with them under cover behind a trash can around the Saloon. Blood, watered down by the rain, trickled all over from various sizes of puncture wounds and spell blasts.
"Is there no way we can split up to take on both or something?" Sebastian gasped, "We could get at least one of them tied up or something."
"Not a bad idea," The Wizard wheezed, "I think young Abigail and Penny can try to get Faye down. You young men help me with the Witch. We can deal with Faye after we take care of her." At that, he procured a vial and placed four drops on his fingers. He flicked each drop in Sam's, Sebastian's, Abigail's, and Penny individual directions, and a film of orange enveloped them until disappearing.
"5 minutes of imperviousness. Should be enough time."
Sam and Sebastian looked at each other and immediately aimed a full-on punch to each other's faces, feeling nothing, and grinned widely. "Sweet."
"Oh come on," Abigail sighed exasperatedly as they all split up.
"Boys, just hold her still long enough and I can get her with a binding spell. I don't plan on dealing with her very long," the Wizard instructed, "Try not to get hit."
"No problem," Sam assured him. He did not look forward at all to any more possibilities of crashing into trees or solid cobblestone. He and Sebastian watched as the Witch reached into her tattered robes and pulled out her wand.
Her spellcasting increased tenfold immediately. Jets and bolts of different-colored lights flew in all directions, grazing the three men in various spots despite all attempts to block and deflect. The impervious spell held, defusing potentially critical attacks that managed to connect.
"That damn wand," Sebastian snarled in frustration, "I'll go and rip it from her fingers."
"I'd like to see you try, little boy," the Witch taunted him maniacally, "Your determination is admirable, but foolishly misplaced. That man you call the Wizard will dispose of you soon enough just as he did me."
"We get you had a relationship, but taking it out on the town through the Wizard is wrong!" Sam scoffed at her as he zigzagged his way up to her and socked her in the face. She was instantly thrown off balance and summoned her broomstick, which materialized some feet away from her. She stumbled towards it, but it incinerated to ash thanks to another of the Wizard's spells.
"At least fight fair," he sneered. He was met with a small explosion that knocked him off his feet and into a nearby trash bin.
"Not while you have little lackeys and I don't," the Witch snarled as she aimed in Sam's and Sebastian's directions. They staggered upon being hit with bright red sparks but fought to get back on their feet. Instead of lunging forward to fight, they were met with four Shadow Brutes, and they clumsily charged at the two boys.
"Seb, catch," Sam hollered, and he tossed his pistol at him. With a flourish, Sebastian cocked the shot and fired point-blank as Sam pulled out his cutlass and fended off another Brute.
"How cute. They can actually fight," the Witch cackled gleefully as she pointed her wand to enhance the Brutes, "Maybe I can play with you two some more."
The Wizard shrugged off some trash from his shoulders, "Don't bother with those two. I can defeat you easier that way.
"In your dreams, my sweet," the Witch scoffed as she and the Wizard poised for another sudden showdown as Sam and Sebastian finished off the last two of the Brutes.
Both magical folk fired off. While the Witch's curse whizzed past the Wizard's ear, his spell struck her dead-on in the stomach. Sam gave her a hearty jab, and Sebastian pounced upon her wand, wincing in pain as an electric shock coursed through his veins from the slightest contact. He flung it away into some nearby grass out of immediate sight.
"You fools can't get rid of me!" The Witch declared delusionally as she found herself surrounded, wandless and in a throbbing daze. With a complementary punch to the face this time from Sebastian, Sam held fast both of her arms, preventing her from casting spells. And the Wizard finished with his said binding spell, leaving her body rigid as a board.
"That may be true, Witch, but we can still just send you somewhere else," he said simply as the three of them towered over her. In a sweeping flourish, the Wizard summoned a portal in midair that swirled black and blue. "I can deal with you further later. Now, if you gentlemen would be so kind…"
Grinning, Sam and Sebastian grabbed both ends of the Witch and heaved her inside. With a last shriek of despair, the portal closed, and all traces of her disappeared.
"What did you do to make her act up like this?" Sam turned to the Wizard, "I didn't know she even existed around here."
"Young Sam, you can probably tell that we were married at one point," he answered, receiving exasperated reactions, "I will say that whomever it is you love and marry, do not let yourself or your spouse forget that. I did, amidst my experiments and … other distractions."
"That's IT?! You basically just shunned your witch wife and she went ballistic?" Sebastian exclaimed in disbelief, cocking his eyebrows.
"In your terms, yes," the Wizard replied, grinning sheepishly.
"Well, she's taken care of. Can we help Faye now?" Sam pointed behind them. One look, and they saw Penny and Abigail wrestling almost futilely with a very enraged Faye, who had begun pelting them with sharp attacks.
"Yes. Let's," the Wizard agreed as they went to rush over.
As they got closer to the fighting trio, Penny and Abigail were suddenly blasted back until they crashed into Sebastian and the Wizard respectively. Helping them to their feet, they saw as a faint black barrier formed around Faye. She strode menacingly towards them, and the winds around her began to manipulate themselves into what felt like versatile, invisible walls that threatened to knock them all down to their feet and into nonresistance. However, she herself moved with what looked like guided blindness.
"Every time we're about to get her, she just hits back a BIT too much," Penny grunted, wiping her drenched hair out of her face.
"Did the witch have any solution for this?" Abigail asked tiredly.
"She wouldn't tell us even if she knew of any," the Wizard answered shortly, "Good thing I do. However, it won't be enough to just beat her into submission."
"Why? We just need to get in there and beat that black stuff outta her like she did with all of us right?" Sam protested.
"No...this is different," the Wizard answered as he kept Faye at bay with a spell of his, "She's had too much prolonged exposure to all of Stardew Valley's taint. That, combined with the power of the Stardrops, infused into her being unlike you all, wherein the taint only made you all temporary hosts."
"So what can we do?" Sebastian asked hesitantly as the Wizard whipped up a mix of spells in front of him.
"We'll have to tap into her mind for answers."
