Never leave your crops to carry into another season. Especially never leave turnips. Bad things happened to fields that bore old food. Some people believed in those silly old-farmer tales. He wasn't a believer in much anything, and if he wanted to leave last season's growth to wither in the ground, nature could hardly stop him. His field stretched out in all its glory, the summer sunset's orange light glistening on the tight green skins of his tomatoes, granting the pumpkins a hue of ripeness, and even warming last spring's turnips. Those turnips had sat there all summer, and by the look of things, they'd keep on sitting there to the end of time. Nothing bad had come, and nothing bad ever would come. As the sun light faded to darkness and he prepared to turn in, he cast one final proud gaze upon his work, not just the fresh produce but the rotted vegetables especially. They were his proof only fools listened to superstition.

Something startled him awake in the night. Leaves rustled, though the air hung still. Deep growls circled around his farmhouse, chasing their own echoes. Stone rattled against stone as something churned the ground. A monster had wandered onto his farm. He scrambled out of bed, grabbing his hoe for a weapon as he rushed out. A pumpkin sailed through the open door, narrowly missing him. A lumpy shape wrenched another pumpkin from the vine and hurled it at the wall, though it was no bigger than the plant itself. Evil little faces leered at him from where no face belonged. Those were his turnips pulling themselves out of the ground and wreaking havoc.

Somehow, the myths were true. Somehow, ordinary vegetables had turned into monsters. A turnip crushed tomatoes between its knotty fists right before him. He swung his hoe, splitting the wayward turnip in two. The pieces collapsed, stared at each other briefly, and then picked themselves up to go raging on individually. He struck with his hoe again, trying to smash the plant to shreds. Soon there were more pieces, and more, but no matter how small, they kept on their fit, tearing splinters from his walls and flinging up soil from the ground. He could only hope the rest of the myth held true, and they would wither in the dawn light. Yet daybreak was hours away, and his whole farm could be in ruins by then.

A dull stump, like someone pounding a walking stick into the earth, sounded up the road. No footsteps followed the thump of the stick. A faint glowing spot bounced in the air. No one answered his shouts, yet still the sound came closer. Lantern light washed over him, held out from a stiffly extended arm. Beyond that arm a turnip headed monster stared at his field with empty eye sockets. A single peg-leg joined a narrow body like one thick stick, and the being hopped along unrelentingly.

The turnips shied away, grimacing in the dim light. With a great leap, the lantern-bearing monster stomped down on the fleeing plant, swinging the light down to shine into vile eyes. A glow tore free of the turnip and passed into the lantern with the dull bell tone of a monster gate closing. The vegetable withered on the ground, reduced so much rotting matter once again.

He shrank back from the sight until he hit the wall of his farmhouse. He hands scrambled behind him for the door, but he couldn't drag his eyes away from the nightmare setting about its task before him. His maddened vegetables scrambled about the field, pelting the interloper with produce from where they hid in the shadows. It did nothing to halt the punishing light, or the great leaps of this monster as it chased down its prey. The last bell toll rang out in the ugly silence. Man and monster stood alone in a wrecked farm.

The monster turned to him. Its light burned as bright as the fires of The Eternal Torment. It tipped the lantern against its gap-tooth mouth as if taking a deep draught. A glow flickered inside its eyesockets like the evil visage of the afflicted turnips. The light was so small, and so dim inside the dark emptiness of its carven head. It hopped on, to find other fields and continue its work of feeding its appetite.

Maybe farming was too much for him. It was time for him to abandon this cursed field, leaving it for monsters to get up to their labours. One thing was for certain: he'd make sure everyone knew what happened here, and to dig up their old crops.

"And that's how the Turnip Man saved a villager, by taking away the monster spirits that infected all the turnips. It's so important to honour him by wearing a turnip head on this day, because it happened right here in your very field," Mist concluded.

"No way... even you can't believe that," Raguna protested.

"You mean you won't wear a turnip head this year? But I worked so hard on making this for you," Mist held up a mask hand crafted from a hollowed-out turnip.

Raguna sighed. He supposed it wasn't any more silly than wearing a pumpkin.