Ashifili

Deep Ground Online (Hiatus)

“Dandan hyaku naru…”

School was finished for the day, and, like every day, Yuuki felt like she didn’t learn much at all. It probably didn’t help that she had zoned out during most of the classes, and now that she had also gotten kicked out of the Purple Crown Orchestra due to her abysmal grades from last year…well, the plain-faced girl really didn’t have much of anything to do. Her friends were busy with some Deep Ground thing, and she didn’t feel like losing herself to the piano that day. Of course, there was also the option of actually studying and staying ahead of her classes this time...but that involved actually studying, so it clearly wasn’t an option.

Taking in a deep breath of the autumn breeze, tinged with the smell of maple leaves, Yuuki closed her eyes and hummed a happy little tune as she started walking away from the Academy, heading to the city. With a good pace, she should be able to get to the train station in half an hour, and after that, it’d be another hour or two until she could reach the coastline. By then, the sun should be setting, and she’d get a pretty sunset view by the beach. Of course, it brought up the question of what she was going to eat for dinner if she had little to no time to cook after heading back home...but convenience stores are the sliced bread of the modern era, and the brunette was glad for those one-story miracles.

Before she could truly get started on her afternoon excursion, though, a bit of news entered her ears, and, for once, didn’t exit out of her other ear.

The Black King, the Moon Rider of the Ebony Strykers, had finally opened up her territories.

It was news that was spiralling out of control on the interwebs, as tons of players spammed it in their Twitter feed, with proclamations of taking her head or joining her legion or whatever else. For a moment there, with her phone buzzing like mad at all the updates, Yuuki could only watch. Then, she turned off her phone and brought out her trusty Canadian loonie.

“Heads for Black Territory exploration, Tails of Beachside Sunset.”

A flick, a ring, and then a bounce. The whum-whum sound increased in frequency as the coin hopped around on the pavement, before it finally clattered to a stop. Bending downwards to pick it up once more, she sighed at the result. Looked like she would have to find a bench or something to sit down on now.

Ten more minutes of aimless wandering passed, before she found herself a nice spot in Purple Crown Academy’s botanic gardens, sat herself down amongst the dead trees and the wilted flowers, and closed her eyes.

<<Dive Phase Initiate>>
<<Connect to World Network in…>>
<<3>>
<<2>>
<<1>>

<<Welcome, Moonlight Soloist>>

A familiar weight could be felt on her back, as nigh-inaudible mechanical whirrings pushed the petite girl upright. She found herself in a Player Sanctuary, and nodded. Good. That made sense. The last time she played, she had gotten herself killed by a band of Outlaws. Looked like everything was alright with the world then. Not bothering to check her EXP or anything else, the black-robed girl stretched out her arms, the long sleeves falling down to reveal slender, pale skin and delicate fingers. The fingers of a proper pianist, so unlike the ones she had in real life.

Yuuki smiled softly at this. She always did like her Avatar’s hands, as well as the strawberry blonde hair that was cut at the same length as her own, but was so much more sleek and chic. Another smile. That rhymed. A catchy song popped up in her head once more and, taking nice, bouncing strides, she popped out of the Sanctuary with a happy grin at the rest of the virtual world. Today was going to be a day of exploration! Of discovery! Of going to a place where her Avatar’s color wouldn’t make her stick out like Black Rock Shooter amongst Power Rangers!

And, naturally, she’d have to pay the Moon Rider a visit first, just so she doesn’t get shot down for appearing to be a spy or a snoop. The Heavy Arms crackled and whirred once more, before they pressed themselves against the ground and pushed off, sending her flying through the air, over the heads of all those other land-bound Avatars. With the wind whipping by her face and the sky looking so perfectly unobstructed, Yuuki smiled again, softly.

It’s been some time since she had seen this type of scenery, and it wasn’t that bad at all.

Twenty more minutes of hopping about, and she finally reached the territory of the Black King, a dark land full of tall office buildings made of glass.

Yuuki, unfortunately, didn’t register the meaning of ‘glass’ until one of her Heavy Arms literally broke through the window while she tried to launch herself off it. With a great crash and a greater smash, the little girl with really big arms fell down the side of the building before smashing the ground in a sickening crunch.

It was most likely only due to her body being cradled by her Arms that she hadn’t turned into a pixelated mess, but…as Yuuki looked back up to the ruined windows on the building, she smiled.

“That was fun!”

That ‘fun’ also cost her roughly 35% of her HP, but such details could be ignored for the sake of temporary amusement.

Deep Ground Online (Hiatus)

Well things are proceeding quite smoothly. At least there's no flying robot rainbow horses trying to break a hole through Moon Rider's rooftop.

...that happened last time.

@TheWindel

This is relevant to my interests. What even?

Deep Ground Online (Hiatus)

Gonna work on a post after doing some other things. Probably won't be logging in, because hipster-ism.

Deep Ground Online (Hiatus)

Been some time since I last came here…

Height: 5’3
Weight: 49 kg
Hair Color: Tawny Brown
Eye Color: Hazel
Name: Takayume Yuuki
Age: 16
History: Where you looking for trauma? Tragedy? What about lavish luxury? Comedy? Nope, Takayume Yuuki’s life was utterly, painfully, laughably normal, born in such a middle-class family that her parent’s income was exactly the average yearly salary of middle management office workers. With the stable, stagnant life granted to them by the Deep Ground Program, the Takayume family fell into the same trap as many other families: that of complacency. There were no ambitions, no goals that mattered, and no parental pressures exerted onto the girl. Yuuki lived content, never needing or wanting anything, because she didn’t have much that she wanted the first place. At elementary school, she was pretty much average, just another girl who went through the motions of education. She had a few friends, but after graduation, never bothered to keep in touch with them, and came to high school with a blank slate.

The only thing that stayed with her after those childhood days was the piano, something that she picked up on whim and found that she enjoyed in moderation.

After being introduced to the Deep Ground Project and gaining her Avatar, she carried on with her life in much the same fashion. She played Deep Ground when she felt like it, and didn’t play when she didn’t feel like it. After so many years, Yuuki’s Midnight Soloist was still at level 2, due to the fact that she cared little for death and even less for EXP. While dangerous situations made her heart pound euphorically, virtual battles aren’t something that she actively seeks, and ultimately…if she could choose between Deep Ground and playing the piano or walking around with friends, Yuuki honestly wouldn’t know which one she’d do.

Probably just flip a coin and see where it lands.

Personality: Yuuki takes all things in moderation, living life with a small smile on her face. She’s the type of person who actually does enjoy taking long walks in the beach at night, and who spends her time more with her piano and her friends than with the internet or her studies. After all, the Deep Ground Program had made studying a trivial thing in life, as long as one succeeded in it. But, with two years left to go until the rest of her life was decided…yeah, two years is a lot of time, and Yuuki doesn’t feel much like worrying about that either. It could be said that she’s a slacker, a lazy little kid who cares much too little for her future. Unfortunately for those people, Yuuki isn’t a slacker. She’s just a procrastinator who works best under extreme amounts of pressure.

Because the most important thing in the world is to smile and enjoy one’s self, so regardless of whether or not her digital life is coming to an end or her career path was going to become that of an elementary school janitor’s, Yuuki doesn’t care. She’ll stay content and satisfied, and never drop the small smile on her lips.

Never asked for this, but okay.

Avatar Class: Warrior - Duelist
Avatar Title: Midnight Soloist
Avatar Level: 2
Avatar Guild: Not in any Guild.
Avatar Abilities:
Heavy Arms – Unique to Midnight Soloist, Heavy Arms creates two large, mechanical arm that extends from behind the Avatar. Every time a new Avatar Ability is gained, another arm is added, capping at 6 arms at level 9. These arms act as weapons, and cannot be removed, meaning that Midnight Soloist is incapable of wielding other weapons or shields, even though she DOES have ‘normal’ hands as well. With a length of two meters and ball joints that allow its three sections to bend and spin in pretty much any direction, the Heavy Arms weigh a mere 30 kg each, and each arm increases the Midnight Soloist’s base Strength and Attack Speed by 25%, capping out at a 150% increase at level 9. In exchange, though, her running speed is reduced by 20%, regardless of the number of arms.

In their base state, the Heavy Arms has four metal claws that oppose each other, which can be used to claw, punch, and grab. Unsurprisingly, they’re strong enough that Midnight Soloist can really just lift herself onto them and walk about on vertical surfaces, granted that the surface is sturdy enough.

Though the buffs are removed whilst the debuff remain, she can retract the Heavy Arms into her back if she wants to walk around relatively normally.

Currently, Midnight Soloist has three Heavy Arms, one behind each shoulder, and one in the center of her back.

Land Demolisher – The second form of Heavy Arms, Land Demolisher converts any number of the mechanical arms into piledrivers. The claws are removed and give way to a flat, hard surface, which extends fifty centimeters in an instant after it strikes an object, doing 200% damage and knocking the target in the same direction as the attack. Against objects, Land Demolisher does 300% damage, while it gains 10% Armor Penetration against large Dissolutions, in exchange for losing its knockback properties. If simultaneously ‘pincering’ a human-sized target, the two Land Demolishers would do a total of 500% damage.

Each piledriver usage has a cooldown of sixty seconds, and it takes three seconds to switch back and forth from Heavy Arms to Land Demolisher.
Theme:Astronauts

Deep Ground Online (Hiatus)

Edits have been made, Lucius/Windel.

Deep Ground Online (Hiatus)

Balanced gender ratios don't matter anyways~ But yeah...these level 3 13year olds...it's like they joined DGO right when there was a level-jump event. XD

Deep Ground Online (Hiatus)

@Diggerton
I mean, there's a 200% damage attack that, if I recall correctly, is on a 15 second cooldown. I think that the one minute rule is basically just used as an idea of how long the round is. Essentially, how many times that ability can be used in a single post.

Deep Ground Online (Hiatus)

Alright then. To confirm everything…
Non-Structural Targets: 200% with variable knockback effect.
Structures: 300%
Large Dissolutions: 200% with 10% AP
Pincer: 250% per Land Demolisher
Cooldown: 60s

Deep Ground Online (Hiatus)

Piledriver does more damage to large Dissolutions because the knockback effect doesn’t apply (too fat to be moved), so it would ‘penetrate’ instead of knock back. That’s also why, originally, it was going to do 350% damage to human-sized targets that get pincered. 300% to account for how they’re pretty much in the same situations as structures/large Dissolutions, and an extra 50% because they’re smaller and fleshier, meaning relatively more surface area to messed up.

Would Heavy Arms scale with level? Like, at Lvl 1, it’d be an average lvl 1 weapon? Or is she pretty much just going to be reliant on base stats?

Deep Ground Online (Hiatus)

Been some time since I last came here…

Height: 5’3
Weight: 49 kg
Hair Color: Tawny Brown
Eye Color: Hazel
Name: Takayume Yuuki
Age: 16
History: Where you looking for trauma? Tragedy? What about lavish luxury? Comedy? Nope, Takayume Yuuki’s life was utterly, painfully, laughably normal, born in such a middle-class family that her parent’s income was exactly the average yearly salary of middle management office workers. With the stable, stagnant life granted to them by the Deep Ground Program, the Takayume family fell into the same trap as many other families: that of complacency. There were no ambitions, no goals that mattered, and no parental pressures exerted onto the girl. Yuuki lived content, never needing or wanting anything, because she didn’t have much that she wanted the first place. At elementary school, she was pretty much average, just another girl who went through the motions of education. She had a few friends, but after graduation, never bothered to keep in touch with them, and came to high school with a blank slate.

The only thing that stayed with her after those childhood days was the piano, something that she picked up on whim and found that she enjoyed in moderation.

After being introduced to the Deep Ground Project and gaining her Avatar, she carried on with her life in much the same fashion. She played Deep Ground when she felt like it, and didn’t play when she didn’t feel like it. After so many years, Yuuki’s Midnight Soloist was still at level 2, due to the fact that she cared little for death and even less for EXP. While dangerous situations made her heart pound euphorically, virtual battles aren’t something that she actively seeks, and ultimately…if she could choose between Deep Ground and playing the piano or walking around with friends, Yuuki honestly wouldn’t know which one she’d do.

Probably just flip a coin and see where it lands.

Personality: Yuuki takes all things in moderation, living life with a small smile on her face. She’s the type of person who actually does enjoy taking long walks in the beach at night, and who spends her time more with her piano and her friends than with the internet or her studies. After all, the Deep Ground Program had made studying a trivial thing in life, as long as one succeeded in it. But, with two years left to go until the rest of her life was decided…yeah, two years is a lot of time, and Yuuki doesn’t feel much like worrying about that either. It could be said that she’s a slacker, a lazy little kid who cares much too little for her future. Unfortunately for those people, Yuuki isn’t a slacker. She’s just a procrastinator who works best under extreme amounts of pressure.

Because the most important thing in the world is to smile and enjoy one’s self, so regardless of whether or not her digital life is coming to an end or her career path was going to become that of an elementary school janitor’s, Yuuki doesn’t care. She’ll stay content and satisfied, and never drop the small smile on her lips.

Never asked for this, but okay.

Avatar Class: Warrior - Duelist
Avatar Title: Midnight Soloist
Avatar Level: 2
Avatar Guild: Not in any Guild.
Avatar Abilities:
Heavy Arms – Unique to Midnight Soloist, Heavy Arms creates two large, mechanical arm that extends from behind the Avatar. Every time a new Avatar Ability is gained, another arm is added, capping at 6 arms at level 9. These arms act as weapons, and cannot be removed, meaning that Midnight Soloist is incapable of wielding other weapons or shields, even though she DOES have ‘normal’ hands as well. With a length of two meters and ball joints that allow its three sections to bend and spin in pretty much any direction, the Heavy Arms weigh a mere 30 kg each, and each arm increases the Midnight Soloist’s base Strength and Attack Speed by 25%, capping out at a 150% increase at level 9. In exchange, though, her running speed is reduced by 20%, regardless of the number of arms.

In their base state, the Heavy Arms has four metal claws that oppose each other, which can be used to claw, punch, and grab. Unsurprisingly, they’re strong enough that Midnight Soloist can really just lift herself onto them and walk about on vertical surfaces, granted that the surface is sturdy enough.

Though the buffs are removed whilst the debuff remain, she can retract the Heavy Arms into her back if she wants to walk around relatively normally.

Currently, Midnight Soloist has three Heavy Arms, one behind each shoulder, and one in the center of her back.

Land Demolisher – The second form of Heavy Arms, Land Demolisher converts any number of the mechanical arms into piledrivers. The claws are removed and give way to a flat, hard surface, which extends fifty centimeters in an instant after it strikes an object, doing 200% damage and knocking the target in the same direction as the attack. Against objects, Land Demolisher does 300% damage, while it gains 10% Armor Penetration against large Dissolutions, in exchange for losing its knockback properties. If simultaneously ‘pincering’ a human-sized target, the two Land Demolishers would do a total of 500% damage.

Each piledriver usage has a cooldown of sixty seconds, and it takes three seconds to switch back and forth from Heavy Arms to Land Demolisher.
Theme:Astronauts