Not to plan (mod)

[Layla Amare]

Well...this hadn't worked out well so far. Layla had managed to get back into the outer city proper again, but had only been out on the surface for a few minutes before being set upon by a large group of shadows. Not wanting to take on so many at one time at her current level, she did the only thing she could to escape. She threw open a nearby manhole and climbed down into the sewers.

She was alive and in one piece, and the shadows had yet to actually follow her. Other than that, the action had not worked out in her favor. Whatever she might have thought about exploring a sewer before, a sewer in the middle of shadow-infested ruins could only be worse. And so it was: everything about the place was overpowering in all the worst ways. But she didn't dare try to return to the surface just yet. She would just have to endure it for awhile.

[ChromaticTruthsayer]

A Neopolitan of Shadows appeared!

Chocolate Maya

• Mudo

Absorb: Repel: Null: Rs: Dark Wk: Light

Vanilla Maya

• Hama

Absorb: Repel: Null: Rs: Light Wk: Dark

Strawberry Maya

• Agi

Absorb: Repel: Null: Rs: Fire Wk: Ice

[Layla Amare]

Even in the sewers, Layla wasn't safe from multiple shadows. She caught sight of them quickly enough: a single mass that split into three as it spotted her, but kept its lack of form beyond masks and the color of the shadowy substance that made up their bodies. And the colors were...unusual, to say the least. Instead of the sickly purple that Layla had seen on shadows thus far, they were much less sickly and...well, brown, white, and pink. Much like ice cream, oddly enough.

"That's kind of messed up, actually," Layla said, dropping into a fighting stance and drawing her weapon. She stepped forward, bringing the otta down in a whipping motion to strike just behind the mask of the pink shadow. The amorphous substance shuddered and recoiled from the blow, but the shadow continued moving. It drew away from Layla, raised a pair of blobby arms, and launched a small fireball at her. Unable to avoid it, Layla took the burst of flames square in the chest. But, much like her previous encounter with the wizard shadow, it didn't hurt nearly as much as it should have. It didn't even burn her clothes, just dissipated against them and left her feeling the heat for a few seconds. Meanwhile, the other two attacked in turn, launching attacks of darkness and, in an oddly familiar display, light against her.

While the dark attack was about as effective as the fireball: painful for a moment, but not life-threatening, Layla barely felt the light one. After having watched her own version of Hama burn through the wizard shadow, she had expected something similar. But, while the effect was still there, it was almost negligible. Remembering another point from her fight with the wizard shadow, the fact that her own lightning skill barely did anything to it, a thought struck her. Maybe that was just her own natural resistance. She'd have to add that to her notes. And if that was the case, these shadows would also resist the same elements they just used. But maybe they'd be weak to their opposites?

Well, she didn't have darkness or ice. Light, on the other hand, she could try out. She focused her mind on summoning her persona and felt immense power welling up within her then breaking free, as she had done before. Yamantaka materialized looming behind her, arms spread wide in all directions. A mandala pattern etched itself into the ground beneath the brown-colored shadow. A brilliant column of light erupted from the mandala, engulfing the shadow. As the light faded, so too did the shadow, dissolving into particles before vanishing entirely. Layla's face lit up as she saw the result. One, that meant one enemy was down already. Two, it meant that she was right about shadows having weaknesses. "Hey, I'm learning!" she exclaimed, letting herself get distracted long enough to get hit with two more attacks. Still mostly negligible...or at least, the light one was, but they were starting to add up. This was exactly why she had avoided fighting the mob of shadows up above.

"What now..." she mused, focusing on the pink shadow she had attacked earlier. If her earlier theory still held, it would probably be weak to ice (or water, if such a persona skill existed), which she didn't have. All she had was light and electricity. But, fortunately, these shadows didn't seem to be all that strong to begin with. She summoned Yamantaka again, calling on it to strike the pink shadow with lightning. And, fortunately, that was still enough to defeat it. Emboldened by that and how little the white shadow had been doing to her, she rounded on it, striking multiple times with her training otta and just powering through the bursts of light that came in response, until it too was dissolving into particles. Finally, all three shadows had fallen, and Layla was...well, she wasn't 'no worse for wear', but she was standing and seemed to be okay enough to get back so long as there wasn't any more trouble.

[Erithania]

Behold, phat lewt.



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