Cursed Technique: Phantom Mixtape

Concept

The user's cursed technique allows them to manifest and use the innate cursed tool [[Dead-End Deck]]. Using this tool, the user can record incoming cursed techniques, cursed energy, or physical phenomena, and store them for later playback.

Core Mechanics

When the cursed technique user presses "Record" on the Dead-End Deck with a cassette tape slotted in, his body becomes a recording device for the cursed tool. When any cursed technique, cursed energy, or physical phenomena comes into contact with him, the user can absorb its data and record it onto the cassette tape as "auditory" data shaped from cursed energy.

When a cassette tape containing recorded data is loaded into the cursed tool, the user can press "Play" to unleash the recorded technique or energy within, using the Dead-End Deck as the output medium.

When a recorded phenomenon is played back from the Dead-End deck, it is accompanied by screeching analogue feedback that acts as a secondary sonic attack, disorienting anyone within range.

Over time, the user of Phantom Mixtape develops the [[Analogue Static]] cursed energy trait.

As the user's understanding of their cursed technique grows, they gain the ability to manifest the subsidiary cursed tools of the technique: [[Overtone]], [[Grounding Vambraces]], and the [[Bullhorn]]. Furthermore, they gain the ability to summon the [[Tape-Worm]] and, later, [[B-Side]] Shikigami.

Since a user made a Binding Vow with the Special Grade Cursed Spirit Tsuchigumo, all subsequent users can summon the [[Tsuchigumo]] cursed tool as soon as they unlock their innate technique.

After landing at least ten Black Flashes in total, the user gains the ability to record Master Stems using the [[Dead-End Deck]] and summon the [[Stem Orchestrion]] Shikigami.

The technique's Domain Expansion is known as [[Analogue Audiophile Studio]].

Passive Traits

Sync-Up

The user has a supernatural grasp over rhythm, tempo, and beat. This makes them excellent at reading and writing music, but also has combat applications.

The user can read the specific cadence and patterns of any person they see, mentally calculating the tempo of their physical characteristics, such as heartbeats, muscle stimulation, or breathing, as well as their attacks or martial skills, and the flow of their cursed energy. This enables them to create a predictive mental map of the opponent's actions, which becomes increasingly precise as they observe and gather more data.

This enables them to turn combat into a complex rhythm game where they are always perfectly on the beat. They can predict and dodge attacks, read and exploit momentum perfectly, and bypass enemy defences and inflict maximum damage by striking on their rest beats.

As this is not a cursed technique application and simply a property of the user's cognition engraved by their cursed technique, it cannot be disabled even if their cursed technique is turned off, either by an enemy attack that negates cursed techniques or by the user themselves using techniques like Domain Amplification.

Metadata

Upon seeing an attack, cursed energy application, or a cursed technique, the user reads its metadata, instinctively gaining knowledge of its specifications such as complexity, refinement, output, and energy flow.

They can also render this understanding into a calculation of exactly how many "seconds" of data the technique contains, allowing them to calculate the viability of recording based on their available storage.

Cursed Cassettes

To fuel the technique, the user manifests Cursed Cassettes. These are formed entirely out of cursed energy and may only be used to interact with the cursed technique.

The user can manifest up to five cassette tapes at once, known as his Track List. Every tape is blank when spawned.

A blank tape can hold a certain amount of auditory data generated by Phantom Mixtape. However, the amount of data recorded is not directly dependent on the duration of recording. The consumption of tape by each recording is determined by two things: its Volume (Cursed/Physical Energy Output) and its Bitrate (Complexity/Sophistication). A simple or CE-reinforced punch may require only a small amount of data, while a Maximum Technique may require an entire tape to contain.

The amount of data stored on a Cursed Cassette is measured in "seconds" of playback, with each tape having a 60-second capacity.

The tapes are physical objects that can be destroyed with sufficient application of force, though they are highly durable. If a Cursed Cassette is destroyed, any stored data within is violently released as an indiscriminate explosion.

After a tape is consumed or destroyed, it takes one minute for a new blank tape to be manifested by the cursed technique. This process continues every minute until the user has fully replenished his Track List.

Cursed Cassettes will not be replenished while the Dead-End Deck is destroyed. However, the user will instantly gain a Cursed Cassette if they are below capacity when the Dead-End Deck reforms.

If the user hands off a tape to [[B-Side]]'s long-term storage, it will count as having been removed from the Track List, and a new blank Cursed Cassette will spawn in its place. Conversely, if the user already has five Cursed Cassettes, he will have to destroy or exchange one to pull a Cursed Cassette out of B-Side's storage.

Recording

While recording, the technique ordinarily absorbs all of the damage from an attack and stores it at 90% fidelity. However, by using a Binding Vow, the user can choose to take 10% of the damage in exchange for recording at 100% fidelity.

When recording a technique, data will only be recorded as long as the Cursed Cassette loaded in the Dead-End Deck has recording capacity left. If the tape is fully exhausted by the attack, the remaining energy will pass through and strike the user in full.

The [[Tape-Worm]] can be used to record attacks instead of the user themselves. Attacks impacting the frontal boom-microphone of the Shikigami while it is plugged into Dead-End Deck using its AUX tail will be recorded into the loaded Cursed Cassette in the same way as if it had been recorded through the user's body.

Unlike recording with the user's own body, the Tape-Worm will not be damaged even if the technique's data exceeds the Cursed Cassette, as the excess energy will be vented harmlessly through its speakers. However, collateral damage may occur to anything within range of the speakers.

Recording a tape costs a fixed amount of cursed energy, depending on its length, but is independent of other variables. Thus, irrespective of the kind of technique stored or any prerequisites it may have originally had, a recording of the same length will always have the exact same CE cost.

The user may record their own cursed energy at any time, without being hit by it or incurring a CE cost. The most common application of this is Echo, where the user will record an attack reinforced with their own cursed energy onto a Cursed Cassette either in advance or, for more advanced users, in the process of making the attack, and play it simultaneously while attacking in close quarters, essentially creating a "phantom strike" that turns every hit into a two-hit combo.

Another application of self-recording is the Medkit, where the user will record their Reverse Cursed Technique onto a tape in advance. If the sorcerer is ever too drained to use RCT manually, playing back the Medkit will suffuse them with the recorded supply of positive energy, giving them a heal on demand.

When recording a phenomenon such as a Shikigami, Phantom Mixtape will not record the entire Shikigami into the cassette. Instead, it will only record the immediate attack and cursed energy mass of the Shikigami. When played back, the data will appear as an auditory ghost, execute the exact recorded attack, then disappear.

Phantom Mixtape can record the sure-hit attack of a domain. However, the user must be struck by the domain to allow the technique to record its sure-hit. This means that using anti-domain techniques such as Hollow Wicker Basket or Simple Domain will prevent the sure-hit from being recorded. However, a user skilled in barrier techniques may program a Simple Domain with Phantom Mixtape to use the [[Anechoic Chamber]] technique, which can act as a recorder in the appropriate mode.

As Domain Amplification disables the innate technique while it is active, it also cannot be used to record attacks. However, the cursed tools and Shikigami of the technique do not disappear while Domain Amplification is active. Thus, playing back already recorded tapes is still possible even while using Domain Amplification.

Furthermore, while the user's own body cannot be used for recording while being covered with Domain Amplification, the user can still use the manifested Tape-Worm or a pre-cast Anechoic Chamber in Omni-Mic configuration (as creating a new Anechoic Chamber or changing its configuration requires application of the technique to program the Simple Domain) as a microphone to connect to Dead-End Deck, essentially preserving most of the technique's core functionality.

However, any ability that relies on the user's own interaction with the cursed technique itself (rather than a cursed tool) or requires them to record using their own body (Noise Cancellation, Active Noise Cancellation without using a Simple Domain, Rewind, etc.) will not work. Furthermore, broken Cursed Cassettes will not be replenished while Domain Amplification is active, but the timer will continue to run, and multiple Cursed Cassettes may be replenished simultaneously when Domain Amplification is turned off.

When a recorded sure-hit is played back, it will spawn the technique as a localised manifestation of the sure-hit attack. However, it will no longer have the guaranteed hit effect because it is not imbued in a barrier.

Recording will work alongside Falling Blossom Emotion as it does not block the attack, but only counters it. However, due to the interference, the recording will only happen at half fidelity.

If a Cursed Cassette has playback time remaining after absorbing an attack, it can be used to absorb subsequent attacks as well, as long as it has capacity remaining. For example, a single Cursed Cassette can store 20 3-second attacks or 2 30-second attacks. To reuse a loaded Cursed Cassette, the user must press "Pause" after recording the first attack, then record another attack in the same way.

Multiple attacks may be recorded on the same Cursed Cassette in two ways: Sequential Storage and Overdubbing.

Sequential Storage is the standard method for storing multiple recordings, in which attacks are stored as sequential tracks on the tape. Upon hitting "Play", the stored attacks will fire in the order they were recorded. To fire a particular attack, the user can use the track controls on the Dead-End Deck, though they must remember or know which track contains the attack they are looking for.

Overdubbing is an advanced method of storing multiple recordings. By rewinding to a previous segment of tape on the cassette after recording an attack, the user can record a subsequent attack's data over the pre-existing data, overlaying and fusing the two. When the Cursed Cassette is played back, the two attacks trigger simultaneously. This technique has much greater potential in terms of power and versatility, capable of creating fusion attacks that combine the strength and characteristics of the overdubbed data. It is also more efficient in terms of storage space. However, it is much more taxing on the tape due to the high data density, leading to faster tape degradation. Furthermore, if the overdubbed techniques are mutually destructive, they can cause an adverse reaction if played, leading to an explosive, catastrophic failure.

Playback

When the "Play" button is pressed with a data-bearing Cursed Cassette loaded, the stored energy or technique is played through the front of the Dead-End Deck, where the cassette deck is located. The technique will be activated immediately in front of the Cursed Tool.

When the Tape-Worm is plugged into the Dead-End Deck using its AUX tail, the user can instead choose to play the Cursed Cassette through any or all of the Shikigami's speakers. If played with the same amount of cursed energy, the technique's output will be reduced by the number of speakers used, while increasing the cursed energy spent commensurately will allow full-power playback from every speaker.

Playing back an already recorded tape has no cursed energy cost.

The recording process of Phantom Mixtape transcodes recorded techniques into the user's own cursed energy signature. Thus, targets will not have any resistance or immunity to their own attacks and will take full damage from their recorded cursed techniques.

Each time a loaded tape is played, it causes degradation. The degradation of a Cursed Cassette is worsened by the Volume and Bitrate of its recorded data, as well as the amount of data recorded.

Full cassettes degrade faster than nearly-empty ones. More complex techniques also cause faster degradation, with extremely sophisticated or powerful techniques, such as powerful Domain sure-hits or maximum techniques, destroying a cassette after a single use. On average, a Cursed Cassette will last 3-4 full plays before being totally degraded.

Once a Cursed Cassette is fully degraded, it will break and disappear. Unlike catastrophic destruction, this will not trigger harmful backlash. However, the data stored within the Cassette will be lost forever.

A Cursed Cassette can be wiped of its recorded data by running [[Degauss]] while it is loaded in Dead-End Deck's cassette deck. This will safely wipe the recorded attacks and return the tape to a blank slate.

Extension Techniques

Extension Technique: Noise Cancellation

This is a defensive Extension Technique. It can be prepared in advance by holding down the "Record" button on the Dead-End Deck. When an enemy's attack connects, the user records the attack's cursed energy signature and immediately calculates and emits an inverse signature, cancelling the attack. The collision creates a feedback boom that staggers and disorients the attacker. This extension technique can perfectly block any single attack, but due to the massive processing speed and power required, it destroys an entire Cursed Cassette with each use. If the Cassette is not blank, the data inside is destroyed as well.

Extension Technique: Active Noise Cancellation

This extension technique is primarily meant to defend against Domain sure-hits. Unlike Noise Cancellation, it does not require the user to be hit by the attack first. Since the domain's sure-hit is imbued into the barrier, its signature exists everywhere within the Domain.

By switching Dead-End Deck to ANC mode, the user uses his own body's contact with the Domain to read the frequency of the imbued technique as it attempts to target them. The cursed tool's internal processors spin into overdrive, analysing the incoming sure-hit and automatically generating a counter-burst frequency on the fly to cancel it out. As the Domain constantly tries to target the user, this creates a thin, perfectly inverted cursed energy shield around the user, cutting down the sure-hit like an active defence system. It is a cursed technique-mediated replication of the cursed energy-mediated Falling Blossom Emotion.

As the Dead-End Deck generates the counter-frequency on the fly in ANC mode, it does not need to consume a Cursed Cassette to work. However, unlike Noise Cancellation's perfect defence, if the enemy boosts the Domain's output beyond the cursed tool's processing capability, the ANC will clip and let some of the sure-hits through. It also does not stagger the opponent as Noise Cancellation does.

Furthermore, unlike Noise Cancellation, which is instantaneous, ANC ties up the Dead-End Deck completely while it is active, disabling the user from accessing any of its other functions until the Extension Technique is released. It also cannot ordinarily work against non-Domain attacks, as there is no imbued technique to read in the surroundings. However, by using Anechoic Chamber in Omni-Mic mode as an early-warning microphone, ANC can be used at somewhat reduced efficacy against ordinary attacks as well, making it a good second layer of defence if the Simple Domain breaks.

Extension Technique: Chaff

This extension technique is meant to defend against Domains and obfuscate the user's exact location from enemies. Loading a tape of their own cursed energy into Dead-End Deck, the user blasts it through the speakers at maximum volume, creating a massive, dense cloud of their own cursed energy signature to hide in. This confuses the sure-hit effect of Domains, making it randomly strike the cloud of cursed energy rather than the user, granting temporary protection from the sure-hit as long as the technique lasts. As pure cursed energy has a very low bitrate, the tape degrades slowly even at max volume, allowing for a respectable period of protection.

Extension Technique: Rewind

This is a defensive Extension Technique. Unlike Noise Cancellation, this works more like a parry than a block. It cannot be prepared in advance. At the exact moment of an attack's impact, the user must press "Record" on the Dead-End Deck and then instantly hit "Rewind" within a fraction of a second. This triggers an instantaneous capture and inversion of the attack's data, rebounding the full force of the attack back at the opponent. A physical blow's impact travels back into the opponent's own weapon and body, while a cursed energy attack is thrown back at the wielder. This technique acts as a perfect counter to any attack and does not consume a Cursed Cassette, but the timing is highly unforgiving. Hitting "Record" too early or failing to hit "Rewind" in time will just do an ordinary recording, while pressing "Record" too late will fail the parry and hit the user with the full force of the attack. It also places great stress on the cursed tool, and using Rewind more than two or three times in quick succession can damage the Dead-End Deck's mechanisms.

Extension Technique: Auto-Loop

After recording a short, simple attack onto a tape, the user uses the "Loop" function on the tape to play the Cursed Cassette over and over, repeating the attack like a machine gun until the cassette completely degrades. In exchange for the short length of the recorded attack and the inability to stop the looping until the tape is fully exhausted, the cassette's durability is enhanced, enabling the loop function to last much longer than if the attack were repeatedly fired manually. This offensive Extension Technique is best used for suppression or dealing with hordes of low-level enemies.

Extension Technique: Tempo Shift

Using the speed controls on the Dead-End Deck, the user alters the properties of a recorded attack. By using Fast Forward, the user sacrifices data density and playback fidelity, reducing the attack's strength but greatly increasing its speed, making it difficult to track or dodge. Conversely, using Slow-Mo makes the attack sluggish and highly telegraphed, but the data is concentrated, leading to slow but high-damage attacks. Both types of Tempo Shift come in 2x, 4x, 8x, and 16x, each step increasing both the advantages and the tradeoffs.

Extension Technique: Gospel Mix

This is an offensive Extension Technique specialised against defeating curses. By recording their own RCT densely onto a Cursed Cassette and then overdubbing it with a standard cursed energy or technique attack, the user creates a poisoned attack that carries hidden positive energy. Upon a curse being hit with a Gospel Mix attack, the positive energy inside violently detonates, instantly exorcising most curses and bringing even powerful cursed spirits to the brink of death. It is also possible to use this extension technique by overdubbing RCT over a pre-recorded attack instead, but as the RCT is the top layer in such a case, the positive energy will no longer be hidden and can be detected.

Extension Technique: Wall of Sound

By recording a short 1-second blast of their own cursed energy and then overdubbing it as many times as possible until the Cursed Cassette reaches its maximum throughput capacity, the user creates a brief but extremely concentrated blast of their Analogue Static cursed energy. Upon playing the tape, a concussive shockwave of dense, violently oscillating cursed energy is released, capable of annihilating almost any material, cursed energy reinforcement, or defensive technique at close range and dealing massive damage. However, the Cursed Cassette instantly degrades and breaks, making this technique highly inefficient in terms of tape capacity.

Extension Technique: Dub Duplication

By loading a Cursed Cassette holding a technique into Dead End's Deck and pointing the cursed tool into the Tape-Worm's boom microphone, the tape's playback can be copied into the Tape-Worm's internal storage. From there, by copying it into a blank Cursed Cassette, a copy of an already-recorded technique can be created. With this method, the user can get more use out of a strong recorded technique, as two tapes provide double the uses. However, due to recording from a copy rather than the original, generation loss occurs, reducing the fidelity and output of the second copy. A limitless number of second copies can be made from an original recording as long as it is intact, but if Dub Duplication is used on a second copy, the third copy degenerates into a tape of pure cursed energy noise, which can be used as a quick and dirty blast of Analogue Static but will not be able to cast the cursed technique sought to be duplicated.

Extension Technique: Shape of You

Using the [[Bullhorn]]'s Sampling Extraction on an innate domain, the user copies the scaffolding structure of the soul rather than the engraved technique or information within. Copying this scaffold into a Cursed Cassette creates a blank decoy soul. By pressing the Dead-End Deck against their own body and playing this tape, the user injects this decoy soul into their body and destroys the Cursed Cassette. Once inside the body, the blank soul can be kept alive by feeding it a trickle of cursed energy, making it last forever as long as it is not destroyed. When the user is struck by a technique that penetrates their innate domain and attacks their existence itself, such as Unlimited Void or Idle Transfiguration, the user can channel the attack into the decoy soul instead. As the decoy matches the user's cursed energy and signature, the technique becomes confused and flows into this blank soul rather than the user's real soul, nullifying it. However, as the blank soul is completely empty of internal resistance, complexity, or the ability to reinforce itself, it is fragile and quickly dissolves under attack, making it a temporary defence. The user can only have one decoy soul implanted in their innate domain at a time, though there is no limit to the number of Cursed Cassettes that can hold one.

Extension Technique: Feedback Loop

This is an offensive Extension Technique, best used as a last-ditch effort to kill a strong enemy or to cover an escape. The user clamps Dead End's Deck headset over its cassette deck and loads a Cursed Cassette containing a dense recording of the user's cursed energy. By pressing "Play", "Cue", and "Record" at the same time, the cursed tool plays back the cursed energy, which travels into the headset, whose puck sends it back into the recording cassette deck, which adds it to the Cassette and plays the enhanced tape back again, beginning an exponentially growing feedback loop. With each near-instant loop, the cursed energy multiplies by itself, growing until it begins to strain the cursed tool's casing and mechanisms. The Dead End's Deck begins to glow with concentrated energy, and a howl of feedback shrieks fills the air around it. At the last moment, the user throws the cursed tool like a grenade and retreats. Unable to control the massive energy any longer, the casing of the cursed tool ruptures, releasing the stored cursed energy and auditory resonance in a massive, apocalyptic explosion. Feedback Loop contains enough power to level a significant portion of a city, rivalling a Disaster Curse's Maximum Technique output. However, in exchange for the deliberate destruction of Dead End's Deck, the recovery time for the cursed tool increases significantly, leaving the user without it or its headset for 2-3 days.

Maximum Technique: Master Bootleg

A prerequisite of using Phantom Mixtape's Maximum Technique is that all five Cursed Cassettes must have at least some data recorded within them. Until this condition is fulfilled, Master Bootleg cannot be used. In exchange for this condition, the Maximum Technique applies a massive multiplier to its damage output. The multiplier scales with the cumulative amount of data stored on the tapes and with the level of Overdubbing.

To set up the Maximum Technique, the user summons all five cassettes in his Track List and suspends them in the air before him. Then, he crushes all five by slamming them between his hands. Instead of detonating, the magnetic tape of the Cursed Cassettes spools out and violently tangles together, fusing the stored energy and techniques into a highly unstable sphere of screeching static and blinding cursed energy.

To fire Maximum Bootleg, the user forces this sphere into the Dead-End Deck's cassette deck and presses "Play", "Fast Forward", and "Rewind" simultaneously.

The cursed tool acts as a directional cannon, firing a colossal, sustained beam of violently overlapping and conflicting energy and cursed techniques. Playing forwards and backwards simultaneously, Master Bootleg shreds physical matter and cursed energy alike on a conceptual level, dealing catastrophic damage regardless of durability or reinforcement.

Additionally, the beam releases a massive feedback shriek as it passes by. Anyone caught in the vicinity will be struck by this feedback, completely scrambling their ability to mould cursed energy for a significant period of time and inducing debilitating nausea and vertigo.

After exhausting its energy, Master Bootleg will destroy the Dead-End Deck, leaving the user without the cursed tool until it reforms.