Event OOC: End of Arc 2

[hadrielmods]

Good morning and welcome to The End of Arc 2! This is a rather massive event and can be a bit of a doozy in terms of OOC communication- there's a lot of info to cover in this post, so please give it a look through and feel free to ask any questions in the comments!

THE CATALYST

The event will start with the Null sending coordinates to the four characters who killed someone off of their hit list: Malkus, Yukari, Rey, and Ikaruga!

While Rey, Yukari and Ikaruga are planning on double crossing the Null and using their weapons to help the gods, Malkus will be instructed to storm Hope's temple and kill him for good- and he's promised an ally in the coming fight. When there, he meets up with the guards on duty: Henry Percy, Saber, Percy Jackson, and Drake and predictably, a fight ensues.

Four against two isn't really fair though, and so out of the shadows comes the person who gave the Null the location of the city at the end of Arc 1, who gave them access to the network in the beginning of Arc 2, who prevented important information from being found on the spy mission, who transported the godkillers into the city, who ensured that the deaths in the city were genuine deaths, and whose primary motivation has always been self preservation: none other than the goddess Delight herself.

Delight struck a deal with the Null back in Arc 1 to kill Hope and turn over the city in exchange for the other seven gods becoming prisoners/power generators and the eventual release of all the citizens in Hadriel back to their own worlds through the Door. Which, aww, sweet. But also, kind of what a bitch, am I right?

Of course, Hope doesn't know this and arrives at his own temple when he senses Delight there, only to find her killing Saber and Henry before allowing the god killer to be turned on Hope himself. Luckily, Henry is still alive enough to send out one last SOS post to the network, warning everyone of the coming disaster and cutting Delight's plan short. Ikaruga, who had utilized the information to flank the attackers and try to cut off the means of escape, will show up and enter the fray then, just long enough to stall Delight for reinforcements to arrive!

Delight is forced to flee when Hope's allies show up in droves- but not before clearing a path through the tunnels for a Null invasion.

THE INVASION

They warned you on the 22nd, and now it's for real. Allowed access to the city via Delight, the Null will quickly flood the city with reinforcements, just in case Delight's plan fell through (which, thanks to the ones standing guard at Hope's temple, it has). This is overwhelmingly not good.

The Null are singleminded in their desire to kill Hope or any of the other six gods (Delight excluded, of course). They will also destroy anything that they believe gives the gods power: art, buildings, temples, meeting places. The clinic, guard HQ, library and dam/power generator will subsequently be burned to the ground and destroyed.

They will cut down anyone who attempts to defend the gods or the buildings. They will also target any person on their hit list if they see them. In addition, if your character fights the Null in any capacity at any time, they will be added to the list of acceptable casualties and will immediately find themselves targeted by any Null they come across. This means that if your character is not on the list, does not engage the Null, and does not lift a finger to fight them, they will be left eerily alone as dozens of killer robots swarm past them, seemingly ignoring them.

In the midst of the attack, Delights temple acts as a safe haven. If you visit there, you will have a deep desire to stay- it will also be the only temple untouched by the Null and unattacked by them. They will not follow player characters into the temple and will largely leave it alone. However, Delight will be MIA from her temple and throughout the attack will likely not answer her inbox on the network.

THE RESISTANCE

During all of this, Hope is severely injured. This means that food and revivals will be scarce and take much longer. Revivals in particular are more likely to be longer, messier, or nonexistent until the event is over. This means that if they come back, characters are likely to come back with something wrong with their bodies- missing parts, different color eyes, mental fog or confusion- that sort of thing! These effects are permanent unless/until they are healed by a god or another player character.

This also means that the monsters in the tunnels will once again flood the city, encouraged by none other than Confusion, who will be attempting to use her abilities to direct the monsters toward the Null. The enemy of my enemy is my friend (who still wants to eat me probably)? Enjoy your weird three-way fight between the horrors of the tunnels and the precise killing machines. The Null will likely have the upper hand in most of these battles, but feel free to use the resulting chaos to your advantage!

Once the clinic has been destroyed, Love will establish a safe haven at the hot springs. While Love is not able to heal as effectively as Hope can, they will provide pain relief and much more minor healing, as well as a small area that the Null find difficult, but not impossible, to attack.

As Hope is injured, he is something of an easy target. He will need guarding at all times- guarding which will come from a mixture of volunteers and NPCs. Guarding Hope will immediately put your character on the hit list and you will likely have to deal with many Null, so look out!

On the final day of the attack, December 5th the Null will launch a full-scale attack on Hope's temple. This will be a bloody and brutal fight and at the end of it, Hope's guardian, Sorrow, will be killed. In those moments, a massive wave of sadness will envelop the entire city, lasting for about thirty seconds before his energies are dispersed. The emotional impact is tremendous, and will be enough to even stop the Null in their tracks as they are faced with a sudden onslaught of guilt and regret at their actions.

This only lasts for a minute or two before they purge their systems and it's over- long enough to open up a weak spot in the Null. Attack them here or risk losing it all. RIP Sorrow.

THE ESCAPE

With everything in the murdercave going to hell in a handbasket, it's up to Fear to again move the city to escape from the Null while they're weak. Unfortunately, he can't just leave the Null behind- wherever he moves the city, everything in the city comes with it. Therefore, after the city is transported on December 5th, the Hadrielites will still have to deal with the remaining Null- the good news here is that the supply of reinforcements is temporarily cut off. That is, until the Hadriel Null can establish a connection with their friends and upload their coordinates. So, it's time for an extermination! Take one, take them all, and dump them into the tunnels outside the city, quick so Fear can move it again- or else, who knows what might happen!

Delight will also have been moved along with the city, and the sudden change in location will temporarily disorient her long enough for Tranquility to capture and imprison her to prevent her from escaping the city now that her true colors have been revealed. More info on what will be done with her will come later!

In the meantime, you will have another week to fully purge the city of Null. During this time, there will be no new reinforcements. There will also be an NPC Post on December 6th detailing what happened and what the plan going forward is. Good luck!

After a week, Fear needs to move the city again, to leave the straggling Null behind, and on December 12th the city will move to a location that nobody has ever been before, a location... aboveground.

More information on that will be available as it draws closer.

THE NULL

The Null are a race of highly intelligent hiveminded machines. What one of them knows, the rest will know within seconds. This makes fighting them difficult, as they can quickly adapt and react to changes.

Their bodies are made of steel, predictably, though they are articulated with hundreds of thousands of small moving parts. These parts can be realigned and are mobile, allowing them to essentially shapeshift into forms that suit their needs. Shapeshifting has limits, of course and all of them can reach a maximum height of about 8 feet and weigh 1500-2500 lbs. They require some way to move across the ground, generally with two or more limbs. They cannot fly. As Rage mentioned in her post, they are experimenting with bipedal limbs and so many of them look humanoid during this invasion.

Still, they don't necessarily have to. You could find yourself facing one who is more tanklike, more swift and elegant, or more spindly with multiple limbs to have diverse and adaptive ways of moving. The Null communicate through their own network and do not have any type of speakers or vocal chords, though they can hear and interpret external sound just fine.

The Null have central processors, located generally on the 'core' of whatever form they're taking: in the stomach for a human-looking one, for example. These processors are about the size of a soda can and their forms cannot be altered and they always look the same no matter what form is taken. These processors must be destroyed with some sort of excessive force in order to stop the Null from functioning. They can be cut, stabbed, forcibly removed, or disintegrated, so long as the attack is strong enough to puncture the steel casing. If a processor is removed from the body, the Null is still 'alive' and can communicate with its allies to be rescued- so be careful with that.

Removing any sort of limb or form of mass will not kill a Null, neither will extreme heat or cold (though it might slow them down a little). They can be restrained, but are extremely strong, so take care in doing so.

The Null are outfitted with a type of laser cutter as an offensive weapon. These weapons are short range (about 2 feet in length) and can immediately slice through and simultaneously cauterize flesh. These weapons, if removed from a dead Null, can be engineered with some work to turn on and can cut through the Null's outer shell.

Their long range weapon is an electricity-based projectile that will shock/stun the target on contact. The projectile is fired from their limbs, rather than any form of gun. The electrical impact can cause seizures or heart issues- but if you're lucky enough to avoid those, then the stun can be resisted (though it is very difficult to do so). The purpose of this is generally to incapacitate a target to allow them to close in and kill cleanly with their cutter.

Finally, the Null have a crowd-killing weapon, though very few of them carry this. The crowd-killing weapon is a device which emits a piercing sound that eventually destroys the brain of the target (hint: this is how the Hosts were killed). This is about the size of a microwave and cylinder shaped, with a control panel in an alien language- no buttons are seemingly pushable though and it's impossible to interact with it at a glance. As the Null don't want to kill all of you (yet) this will be used sparingly as a zoning tool initially to clear characters away from buildings to be destroyed- toward the end of the invasion, the wail of it will be audible just about everywhere, though the true 'danger zones' will be restrained by Rage and focused only on the god temples (excepting Delight's), the library, the clinic, and the guard HQ. These are 'leave it and walk away' type weapons and will typically be unguarded.

THE DETAILS

We will keep this part short because this post has been long enough! Most everything has been explained, but we want to stress that this is a very open sort of event, as far as plotting goes! Characters are welcome to ignore the Null entirely if they aren't on the list, or to organize their own underground resistances, to fight with the gods, aganst the gods, or even with the Null!

This event is a fairly big deal and we both welcome and encourage any serious ramifications or fallout, so go crazy with it! We will do our best to facilitate any and all plotting needs.

As always, thank you guys for being so awesome and we hope you have fun!

THE OVERVIEW

► November 25th: Delight attempts to kill Hope, but is stopped by the guard. The Null attack.
► November 30th: The Null begin zoning full areas of the city with their sonic blasting weapons.
► December 5th: Sorrow is killed, Delight is captured, Fear teleports the city temporarily.
► December 6th: Fear post to the network.
► December 12th: The city is (hopefully) rid of the Null and Fear teleports the city again, this time somewhere new.

Comments

[tongueamok]

Wrong journal, but if Alphys wants one of those crowd killers, Nick might be able to get one for her, since his mechanical brain can't be damaged by it.

[sciencelizard]

yes oh man. mostly she'd be looking to either get one before it's set off to disable it or after it's destroyed to try and build some sort of EMP for the rest of them. mostly she's just going to try and science this shit as hard as physically possible lmao

edit: it's up! over here!

[synthedick]

\o/