hadriel_logs | Event Log: End of Arc 2

Who: All characters
What: The event log for the End of Arc 2
Where: All over the city
When: November 25th-December 12th
Warnings: A full-scale battle, including character death, NPC death, and various other ways to suffer

It was bound to happen. The Null warned you, after all, and this has been building for awhile - and now it's here. First comes the initial attack, the agents of the Null attacking Hope's temple. Then, an SOS, warning the city of what's happened: a betrayal, and Hope being injured. Luckily for everyone, thanks to the actions of his guards Hope survives the attack. Unluckily, his attacker, the goddess Delight, escapes and lets the Null in.

Flooding into the cave, the Null will attack anyone who they believe is resisting them. They'll destroy buildings and deploy dangerous crowd control weapons, in addition to their sheer strength and speed. Confusion empties the monsters in the tunnels into the city, to help distract the Null. Some gods fight, others provide safe havens, but everyone is in danger.

After about a week and a half of the attack, Fear summons enough power to teleport the city. This stops any new Null from arriving through the tunnels, but the remaining Null must be hunted down and destroyed, or else they'll signal their location to the rest of their species. The danger will lessen as Null are taken out, but things won't really be safe until Fear moves the city again, so don't get too comfortable.

What will you do? Run and hide? Fight? Help the fighters? Turn on the gods yourself? Whatever you do, it's time to make a decision.

► This log covers November 25th-December 12th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you get taken out by the Null, please let us know here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Her vision starts to blur but she squints past that, past the splinters of pain shooting through her as she uses up too much ki too quickly. One, two freeze. One, two, freeze.

One, two, fre- Instead of the sound of another Null being iced up, there's the thunk of Rose hitting the ground hard on her knees. Not quite facefirst - not yet though she sways dangerously - but she's expended too much energy. ]

You- Ya' gotta' get the rest of 'em, dude.

[ Ah, yes, there we go. Now it's time to eat dirt. ]

[The Visitor bounds along after her, smashing the Null as she ices them over. Thankfully it's anticipating the opportunity to pounce, so when Rose goes down, the monster is able to intercept the Null in front of her before it can take advantage of her weakness. The two sort of tackle each other, winding up with their arms locked over where Rose has faceplanted.

The slight advantage eventually goes to the Visitor, who has teeth in addition to its arms. After a brief struggle, the creature manages to pull the robot sideways and smash its core.

It can see that it's fighting alone now, but they've taken out most of the threat already, so it isn't such a monumental task to eliminate the few remaining. The Null's weapons manage to take one of its hands and fracture part of its jaw, but the monster is relentless, and in short order there's nothing left of the machines but smoking wreckage and icy metal shards.

When it's sure nothing else is moving, the Visitor turns and limps back toward Michael, but it does make a brief stop to stare down at Rose, as if trying to determine if she's still alive.]

[ She's breathing but fading in and out of unconsciousness. Despite her eyelids feeling like lead, she's struggling to keep them open and fend off the darkness encroaching through her peripheral vision.

She's weak. This would have gotten her killed in the ring. Even eating again, she's still not what she used to be and it's a bittersweet thing. Isn't it all she ever wanted, to be baseline? Only now that she's, it's so damn inconvenient and all she can think is how she should be better. How she promised.

She can sense that the creature stops and lifts her arm shakily to give the most fleeting of thumbs up before it plops back down to the ground. Still alive, for better or for worse. ]

[The Visitor starts moving again the second Rose's hand lifts. The weak gesture seems to satisfy whatever curiosity it had. It limps over to Michael now and simply doesn't stop, sinking into the space around him as it goes forward, like someone doing the fake "going down the stairs" trick behind a couch. Except it isn't faking. The monster is gone within seconds, leaving behind only traces of the sooty blackness, which vanish as soon as Michael opens his eyes.

He squints hard, even the cave's dull light enough to hurt his head. It takes him a moment, having to sort through the afterimages of the Visitor's little outing. There's the same thing he sees every time he lets it out lately: crunching, a swarm of robots, steel between teeth. But there's also something else, Rose making frost spread across metal, Rose stomping a Null, getting thrown against a tree, lying on the ground, barely moving. Actually, that last one is still happening. Shit.

Michael drags himself upright, and then manages to stand. He's shaky, exhausted from days on end of the same shit, over and over. He stumbles over to where Rose is and sinks back down onto his knees.]

Hey, you still alive? [She seems to be breathing, at least. God, he sure hopes he doesn't have to carry her. He'll do it, but it'll be a mess.]

[ At first, there's only the unsettling sound of silence in reply. Her eyes are closed and breathing shallow. Given a moment, however, and her weak voice sounds with, ]

Are any of us truly alive? [ ... Yeah, alright. If she's coherent enough to get existential, then. She'll probably be fine. ]

Gimme' like five, dude. I feel like lead at the bottom of a river.

[ She needs to work up the willpower to actually move. After today, she'll be surprised if she doesn't sleep for all the hours she's missed this past week alone. ]

[Michael's worried enough that he's about to start checking for a pulse when Rose finally speaks. He sighs and sinks down further so that he's properly sitting.]

Alright, Nietzsche. But if you're taking a break, I'm taking a break.

[He wipes the dust off his glasses and surveys the carnage around them. Some of the robot corpses still have frost melting on them.]

By the way, that crazy ice thing you did? Pretty badass.

[ Okay, yeah, that gets (what sounds like at weak attempt at) a laugh from the blond. Finally, she's able to push herself up aaannnndddd flop immediately onto her back. ]

Thanks, dude. I try. [ Ice definitely has a nice aesthetic, doesn't it? ]

I'm gonna pay for it for a while, but. It's fine. Got the job done.

[ Not like she wasn't already on borrowing time to begin with and all. ]

Yeah, you and me both.

[He probably isn't losing years off of his life, but it's not like he's had long enough (or information enough) to determine the effects of this whole murderghost thing. He's definitely losing a lot of mental stability and every ounce of non-exhaustion he has left. Which wasn't much to begin with.]

Whatever. If we live through this, we can sleep for a week.

[ Hopefully not. He might wanna', y'know, figure that out... Not that Rose didn't figure out the ill-advised effects of draining her ki and then using it past her limits anyway. ]

Sounds good to me, dude. I can't actually remember the last time I took a nap.

[ Well, she couldn't. Until it suddenly happens, exhaustion taking hold and rendering Rose unconscious in minutes flat. Sorry, Michael, looks like you might have to drag her sorry ass back to safety after all. ]

Event Log: End of Arc 2

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