hadriel | — text; maybe i'm the only one who survived

( Life gets in the way a lot at Hadriel, between events and polls and everything else, but eventually, Kate and Lup manage to follow up on their talks and discuss the story of the invasion. And all the people who don’t know, or don’t know enough.

For so much information, text is probably better, she thinks. )

Know a lot of you probably haven’t heard everything about the invasion and how it happened. You should, especially now.

( Which means it’s time for a Hadriel history lesson. Strap in, kids. )

We were brought here when Hadriel was still underground. Hope revived the other gods. We didn’t know what the Null were, or that they existed. Didn’t even know that Fear was teleporting the city each time. Or that the city was being pursued. Hope revived Love and something went wrong during the teleport. City got split in half, one half stuck dealing with the Null trying to get in.

Think that’s when Delight made a deal with the Null. Said it was to let us go in exchange for Hope’s life and the energy of the other gods. She gave them access to the network and information on the underground sites and movements.

( And here’s where Kate’s story has to involve some amount of hearsay, because she was immediately branded a danger to the Null’s plot. She’s still proud of that, but it might be easier to let Lup explain, since she actually got to interact with the Null there, however briefly. )

yo what up its ur girl lup here for hadriel storytime
long story short
the null contacted us outta the blue w their own lil personal hitlist
a group of hadriel folks they wanted to see put into the ground
promised to give us a god killing weapon or some shit
natch folks werent too happy w that
especially when there were kids on the hitlist
actual children that a bunch of dumb robutts thought were some kind of threat
so folks fucking rebelled the null got even more agro
and i guess thats when they decided to take shit into their own hands and come after us themselves

People were defending Hope’s temple. That’s when we found out Delight was the traitor. She killed most of the people there. Tried to kill Hope.

The Null invaded. Destroyed the original clinic and guard buildings. The library. The power generator. Hope was nearly killed. Sorrow was killed. Took using the monsters in the tunnels outside the city and from the fog zone to help us fight off the number of Null that were coming at us.

it was shit
absolute shit from all sides

( Kate pauses before adding to this, because she can’t ignore the personal side to all of this. She’d been on that list from the start. The Null were very specifically looking for her, and Delight had tried to have her hide in her temple, tried to keep her safe. )

Her decision killed a lot of people. Would have been permanent if Hope wasn’t protected by people here. Gods captured Delight during the attack. They asked us to vote on what to do with her. Locking her up won.

the whole point of this is the null cant be fucking trusted
the end
they dont get more chances after trying to murder us all before
trying to meet their demands or playing nice is gonna end in bloodshed all over again
u can fucking quote me on that one
they want the turbo liches dead and theyll cut thru all of us to get to them
delight fucked us all over sure but doing anything but attacking rn is a stupid move

( And, while that is the jist of it, Kate knows there’s other things to be said. That other people will remember other details, or have explanations about what happened to them personally during all of this, so she tacks on: )

If you’ve got something to add, do so.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What are our chances in a fight? You have fought the Null before, do you have any suggestion on how to gain an advantage on them while minimizing our own losses?

As much as I agree that this exchange smells of a trap, charging in without a plan is just playing into their hands as well.

They can change their form at will. Use it during battle to counter their opponent. Use large numbers to overpower enemies. Visible weak points that can be physically attacked. Have short range and long range weapons they'll use. Tricky and difficult to fight alone but die easier than the gods.

Been over a year since we fought them. Would expect changes.

Based on this - possibly outdated - information, it sounds like the wisest choice would be to try and break their formation, scatter them. If it came to a battle within the city, we could try and use our familiarity with the terrain to our advantage, at least - but leading them into our territory purposefully is foolish.

How do you identify their weak spots, regardless of form?

( Okay, sensible. )

They can bring reinforcements. Strategy last time seemed like pure numbers.

( To just overwhelm the city with too many forces. )

It was a small steel container. Located near the centre of their body, if I'm not mistaken.

( She tossed weapons into enough of them to be pretty sure she isn't mistaken there. Over two weeks, it was nearly burned into her muscles where to aim. )

Then let's hope they haven't found a way to mask that container in the mean time.

Do we have any idea where they are getting their reinforcements from?

( Oh, truly. It's the kind of shitty luck which would happen, though. )

Gods mentioned something about them having production factories on their planets, I think.

( She certainly remembers Sorrow talking about how much further the Null's empire spans, how many of them there are. It isn't just facing an army. It's facing countless planets, waves of these things and their hive mind. )

Great :|

[ Yes, this called for an emoji to properly convey his annoyance with yet another galactic empire. ]

I was hoping we could cut off their supply chain, but it would likely just alert their HQ that something's wrong.

( The dumpster fire emoji would also work ~~but we think the emote hosting is still offline right now.~~ )

Probably.

Don't have a way of getting there, either.

( Sure, there's the gods, but you'd have to convince them that the risk was worth it. )

If only we knew if there were other strongholds against the Null elsewhere, that we just aren't aware of.

I may have experience with leading a space rebellion, but this context is just drastically different from the first time.

( Normally she's happy to talk business, or whatever passes for business in Hadriel, but that...

Excuse her while she indulges her curiosity. )

A space rebellion?

Where I come from the universe is coincidentally also under the tyrannical rule of an Empire. Per coincidence we became affiliated with the super weapon that this Empire fears the most and have spent the past year liberating planets from their rule.

It's a long story, but that's the gist. It's strange to be the one waiting for liberation this time.

( ...

w e l p. )

The only people who'd know about other enemies would be the gods. But it'd be out of date.

( After how long this city's been on the run, who knows. )

We'll just have to see if we can work with scraps then.

That's how this place has worked from the start.

they have the number advantage over us but theyre dumber and we are def stronger
as long as folks dont let themselves get surrounded we can take em easy

well
at least we could before
home court advantage and all too
we cant really be 100% they havent been preparing for exactly this which is why folks shouldnt let down their guard
magic works the best

Edited 2019-02-24 04:31 (UTC)

What type of magic?

Just magic generally or is it anything that those of us who aren't magical can hope to at least imitate?

basically any long range attacks are gonna be best
theyre dumb but theyre big
keeping their distance is the best shot anyones got

Thanks. That's something the non-magical beings can work with.

Has anyone thought about organizing training groups for an eventual battle? This is something we should be united on, should it happen.

on and off through the last two years
weve had heavy duty magic training sessions for sure
p sure the guards run through some basic weapons training

but now that u mention it
it has been awhile
couldnt hurt to brush up on shit
get folks ready

that something u interested in fam?

Edited 2019-02-26 05:34 (UTC)

Absolutely.

I'd bring my team along. We're all fighters but our specialty is space craft combat and we haven't had experience with opponents quite like the Null before. While thinking on the fly has often helped us, being prepared is always the better choice.

no shit u have a whole team here?
how many? throw down some names
i wanna see what were working with

also just btw
space craft combat sounds sick af

Four of us are here, three are missing. Keith, Lance and Allura are the names of those in Hadriel - and then there's Cosmo, Keith's teleporting wolf, who is certainly of use.

All of them are war-tried. Keith is excellent with blades, Lance is a sharpshooter and Allura's raw physical and spiritual power never ceases to impress me.

[ PROUD OF HIS FAM? Never. No way. ]

[how frigging cute????????? um excuse u]

ok so like
i def wanna see this dream team in action

u guys do free demos?

Our repayment would be your training regimen. Advantages for everyone :)

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