"A Brief History of Rokar with a Hint of Calamity" by Dr Prospector

A blue haze looms over a wide, dimly lit basin centered within a vast chamber. Standing, weapon drawn, a small figure watches overhead as stone, carved and glowing in intricate patterns seemingly speaks to it.

“From what we’ve learned, in the old-world, there existed a people with vast mechanical prowess, endless expansion and consumption leading to three major powers conquering much of the planet. With ever dwindling resources, tensions of inevitable war grew tight. Eventually the last continent, left wild and untouched for the sake of their world’s future became free to exploit. All three powers quickly setting foot; to the west, the south, and the east with mountains stretching from the north toward the heartland.

All three of these factions would come to discover a new material here, what we now call Aether. Its latent energy production alone being a miracle in an energy-starved world, it was able to be worked, its main strength being its ability to enhance most other materials. Preliminary research showed this material to have a “smartness” built into its formulation. Pathways naturally formed within it that could perform almost computational functions merely through the input of different signals. Alloys of varying strength and qualities soon being discovered as a result.

The world would hear, ‘New, Smart, Power-positive metals Discovered!’

All three major powers formed a truce, their needs suddenly being met by this miraculous Aether; no longer was there a need for war. A research center was built between them as a sign of good faith and to discover all that this aether could do; Rokar, filled with the brightest minds from the far reaches of the world. A new technological renaissance began, energy production increasing 100-fold, aether infused machines with immensely strengthened parts, projections of fields and beyond. Of course, expansion and building continued all the while.

Those that worked and lived in Rokar had a new vision of life, their homelands still having silent distain for their rivals even if entertainment and luxury kept them busy. Wiser, Rokar could see that aether had only bought them time as quickly rose demands for ways to “grow” more aether at ever increasing rates. That once even the seemingly endless energy ran out, war would resume, only this time, aether had given them the power to destroy the planet in the process.

When asked to formulate weaponry by their homelands, they cleverly convinced the nations to focus first on defense. While developing shields, medicines, lightweight projection weaponry, communications, and transportation methods, select Rokari members began working on an offsite bunker. Secrecy being their own defense, this bunker was built far underground to hide out the impending war, moving some research down below, preparing survival methods should the worst come to pass.

After seeing all the wonders aether could accomplish, the time came when demands for powerful weaponry were given. Rokar attempted to speak reason to the powers, knowing they would fail. Unfortunately, they would then come to find that each power had their own research labs working on other technologies, weaponry of unimaginable destruction among them. It was only a matter of time, and I never knew what started it, but mutual destruction was the result. Those wise enough to see it coming being all that was left of the old world. It would be years before the changes to the surface world would be observed, finding that it may as well had been a different planet.

The world had all but ended.

A fatal sickness had covered the shattered world now; aether splinters trained to consume targeted essential minerals in the old ones’ bodies littering the environment, though harmless to most other things. As prepared as Rokar was, the changes required to survive on expeditions of the surface world would be irreversible. The aether splinters littered outside would alter any form of life that touched it in unpredictable ways. Fascinating but more so horrifying. A controlled transformation would be developed, preventing further mutations within willing participants. Physical and biological changes, incorporating a purified aether into living tissue through an arduous process would have much success.

Decades later, aether powers everything within Rokar, we’ve reclaimed what’s left of the continent, water on all sides. With the benefits of willing transformation ever increasing, most of Rokar’s population have transcended into a new way of life. A new normal in a new world. Cities have been constructed on stable ground, aether’s power becoming realized in technologies that would seem magical for lack of understanding. Projected shields, self-powering machines, instantaneous communications, teleportation, and in a way, immortality!

We would come to realize though, that our reliance on aether would be our undoing.

Much of our efforts then were focused on recovering what was left of the world before. Technologies too advanced to rebuild from the start, developed by unliving minds. We'd carve a path through a scarred and changed wilderness, we'd discover what is out there, and we'd recover what we could. We’ve established a network of teleporters to traverse the continent, powered by aether and controlled by keys, our communication network working through similar methods. Aether even helps our bodies produce and use chemicals more effectively, allowing some past biological functions to no longer be required.

With most of our food requirements now only needing sunlight to satisfy, we took quick notice when the sky began to grow darker, and darker, and…  A blinding darkness hit the world from the east seconds after it started, vanishing just a moment later. From what little I could gather in the moments before the other forges went quiet, what ever it was greatly disturbed any aether it touched. I was thankfully spared, deep underground here, under the shadow of a distant mountain, but Rokar above… the generators going unstable already a cause for concern, our very biology requires aether to function… Rokar cannot be reached.

Days later, one wandered in. A victim of this sickness. Unresponsive, but able to wield a sword as if it were a part of it. It was like the connection between it and the aether within had been severed and some part of it kept holding on. I was lucky in the end to be given this opportunity as over time I have restored you to the best of my abilities. Though you don’t remember it, Rokar is no more.

There may be more out there, and we must move quickly to find them! I will rekindle my forge and work what ever I can to assist you as we press this advantage!”

….

Elsewhere a pair of densely armored Rokari soldiers march cautiously through a dead silent wilderness,

“We must undo this. Even if just to close the portal somehow. I was a fool not to listen and now we’ve doomed all life as we know it.”

“…A new form of power, apart from our own limitations, a new World of possibilities...”

“We should have been content with that much, and then it found us.”

“…Turn away, close the door, pretend it never happened… it was never nowhere as it was, just leave it there!”

“But we were curious, and it gave us the answers our smaller, smarter brethren refused to. I thought the Void Keepers fools to keep such power hidden and locked away, but it seems their wisdom only just escaped us until it was too late. The portal to nowhere, to the source of the void, and everything in it left wide open by power hungry hands...“

“How does it know to control aether better than we do?! Look at this stuff!“

Massive arches of aether looming above ahead of them, the environment sprawling with motionless tendrils of hostile aether.

“It doesn’t matter, we should be dead as it is, the least we can do is destroy the portal!”

“…Shh! Did you hear that?!”

“Yes, get beside me, shields up.”

Battle positions being taken in a clearing of the grass, both turning to face the sound behind them.

“At least it’s not as strong out here…”

“…we hope.”