History of Loka Lore

In the Shadow of the Three Sisters

The first slicers to visit this world were surprised. When they popped into normal space in the world it was night. As expected, the undead walked about but was almost powerless against the explorers. After a day and nights climb, they reached the summit of the tallest of the sisters and found it, a strange glowing configuration of what seemed to be powerful stones. Upon touching the artifact, they felt a curious tingling that quickly left their bodies. Could this be the object protecting them? That was their theory, and they were nearly correct. As the explorers pushed beyond the three sisters, they found they weren't ghosts at all beyond the mountains. Night fell again, and they were not so lucky. Faced with the reality of dangerous creatures beyond the mountains, they attempted again to slip between space and time back to their own world but found they were stuck. Could the artifact be holding them there? Was this a prison of some sort? They'd need to survive first before searching for those answers... and a way out. Days and nights spent in the relative safety of the mountains brewed distrust among the survivors. Reasonable men at first, now they became paranoid and edgy. Which of the others would kill them first! One by one they struck out into the wilderness to meet their fate or build their strength.

It is in this world the first of Us arrived, finding the world abandoned, or so it seemed. I had been living as a curator of the three sisters for longer than I could remember. My hair long and grey by then. Often referred to as the Old One, I sought to advise the slicers that arrived, trapped in this world. But I was too cowardly to venture out myself.

Gradually, the slicers found the temples of my fellow explorers. They had grown quite mad and had begun to worship their own gods. They built obsidian alters mimicking the amplifiers of the Knife. I suspect they had gone crazy with their desire but the inability to return home, and without being able to use science as a tool, they used it as a graven image instead.

Slowly, we found all of the temples and settled into the business of building our cities and harvesting the resources of the world.

Then Preksak showed up.

The Arrival of the Harvesters

Preksak was a co-worker back in the Knife research station. We had often sliced together, returning with data about unknown parallel worlds. But he was always jealous, wanting all the fame and success for himself.

When our party didn't return, Preksak must have found out where we'd gone from the records. Seeing an opportunity, since we were now outlaws, he secretly used the knife to observe our actions.

He quickly found that we had begun our small utopia, obtaining our riches without the oversight of the union, and quietly put orders to send the Harvesters to a certain world, a few plank-marks counter to his own dimension.

It was then that the Harvesters arrived. Great machines in orbit whose purpose was to mine dead asteroids and extinct planets for their precious materials. Preksak must have convinced the others that it was merely a dead moon in a near dimension that was rich in iron and carbons, but it was revenge he had in mind.

He couldn't have glory, but he could destroy our paradise while the Artifact trapped us under its mysterious power.

Discovery of the Knife

In a frantic search, the denizens of the Three Sisters attempted to discover what had happened to the initial settlers. Though they had gone mad, they had also disappeared without a trace.

What was a mystery before became common survival, as we poured over the landscape looking for clues. Soon, near the Three Sisters themselves, a secret drain of water revealed a hidden tunnel to a portal into the Nether, containing, almost unbelievably, an enormous makeshift Knife. A hundred meters tall and constructed of the same crude materials as the alters of their insane religion, a Knife constructed of obsidian and electricity. Banks of crude batteries wired but spent from what must have been the first ones' final escape from their prison. The Artifact might block the beacon back home, but in desperation, they could charge and take one final leap into another dimension, any dimension but this one!

It was just a hypothesis, but with the harvesters scouring our world from the outside in, it was our only hope of escape.

Preksak's Revenge

But Preksak discovered our plan, if not the Knife's location. He built at first a warning, a huge marker in the sky meant to signal our world for destruction. Then, failing to win approval from the Union for our unilateral destruction, he came and built a quantum bomb, armed and set to blow if not the world, then all our settlements from it. It was now or never. The denizens of the Three Sisters having discovered the code for Preksak's own world from his library learned to program it into the makeshift Knife.

After several failed attempts, the Knife was finally activated. Streams of energy coursed down its helical barrel, and, seeing no other option, the residents jumped into the vortex to go God knows where.

Of course, I knew.

Raid on the Observatory

It was the lunar Observatory where my work was conducted. While Preksak was in our world bent on destruction, we must raid his, steal coordinates for a new homeworld, and destroy it! He would be trapped with his own ticking bomb. We arrived, meeting only light resistance, found the coordinates, and set the fusion generator to blow by overloading it, but not before using Preksak's own knife to jump to our new world. Not all survived, but the ones who did know Preksak were dead or trapped, unable to return to his own lab or dead on the now-destroyed world of the Three Sisters.

The Second Age

We found ourselves emptyhanded on top of a huge pillar. A huge desert spread out beneath us, apparently desolate. But it could not be. The tower was of a modern and technological design. In its center a well, encouraging a drop, which, with no other way down, we took. Falling through a pillar of fire and then into space, we dropped into the pool of an ancient buried inverse Pyramid. Clearly of intentioned design but feel ancient.

We were not the first, but were we again alone? Only by venturing into the wilderness beyond the pillar would we find out...

The Third Age

Following the Battle of the Spire came the onset of a new age. A fair amount of new citizens came to call the current world home. Cities were rising in the wake of constant war. It seemed as though it would be a very prosperous era, one for economical turn and cultural enlightenment. And then it began. Raiding is without question one of the oldest elements within the community Loka, not even limited to one plane of existence but everyone that the people have inhabited. In the Third Age, however, it was the most prevalent contribution to the way of life. Where some became rich on their ores and efforts, others took advantage of skills of subterfuge and tactics. Large shifts in wealth took place during this age due to influential raids such as Hidden Cavern's heist within Century and Psychedelic's infiltration of Bauherren thanks to the help of Daruks.

This, the Era of Thieves, was memorable, to say the least.

The Obelisk

Near the end of the Fourth Age, a mysterious obelisk appeared in the world, and with a sinister warning from the Gods not to touch it, the "Blight" arose. From the obelisk grew a plague of Mycelium which corrupted all grass in it's path. This onslaught reached even those cities which were furthest away from the Obelisk. In addition, it caused a horrendous cough and in some cases, people hallucinated of a dark and gloomy world, not unlike The End. It spelled a sinister time for Lokians, and special organizations were set up in order to attempt to stop the spread of this disease.

Dormant In A Nameless Age

For a time, the population of Loka was very dormant. Everyone was uncertain of what to even call this new world, but wherever they called home, they called Loka. The Artifact was unstable and nothing felt permanent. Everyone knew there was going to be another shift. It was a feeling that everyone could feel down to their very core. This period though was a dark and grim time. Some people were never seen for months on end. The Nameless Age was ended, however, by another dimensional fold. This time, it was more permanent.

Discovery in the Fourth Age

After the transition from the world during the nameless age, there were many developments and discoveries in the Fourth Age. The Artifact opened doors for the use of Territories with an interesting story to say the least. The mysterious relic that all of Loka essentially revolves around also led to the discovery of the Valley of Artifacts among other battlegrounds. Despite being largely dormant, the Artifact spurred large advances in what Lokans know about the nature of the device. Although all Slicers came from a world of advanced technology and still cling weakly to those origins, they are slowly discovering more about the history of the Artifact itself and the Ancients that (assumably) created it.

Wars of the Fourth Age

With the discovery of the territory, technology came war and conquest. Alliances were made and broken as towns struggled to control more and more land for themselves. The most prominent conflicts were between Osiris, Vanguard, and the superpower Argus. Near the end of the Fourth Age, nearly all of Loka was under the control of the mighty Argus Alliance, and any who opposed them would lose all the territory they controlled within days.

Preksak's Return

While the Lokans were waging war amongst themselves, they had no idea they were being watched. Soon, however, the observer revealed himself to us. Indeed, it was the World-Ender himself, the Observer Preksak. With his return came a revelation: This was not a mere artifice. This was Preksak, with the power of a god. He proclaimed himself as such as he destroyed town generators and weakened the Artifact. With protection down, people attacked those they had fought against in both the recent and wars of old. It was stated by Preksak, "It is amazing what a little push can do when I want you to do my job for me," implying this was his plan. He brought Harvesters, similar to those used to destroy the world of the Three Sisters, and began ripping this world apart. The people of Loka, for the first time in a long while, set aside their differences and fought for their lives against the World-Ender together. The Spawn Tower was teleported to the End, where the fight continued, and soon we were teleported again. we found ourselves in a cave, all present except one: Preksak.

Aladra and the New World

We ventured out of the cavern to find a path to a small town filled with Slicers. Their apparent leader, Dhanri, informed us they had been unable to use their knife, confirming that the Artifact survived Preksak's attempts to destroy it and accompanied us to Aladra. This new world consisted of five islands. Aladra in the center, Kalros to the north, Ascalon to the west, Garama to the south, and a small island of fire. We have not yet fully explored the oceans and may expect to find more as time goes on. We can only guess, and wait, and hope we will be safe from Preksak in this world.