Chapter 8 - History of Vorcorve

There was an overwhelming amount of material in the archives Hunter managed to salvage from the bunker, that included all kinds of books, personal diaries, reports, encoded messages, maps and even some leather backed books that that included pictograms and knowledge about what he assumed was magic.The biggest thing they found was a digital encyclopedia that Glados managed to download from the mainframe. Hunter decided to start from there so he could form a general idea first. The encyclopedia included knowledges that were missing from Glado's database and included all known history of Vorcorve, details about the ancient civilizations that preexisted before the arrival of the A.Is, Vorcorve's geography, known countries and the biology of various races that lived on the planet. It was just like the wikipedia of earth and included much more knowledge than Hunter could handle, and soon he was overwhelmed by all the information that was on the encyclopedia. Thankfully Hunter had the A.I to help him and after Glados shifted through all the archives and the encyclopedia, Hunter was finally able to see the whole picture from what Glados was able to summarize.

Vorcorve was around 10 times the size of earth and was comprised of five main continents; West, Central, North, South and Northeast/East. It was inhabited with countless different kinds of races that Hunter was familiar with such as elves, dwarves, orks, beastkin, demons, dragons and many obscure fantasy creatures that looked completely alien to him, and other worldly creatures that were chimeras born/summoned from dark magic. Before the A.Is arrived on Vocorve, the world was an age of magic, where the entire world was ruled by mages and knights who were powerful mana users. Most of the ancient civilizations were brutal to those weaker or not capable of using mana, with the powerful mana users treating those weaker as slaves and cannon fodder in battles against other powerful mana users. One ancient empire eventually caused the beginning of the end of the ancient civilizations by delving into forbidden dark magic, and corrupting parts of the world with dark magic. Large numbers of weak and non mana users were scarifised for powerful magic, and eventually empire began to kidnap and sacrifice powerful mana users from other countries. When the truth was finally out, large crusades between the powerful ancient civilizations began. With the powerful magic they used, many perished in the great wars and large battlefields were permanently warped by the magic; mostly creating monster infested areas, some turning into mysterious places with distorted warps leading to other dimensions, and some areas with distorted realities and mana levels so high, most beings cannont survive. Ancient gods are said to have been involved in the Great War, with many of them perishing alongside the mortals. After the Great War finally subsided, the A.I finally arrived on Vorcorve and the age of technology began.

Three millenniums ago, before the A.I shutdown, Vorcorve was controlled by four noteworthy groups; The the most powerful of them was the empire of mankind on the West continent, who were religious zealots solely dedicated on worshiping the AIs. Although they were known as the empire of mankind, they included other races as well whom were annexed by the powerful military might of the empire. The empire being the decendents of people who were the ruled in the ancient civilizations, naturally hated magic that was the source of their misery and despised anything that was related to magic; considering magic users to be heretics and demon worshippers, and therefore became the most technologically advanced civilization on Vorcorve.

The second powerhouse on Vorcorve was the Atrena Federation, which was composed of allied countries of both human and all the other races such as elves, dwarves and beast kin. Most of the Federation's control was on the central continent with small pockets of influence on the other continents. They went with the route of practicing both magic and technology and were at the peak of magitech. Their general goal was to oppose the Empire, but the lack of central leadership and political disputes between the different races and interest groups never allowed them to surpass the empire even with the Federation's larger size. The Federation was also avid supporters of the A.I like the empire, but considered them more as powerful beings rather than gods to be worshipped.

The rest of the countries were those independent from the Empire or the Atrena Federation; smaller nations, kingdoms and federations that included the powerful dwarven republics, and the elven empire. Each of the smaller independent nations were powerful to stand on their own, famous for things such as high quality crafted magical items, elixrs, scrolls and in the case of the elven empire, which was an ancient civilization, powerful magic that no one could rival. They were scattered on all five continents, and were neutral to the disputes between the empire and the federation. They mostly believed in the ancient gods and were indifferent towards the new gods.

The remainders were the barbarians and cultists, who were royal remanents of ancient civilizations that came before the arrival of the AIs. The barbarians and cultists strongly opposed the A.Is and continued to practice magic that were passed on to them by the survivors of the ancient civilizations. They were known in the history as mostly elves, demon kin and humans who belived in the chaotic ancient gods, and they were the target of mass exterminations; all the civilizations including the elven empire shunned them for practicing forbidden magic such as dark magic that destroyed the ancient civilizations. The barbarians and the cultists on the other hand claimed the AIs were otherworldly abominations that the ancients civilizations called onto Vorcorve and it was them that were responsible for the end of the ancient civilizations.

The bunker originated from the Federation, and was used to house a small enclave of corporate officals with their immediate family and a small group of guards and employees, which explained the lack of military equipment in the entire facility. The enclave was surprisingly still alive until five hundred years ago and managed to fill in the majority of the 3000 years Hunter was most curious about. They were able to survive for more than two millenia, by going into cyrosleep for 100 years at a time to wait for the AI's return, and each time they woke up, they sent scouts out into the nearby civilizations, trading information for technology. One scout party that went out 500 years ago unfortunately brought back a disease that no one in the bunker was immune to and quickly wiped out most of the small enclave before they could ask for help. The archives ended with what remaining of the enclave leaving towards the new civilizations with what they had left, finding no more hope of surviving in the bunker. It baffled Hunter a little that the enclave suffered this much with access to the encyclopedia, and suddenly realized the encyclopedia he was using was the very 'holy' libary the old civilizations had lost access to.

From what the enclaves discovered, unlike what Hunter had initially thought, the old civilizations did not simply disappear and go extinct, but rather over a long millenia of slow agonizing decay and constant wars, weakened and broke up into new nations. Most of the technologies that the civilizations had access to, no longer functioned with the A.I no longer operational; with the most critical of them being the 'holy' libary of information which ultimately caused the end of the era of science and technology. Knowledge passed down from generation to generation was limited and soon in the turmoil of time, almost all the critical knowledge was lost to rebuild the technology that was lost.

The 1651th year after the AI arrived on the planet, was the year civilizations completely lost contact with the A.Is. The Empire and the Federation soon lost control of the space elevators that led to the various space stations that orbited around the planet, and lost contact to their space fleets, when life support systems on the ships was no longer functional. With all that remained in orbit dead, the ships no longer having a crew lost control and crashed onto the planet surface, wiping out entire cities. Followed by the massive disasters, and nearly all technology ceasing to function, humanity and the other various races living on the planet lost control of all the weapons of mass destructions, and they were back to using conventional weapons and magic in wars.

During all this chaos, territorial wars that were stopped by those powerful weapons broke out again, and the entire world went back to the chaotic times before the AI arrived. The Empire and Federation fought over what remained of the powerful technology that was still functional and the rest of the world, using this chance, went to war to gain territory and fight other races they had grudges against. The elven empire was initially the most powerful, aggressively taking over neighbouring nations and quickly taking over the central continent, due to their extremely xenophobic nature and slavery of all the other races, were not able to stay in power for very long and lost control of the continent. During this time of a power vaccum, the cultists and barbarians attacked the old civilizations, adding fuel to the fire. Orks who loved wars, became mercenaries in every major conflict, even fighting in battles against each other.

After a millennia of long drawn out wars and the remainder of critical knowledge being lost in time, the dark ages finally began when large monster waves not kept in check broke out, and the Cultists started to use dark magic; causing mass plagues, undead scourges and demons hordes summoned from other dimensions. The countries that were weakened over the long wars were not powerful enough to stop the onslaught, and the short, but brutal three hundred years of dark ages began, where large battles were fought for the survival of those who remained. It was during those dark ages, powerful beings claiming to be decedents of the ancient gods appeared. They were the most powerful mana users the world has ever seen, and soon unified the scattered civilizations together, and formed large crusades to exterminate the monsters to take back the lands they lost. By the end of the dark ages, when the majority of the world was finally reclaimed, the new gods finally ended the dark age by reconstructing new civilizations, aided with the excavation of the ancient civilizations found in the ancient battlefields. Most of the new countries took the name and tradition of the old and ancient civilizations, with each of the self claimed decendents of the ancient gods choosing a race and creating their own empires and ascending to godhood, with other notable heroes creating their own kingdoms and republics. The dark ages ended a little more than a millenia ago, and after the rebirth of the old civilizations, until the demise of the small enclave five hundred years ago, nothing noteworthy happened, besides small wars over territory.

With the long history lesson finally done, Hunter was finally able to take a look at the maps of the new civilizations that the scouts managed to obtain. Five hundred years have since passed, so the map might no longer be accurate, but Hunter was delighted to finally find where he was on this planet and the locations of the nearby civilizations. However, he was horrified to discover that the closest civilization was past the northen mountains, which was certainly was filled with powerful monsters. The only civilization infact, since there were no known civilization on this continent other than the ones on the north.

The valley was located on the South of the central continent, in an area that is considered to be a monster infested land, since this area was near an ancient battlefield filled to the brink with monsters. Every monster season when the ancient battlefields were overpopulated, weaker monsters left there enmass, thus forming the monster waves. The nearest country to the North past the mountains, used the tall mountain as a natural fort, and Hunter suddenly realized he was in much more trouble than he thought.

"How far apart are those seasons Glados?"

'The records state between 10-20 years. Smaller waves happens before the large ones and .... the hordes of redbeaks you killed are known to mostly be found in the beginning waves'

"Shit, how much time do you think we have left?"

'Not very long, mean time between the initial waves and the main wave seems to be 6 weeks, shortest being just 3 weeks'

There was so much he could do now with the information he gained from the archives; such as securing nearby facilities he could reactivate to manufacture equipment, find more materials that the enclave smartly hid away in other locations in the valley, but with the deadline approaching, Hunter had to get ready fast. With a new headache coming from the stress of being forced to face situations where he can die again, Hunter quietly planned out his next move for the rest of the night with Glados.