#ak lore

In the world of Apocalypse Kings, there are those who worship The Void and its inhabitants, such as The Nameless- the cult responsible for the kidnapping and attempted murder of Kwin Bergeron.

There are also those who seek to study The Void in an attempt to permanently close their reality from it’s constant intrusions and machinations. The ever illusive Mattson family currently lead the charge against The Void and its servants in this realm, collecting artifacts, information and weapons to use against the extra-dimensional enemies.

Some relics need intense and focused study before being used or destroyed. That’s where Eugene Holdan comes in. Former professor and scholar of otherworldly concepts, Eugene was brought into the fold against The Void by the Arano Family. Now, he accepts whatever items Lee Mattson brings his way study.

The following are several entries from Eugene’s personal journal concerning his experiments with a strange radio brought to him by Mattson.

Eugene has been missing without a trace for 2 years.

The Radio

Entry #1

July 8th, 2038

Lee Mattson was waiting for me at my shop when I returned from the trip. Cheeky bastard couldn’t wait til I was settled in, or clean at least. My impatience to perform whatever ablutions I needed faded, nevertheless, when he produced another relic. Where this came from he couldn’t say at the moment. That’s alright with me- I’d rather not know too much about the places where the walls are thin.

Mattson saw fit to assure me that the relic had been cleaned though. No residual energy this time. Good.

The relic, funnily enough, was an old SCR-300 radio- WWII era. He must have known I’d have fun taking a look at it. Other than when he’d be back, Mattson didn’t say much about his expectations. He just paid for my services and left. I guess he’s just wanting to see what I can get out of this thing.

I’ll perform my first inspection after dinner.

Entry #2

July 9th, 2038

The radio is strange, to say the least.

I made sure to activate inside the Light Room to avoid any disasters- Mattson said it was safe, but when it comes to Void relics, you can never be too sure, I suppose.

When I first turned it on, I got nothing but static for thirty minutes, after which it turned off by itself. Further attempts to power the device on failed. An hour later, it turned back on by itself.

Beneath the static I could faintly make out a low droning sound. Can’t place it. After a few minutes(seven by my notes) the droning became clearer as the static became more faint. It sounded as if something was connecting through the signal after all. This time I ended the experiment myself and collected the data.

What started as an expedition to study forgotten religions led to two families almost single handedly fighting off intrusions from The Void into our dimension for generations.

When Lars Mattson hired a mercenary company to escort him up a forgotten mountain to a temple, he had no idea he’d encounter an object in the derelict place of worship that would give him direct visions of The Void. Barely making it out with his sanity, Lars would not enjoy life in the real world for much longer.

Soon after, Lars and every single member of that mercenary company died vaguely systematic deaths- some brutal and unexplained, some just mysterious or unlucky. However, Lars knew he was being hunted by forces in league with whatever he saw in the visions. He passed this knowledge on to his wife, who took their young son and remained on the move. She continued to study her husband’s findings and developed ways to fight back the influences of a hell dimension. And so the cycle started.

Combating The Void isn’t easy- especially if your goal is to remain under the radar of human authorities and not be seen as clinically insane. To operate for so long with enough supplies and means of survival, one would need money. For this, the Mattsons found a partner in the Arano family from Mexico.

Hailing from a long line, The Arano family slowly built up wealth over time in Mexico, as did they build up their knowledge of the other-worldly forces that were currently chasing the Mattsons. So a deal was struck. The Aranos would fund the Mattsons as well as providing equipment and safe houses. In exchange, the Mattsons would provide the Aranos with information about the Void and help train additional cells to combat it.

The deal has worked well over the years, even with the near-decimation of the Mattson family during The Night of Crosses. However, as time goes on, both groups have found that the Void is learning from them as well as the other way around. It’s become harder and harder to predict incursions and sooner or later, the only line of defense in their dimension will either need to expand or face their end.

Tag List:

“Science is for the young and the brave. And if you’re lacking in that first department, make damn sure you compensate in the second.”

The brain child of Sam Bergeron and his wife, Edie, The Companion Initiative was visualized as the next big step for Bergeron Robotics and a securing of it’s legacy on the forefront of the field. The melding together of hardware(Sam) and software(Edie) would come to fruition in companion frames.

The goal of the Initiative was to create robotic casings(frames) for highly personalized and meticulously crafted AI. These frames would be made to order, built as a life companion for specific individuals. Through hours of interviews, background studies and psych evaluations, the candidate to receive a companion frame would be vetted and studied. Then, based off their needs, an AI would be created to match their personality before being given a frame to operate.

MT-61, Morrigan, was created for a martial arts instructor. Built with the skill to understand and teach fighting techniques, this frame would also be a friend to the lonely war vet.

DZ-32, otherwise known as Dizzy, was crafted with an inherent knowledge of military tactics and history, as he was to be paired with a museum owner for that specific purpose.

These frames are viewed by the company who made them to be the next step in their goal of complementing human life in a meaningful way.

However, Sam Bergeron would be enticed to sideline this go ever-so-slightly, when the Department of Defense approached him for a spot in a new project. This was not the first time Bergeron Robotics was approached by the military, but those advances had been turned away by Sam. The man had no interest in military application of his creations.

This time would be different.

It’s through his military suitors that Sam and his staff learned of Project Meridian, an ongoing military operation that had successfully constructed a gate to another dimension based off foreign designs discovered years prior.

The DoD’s offer was simple- join the project and send one of the companion frames through the gate to see what’s on the other side. Despite his protege’s warnings, Sam signed up, compelled to see what was on the other side of that gate.

Tag List:

So now that The Radio is finished, I'll probably move on to more lore topics here in a few days. They're good for fleshing out my ideas and getting some extra writing practice in!

That being said, I could go into actual lore about The Void and it's inhabitants and the way it affects other realities.

Or I could write about the Mattson Family along with their history of fighting the Void

Or I could post about the Lux Arcana(and it's many names) which serves as this universe's Necronomicon.

What do y'all think? What sounds the most interesting?

Tag List:

@remi-writes-sometimes

@writerinafury

@the-violet-writer

@anomaly00

@writinglyra

@linariouswrites

@drabbleitout

#Entry 7

July 15th, 2038

This has gone too far.

This abomination knows who I am.

For transparency and thoroughness:

At 0430 on the 14th, the radio activated itself again. As I noted in my report to Mattson, this time the voice that came through was deeper, more cryptic. And I couldn’t tell what language it was speaking, but it sounded as if the voice was talking and inhaling at the same time. There was also a static-filled noise in the background. I’ve attached the audio to this document.

Recording that audio, I scrubbed it to try and get rid of the static and make sense of the voice. In an attempt to understand what the voice was saying, I discovered something about the background noise. It wasn’t static-

The “static” was the sound of people screaming. I can’t imagine how many voices were layered together to make it sound like static, but as I slowed it down, I heard things being screamed in agony that I don’t need to write down type here.

The original voice I’d set out to decipher made absolutely no sense. But I kept the isolated audio and set out to seal the Light Room for the night.

That’s when I heard him.

His voice didn’t sound like it was coming out of a device at all. It sounded like he was right behind me. But I know my son’s voice. I’ve never forgotten it.

This stretch of dense forest in Three Pines, Colorado that's officially known as Morner Pointe has collected several names over the centuries:

The Barrens

The Pines

Darkwood

The Pit

Initially home of the Morner Family Estate, this plot of land was owned and managed by a wealthy group of settlers when expansion breached the region.

Over time, while the forested area proved hard to cultivate, the Morner family built several key structures and small towns in it's depths.

Eventually, commerce and the more easily settled areas around the stretch of forest became more popular to travelers and settlers drew attention away from Morner Pointe. Though the family would continue to bring in business to their own cut of land, the increasingly deadly, mysterious and difficult to navigate plot of land would be seen as unwelcoming to pioneers.

While civilization continued to expand and Three Pines became its own massive city in the wake of railroads, Morner Pointe grew to be more secluded.

There was, however, still a use for the now abandoned village and estates nestled deep within the woods. Morner Psychiatric Hospital was constructed and Mayerville, a small village close by, would be used to house employees of the facility.

When the psychiatric hospital burned down in a strange, still unexplained occurrence, many of it's patients were either found dead or declared missing- along with it's staff. The entire village of Mayerville was found completely abandoned as if the inhabitants all rushed out into the dark, thick forest at a moment's notice.

Since then, local rumors and urban legends have spread about an evil living in the pine forest on the edge of town.

The Barrens have become a mythical and cautionary tale amongst the people if Three Pines. With so many unexplained occurrences and phenomenon emanating from it's depths, you can hardly blame them.

Strange and unexplained occurrences haven't helped Morner Pointe's reputation throughout the decades. Countless murder victims discovered on it's outer edges, numerous missing persons cases connected with the area, stories of strange, loud screams heard from miles around in the late night, and(more recently) attempts to probe the area with new tech and arial passovers have yet to reveal anything more than a glimpse of what truly lies within.

Tales of creatures luring children inside. Rumors of serial killers using it as a torture/murder ground. Accounts of people seeing strange forms trying to lure them within the forest depths- the mystery is abound in Three Pines.

Tag List:

@remi-writes-sometimes

@writerinafury

@the-violet-writer

@anomaly00

@writinglyra