Yes. We weren't told everything, but we had some basics, and found out more over time.

[He doesn't believe in fate or destiny or any of that either, but his experience in Hadriel had been a mirror of his experience in life in general; some parts of life are random and unexplainable, but a lot of things just come down to people's choices. That had been the case in Hadriel, and he thinks it's the case here.]

We were brought there because the beings that had control of the place needed power to fight their enemies, and they gained that power through emotional energy. There was no native population anymore that they could gain that energy from, so they had to find a replacement source, and therefore they activated an artifact they couldn't control which is what caused people to come and go from Hadriel.