Chapter 11: Dark Home

Paradox was growing more and more anxious and excited as he trekked further into the forest. His mother had told him never to come back here, probably because of the creepy face monsters, but Paradox had always dreamed of going anyway to try and see where his ancestors had lived. He had been an obedient kid, though, so this had been his first real opportunity.
As Paradox followed the trail of moon-fruit, he began to see it's end between the endless wooden pillars that held up the forest canopy. His pace quickened, and he soon found himself looking up at a wall of gray bark. Though Paradox couldn't say how, it looked like scores of trees had grown up side-by-side, their sides pressing into one another and forming a solid wall. Two moon-fruit that hung from the wall's branches were glowing on either side of him, implying that this was where the forest meant him to be.
Paradox wasn't sure what to do at this point. Climbing the smooth wooden wall didn't seem like an easy thing to do, and anyway the branches above the wall were even more thickly woven than the rest of the canopy. They looked sturdy, too; like iron bars. Evidently the Dark Tribe hadn't liked unexpected visitors.
But, there had to be a way in, right? How had the inhabitants of the village come and gone? Was there a gate somewhere else along the perimeter? Paradox took a look to the left and to the right. There weren't any obvious openings. Besides, the moon-fruit were guiding him right here; Or at least, that was the theory. Perhaps Paradox had been mistaken about the function of the blue orbs?
Paradox closed his eyes and meditated. His thoughts went out to the grass beneath his feet, then spread to the trees and the leaves above his head, to the fruits that were lighting his way. Paradox was just opening his eyes when his thoughts found a... bump? nub? It was something that his thoughts could touch and feel like both his thoughts and the mysterious thing were physical. Paradox wrapped his thoughts around it, trying to feel it out to determine it's shape. It seemed to be just beyond the tree wall, or within it. Finding no further definition for the object, Paradox decided to pull on it.
A deep groan of low creaking wood answered Paradox's experiment, and he snapped his eyes open just in time to stagger backward at the sight of the trees moving. Reeds were one thing, but these massive structures simply bending out ofthe way was quite another. Several of the verdant sentries that had blocked his path so staunchly seconds before now bent and twisted of their own accord, opening a roughly circular gateway to the other side of the wall.
Paradox passed cautiously through the aperture. As he did, he got his first glimpses of his ancestral home.
The village was, in all honesty, simpler than Paradox was expecting. A civilization that had access to psionic power like Paradox's might've had massive, sky sweeping buildings with glass and steel shining prominently on every surface, like the white city had. Or perhaps the buildings ought to be constructed from hard, unyielding stone, to last for centuries to come. Instead, Paradox was greeted by a collection of small, domed huts. Each hut looked to be constructed of four large, fang-shaped beams leaning against one another over a central point. In-between the beams there were rough, lumpy walls made from some sort of mud or plaster. There were no doors; just holes. There was no glass in the windows either; just round openings. A few huts had torn walls that revealed the dillapidated furniture inside.
As Paradox took his first steps into the village, soft moss cushioned his feet and quieted his footsteps, allowing the silence to remain unbroken as he took a look around one of the huts. On one side, he found a small ring of blue, glowing flowers, just about the right size to sit, cross-legged, in the middle. A few flowers were trampled, but it still seemed like a good place to rest.
After a moment of hesitation, Paradox sat down in the middle of the miniature garden. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. A breeze rustled the leaves above, which was the only sound that broke the silence of this place.
This was perfect. Paradox's only regret was that he couldn't share it with anyone.
Paradox's earpiece began chiming.
That hadn't exactly been what Paradox had in mind.
Paradox clicked the answer button on his earpiece.
"Paradox." Came Kira's voice. "You're in the village." It wasn't a question.
"Uh- yes." Paradox said. He had been expecting the professor. "How did you know?"
"Positioning device." Kira said. "It doesn't matter. What does matter is that you go to the building in the center of the village; that'll be the best place to start looking for clues about Quantum Collapse."
"Right." Paradox said. He lingered a second before getting back up.
In the center of the village was a building that starkly contrasted the huts in the rest of the clearing. It was huge, for one; it's walls reached fifty feet in the air and formed a square that was hundreds of feet to a side. Instead of mud, this building was constructed from giant slabs of jet-black stone. Paradox couldn't see any seams between bricks. For all he knew, the whole building was one giant block of continuous stone. On each corner there was a fang-like spire that rose from the ground, and in the center of the building was a tower with a giant rune inscribed on each of it's four sides that looked like an eye with a slit pupil. Similarly, there were hundreds of small, incandescent runes plastering every available surface of the walls, wrapping across the spires and around the space the double doors left in the front like creepers on a tree.
Paradox started on the top-left of the wall he was facing, reading downward. "Let this be a record and a history of we, the dark tribe, lest we forget-"
"So you know how to read dark tribe runes." Kira interrupted.
Paradox jumped a bit. He hadn't known she was still listening.
"Uh- yeah..." Paradox said, a bit nervous. He tried to think of something else to say.
"You're one the the dark folk." Kira said.
Paradox flinched a bit at that. "Yes.." he said, a bit nervous.
"Well that does explain a few things." Kira said. She didn't sound surprised at all.
"This must be quite a... shock to you?" Paradox said, confused.
"I figured it out four hours ago." Kira responded. "Truth be told, I couldn't know for sure until now, but there aren't many psionically talented groups around serropa these days, so I figured it was a safe bet. That and you're really bad at keeping secrets." There was a pause before Kira's next question. "So... is there anything you want to change about your story?"
"Uh- no." Paradox said. "I think it's still pretty accurate."
"You're sticking to the story with the old man, are you?" Kira said. "Alright then. We got the canister from inside the temple. You'd best look in there."
Paradox, a bit confused and a bit relieved, made for the double doors. One of them was slightly ajar, giving Paradox a space to slip through. As he did, Paradox tried to push the doors open a little more, but they may as well have been welded to the ground.
"How did you get this open?" Paradox asked Kira, grunting with effort.
"Pneumatic pistons; shaped explosives." Kira said. "Or so I'm told. The front door was open long before KiCorp found it."
Paradox left the doors where they were and took a look inside the building. The writing continued in here, plastering every wall of the wide hallway, only occasionally broken up by glowing, crystalline light fixtures near the ceiling and small doors near the floor.
"What's in the doors?" Paradox asked.
"More records, mostly. Our linguists have only been able to catalog around thirty percent of the writing so far, and that much wasn't easy."
"Then... where'd you find the canister?" Paradox asked.
"Near the center of the building there's a crossroads between hallways. The last expedition found a secret hatch that led down into a secure area."
Paradox walked forward until he found the crossroads Kira talked about.
"Uh, I don't see any hatches."
"Of course not." Kira said. "KiCorp's methods are a lot more elegant than explosives. You'll need to find the trigger and activate it psionically."
Oh. Paradox closed his eyes and searched the area beneath the floor wth his mind. At length, he found the trigger and pulled it.
A square section of the floor lifted up like a lid. Paradox was a bit surprised at the speed with which it did so, not to mention that until now, there had been no hint of a door embedded in the floor mere inches from Paradox's feet. The opening was large enough to comfortably accommodate a set of stairs that led down into darkness. Stale, dusty air blew into Paradox's face and his hair stood on end. This didn't feel so good.
"We got the canister from the first room down the stairs." Kira said. "You'll probably have to go further for the answers we need."
Paradox gulped, shook himself a bit, and took his first steps into darkness.