Valley of the Obelisks

There was silence, it reigned everywhere.

The great vaults of knowledge, they were called, structures so big that it was impossible to accept that mankind had built them at one point in their short time on this land. They were dark, they were cold and they were lonely, man was not made to step into such hellish places, not anymore at least, a religion unknown to this world that they cherished was now so esoteric that few dared venture into.

Some went as far as to call it hell itself, the dark valley that glowed so deadly when the sun came out that it could kill birds and burn the skin of those who were foolish enough to walk through the structures, other simply doubted the veracity of said location since only a few had ever returned to talk about it, the majority keeping it to themselves, the only clue the scars on their bodies which no one would dare do unto themselves, the rest decide to ignore this place as it does not bring any benefit to the communities, if it did not help the humans of older times how would this help them now?

One of the elders of the community that had walked this earth for many moons and suns mentioned that these place, which he knew was not the only one of its kind, held vaults of immense knowledge and only worthy ones would be able to acquire such knowledge. He never made it clear how they had to get the information out of such vaults, he did state that the worthy ones would know, he also made it clear that there were traps of many kinds still live inside the vaults but again made no clear statement on how to find them or go around them, he was not clear if rituals or prayers were needed to go through, he simply stated to them.

“Do it, have balls”

The words of the old man sank onto the youth surrounding him, the challenge, the thrill, the recognition for going into such a dangerous place and coming back as a messiah fit well with their idea of heroism, to travel to said vaults and come back with something, anything, would prove their true worth to their community, they wanted it and wanted to be as brave and wise as him who had gone in his youth to the vault and returned with the small silver and gray stick hanging from his neck, the true final proof of his deed.

It was set then, the younger members of the tribe would travel to the biggest of the vaults and go into the deepest bowels to retrieve anything out of them, this only when the farming season was over, the weather reached bearable levels and provisions would last them long enough to survive their perilous journey.

The journey was longer than they had expected, many desired to continue but desisted as they thought that it was not worth it, they left their own provisions and returned with only enough to make their travel back, this process continued until only one was left, the words impressed in his mind, soul and heart, he wanted and desired to reach this valley and he achieved it after seeing one full moon pass by, he was impressed and terrified by what he saw from the top of a hill, he had respect for what was there and remained silent as such in order not to offend whatever was beyond.

There were dark and gray roads, some of them had missing bits and others were cracked, small monoliths decorated the larger path towards the enormous obelisk like structures that the old man had mentioned to them, it looked as if they were build from glass but how could this be, glass was fragile and would break if hit and the glass here stood many persons tall up to the point it reached the clouds, on some of the buildings he noticed dark stone but he could also not figure how is it that they were placed together, most buildings he had seen back at his community were small and constantly needed repairs but these seemed to be standing here for so long it seemed nothing could damage them.

This valley could not have been built by humans and if it was then they had been instructed by demons to do so, demons of greed with no soul, of vices, with ambitions so great they would dare defy the gods of nature and work against them, there was no question here, humanity had been punished for such work to the point they had forgotten about places like this and went back to live in the wild, with good reason, was the idea, if such a places had brought forth the end of the old humanity then it was better to leave it as it was.

Then it came back, the old man speaking and the ambition to bring back something to prove worth, but was it worth to bring such punishment back to the community, was it worth to do this and greedily show everyone what he had done to be praised as if he was a god amongst them, no, it was not worth it, this was the way of old humans and demons, it was not worth it to bring back the horror of what once was and should never be again, the decision was made and the return started.

Once back everyone gathered to receive the only one brave enough to go through into the valley, they were intrigued as to what was brought back but when he presented himself empty handed the old man smiled back at him and at the story he told him.

“I am disappointed but at the same time I imagined as much, you don't have the balls, get away from me”

The crowd dispersed quickly, it is then when he noticed and understood what the old man was doing and how he had stopped him, he had been tainted by the demons living in the valley, it was pointless to listen to what he told them anymore, the old man wanted to bring back a dead world to their community, their greed, their defiance and their eventual destruction, to do his will was to repeat the mistakes of the past and he was not willing to do so.

By the next farming season he had grown wiser and observed how the next batch of young men traveled to the valley, tempted by the sweet words of heroism and worthiness, it was like this for many generations and would continue to be so, for their nature was to understand through trial and to learn by mistake.