You made a steady effort, from one long-term camp to another, going ever deeper with different groups, until you found yourself amid the buried cities of the Firstcomers, places of metal and somehow enduring glass and stone that held the weight of worlds atop it. Down there you found small park-like spaces, lit still by ancient lamps, with deep darkness between each such outpost. Pollinators descended from surface beetles, trundling through the darkness, and strange fungal networks burrowing into stone and feeding the green things that called the depths home. Evolved for unending artificial light and symbiosis with things that ate slowly into stone, bearing fruit never known to the surface - mysteries enough to last the rest of your lifetime.
