"it's magic." the explorers simplified.
they dove deep into the sifted sands that buried these grand Houses and found the fossils of machinery, stone-frozen into twisted shapes.
a whirr, a click, a trap is sprung. the machines ensnare the explorers; glowing green tendrils, plated with glossy black stone, begin wrapping around arms, legs, trapping them in place. it's all over when they burrow through skin, tapping through the back of the neck to the spinal column, and begin directly interfacing with neurons.
incomprehensible images fly by. heaven? hell? no, something greater than either. convex angles and contorted shapes blend and resist, struggling to flatten down into three dimensional thought. electrical impulses are burning, minds attempting to comprehend what is there and what is not: a city? a desert? a capsule full of death, and a star full of life? and the colors, oh the colors! the whole spectrum of light laid bare, oscillating and frying tissue, burning out.
the explorers return, spiral burns glistening freshly on their skin, with a deep stare beyond anything in front of them. the medics attempted to help, to interview them on their experiences. their voices were unable to speak the truth they had seen; they lacked the overlapping tongues for the [imcomprehensible] they witnessed.
a month later they begin to shift, fading through layers of a consciousness field, slowly becoming less and less tangible, less and less...here. even so, they were...happier. they couldn't speak, but the absolute joy that spread on their faces just before fading away entirely will never leave my mind.