What we hide beneath us

"She is mute"

 Upong hearing an unfamiliar voice coming from the inner forest.
The entire team (minus Lisa) pointed their weapons at the source 

"Show yourself".

 A middle age dark skin man showed up, wearing clothes resembling of traditional clothes of indigenous tribes, with some visible marks on his body. 

 The little girl was visibly happy to see him. She went up to hug the man.

 "Indentify yourself" (Said Luna with a commanding voice).

"My name is Osei...
 I am the caretaker of this girl".
"In our gratitude for taking care of her, we invite you as honored guest into our settlement".

Both of them continue on to the inner forest.

"He said, "we", so there is more of like them." (mentioned Harper)

"Did you notice?, he had similar marks like the girl" (Architect replied)

"Yeah, I catched on that."...

"Do we continue on, Luna?"

Luna nodded.

 With no more options, the team went forward and followed them...
On their way Harper opened his thoughs.

"So, there are other settlements besides ours, after all".

"Are they? it seems it might just be a small village at best, nothing remotely near the scale of Nexus.

"Is not the scale what matters here, but the fact that there are group of outsiders, something that we thought was unthinkable until now."

Lisa joined the convesation.

"But I though everyone that comes to this planet is supposed to settle in the Nexus. Right?"

"Theorically, you are correct, but apparently there is more to it."

Luna interceded

"It's pointless to make assumptions, we'll find more answers once we arrive."

After walking for a while, they arrived at the village, which seemed to be like a little santuary hidden in the forest. What made it stand out besides a waterfall,were the numerous glowing paintings visible throughout the village.
Osei introduced the place to the team.

"This is our hometown. As you can see, we live peacefully here with the nature."

Harper was more intrigued by the body marks that would resonate with the ether.

"Those marks in your body, the girl has them too, they are just not regular painting are they?"

"Good catch my friend, This is ethereal paint"

When Osei mention the term "ethereal", he glazes over the armors of the team.

"I see that you also use it...in a different way."

"This seem like a very big scientific discovery that you don't just find out by accident, how did you find out that the paint would react to the ether of this planet?"

"Well, my native tribe uses paints for a lot of daily tasks, but when I first painted on this world, I noticed it would react to the energy of this planet, allowing us to develop our lives in a healthy relationship with it."

Luna interjected

"Hold on, in what way does these...paintings interact with the ether."

"It's easier if I just show it, right?"

Osei raised his dominant arm, following it he raised his index finger next, the top of it would shine, leaving a white trail where he would wave it, forming symbols, one after another one. After he painted all the symbols he would gently tap on it, making a sound similar to when a metal object resonates with glass in a gently way.
Almost Immediately a gentle breeze was felt among everyone.

Everybody was impressed by it, Harper was even more intrigued in knowing how it works.

"How is that possible?"

"The symbols acts like a command, you can bend your surroundings to your favor if you know the right command for it."

Harper was about to continue asking further but Lisa interrupted.

"I don't want to interrupt but, I want to know more about the girl, you said that she is mute right?"

"I did, she does not seem able to utter a word, so she communicates through the painting. Very similar to what I did with the Ether."

"That's...clever."

Her name is "Nina", she is an adventurer at heart, she got carried away and ended way too far away from the village, apologize for all the troubles she might have caused.

"That explains it."

"The climate is starting to change, we can continue this conversation later, everyone is invited to stay the night here. A villager will show you the way."

After settling in a small guest house. Everybody were in a different location, including Nina.
Lisa decided to spend the rest of the day with her teammates, so she started to search for them, she found Architect first, near the waterfall.

Lisa approached Architect, who was sitting around crafting small bricks.

"Hey"

"Oh Lisa, care to accompany us?"

"Sure."

Lisa sat down next to him, watching him stacking small bricks one above another.

"I see that you enjoy crafting things, could it be something that stuck from when you were a child by any chance?"

Architect stopped moving for a couple of seconds, then decided to open up about his past.

"When I was a child, I got a disease that made me grow overweight, I had a hard time doing activities outside, thus I would spend a lot of time in-house.
One day, my parents gave us a play set of buildable bricks, you know, those that you stack upon them to make something cool looking when you finish.
I shared this passion with my younger brother, who also happen to be bed ridden due to a disease on his leg that made his bones very fragile. We would spend entire days coming up with ideas to build stuff using only the number of pieces we got available.
The sincere smiles of happiness that we got out of our parents for coming out with unexpected ideas was the most fullfilling thing we could ever get out of them."

Lisa felt a lot of sympathy for him, but hearing his story made her realize something more concerning to her. So much in fact that she stood up immediately.

"Wait a moment. How do you know that?, you do remember about your past?"

Architect never stopped looking away from his building bricks.

"I don't remember it myself, I was told it was that way."

"By who? and how do you know that said story is true?"

"Well, when I heard it the first time, I had a moment of enlightenment, I felt that every missing piece of the puzzle got snapped together. Suddenly everything made sense to me..."

"My looks
My interests
My grief
My joy
My everything."

Architect finally looked straight to Lisa's eyes.

"Is hard for me to imagine that I could feel that way, if the story were to be made up."

Architect stood up with full resolution.

So I choose to believe it.

I choose to hold on to it.

And I choose to break free from it.

"I used to have name, but now I have a new one.
"Architect" was the name that I received when I arrived here, and is the person that I have became now.
And I am eternally grateful for it.
That is all I can say."

Architect sat down and continued to do what he was previously doing.

Lisa felt that she just bounded a lot more with him, and was surprised by how much trust was given to her.
She knew she wouldn't receive more answers than that, so she smiled and peacefully walked away while mumblering to herself.

"Thank you..."

Mmm, I wonder if Harper have something to say about it too.

Lisa went down to search Harper, She found him analyzing the some plants in the village.

"Hey."

"Lisa, what can I do for you?"

"Could I ask you something"

"Well, now is a good time as any."

"Do you re- ...no
Do you know anything about your past?"

"If you are asking me that, I assume Architect opened up about his one."

"Yeah..."

"I do know some bits, nothing too jawdroping I am afraid."

"Can you give me more details?"

"I definitely could, let's see, as a youngling I always were fascinated by nature, my grandparents had a plant nursery as well as a botanical garden, when I entered those it felt like a was in a sanctuary on earth.
That was my first approach to nature and the reason I am doing this right now."

"I see."

"Not your cup of tea am I right?.Let me teach you something.
Take a look at this plant, notice anything out of the ordinary?"

"No."

"Come closer, take a look inside, where the flower is."

"Hmm, at first glance you would think is an average plant, but, in reality is that it is an endemic specie from Encore.
Allow me to explain, this plant is nourished by the ether that flows inside the atmosphere, hence the glowing aura. This is due to the ambient that they are located, which have forced them to adapt to it, thus they have replaced the water as their primary source of nutrition for the Ether."

"That is...fascinating actually."

"It is, people doesn't really appreciate the biologist´s works since they take for granted all what they have discovered through ages, but here on Encore, the record sheets are still empty."

"Oh right"
"We got derailed, that is pretty much all what I know from myself, sorry If it wasn' that deep.
I only need to know a little bit about myself to know a lot about the world."

"That was helpfull, I am glad to know more you and about the... glowing plants."

Lisa smiled in gratitude

"I'll let you to work , catch you later"

Lisa departed in order to not distract Harper from his work.
While being away, she reflected on the conversations that she just had.

It seems that despite both of them knows about their past, how much they know differs depending on their personalities.

Luna approached Lisa out of nowhere.

"Hey, do you have a moment?"

"Yes, sure."

"I want to apologize for my behaviour."

"Oh, is ok, thankfully it did not escalate further."

"For the record, I do not have anything against the little girl.
I have a hard time trusting people, and she seemed to drag us pointlessly without saying a single thing. The clock pressure got to me."

"I understand. You have your own reasons of weight for acting the way you do."

"Even so, it doesn't excuse myself."

"Can I ask you something?"

"What is it?"

"Do you know anything about your past?"

"Why the sudden interest on my personal story?"

"Oh it just...
I spoke with the others two and they seem to recall something about their past, I just wonder if you were the same case."

"You could say so."

There was an awkward silence after that.

"Would you...be willing to share it with me?
That way I feel I can get to know you a little more."

"Fine, but only because I feel guilty of my actions."

"All I know is that most of my life I had a hard time socializing with people because of my look and my strict personality, nobody would approach me if they didn't have the need to do so."

"During my late days, on one of my jobs, I met someone who at first, seemed to accept me the way that I was, for a while I though I made a friend at last. I finally started to look at things more cheerfully.
How wrong was I, that foolish though of mine made me commit a mistake, a mistake that the person I considered a friend, took advantage of in order to earn points with the higher ups.
I got fired, but what hurt the most was knowing that, the only time I felt someone accepted me, costed me all the years of works I did to establish relationship with people."

"I am...sorry to hear that"

"We are even, now, if you excuse me, I rather be on my own."

Lisa agreed and Luna walked off.

After speaking with all of them, Lisa stopped for a moment and started to match the dots in her mind to figure out, who was the person who could have showed them their past.

Mmm, all of them have some level of awareness about their past. Architect mentioned he was told, but by who?.

Let's see. what do they all have in common?.

We were assigned together into the same mission, but all the people who we have met so far are first timers for all of us. 
I have to rewind further.
This mission was given to us by the head chief herself, but she seemed like she is too busy with more important tasks to deal with these type of stuff , also, she didn't seem like lying when I mentioned my memory loss.
I think we can discard her, now, after the mission was assigned to me...
The one who assembled the team was...Eden

Eden...

When I initially met him he spoke vaguely and didn't do eye to eye communication. Almost like a "I'll just speak in the most surface level to avoid unnecessary deep explanations"...

Wait a second.

Architect said on our way here, "we owe him a lot ".
What is that for? I know that they all work for him, are they just gratefull to be working for him?
Or are they gratefull about something else?.

Mmm, Eden, are you hiding more than what you show?...