To your last paragraph I think contextualising the mystery is a good amount of the fun and I guess all of the storytelling.
There's a lot of things about our real world, that if told by an alien race, would make us sound like ethereal wizards.
"They convinced the sand itself to think for them, guided the power of Sol to move them, and spoke to eachother through the very fabric of energy that moves invisibly through us all"
Similar to that, there's a bunch of magic/fantasy storytelling that can kind of pull me out of disbelief, because I can't help but think "yeah we have that, it's electricity" or "witches are just pharamacists without good research"
There's a lot of things about our real world, that if told by an alien race, would make us sound like ethereal wizards.
"They convinced the sand itself to think for them, guided the power of Sol to move them, and spoke to eachother through the very fabric of energy that moves invisibly through us all"
Similar to that, there's a bunch of magic/fantasy storytelling that can kind of pull me out of disbelief, because I can't help but think "yeah we have that, it's electricity" or "witches are just pharamacists without good research"