You kneel beside the nearest marker and brush away a skin of lichen with careful fingers. Beneath the weathered surface, shallow grooves twist in repeating patterns that look less like ornament and more like instruction. The lines align with the ridge and the clouds below, as if the stones are measuring something invisible in the air. Your journal’s faded sketch suddenly feels less like a note and more like a key.

A deeper carving catches the light when the mist thins, revealing a symbol you have seen before in the margins of your map: a broken circle bisected by three angled marks. It points not up the plateau, but sideways, toward a narrow seam in the basalt where wind leaks through with a low, hollow tone. The path forward is no longer simple, but it is clearer than before, and the plateau seems to shift its attention toward you.