The expedition followed the glowing silver thread of the ancient highway as it wound across an elevated alpine plateau.
Ahead of the lead wagon, six battered refugee carts belonging to the Kester convoy stood clustered near a defensive rock overhang.
Displaced villagers clutching crude wooden tablets eyed the approaching travelers with intense suspicion and brandished hunting pitchforks.
At the front of the anxious convoy stood Toven, his weathered knuckles tight upon his carved wooden tally staff.
When he saw the petrified guardian colossus resting upon Loccy's carriage, his lined face twisted in bitter, ancestral resentment.
"Keep that cursed monster away from our children... as its kind opened the gates that burned our ancestral village!"
Aria's analytical sensors chimed quietly beside Hajin's wrist, scanning the wooden tablets held tightly by every trembling refugee.
[Convoy memory pattern detected, shared event record inconsistent, foreign narrative strand present]
