The Leaning Columns

A field of toppled Vallen Imperium bronze pillars sunk in the pine duff, still faintly warm to the touch in a north wind.

Where the boreal forest thins below Caer Vallen, a processional of fluted bronze pillars lies where the Sundering threw them — some still upright and leaning hard, most face-down and moss-furred in the duff. On a cold north wind the metal holds warmth no dead thing should, the way the old Imperium's bronze always does. Relic-runners work the field for fallen workings the College's diggers haven't claimed; the warmth makes them careless, and the cold makes them quick.