The Reclaimed Milestone

A Vallen Imperium waystone on the old graded line below the foothills, half-swallowed by pine duff, its carved distances pointing down a road the forest took back.

The stone is carved with distances to places that no longer exist under their old names: Vael's Crossing, the Seat of the Bronze Line, the Three-Hour Ford. The pine roots have lifted it six degrees off true and the mast hangs at an angle that makes the carved arrow point into the canopy rather than down the road. A good omen or a bad one, depending on who you ask; the College diggers make a note of it and the tribes make a wide path around it.