Rift Plate 003 · Gate of Stone
Hairpin Bastion
A roadbound construct turns a mountain bend into a patient trap and enforces laws no traveler remembers.
- Plate group
- Gate of Stone
- Classification
- Construct
- Field account
- Recovered
Recovered natural history
Field record
Survey-line encounter
The traveler crossed the curve. Behind them, a chalk pillar opened. Slate became shoulders. Iron hinges straightened into arms, and the painted chevron was suddenly a red eye.
The Bastion stayed on the bend. It didn't need to chase. Road spikes shut one way out. Scree and the slope made the others worse, with the quarry wall holding the whole trap in place.
Boundary enforcement
Crossing its inherited line wakes it. So does breaking a carved rule. The Bastion chooses a lane and closes the detours, using the slope to return people to that lane. Orderly retreat is often permitted. A false token counts as deliberate fraud.
Read the environment
Signs of its presence
Check the roadside pillar for fresh bolt heads beneath old lichen.
The scree forms chevrons pointing down the pass, and cracked survey posts all lean toward the same figure.
Survival doctrine
Field precautions
01
Find the old boundary
Locate the outermost surviving survey sockets. The Bastion cannot willingly pass them.
02
Quiet the joints
Step softly. Packed clay and heavy cloth damp the vibration feeding the mechanism. Use the pause to wedge its plates.
Recovered Field Plate
01
Primary form
A block-plated construct built as a moving wall, with an uneven stance and fortress-like upper body.
02
Detail studies
Detached arm and gauntlet studies show the interlocking geometry beneath the outer plates.
Continue through the folio
003 of 100 recovered plates