Rift Plate 090 · Iron Hills
Rustshade Lurker
A corroded spectral hunter hides inside oxidized surfaces, emerging wherever neglected iron has already lost its strength.
- Plate group
- Iron Hills
- Classification
- Spectral
- Field account
- Recovered
Recovered natural history
Field record
Sela at the rail
Once I saw shoulders in the tank's rust streak, the rest unfolded. A narrow head. Long hands. Blood-rust afterimages tearing behind it. Sela leaned on the rail and it came through under her palm. The metal failed with the strike. She fell; the ghost followed in orange flakes from the broken rail.
We scraped the other rust patches with wire brushes and drove it into a polished wrench head. There was too little surface to stretch its arms.
Corroded supports
It cannot pass through sound iron. It waits in neglected seams or beneath blistered paint on a support someone is likely to trust. Weight comes onto the rail, the metal fails, and the Lurker strikes from behind. It retreats to another patch rather than holding a body.
Fresh abrasion drives it along connected iron. Cleaning from several directions can herd it. Water extends its possible shelter; oil denies it. It avoids open stone and clean timber. Confined in a small rusted object, it becomes dense enough to seize or destroy.
Read the environment
Signs of its presence
A rust stain looks crouched from one viewing angle.
Paint blisters over hand-shaped corrosion on a load-bearing rail.
Orange flakes move against the wind toward someone using metal support.
Survival doctrine
Field precautions
01
Herd into isolated iron
Scrape and oil connected metal to drive the spirit toward one remaining object. Wooden wedges or removed bolts can isolate that object's rust from other structural pieces. With no connected route left, the confined spirit becomes dense enough to seize or destroy.
Continue through the folio
090 of 100 recovered plates