Sera’s first description made Eli think of a crowded burial ground. Her second took that certainty away.
“Some stand upright. Two are low slabs. Marks on the faces, different hands. No open ground I can identify from here.”
Lale knelt near the channel mouth with her recording board braced against a case. Water turned the scouts’ words uneven, breaking one syllable and carrying another too clearly. She asked Sera to describe the first inscription by separate strokes, then stopped when the scout said she could make a surface copy without moving beyond the checked edge.
“Copy what you can actually see,” Lale said. “Leave the missing strokes missing.”
Mira watched the channel. Her light stayed on the place where water met a pale seam in the stone. The return tether ran beside her knee, free of the lowest marker. She moved it once when a small surge pressed it against an edge, then told the inner keeper exactly what she had changed.
The chamber might have been a useful dry space in another water condition. At present, only the near ledge had been inspected. Dark openings stood beyond the stones. Sera did not approach them. A route sheet that called the room safe would have made an unearned promise to everyone still waiting with medical bags and heavy equipment.
