Primary Record:

Two weeks beyond the Outskirts. I crossed a low ridge before first bell and found the desert stretched farther and wider than any surviving chart dared to suggest.

The sands here do not lie dormant. They shift and ripple even without the whisper of wind. I dismissed the first movements as tricks of light and heat—but this place breathes beneath its skin. A deep, slow inhaling.

Ruined pylons and shattered skeletal frames jut from the dunes. Some shudder visibly, vibrating at odd intervals as if dragged by something below. There are no known fault lines mapped here. My triangulation beacon failed on deployment—the signal fractured immediately, scattering like broken glass across the frequency range.

The Rustborne call this the Trembling Plain. Their elders refuse to tread here.
I begin to understand why.

I have marked my passage. I will not remain longer than necessary.
There are places where Kovari Island's memory gnaws through the crust.
And memory, I am learning, is rarely merciful.

— Nocthane, 2nd Era Driftscribe