I noticed the old stones for the first time properly

Artifact Intent

• Story role: Observation. The MC sees the standing stones as a real thing for the first time and registers them as a future investigation.
• Playable-lore position: clue -> investigation step. Survive thread unlocks the Old Stones thread without forking off.
• What this artifact must not claim: any function for the stones; any named anchor; any cosmological framing; any narrator from outside the MC.

Narrative Surface Notes

• Artifact shape: a careful, slightly newer-feeling diary entry. The MC writes the way a person writes when they have noticed something they should have noticed earlier.
• Player-facing uncertainty: the MC sees the stones, names what they look like, and chooses not to investigate now. The decision to defer is the entry's content.
• Journal or objective linkage: unlocks the Old Stones quest thread; does not resolve a survive-thread objective on its own.

Body Draft

I have been looking at the stones since I sat down.

I did not look at them properly in the morning. I saw them and I named them, in the way you name a thing in the corner of your eye when you have other things to do. "Old stones." Three words, done. I had water to find and a shelter to choose.

I am looking at them now. There are more of them than I thought.

They are not a circle. They are a line. The line bends a little near the top of the slope, the way an old fence line bends around an old field that no longer exists. The stones are squared, badly squared, the corners broken off by weather. The tallest is about the height of a tall man. The shortest is the height of my knee. They are spaced unevenly.

There is moss on the south side of each one. The same moss as on the rocks by the shelter. There is something else on the north side of the larger stones that is not moss. A darker patch. The shape of the patch is not the shape of weather. It is the shape of something carved and then weathered. Letters, or marks, or both. I cannot read them from here. I cannot read them at all, I think.

I cannot go look at them now. The light is going and my legs are not what I want them to be. I will go in the morning, or the day after.

I am writing this down because I did not write it down this morning, and because if I do not write it down now I will keep failing to write it down. The line of stones is here. It is a thing.

I do not know what the line is. I do not know what made the marks. I am not going to guess in writing. I am going to find out.

Playable Consequences

• Immediate consequence: registers 'the stone line' as a site entity; pins the marks-on-the-stones observation in the Journal; unlocks the Old Stones quest thread for later activation.
• Follow-up clue, mission, site, or world-state change: the Old Stones thread becomes the canonical entry-point for later investigation of the line; this entry is its first clue.
• Related branch or linear continuation: linear in the survive thread with a fork annotation: the Old Stones thread now exists as a separate thread the player may pursue later.

Review Notes

• Open questions: which thread index owns the Old Stones thread is a pr-quest-owner-and-navigation-model.md concern; this entry leaves the routing to that doc.
• Canon-delta follow-up: none.
• Audit carry-forward: the stone-line description (bent line, weathered squared corners, north-side marks) should stay consistent across later entries that revisit the stones.

Voice Readback

I had been looking at the stones since I had sat down.

I had not looked at them properly in the morning. I had seen them and I had named them, in the way you name a thing in the corner of your eye when you have other things to do. "Old stones." Three words, done. I had water to find and a shelter to choose.

I was looking at them now. There were more of them than I had thought.

They were not a circle. They were a line. The line bent a little near the top of the slope, the way an old fence line bends around an old field that no longer exists. The stones were squared, badly squared, the corners broken off by weather. The tallest was about the height of a tall man. The shortest was the height of my knee. They were spaced unevenly.

There was moss on the south side of each one. The same moss as on the rocks by the shelter. There was something else on the north side of the larger stones that was not moss. A darker patch. The shape of the patch was not the shape of weather. It was the shape of something carved and then weathered. Letters, or marks, or both. I could not read them from there. I could not read them at all, I thought.

I could not go look at them now. The light was going and my legs were not what I wanted them to be. I would go in the morning, or the day after.

I was writing this down because I had not written it down this morning, and because if I did not write it down now I would keep failing to write it down. The line of stones was there. It was a thing.

I did not know what the line was. I did not know what had made the marks. I was not going to guess in writing. I was going to find out.