DUSTHOLLOW, SE — Kerrick, a Sandgate Mining Company foreman who vanished into the glass ruins east of this outpost, was brought back alive this week by two travelers who had entered the Dustfields days earlier chasing rumors of a buried city. Miners at the excavation confirmed the rescue and said it marked the first real breakthrough since the company began surveying the spires uncovered by last season's sandstorm.
According to Torunn, the Sandgate foreman now overseeing the north tower camp, Kerrick was found badly injured near a structure that had partially collapsed. "He lost a hand and nearly lost his life," Torunn said. "Whatever did that to him is still down there. I want to know what it is before it comes looking for the rest of us." Torunn's cousin, Joren, is believed to have died in the same structure during an earlier expedition; his body has not been recovered.
The travelers, who did not give their names to Dusthollow residents but were described by locals as a broad-shouldered warrior and a healer in traveling robes, reportedly carried Kerrick nearly the full two days back toward the settlement despite the punishing terrain. Desert guide Hakan Darkstone, who has spent months trading stories of the glass towers to anyone willing to listen, said the pair arrived at a ruined waystation exhausted but determined to press on. "They didn't stop to celebrate," Darkstone said. "They asked for a map and a place to sleep, then pushed through the night to reach the tower by noon."
Cartographer Zahira Sunforge, who mapped the perimeter of the glass city earlier this year, confirmed she supplied the travelers with a resin-ink paste developed to counter the glass-figures reported near the ruins. "It blinds them on contact if it's given time to set in sunlight," Sunforge said. "I gave them enough for themselves and enough to spare, because I doubt they'll get a second chance to reapply it." She declined to speculate on what lies behind the sealed door reportedly marked on a map recovered from Kerrick's belongings, a passage he is said to have described before losing consciousness as something that could be heard breathing.
Sandgate officials say the alliance between the mining camp and the two outsiders remains informal but is already paying off. Camp foremen have granted the travelers access to supplies and intelligence gathered over months of surveying, in exchange for information on what waits beneath the north tower's spiral stair. "We need someone willing to go first," Torunn said. "For now, that's them." No timeline has been given for when the excavation crew expects word from the ruins.