A barbarian named Rorak and a cleric of the Life domain known as Cally spoke with this correspondent at a water seep east of Dusthollow, where the pair had made camp with an injured miner after a harrowing night inside the newly exposed glass spires two days' travel from the settlement. The two said they intended to return to Dusthollow at dawn to report what they had found.
The expedition began on the strength of a rumor carried by local guide Hakan Darkstone, who told of towers of glass uncovered by a sandstorm, their interiors said to hold figures frozen mid-stride. Cartographer Zahira Sunforge, who had walked the perimeter of the site before losing her survey kit near the southern structure, had warned the pair that the glass carried sound, that cracks spread underfoot, and that the frozen figures were known to shift position after dark.
According to Cally, the pair entered the southern structure at dusk and found two miners from the rival Sandgate claim already inside. One, identified as Joren, was dead and fully transformed to glass. The second, Kerrick, was alive but crystallizing from the arm inward when they found him.
Cally described a frozen figure encountered deeper in the hall as remaining still only so long as it was met with a direct gaze, closing the distance rapidly whenever attention lapsed. She said Rorak's eyes drifted from the thing for only a moment before it had crossed most of the chamber and seized him.
"There's more of them in there, and we can't leave them be," Rorak said, adding that the glass creeping across his own arm had receded on its own, a reprieve he credited to the infernal blood in his lineage. He said the encounter had only strengthened his resolve to return to the site.
The hall began collapsing from the strain of the encounter, the pair said, forcing them to flee with Kerrick before the entrance sealed shut behind them, trapping the animate figure inside. Outside the ruins, Rorak removed Kerrick's crystallized hand to halt the spread, and Cally stabilized him with a healing rite, by her account exhausting most of her remaining prayers for the day. Kerrick remained unconscious at the seep camp as of this report. The pair said they intended to return Zahira's recovered survey kit to her as agreed once back in Dusthollow. Sandgate miners camped on the site's northern side, described by Darkstone as territorial toward outsiders, could not be reached for comment on the fate of their companions.