The settlement had a name.
It was carved into a flat stone slab set into the ground at the road's edge, just before the first buildings began. The letters were clean and deep, cut by someone who expected the sign to last.
Varden Post.
Not a city. Not a town in the way Helios had towns inside its walls. A post. The word said something about the purpose of the place before anything else did.
The road widened as it entered. The buildings on either side were set back far enough to leave room for carts or heavy equipment to pass. The construction was solid and undecorated—dark stone foundations, heavy timber upper floors, wide doors built for function rather than appearance. Most of them had tools visible outside or equipment stacked under covered overhangs. This was a place built for work, not for living in the comfortable sense.
People moved on the road ahead.
