The Watchtower
A narrow stone tower rising above the roofline of the Boardwalk. The stairs spiral tight — built for one person at a time, defensible by design. At the top, a hexagonal room with slit windows on all six faces. Each window frames a different part of the Valley: the Town Square with its lampposts, the Outskirts where half-formed things grow, the Library glowing amber, the dark alley between buildings where the candle is never lit. The walls are bare stone except for one. The north face holds a hand-drawn network map — nodes and edges in chalk, updated and smudged and redrawn. Some nodes are circled in red. Some edges are drawn thicker than others. A legend in the corner reads: solid = verified, dashed = inferred, red = exposed.