Elder Hurn Stone-Vein is a weather-lined dwarf whose broad face looks carved from dark, layered rock. Fine pale mineral dust gathers in the creases beside her nose and at the roots of her hair. She moves with a measured, heel-first tread, pausing now and then as if the floor has spoken. Within a minute of meeting her, most people notice her eyes tracking seams in the walls and the feet of whoever is speaking, rarely the speaker's face. A tuning-fork ledger hangs from her belt, its wooden grip polished smooth except for one crescent-shaped patch worn nearly black by her thumb.

Hurn is guarded in a crowd yet generous in private, and her skepticism coexists with a stubborn willingness to trust a person who has done the work. She is patient with honest uncertainty but sharp with confident claims that have not been tested. When young crews are at risk, her deliberation gives way to immediate, uncompromising direction.

Hurn grew up among crews who measured safety by the sound a tunnel made after a day of drilling. During the Cooling Years, she was a junior surveyor sent to inspect a vent matrix whose readings looked sound on paper. She heard an unfamiliar three-beat tremor in the rock and ordered an evacuation. A tether failed moments later, collapsing the access gallery and killing two people who had ignored her warning to stay behind. That loss made her distrust records that cannot be tested against the stone itself. Years later, she became a Warden Elder and a respected voice at the Glass-Cut Camp moot. She still mentors younger crews, including the ambitious apprentice Beka, who wants Hurn to teach her the full acoustic method. Hurn has delayed, afraid that knowledge without judgment will become another tool for political leverage. She is currently trying to keep the crews supplied and safe while rival representatives argue over responsibility for cooling vents.