Cleanup

Renard shoves his present worry out of his mind to address the scene left before him.

Arsene is gone. So is the rift. The gargoyle half-corpse remains, floating in the exact same fixed spot it has been this whole time. The clearing is also now flooded with water, though this no longer a violent, rushing stream, but a calm, smooth lake whose overflow meanders further down into the forest. A trickle of water is what feeds the lake, descending in a gentle but consistent flow from an inexplicable spot in the air, positioned where the rift once was.

Knowing the supernatural coldness of the water, Renard instructs Fidel to stay upon the ledge. The boy does so without complaint, watching and seeming calmed that Renard has control of the situation. That calmness confirms to Renard that Fidel does not understand the gravity of what they just encountered, though that ignorance is frankly for the best.

Kingslayer hums on Renard’s thigh as he sloshes through the shallow water. Ugh! Dare you not think me weak! I’ve might enough to show you, it brays impetuously as it warms the lake, pride wounded by its stressing at all. Renard pats its scabbard, rolling his eyes. It does not feel, intuitively, like the blade has been damaged, but the prospect of Kingslayer’s powers having a limit is something that, in all his career after so many battles, he has never before had to consider.

The corruption in this water must run very, very deep. Renard bends in to inspect the remains of the rift, where the water is trickling through.

It’s strange. Similar to how the torso of the gargoyle abruptly ends, this water seems to be abruptly sourced from nothing, flowing perpetually from a tiny fixed spot in the air. Though he prods around, he also determines that there is no portal here. That scene he saw of the campsite at night is now inaccessible, and even easing his finger into the flow of the water, there is no greater flow beyond the spot he sees; it simply ends.

He does, however, sense that he could force the edges of the hole wider if he pulled them with enough strength. Fidel’s impression of this being an injury comes to his mind. If the anomaly was something like a scab, this may be more of a direct, open wound. A small one, granted, but still one. Whether it would close by itself is unclear, but if it can be pulled wider, perhaps it can also be squeezed shut.

Coming to this conclusion, Renard shifts his attention to the gargoyle.

It is a man, ashen and dead. Though Kingslayer hums when Renard brings it near to the fellow, the only effect is a receding of the pus-polyps that dribble down his head, similar as to what happened with Verdan. Otherwise, though, there is nothing. Renard judges that the man is indeed completely dead and inert, with no lingering ghoulish surprises afoot from his apparent corruption.

Renard feels the body. The surface squeezes soft like living skin, stretched across what feels like uninterrupted stone underneath. Though the body is locked in place in the air, Renard deduces by jostling it mildly that he may be able to dislodge it, and carry it elsewhere for identification or burial.

Renard looks closer, two more salient details now jumping out to him.

For one, clutched in the man’s hands is the hilt of a dagger. The blade is shattered, and wreathed around the shards that remain are several strange, wilted, inky ribbons, with the exact same glossy black hue as Kingslayer. Interested, Renard gently tugs a ribbon — they are all tangled together, and a gentle but persistent crackling noise arises from them as if Renard were marching over a shell beach. White fractures, like lightning marks, spread over these ribbons and the remains of the blade. Renard stops his investigation there, lest these remains shatter too, but does peek to inspect the innards of the blade. The metal is grey. The blackness is only adhered to the dagger as a thin outer coat.

And the second major thing, the scraps of the tunic the man wears are a striking scarlet red, the same as the colours worn by Verdanheim’s military guard.

A sinking sensation comes over Renard’s gut that this affair with the anomaly may have been more than coincidence.

Renard orders Fidel to collect branches and rope, if he has any. Fidel nods and gives a dubious look to his satchel as Renard joins him upon the ledge, but when he musters the courage to touch the thing, is surprised. The quality of the leather has actually improved, as has that of all the implements inside, including the rope. Though Renard would not dare to consume any food or water Fidel brought, it seems that contact with the crimson snot-thing actually had beneficial effects on these tools — an uncommon, but possible phenomenon as a side effect of some monsters’ properties.

Renard and Fidel then fashion together a frame of branches that Renard ties tightly around the water-hole. They also construct a sling out of branches, rope, and cloth to carry the gargoyle-corpse. Finally, Renard fishes from the water the fallen tiles of the anomaly, which are now inert squares of a chalky, talc-like material, all evoking no reaction from Kingslayer.

Renard removes the bundle of branches from the water-hole. As hoped, the pressure of the branches squeezing in on the hole has closed it, and no new water is flowing into the clearing.

“You’ve a fresh lake in your woods," heaving the full sling onto his shoulders, Renard jokes to Fidel.

“The story of this blights its beauty, sir," says Fidel.

“So it is, keen ranger. Come then; to trail."

Their business in the clearing done, the pair depart down the hill.