Morning came over the canyon, and the party limped out of the depot like survivors of a siege. which, Nathan supposed, they were.
The courtyard was littered with the dissolving remains of corrupted creatures, their dark energy bleeding into the stone. The depot's walls were scarred and cracked from the night's assault.
The grey banners with the broken-eye sigil hung in tatters, their edges singed by Mirko's fire and Dillon's lightning. The mutation crystals inside the vault had all been shattered, their sickly light extinguished.
The depot was dead, but so was the party's momentum.
Garrett sat on a collapsed section of wall, Volcan propped beside him, his breathing ragged. Red sprawled at his feet, its wool soft and burned, too exhausted to maintain armor.
Dillon was slumped against a supply crate, Cloudy coiled in his lap and crackling with faint, intermittent static electricity.
