The silence held for a long moment after the Corruptor disappeared into the rubble.
Then Jim landed behind us.
"Hi." He said, slightly out of breath. "I am back. A significant number followed me, it was quite…" He stopped. He had noticed that nobody had turned around. "Guys?"
He looked past us.
The mountain ahead was barely recognizable as a mountain. The upper ridge had been blown outward, the cave entrance was buried under collapsed rock, and across a wide radius in front of it the ground was scorched, broken, and covered in a spreading pool of silver that had already begun to cool into irregular shapes.
Jim adjusted his glasses very slowly.
"What happened here?" He asked.
"A large Corruptor and a very large silver serpent fought." I said. "The Corruptor won the fight and it went back to where it was residing."
A pause.
"Which is?" He asked again.
"The exile point." I said.
