By the third hour after the Great Seizure, the Stygian River had ceased to exist.
Where billions of gallons of black, memory-thick sludge had once churned against the dark rock piers of Val-Khorat, there remained only a vast, silent canyon of steaming grey mud and glistening river-silt. The sulfur mist that had choked the cave for six hundred years had been drawn down into the drainage rift, replaced by a bitter, freezing updraft that smelled wildly of salt water, cold iron, and deep ocean kelp.
Ren Vale led the small party down the slippery limestone steps of the ruined water-gate, his felt-soled boots sinking three inches into the bitter-salt silt.
The mud was thick, smelling of hundreds of years of rotting stone grease and ancient algae. Beside him walked Mira, her boots wrapped in strips of oiled linen to keep the skin-burning mud from rotting the leather. Her smoky quartz right arm was held across her chest. It caught the dim starlight of the Precursor runes that still pulsed along the canyon rim. Behind them marched Lord Ren, his broadsword drawn in a low guard. He was flanked by Artificer Ren and Necro-Scribe Ren.
Brother Ren carried a small fire bowl of hot coals, over which swung a copper kettle filled with bitter roots and stone salt water. He handed a steaming tin cup to Ren and another to Mira.
