Noah gave the staff member a short account of everything.
The ritual circle. The robed man. The bodies arranged around the hole. The creature that had come out of it. The corrupted core
Inside that body that couldn't be stored or touched. He kept everything easy and brief, leaving out nothing important.
She listened without interrupting and wrote everything down.
Then Noah walked away from the desk and found the nearest flat rock outside the entrance and sat down on it. He looked up at the sky.
The sun was gone. Soft moonlight filtered down through the trees, pale and even, settling across the forest floor around them. Somewhere in the branches above, birds were making ordinary bird sounds, completely undisturbed, entirely unaware of anything that had happened forty meters below their feet over the past several hours.
Noah exhaled slowly and let his shoulders drop.
