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~~((The National Ice Cream Day Special -- page 4 of 15))~~
After Chort's apparent death, all of its spawn had been rendered inert. There was discussion among the reapers about taking some of them captive for study, and Hector could see the logic in doing that. Chort was still a very mysterious entity. Performing an autopsy on it and its spawn was a tempting idea. The things that they might be able to learn from such creatures... Hector couldn't really blame Ernivoc for advocating that course of action.

But he couldn't in good conscience allow it. After having witnessed Chort's history firsthand thanks to Pauline, having seen the horrific experiments that Chort had been subjected to and the terrible consequences that had followed, there was no way in hell that Hector was going to let that same thing happen again. Even if he did trust the Rainlords to not do such fucked up and idiotic experiments, he just didn't think it was worth the risk of bringing something so chaotic and dangerous back to Atreya.

So Chort and its spawn had all been destroyed. With Salvador's assistance, Hector had melted their flesh down into puddles of goo. And then that, too, was gathered up and cooked again, even hotter until it was finally nothing more than ash and vapors.

It had taken quite a while. And the stench. The Lorentians hadn't complained, but Hector was quite certain that they had not enjoyed that long period of miserable waiting.

They did, however, seem relieved once it was all over; and they made sure to thank the young lord from Atreya another time.

From there, it was just a matter of finding a cellphone signal. The vastness of the Imara Forest made that a rather tedious endeavor as well, but Pauline again proved to be a very helpful guide, and soon enough, a military escort arrived from the capital to take them the rest of the way.