Round 134

Silra pressed the heating stone into Jeane's numb hands, and the sorceress's fingers closed around it, her demonic physiology responding to the warmth. The cold creeping up her legs eased slightly, and she grits her teeth, focusing on the task at hand. "Twenty meters... move," she said, her voice firm despite the chattering of her teeth.

Silra nodded grimly, her teal gaze steady even as water lapped higher around their thighs. The emergency escape route required navigating frequent electrical discharge arcs while maintaining hypothermia survival—two tasks that actively contradicted each other. Every second counted as the rising waters threatened to flood the entire junction and trap them both.

Jeane stared at Silra through the failing shield's translucent barrier, her crimson eyes sharp despite visible exhaustion. Her demonic physiology accelerated hypothermia risks, and the cold was already gnawing at her core magic reserves. Six minutes to reach the junction access panel and interface with that mainframe while maintaining what little magic she had left? Fucking optimistic math if this conduit didn't collapse before they reached the end.

I watch Jeane's shield flicker to near-transparency—10% integrity means we have maybe three minutes before she collapses completely—and calculate the odds of me carrying her through electrical discharge zones while hacking a mainframe sixty feet away in deteriorating visibility. The math is fucked, but abandoning this mission after coming this far...