Round 63

The stone corridor shuddered around them both. The walls began shifting, grinding together with a sound like teeth gnashing. The blue light pulsed faster now, each beat sending fresh waves of corruption seeping up through the floor. Jeane clutched her dying flame tighter upstairs, watching as Silra descended further into the glowing abyss below.

Twelve minutes—she'd promised twelve minutes to map the pressure plate sequence before the trap reactivated completely. Now she was down there with active corruption already eating at her wards and the walls moving like living things. Silra dropped the last chalk mark, completing her twelfth circuit around the shaft's perimeter. Sequence logged and double-checked—twenty-four plates in total, six per wall, pressure pattern alternating every three seconds between north-south and east-west axes.

Her palm throbbed as she gripped the stone edge again, beginning the ascent. The sweet-sick smell was thicker down here now, cloying and wrong in a way that made her stomach turn. Something was changing—the air felt heavier, almost viscous. The grinding...