Round 71

The bathroom air feels thick and wrong, charged with energy that has nothing to do with electricity or human fear. The wardstone's response is immediate—its power pulses through the walls in waves that make the very structure of the building scream. Abby presses herself against the tile, her wide brown eyes reflecting the chaos in the mirror behind her. Water from the broken shower swirls around her ankles like a rising tide.

Jeane grabs Hera by the wrist, pulling her back from the door with a strength born of pure protective instinct. The succubus woman's crimson eyes are fixed on the barrier between them and whatever hellish thing Silra is approaching. "We don't touch it," she snaps, voice tight with barely controlled panic. "That thing is why this building is coming down around our ears. We find another way."

The wardstone pulses again, slower now but somehow more menacing—each beat sends fresh cracks racing through the ceiling above them. The building groans like a dying beast, and Abby can feel the floor vibrate beneath her feet. They're trapped in a wet death-trap of their own making, with only each other between them and total collapse.