Round 76 Transcript

At bathroom in a New York high rise penthouse suite, the pressure shifts from waiting to immediate risk. The ward answers the party's presence with a fresh pulse through the stone and no one can mistake it for safety. The nearest sign of danger is now structural collapse imminent. Someone has to answer that change now.

I stack the bottles with mechanical precision because if I don't do this right, we all die in a very specific and messy way. Two deep along the base—that's what she said, and I trust her destructive impulses more than anyone else's indecision right now. The wardstone's energy pulses against my skin like a physical thing, sickening and wrong, but at least it's contained behind that door for now. My hands are steady even as everything else threatens to unravel.

I push more bottles into position along the door base with my hands and knees, feeling the slick floor beneath me as water from the broken shower seeps across everything. The wardstone pulses faster now — it knows we're here trying to contain it. We need this barricade up before the building gives out completely or that thing pulls us apart piece by piece. Jeane's right about one thing: if we don't get this stable, none of it matters anyway. I'm not thrilled about her methods but she has the strength we desperately need right now even if I hate how she uses it. The bottles slide against each other with wet pops as I push them tighter together. We're almost there — maybe two more layers deep and we can brace this properly. Abby's looking at me like a lost child and Hera's injury makes my stomach twist every time I see her wince. I can't let anything happen to them no matter what it takes, even if that means getting closer than I'm comfortable with right now in this slippery hell. We have maybe minutes before the next structural failure happens. Silra works beside me with that mechanical precision of hers — at least someone's got steady hands in all this mess. The groaning overhead gets louder and more insistent, like a beast choking on its own rage. I brace my shoulder against the door, feeling the wardstone push back with slimy tendrils of psychic energy trying to worm into my mind. We need to finish this barricade before those tendrils get any stronger or we'll all be lost in whatever twisted pleasure-nightmare that thing feeds on. And then we have to figure out how to survive a collapsing building while avoiding contact with an ancient sex toy that wants us dead. Small favors, I guess.