Round 116 Transcript

At dark corridor in 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 press my palm flat against the door's surface, feeling the wardstone pulse through stone and spell both—its rhythm accelerating like something waking up inside our walls. The floor beneath us is slick with water from the broken shower stall and whatever lube spilled during Hera's earlier panic. "Hera," I say sharply over the groaning structure, "stop hyperventilating or you'll pass out and we'll all be trapped with a corpse." Her breathing is too fast—I can hear it ragged across the corridor. "Silra, get ready to brace this door if it gives way."

The wardstone pulses again, stronger now, making my demon blood quicken despite every instinct screaming otherwise. My wings want to tear free of their binding beneath the robe—have wanted to since we trapped ourselves here with no escape but through whatever waits on the other side. I don't need Halie telling me what I already know—the wardstone's hunger is growing, feeding off our desperation probably. Each pulse seems to count down seconds until this whole damn building collapses around us. And yet opening that door might be the only way out from under it when it does. My hand stays pressed against the stone, feeling the energy course through me like poison and promise both. "Everyone get behind that dresser—now." I don't make requests twice unless I'm planning to take what I want regardless of permission given or withheld.

The building's groan is less like a warning now and more like a countdown. The wardstone pulses aren't just feels—they're rhythm, insistent, getting faster. My grip tightens on the door frame. "Jeane," I say, voice not as steady as I'd like it to be, "if you touch that thing while we're trapped under a collapsing building with no escape route, you're going to channel energy into a structure designed to contain it." I shift my weight. The floor's slippery underfoot now; the water from the broken shower and whatever the hell else has leaked isn't helping. "And when it overloads? We get a wardstone explosion in an enclosed space. That's not 'power surge,' that's 'building disintegration.'"

The makeshift barricade creaks—Hera or Halie trying to brace it from behind, probably. Good. Someone thinking practically. I press my ear to the door again. The pulses are definitely faster now. Whatever's on the other side isn't sleeping anymore. "We need options," I mutter. "Options that don't involve suicide by wardstone."