Round 141

The wardstone's energy pulsed through the corridor like a living heartbeat, each beat stronger than the last. Jeane stood at the edge of the barrier she'd managed to erect, her crimson eyes blazing with exhaustion and barely contained panic. The spell flickered around her fingertips, visible only as distortions in the air that shimmered when the wardstone pulsed.

"Hera," she snapped, her voice tight with strain, "stay right there. Halie—brace that door with everything you have." Her gaze flicked to Silra, a silent order for the rogue to find them an escape route before they all suffocated under rubble or succumbed to whatever corruption the wardstone was spreading.

Halie moved immediately, her hands still reddened and blistered from earlier contact with the wardstone. She pressed her back against the door, using her entire body weight to hold it shut while positioning a heavy mirror as an additional brace. The wood creaked ominously under renewed pressure, protesting the strain.

Hera stood frozen mid-step, her amber eyes wide with terror. The floor beneath her feet was slick with lubricant that had spilled during their earlier predicaments, now mixed with water seeping from the broken shower stall down the corridor. Every pulse of the wardstone made the building groan around them, structural stress accumulating visibly in the warped doorframe and cracking plaster.

Jeane's concentration wavered with each pulse, her demonic nature struggling against the effort of maintaining a spell designed to contain rather than destroy. The barrier flickered again, and she hissed through clenched teeth, "I can maybe hold this for two minutes. Maybe. But each pulse... it's taking more energy, more control. The spell wants to feed back into itself." She glared at Hera and Silra in turn, her expression a mix of barely controlled panic and aggressive protectiveness. "You two are not walking into that death trap. I don't care what kind of magic dick you need to fix this—find another solution before the building collapses around us."

The mirror Halie was using as a brace shifted ominously, the whole barricade groaning under renewed pressure from within the main suite. The wardstone's energy seemed to pulse harder in response, eager for contact with fresh prey beyond the door.