Round 185

Silra moved through the darkness with desperate purpose, her fingers tracing the floorboards where water had seeped in from the broken shower stall. Every pulse of the wardstone felt like teeth scraping against her skin—Jeane was holding back something monstrous behind that door, and they didn't have time for careful exploration.

She found a gap in the wall paneling near the ceiling, wide enough to fit her arm through. The space beyond felt cavernous and empty, but she couldn't see more than a few feet into it. "There's something here," she called out, voice tight with urgency. "I think there might be a service corridor or maintenance shaft—it feels bigger than just this hallway." But bigger didn't necessarily mean safer when the entire building was about to come down around their ears.

The floor shifted again under her boots, and she had to brace herself against the wall to keep from falling on her ass. This wasn't just a structural issue anymore—this was a death trap counting down in seconds. She needed options now, not maybe-maybe corridors that might or might not exist beyond the darkness.

"Jeane, how long can you hold that?" she demanded, already knowing the answer: until she couldn't hold it anymore. Which wasn't nearly long enough.