Round 66

The scraping sound intensified, growing louder with each passing moment. Sister Hale took a step forward, her mace at the ready, as the stone-skin creature shifted its gaze to her symbol. "The Devourer is an ancient being of darkness," it rumbled, "one that feeds on the life force of entire cities. It will consume everything in its path, leaving nothing but ash and ruin." Hale's grip tightened on her mace, her blue symbol flaring brighter as she scanned the corridor ahead.

Silra watched the exchange with renewed focus, her teal eyes gleaming with interest. She recalled her recent interactions with the stone-skin creature, including the test of its honesty, where she had suggested a thirty-second window to gauge its trustworthiness. The memory made her expression harden slightly as she thought about her own pragmatism, and how it might be misinterpreted by others.

Ahead, Gravehill loomed like a monument to forgotten sins—a city that once pulsed with life now reduced to ruins and whispers of darkness. Hale's blue symbol cast dancing shadows across her weary features as she stepped forward, the ground beneath her feet still feeling wrong, like walking on skin stretched too thin over something living.