Round 14

As the hammering at the front doors reached a fever pitch, Gravedigger Renn stumbled backward, his eyes wide with fear, and dropped his dagger, raising his hands in a futile attempt to block whatever was about to emerge from the church. The sound of the hammering intensified, and the rumbling beneath the road grew louder, as if whatever was inside was preparing to burst forth into the stormy night.

Jeane's senses were on high alert, her arcane sight picking up on the ancient corruption pressing against her skin with growing hostility. Whatever had orchestrated this invitation wanted their exact capabilities, and Renn's fear reaction suggested even the frightened informant could sense the shift from mindless chaos to calculated predation. The board arrangement creating a perfect bottleneck for control seemed to be a deliberate trap, designed to funnel them into a killing zone.

Silra's eyes narrowed as she watched the boarded-up window widen, revealing a torch-lit interior that formed a deliberate pentagram pointing inward toward an ornate altar with a small box at its center. The huddled figure rose with fluid grace, its movements speaking of practiced predation rather than mindless corruption. As Hale's divine energy outside activated, the glowing symbols on the small box pulsed faster, responding to her activation like a living thing. Jeane's crimson aura flared in response, despite the obvious wrongness of the situation.