Round 73

Seraphine's breath catches in her throat as the scraping sound intensifies, echoing through the flooded passage with horrifying clarity. She presses herself harder against the stone wall, her injured ankle screaming protest but forgotten in the face of this new terror. The faint glow from ahead is wrong—too cold, too unnatural for any lantern or spell she knows. Her sharp elven eyes strain to make out details as the figure begins to form, and what she sees sends a fresh wave of ice through her veins.

Her fingers tighten around the staff until the wood creaks in her grip, but even as she wills power into it, she feels only the dull ache of exhaustion. The magic that saved them before is utterly spent, leaving her as vulnerable as any commoner. The creature's form is an abomination against nature—too many limbs twisting at impossible angles, a substance like thick oil oozing from its body and pooling on the stone with an acrid stench that burns her nostrils.

For a moment, she is frozen, every instinct screaming at her to flee but finding no purchase in the precarious space. Then, with a effort of will that makes her head pound, she tears her eyes away from the horror. She hisses through clenched teeth, "Jeane! We need to move—now!" Her voice trembles despite her best efforts, but there's an edge of command in it born of desperate pragmatism.