Round 23

Jeane pushed herself higher with powerful beats of her dark wings, the air currents shifting around her as she ascended through the crumbling floor above. Her crimson eyes widened in alarm as she witnessed Seraphine's panic—her arcane spellwork collapsing under some ancient pressure the elf couldn't name. The inverse rune screamed back at her, feeding on itself now that two casters had failed simultaneously. The magic pulsed erratically, each beat drawing more ambient corruption into its vortex.

The tower groaned around them, a sound like tectonic plates shifting beneath the earth. Dust and rubble rained down as entire sections of masonry loosened— We're losing structural integrity by the second, —Jeane thought frantically. She beat her wings harder, propelling herself up through the collapsing floor just in time to witness Halie's sprint back toward the main chamber.

Below, Halie froze, clinging to a crumbling stone arch as the tower groaned around her. Seraphine's warning screams echoed up through the collapsing floor— "The rune... it's breaking!" —*and she knew exactly what that meant. The containment failing. The defenses unleashed.**

No time to hesitate. The cleric shoved the useless symbol deeper into her pocket and sprinted back toward the main chamber, boots echoing off ancient stone as dust rained down from above. The corridor walls wept dust and moisture, stones shifting with every heavy footfall. She could feel the tower's very structure groaning in protest around her, every step bringing new cracks and settling rubble.

Seraphine clung to the crumbling edge of a massive stone block that had just settled into place, sealing off what was once a stable passage. Dust choked the air around her, stinging her eyes and coating her tongue with a dry, chalky taste. The tower groaned in agony all around them—a sound of ancient wood and stone giving way to something far more sinister.

The old man's words echoed in her mind: "Welcome home." But this wasn't her home—it never had been. It felt like a prison, a trap waiting to spring—