Round 45 Transcript

The water rushes past Jeane and Merrin as they haul themselves up through the narrow passage, their faces set with determination. The air is thick with dust, and the sound of falling stone echoes through the tunnel, growing louder with each passing moment. Suddenly, a section of the passage gives way beneath them, sending both women tumbling through the air. They land hard on the rocky floor, the wind knocked from their lungs. As they struggle to catch their breath, the tunnel begins to shake violently, and the sound of rushing water grows even louder. The walls are closing in, and the women know they must keep moving if they hope to escape the collapsing tower. Jeane's eyes lock onto Merrin's, her gaze burning with a fierce intensity. "We have to find a way out of here, now," she growls, already scrambling to her feet.

The water is up to my chest now—freezing cold and relentless—and I can feel the tower groaning around us like a dying beast. Every breath is a struggle as I claw my way through this rushing torrent, my wings pressed uselessly against stone walls too close for flight. Merrin's ahead somewhere in the darkness, fighting her own battle with the current, but all I can focus on right now is keeping air in my lungs and water out of my mouth. This passage is a death trap—narrow enough that we can barely push through, steep enough that the rushing water wants to hurl us back down into that chamber with the hooded freak. My muscles are screaming from exertion already, and I know we're running on borrowed time. The tower's collapse sounds like thunder behind us now—not a distant rumble anymore but something immediate and terrifyingly close. I try casting light spells again, desperate for any kind of advantage in this darkness, but my magic feels... wrong somehow. Thinner than it should be, with an edge underneath that makes my skin crawl. It's not just exhaustion—there's something else at work here, something that has nothing to do with fatigue or lack of sleep. The water suddenly surges upward, and I'm thrown against the wall hard enough to crack stone. Pain explodes across my shoulder where the skeletal horror had grabbed me earlier—the same spot—and I bite back a scream as agony flares white-hot through my entire arm. The current's too strong now; I can barely keep my head above water, let alone maintain any kind of forward progress. This is it—I'm done. Every muscle in my body feels like lead, and the cold has seeped so deep that I can't feel my fingers or toes anymore. My vision's starting to blur at the edges—hypothermia setting in fast—and I know that even if Merrin somehow manages to get out of this mess, there's no way I'm going to make it. So I just... let go. Stop fighting the current, stop trying to claw my way upward against an enemy I can't beat anymore. The water closes over my head as I sink beneath the surface, and for one brief moment before darkness takes me completely, I feel a surge of relief mixed with something that might be regret. I never got to tell Merrin how much her friendship meant—how grateful I was for every scrap of food she shared when my demon nature demanded more than I had. How terrified I am that the corruption is winning and I'll end up hurting everyone if it gets worse. How much I wish we'd found that damn sword so at least our deaths would have meant something. The last thing I see before everything goes black is Merrin's face, pale in the dim light of my failing magic. She's screaming something—my name maybe?—as she reaches for me with one outstretched hand. And then the water closes over us both, and there's nothing left but cold and darkness. I don't know what happens next. Whether I drown here in this cursed tower or whether whatever's been eating at my magic finally pulls me under completely. All I can do is hope that Merrin made it out somehow—that she'll find a way to survive this place where so many of us have already failed. Because right now, as the last air bubbles escape from my lips and the world fades to nothingness, all I feel is cold and tired and deeply, achingly sorry for everything.

Merrin's heart seizes in her chest as she sees Jeane disappear beneath the churning waters, the sorcerer's outstretched hand and pleading gaze burned into her mind's eye. For a single agonizing moment, every instinct screams at her to dive in after, to fight through the current and pull Jeane back to the surface no matter what it takes.

But she can't—she knows it even as the urge claws at her insides, demanding action. To go after Jeane now would be suicide—the water's too strong, the tower too unstable, the danger everywhere. "Jeane!" she screams anyway, the name ripped from her throat as if it could somehow part the flood and bring the sorcerer back. "JEANE!"

The only answer is a groan of stone and the roar of collapsing masonry—the tower's death rattle as it comes crashing down around them. Merrin knows she has to run, has to save herself if there's any chance of saving anyone else. But every step feels like betrayal as she forces her legs to move, to carry her further away from where Jeane vanished beneath the waves.

She doesn't know if the sorcerer is still alive—doesn't know if anyone could survive drowning in this hellish deluge. But she can't let herself dwell on that now, can't give in to the grief and guilt that threaten to drag her under as surely as the water did Jeane. There will be time for mourning later—for questions about what happened to Jeane and Halie and Varikka and all the others who fell along this cursed path. For now, all that matters is keeping moving, keeping breathing, until she finds some way out of this nightmare.

And so Merrin runs, her lungs burning and her limbs leaden with exhaustion, as the tower collapses behind her and the darkness closes in.