Round 484

The chamber bucked like a living thing in its death throes, sending all three women stumbling. The Guardian's claws swiped through empty air, mere inches from closing around Varrika's thick neck. The narrow ledge they stood on groaned ominously under their combined weight, stone grinding against stone in protest. Water surged in from below with sudden force, the rising surface now lapping at their boot-tops.

Merrin saw it all unfold in horrifying slow-motion: Varrika stumbling, the creature's claws arcing toward her friend's exposed throat. She lunged forward instinctively, grabbing Varrika's arm and yanking her back onto the precarious stone shelf with desperate strength. The dwarf woman stumbled against her, solid and heavy, nearly bowling them both off the edge into the rushing waters below.

"Fuck!" Merrin hissed, struggling to maintain balance as the ledge groaned beneath them like a dying beast. Water lapped at their feet now, cold and hungry. She could feel Varrika's arm trembling against hers, see the fear in her friend's eyes even through the grime and blood.

"Move!" she snarled, shoving Varrika toward the corridor wall. "The whole fucking thing's coming down!"

Varrika didn't need telling twice. She lunged for the wall with her good leg, using the stone surface to brace herself as they stumbled forward along the narrowing ledge. The water rose faster now, surging upward with terrifying speed - clearly fed by some deeper mechanism or structural collapse further in.

"Merrin!" Varrika's voice barely carried over the roar of rushing water and groaning stone. "It's not wide enough for both of us!"

The corridor ahead shrank to a tight squeeze, barely more than shoulder-width now. Merrin could see the desperation in her friend's eyes as they reached the constriction.

"Go!" she shouted back, already turning to face the rising flood. "I'll hold it back!"

Varrika didn't hesitate. She drove herself forward into the narrow gap with desperate strength, her broad shoulders barely squeezing through before the water surged up to fill the space behind her. Merrin watched as her friend disappeared into the darkness beyond, then turned to face the rising tide.

The water was already waist-high now, cold and churning with debris. She could feel the stone shelf beneath her feet shifting ominously as the weight of the flood pressed against it from below. The Guardian loomed behind her still, its unblinking gaze fixed on the spot where Varrika had vanished.

"Fuck you too," Merrin growled at the creature, drawing her heavy mace and planting her feet wide. She wasn't getting out that way - not yet, anyway. But she'd be damned if she let this thing have an easy meal while she still drew breath.

The water rose to her chest in seconds, then her shoulders. The current tugged at her relentlessly, trying to pull her off balance and into the swirling depths. She planted her feet wider, muscles straining as she fought against the flood's pull.

"Not today," she snarled, raising the mace high as the water closed over her head. "Not fucking today!"