Round 29 Transcript

At The base of a crumbling stone tower, the shared situation sharpens into an immediate decision point. What is already in motion no longer supports waiting or circling. The next concrete move will determine how this scene changes.

Jeane steps forward, her gaze sweeping the crumbling facade. The stone tastes wrong—predatory, hungry in a way that has nothing to do with age or decay. "Stop marking," she says sharply. "We don't need to know where the stones shift. We need to know what's feeding them." She turns to Halie, voice clipped and urgent. "You said five minutes for your spell. How many have passed?"

Halie meets her eyes, face tense. "Two minutes forty seconds."

Jeane does the math in her head: three minutes until the spell might work, two minutes before whatever's upstairs decides we're dinner. Too tight. "Drop it," she orders. "It won't matter if we're all dead by the time you finish."

The stonework is breathing. The wards aren't defending—they're feeding. That's what Seraphine means about the pulse stopping. We've got maybe two minutes before whatever's upstairs decides whether we're trespassers worth investigating or just more meat for its magic. No point in sneaking around anymore. Merrin, Varrika—mark every stone that shifts on that facade. Jeane, scout the roof access without drawing attention. I'll drop my ward spell and prepare a shield spell, something fast but strong enough to hold us together if this thing decides to say hello directly. We need to know what we're dealing with before it gets comfortable with the idea of us being here.