The Gaol (9/18)

As Ana moved to cross the finish line first, so too did all the rest join her. One by one, only a few called back words were given to giant. They knew what was to come, what the Gamemaster had designed.

And there own trails of blood that stained their trails meant that turning back would have meant greater dangers.

Sazha asked the giant his name, and back in his tongue, his final word was spoken:

"ᛞᚢᚷᛟᛞᚢᚱᛁᚾ..."

It was the only sound that called back before the tunnels began to collapse.
(The Black Rook)
[23:59:46] Behind them, the Emerald Moon shook in its entirety, and the ceiling came down, crushing the path they had walked. All from the gate into these depths, it rumbled and quaked.

The giant, this lost prisoner who in another realm would have wished them no harm, was lost to ruin, and those who looked back saw him bombarded by rubble until not even an extended arm could be seen.

"Well done," the Gamemaster's voice said. "You've earned your way into the next challenge. I knew you could do it. Gather yourselves and-"

[Everyone roll for injury now]
[00:25:12]
The Azulan is covered in a multitude of contusions. One leg drags behind her. Adrenaline and grit had kept her moving, and the adrenaline is running dry.

Blood drips behind her in not a steady trickle, but a river. It's a lot for someone of her stature.

Too much, in fact.

She becomes aware of it faintly too in her determined slog to cross the finish line. That familiar heaviness that comes with fatigue and loss of so much blood. Dura's felt it before.

But this time, there is no one to save her, to catch her as she starts to stumble, to trip, to fall and take a knee with her back to everyone.

Her mind foggily wanders, as the minds of many do often so close to death.

Hers wanders over faces. Not of a lover, nothing quite so transient as that. Over her comrades. Her family in Rintlan. Her people - including the ones that had died due to her negligent commands.

And one singular bright, burning Resolve that flares in her very core. Her crystalline arm shines with that same light, blinding, as she takes something from her armor.

It reeks of the Void, a pendant, a token held by her predecessor.

With the last vestiges of her strength she clutches her fingers tight around it and it shatters and cracks.

What should not be possible comes to pass. Dura has staggered, she's fallen, by all accounts she should be dead.

Finger by finger she unclenches the pendant, now destroyed, and the dust and shards filter down as the light in the living weapon dims back to normal.

Regent Dura Levante, Lady of Resolve, rises again and spits off to one side.
(Dura Levante)