The rune upon Elara's palm burned with a hot, shearing light, a beacon flame amidst impending darkness, an obstinate spark in defiance of the void, and the pink welts upon her arm pulsed with a malignant, insistent rhythm, a dire cadence to the expanding chasm, a discordant requiem of resistance. The great tendril of dark energy, coiling and pulsating with malevolent purpose, reached out to her, a dark extension of the ancient power that threatened to consume them all, a dark tendril of fate. The ground beneath their feet split and rent; the gulf grew wider, its depths a spinning maelstrom of darkness, a hungry maw offering forgetfulness, a dread void that was an echo of the darkness in the rune.
"Elara!" Caius screamed, his voice breaking, his eyes straining with horror as he beheld the tendril reaching for her, a final desperate shriek against the black that moved. He rushed forward, sword raised, a final desperate attempt to sever the dark power, to save her from the encroaching nothing, a futile act against the timeless force.
The tendril itself had been too swift, too powerful. It cracked across, a lash of bare, unhampered darkness, and hit Caius, sending him flying back, head smashing into rotten wall of chasm, abrupt and violent propulsion into the blackness. Gasping, headache pounding, his sword slipping from his grasp onto the ground, a futile arm against such immortal strength.
Elara, her eyes fixed on the tendril, felt an odd pull, a dark resonance, a connection to the ancient power that emanated from the chasm, a cold echo of the rune's dark song. The rune on her palm pulsed, its glow increasing, as if responding to the tendril's push, a dark embrace, an evil greeting. The burning red spots on her flesh flamed, the light radiating down her body, searing her like fire, a wild, uncontrolled transformation into a vessel of untrammeled, raw energy.
"No," she panted, her voice tight, her fists pounding at the air, her will a fragile barrier against the darkness rising up. "I won't be a puppet. I won't be its vessel. I will not be used as a tool of this ancient evil."
She concentrated her last will, focusing the frenzied energy within her, trying to cut the link between her and the rune, to shatter the black bond that could devour her. The red welts on her body seethed, the rune on her palm throbbed wildly, and the void shook wildly, as if the old power inside wrestled to burst forth, to take its proper vessel.
The dark energy tendril brushed against her, its dark shape writhing and pulsating, its touch a chilling caress of cold wicked intent, a dark embrace that pledged eternal servitude. It wrapped around her arm, its dark energy seeping into her body, seeking to claim her as its vessel, to chain her to the ancient power. Elara screamed, a crude, uneducated shriek which echoed through the defiled chamber, a rebellious scream against the encroaching darkness, a desperate shout against the vagary of the ancient.
The rune on her hand exploded, its light blasting, and the red wounds on her skin throbbed with a dark, pulsing rhythm, a lunatic symphony of resistance, a futile revolt against the domination of the ancient. A flood of scarlet energy exploded from her form, struggling against the tendril's dark power, a crimson crash that shook the chasm, shuddering in its shattered walls, a lunatic blast of raw, untrammelled energy.
The tendril recoiled, its black shape twisting and contorting, its black energy surging and indecisive, a hurt creature that retreated from a desperate fighter. The powerless power within the chasm snarled, a snarling bellow that rattled the foundations of the ruins, a primordial scream of fury and ire, an eternally forgotten wail at thwarted want.
"You cannot challenge the ancient one!" The rasping voice echoed from the chasm, its words imbued with ancient wrath, a glacial echo of the wrath of the ancients. "You are sworn to it! You are its vessel! Your blood is its key!"
The chasm widened, its depths a whirlpool of blackness, a hungry mouth that seemed to engulf them in entirety, an abyss that reflected the hunger of the ancients. The ground beneath their feet cracked and cleaved, the rubble crumbling, as if threatening to push them into the abyss, a deranged leap into the void.
Elara, her body shuddering, her eyes aflame with rubies, tasted the demented power within her surge towards its climax, a screaming rush of raw, unshackled power. The sigil on her palm glowed, its light searing, and the crimson traces on her body smouldered with a blaze she could not withstand, an infernal harmonisation of dissonance. She could feel an abnormal strength brewing within her, a dark, stormy power that could engulf her, turn her into a tool of the old one, a terror of a transformation into a vessel of sheer destruction.
"I will not be its tool," she gasped, her voice a raw, choked rasp, a furious defiance of the ancient's dictate. "I will not be its channel. I will break this bond. I will not be consumed."
With a final, desperate exertion of will, she let go of the untamed energy within her, a raw, unbridled power that exploded from her body, a blinding flash of scarlet light that ripped through the chasm, destroying the tendril of dark energy, severing the connection between herself and the ancient one, a wild outburst that mirrored the destruction of the chamber.
The chasm trembled, its depths yawning into a blinding vortex of scarlet light, a wild explosion of raw, uncontrolled power, a final desperate fling at defiance against the will of the ancient. The ancient power that slept within roared, a cavernous bellow of rage and frustration, a bestial scream that shook the foundations of the ruins, an ancient wail of lost mastery.
The ruins crumpled, the decaying walls and broken pillars crashing into the chasm, engulfed by the vortex of red light, a reckless drop into nothingness. Elara, shaking in body, eyes blazing with crimson light, felt the reckless energy inside her ebb away, leaving a strange emptiness, a void where the black bond had been, a dreadful silence after the storm.
Caius, struggling to his feet, looked upon the wild eruption, his eyes fixed in horror and wonder, a silent witness to the bare rage unleashed. The rift, a gaping mouth of darkness, now pulsed with a blinding crimson glow, a mad whirlpool which appeared to engulf them all, a fearful vision of devastation.
And as the buildings crashed down around them, and the blood-red glow pulsed from the pit, a new sound began to build, a low, humming thrum which shook through the broken stone, a primeval echo that resonated with the power of the ancient. A sound that invoked old strength, of terrible waking, and of something even older and more malevolent than anything they had faced so far, a terrible symphony of waking.
As the ruins collapse and the red light pounds against the chasm, the vibrating resonance swells, and an enormous shadow begins to rise up from the vortex's centre, a form that looms larger than the crashing ruins, and out of shadows, one gargantuan eye opens, blazing at Elara, burning with an ancient, awful ferocity, and from the depths of the chasm, an age-old and horrid voice says her name, a cold, shivering whisper that hums with the rune on her palm.