The stairwell was a concrete throat swallowing Kael into the belly of the new world. Every floor he passed was a fresh scene of horror heard through the thick fire doors—a sudden scream, a crash, the guttural chittering of goblins. He moved with a Ghost's silence, his sneakers making no sound on the gritty steps.
He paused when he reached the seventh-floor landing again. Peeking cautiously into the hallway, he saw that the stunned goblin was gone. But glinting under the one remaining functional light was the rusty blade it had dropped.
An idea, both practical and repulsive, took root. He was defenseless.
He crept out, his eyes scanning the empty hall, and snatched the crude weapon. It felt heavy and poorly balanced in his hand, the hilt just a dirty rag wrapped around a metal tang. His [Code Perception] flared to life as his skin touched it.
// Object: Crude Goblin Blade // Int: Durability=8/40 // String: Quality=Junk // Effect: Minor_Tetanus_Chance=True
Kael grimaced. A chance of tetanus. Of course. Still, it was better than his bare fists. Clutching the disgusting blade, he retreated back into the relative safety of the stairwell.
He continued his descent. Fifth floor. Fourth. The sounds from outside grew louder, a symphony of destruction. It was between the third and second floors that he heard it—not from outside, but from below. The same sharp, chittering language the goblin had used.
He flattened himself against the wall, inching towards the edge of the landing to peer down.
Two of them.
They were on the second-floor landing, trying to shoulder-barge an apartment door. Their grunts of effort and frustration echoed in the enclosed space. One was slightly larger than the other, holding a club with nails hammered through it. The other had a blade identical to the one in Kael's hand.
His mind raced. He couldn't fight two of them. Not head-on. Running back up was a dead end. He had to go down. He had to go through them.
His eyes scanned his environment, his unique vision parsing the world into data. The concrete steps. The steel fire door. The metal railing.
The railing.
He focused on the section of railing directly above the landing where the goblins were working.
// Object: Metal_Railing_Section (ID: SR-2B) // Int: Durability=180/200 // Attachment_Points: [Bolt_A (Weld_Integrity=0.4), Bolt_B (Weld_Integrity=0.35)]
His eyes narrowed. The railing itself was strong, but the welds holding it to the concrete wall were weak, corroded by years of neglect. Less than 50% integrity. That was a vulnerability. A potentially fatal one.
A plan, desperate and dangerous, formed in his mind.
He took a deep breath, and with the heel of his shoe, he kicked the fire door on the third-floor landing. The loud BANG reverberated through the stairwell.
Immediately, the grunting below stopped. Two green heads, full of malice, snapped up towards the sound. They shrieked in unison, a call of hungry discovery, and abandoned the door. The larger one with the club led the charge, storming up the stairs.
Kael's heart hammered. This had to be timed perfectly.
He focused not on the railing, but on the two small attachment points. He targeted the data strings Weld_Integrity=0.4 and Weld_Integrity=0.35. As the goblins charged up the final few steps onto the landing below him, he poured his mental energy into those two values, forcing them down. Zero. Zero!
The headache returned, sharp and blinding, but he held on. The numbers flickered.
0.3... 0.2... 0.1...
The lead goblin planted its foot on the landing, raising its club to climb the next flight of stairs towards him. Its weight, combined with the momentum of its charge, put all the pressure on that exact section of railing.
At that precise moment, the numbers hit zero.
[Weld_Integrity=0.0]
There was no grand explosion, only a series of sickening snaps as the corroded metal bolts gave way. The entire section of the railing peeled away from the wall like a scab.
The lead goblin's eyes widened in a brief moment of shock as the landing it was on, its only support, vanished. It tumbled sideways into empty space, its shriek of fury turning into one of terror. The second goblin, right behind it, had no time to stop. It tripped over its companion's heels and fell with it.
They plummeted two stories, their fall ending with a wet, final crash on the concrete floor of the ground level.
Silence.
Kael waited, his breath held, his rusty blade held in a white-knuckled grip. When no sound followed, he cautiously made his way down.
The two bodies lay twisted and broken. His perception skill confirmed their status.
// Entity: Goblin Thug // Status: Deceased // Loot_Drop_Available=True
Loot drop? Hesitantly, he approached the larger goblin. The text Loot_Drop_Available=True seemed to shimmer. He reached out a trembling hand towards its chest. His fingers touched nothing solid, but phased through its ragged leather vest as if it were a hologram. Inside, he felt a small, hard object. He closed his hand around it and pulled.
In his palm now lay a small, crystalline stone, the size of a marble, glowing with a faint, pulsing grey light. He did the same to the second goblin, retrieving an identical stone.
// Item: Lesser Monster Core (x2) // Description: A crystallization of basic System energy. Can be absorbed or used in System-related crafting.
He had no idea what to do with them, but he pocketed the cores instinctively. He took the second rusty blade from the other goblin, now having one for each hand if needed.
He was at the bottom now. The lobby. The glass front doors were completely shattered, offering a gaping maw into the war-torn street. He could see figures moving out there, some human, most not.
Kael stood in the ruins of his apartment building's entrance, a rusty blade in his hand and two strange magic stones in his pocket. He took a deep, shaky breath, the smell of smoke and something coppery filling his lungs. The first step was complete. Now, he had to cross hell.