The hallway was a tunnel of noise. The fire alarm's electronic shriek pulsed in a maddening rhythm, a counterpoint to his own racing heartbeat. Distant screams, thin and sharp, echoed off the beige vinyl walls, punctuated by the sickening sound of shattering glass. The pipe felt all wrong in his hand—unbalanced, heavy, its cold, rough texture a constant, alien reminder that this was not a keyboard or a mouse. This was real.
Leo's breath hitched in shallow, sharp bursts. Every shadow seemed to writhe with unseen threats. He pressed himself against the wall, the cool, smooth paint a flimsy anchor in the chaos. His IT brain, the only part of him not consumed by the need to hide, was in overdrive, trying to process the flood of terrifying data. Find the stairwell. Get to the ground floor. Help Carol. Why? He didn't know. The impulse was hot and stupid in his gut, overriding every instinct to hide.
He risked a glance around a corner. The main bullpen, usually a sea of gray cubicles and low chatter, was a disaster zone. Papers were scattered like fallen leaves. A computer monitor lay on the floor, its screen a spiderweb of cracks. Then, a flicker of movement. Someone was hiding under a desk, curled up tight. It was Mark from sales. Leo almost called out, but his breath caught in his throat. A goblin was sniffing the air a few feet from Mark's hiding spot, its back to Leo.
Mark was going to die. The thought was cold and absolute. The goblin hadn't seen him yet, but it would. Leo couldn't fight it. He was no hero. He was just the IT guy. But his mind was already racing, sifting through the impossible situation for a variable he could control. He activated [Inspect Element], focusing on the wall next to him, the one the goblin was approaching.
class="structure_wall_interior" [Material: Drywall] [Structural_Integrity: 65/100] [Vibration_Conductivity: High]
Useless. It was all read-only. Information without the power to act. He was an analyst with his hands tied. But that last line snagged his attention. Vibration_Conductivity: High.
An idea, reckless and bold, sparked in his mind. He couldn't fight the goblin head-on. But maybe he could manipulate the environment. A distraction. A workaround. It was a pure helpdesk solution.
He took a deep breath, balled his fist, and slammed it against the drywall, putting his shoulder into it. The sound was a flat, dull thud, but in the relative quiet of the office, it was enough. The vibration carried. The goblin's head snapped around, its beady eyes fixing on the source of the sound, away from Mark's desk. It let out a questioning grunt and took a shambling step toward the wall.
Leo didn't wait to see if Mark got away. He couldn't afford to. He pulled back and ran, his worn dress shoes slipping on the linoleum.
The stairwell door was heavy. He shouldered it open and plunged into the echoing concrete shaft. The air was cooler here, thick with the smell of dust and damp. His footsteps, and the urgent pounding of other unseen runners from floors above, created a chaotic drumbeat against the concrete.
He burst out into the lobby on the ground floor and the scene brought him to a skidding halt.
It was worse than he'd imagined. The gleaming marble floor was smeared with something dark and viscous. The large potted ferns were overturned, spilling soil across the tiles. A handful of people were backed against the far wall, near the elevators, their faces pale and slack with terror. And in the center of the room, cornering a sobbing Carol, were three goblins.
Three.
His chest tightened. The pipe in his hand suddenly felt like a child's toy. His vague, unformed, idiotic plan had been to maybe, possibly, hit one goblin. Three was not a problem to be solved. It was a fatal error message.
Carol saw him. Her gaze found his and held—raw terror stripped bare. "Leo! Help!"
The goblins turned in unison, their heads swiveling with an unnatural, synchronized motion. They fixed him with their black, soulless eyes. The one in the middle, holding a jagged piece of a broken keyboard, took a step toward him.
His mind went blank. The screams, the alarms, his own breathing—it all faded into a roaring static. He was going to die. Here. In the lobby of the building where he reset passwords for a living.
Think, Leo. Helpdesk. Find the workaround. Find the weakness.
He forced his focus, the world narrowing until it was just him and the three monsters. He activated [Inspect Element], his gaze snapping from one goblin to the next. The same code. HP: 50/50. Susceptible_to_Bludgeoning (Critical). Knowing their weakness didn't matter if he couldn't get close enough to exploit it. He needed something bigger. An environmental factor. An exploit in the level design.
His eyes scanned the lobby, frantically searching. The overturned plants. The reception desk. The security turnstiles. Nothing. And then he looked up.
Suspended three stories above the marble floor was the centerpiece of the lobby: a massive, gaudy chandelier made of brass and crystal. It was a monstrosity of corporate art, pretending to be elegant. Leo had always hated it.
He focused on it, pushing the [Inspect Element] skill. A cascade of code filled his vision.
class="structure_fixture_decorative" ID="chandelier_lobby_01" ... [Weight: 2.5 Tons] [Structural_Integrity: 37/100] [Support_Bracket_Status: Degraded] [Maintenance_Last_Performed: 847 days ago]
A jolt went through him, sharp and electric. There. It wasn't a guaranteed kill. It wasn't a perfect solution. It was a gamble. Years of management ignoring maintenance requests, cutting corners on repairs. It was all written in the code of the world. He couldn't edit the chandelier, but he didn't need to. The System wasn't the only thing that was buggy. The old world was, too.
The lead goblin screeched and charged.
There was no more time. With a raw yell torn from his throat, he hurled the rusty pipe. It flew end over end, a clumsy, pathetic throw not aimed at the goblins, but at the ceiling, at the corroded metal bracket where the chandelier chain was anchored.
The pipe struck the bracket with a loud, metallic clang.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. The goblin kept charging.
Then came a sound. A deep, groaning screech of tortured metal. The bracket, already degraded, fractured. A shower of rust and plaster dust rained down. The massive chain slipped, then caught, then slipped again with a sickening lurch. The chandelier tilted violently, a slow-motion catastrophe.
The goblins looked up, their primitive brains finally registering the new threat.
It was too late.
With a final, deafening snap, the support gave way. The two-and-a-half-ton monument to bad taste plunged downward. It didn't just fall; it crashed, hitting the marble floor with a cataclysmic explosion of crystal, brass, and mangled goblin. The sound was a physical blow, a shockwave that threw Leo off his feet.
He landed hard on his side, his head smacking against the floor. His vision swam. When he pushed himself up, his ears ringing, the lobby was a wreck. The marble floor was a crater of shattered crystal. Two of the goblins were gone, obliterated under the wreckage. Carol and the others were already scrambling for the exit, not even looking back. He'd risked everything to save her. She didn't even say thanks. Fair enough.
The third goblin, the one that had charged him, had been thrown clear. It lay on the ground ten feet away, dazed, its leg bent at an unnatural angle.
It was trying to get up.
A cold, grim certainty settled over Leo. He stumbled to his feet, his body screaming in protest. He walked over to the wreckage and pulled a heavy, twisted piece of brass from the debris. It was solid. Heavy. A better weapon.
The dazed goblin looked up at him, a flicker of something like fear in its beady eyes.
Leo didn't hesitate. He raised the brass rod and brought it down.