Chương 73: CDM 2, Chapter 9: Corporate Ladder

When we slipped under the plywood, we stepped into a dim but mostly empty ground floor with a ceiling roughly 10 ft high, so we had no clues as to what it used to be for. Exposed steel girders ran overhead, and similar steel pillars ran in two neat rows the length of the structure. Any exposed metal, whether it be beams, supports, or stairs, had a coat of dark rust. There was a stairwell near the window we entered, and it looked like there were doors at the far end to the other sections of the brewery.

The tracks weren't well defined, so I couldn't be certain they were from goblins, but there appeared to be a distinct path of dirt leading that direction. This place smelled like a dusty construction site, like drywall powder had been blown over everything. Since that dust was on every surface, including the concrete floor, even the lightest shuffle of our footsteps echoed. I kept watch while Megan deployed our latest hunting technique: tripwire alarms.

You're going to think I'm lying, but we bought them from a ninja supplies website. We found several other military-looking alternatives with pull pins like grenades and strong metal bodies, but the ninja version was the cheapest and the simplest. A firecracker was in the middle, smaller than a cigarette, and strings went out either end. Pulling the string set off the firecracker. Using pushpins for anchors, Megan attached one end of the alarm to the plywood over the window and the other to the windowsill.

If a goblin came the same way we did, the firecracker would go off, and we would know to watch our backs. We took a peek in the stairwell when she was done. The stairs going down disappeared into a pool of dark water. As for the stairs going up, the number of holes in the pitted metal gave me pause. We put another firecracker across that doorway. Just because we weren't brave enough to go up didn't mean goblins wouldn't come down and flank us.

Through the far doorways were a few rooms crammed with old desks, several broken chairs, and a washing machine for some reason. These rooms were almost pitch black, and we kept an eye out for potential traps. We soon emerged into another expansive space, and our eyes didn't need long to adjust. Where the place we entered had more standard ceilings, this one was open like a warehouse. Many of the second-story windows weren't boarded over, so pools of sunlight poured into the ruins.

The same wall with the windows had become a giant graffiti canvas, featuring lettering and illustrations the size of railroad cars in a slew of bright colors with heavy black or white outlines. More than a few of the pieces had been defaced by other artists. An illustration of a well-endowed woman on her side had "GTFO" sprayed over it in dripping red letters. Another piece had "NOT WELCOME" tagged on top of it. Everything smelled of wet dust.

While I was grateful not to encounter a bunch of goblins right away, the vast openness of the room was discomforting. I could see all the way to the opposite end of the building from where we entered, which meant any goblins hiding to keep watch could as well. Here and there on the concrete floor were piles of old wood, bricks, and cinder blocks. Wooden pallets, garbage bags, cabling, and a few tires were strewn about the rest of the area in smaller quantities. Underneath all of that was a thin layer of water.

Except for a strip along the wall with the graffiti, every foot of the room was wet. The puddles weren't deep, and nothing in this part of the building looked flooded, but crossing this room meant walking through the water. A few goblin prints had dried on the far end, showing that they went through the water and out of the building. We followed them, finding that they crossed a dirt access road and went into the base of the tower. The water made tracking easier, but I knew that worked against us as well.

If a goblin found a pair of wet bootprints, it would surely follow them right to us. We lingered in that doorway instead of crossing through the open space right away. We needed to assess before making our next move, so that was an excuse to pause and let our boots dry. This side of the tower had three large holes shaped like single-lane tunnels cut in the brick, one for every other floor.

I scanned the holes and the windows for activity, once with just my eyes and then again with binoculars, which I was total shit at using properly. I saw more of my own eyelashes than anything else, but I eventually got a clear image. No goblins seemed to be about, but I also couldn't see very deep into the structure. That was the same reason snipers set up nests far back from windows. A dude with a gun in a window was easy to see, but one lying prone in the darkness beyond was not.

Were goblins smart enough to do that? We shuffled across and entered the building with the tower. The smell of stagnant water and sewage hit me immediately. Goblins were definitely close. We passed a stairwell just inside. Every step had rusted until it fell away completely. This basement looked flooded as well, which we confirmed several more times by looking through massive holes in the floor as we crossed the space. The next room over was the base of the tower, and goblins had a tripwire across the door.

It attached to a stack of glass beer bottles. Peering into the space before we entered, from behind the tripwire, I spotted a large octagonal hole in the ceiling–about as wide as a car is long–but this one was intentional. Pieces of a fancy art deco railing still bordered the opening, and the steel supports had decorative swoops and designs. This was built to be impressive, it seemed. Someone was proud of this place once upon a time.

Beyond the edge of the hole deeper into the second floor, a metal tube like the smokestack of a steamboat rose up into the third floor from somewhere in the back corner. I wasn't close enough to see how far up that middle hole went, but it was obvious that goblins used it as a giant garbage chute. Piles of shit, bones, and gristle rotted on the bottom floor, right in front of us. Again, I thought about how convenient a drone would be right now.

We could send it right up to take a look or zip around the outside to look in through broken windows. Instead, we listened for movement. Small feet shuffled somewhere overhead. The occasional grunt or growl echoed down to us. And then a goblin somewhere up the tower proved my garbage chute theory: a stream of dark yellow piss came down from above to water the refuse pile. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

After a silent debate using only our eyes, Megan and I stepped over the tripwire and skirted the very edge of the room, trying to get a look at what was above while avoiding as much of the light as we could. The center hole went up through six floors, and I gathered that we were at the bottom of the brewing operation. On the floors above were three enormous black tanks, one for every corner except the stairwell.

I didn't know anything about brewing beer beyond the fact that yeast and hops were involved, but I suspected the tower was designed to make feeding and managing those tanks easier. I hated the idea of going up the stairs, but that was the only way we could access the goblins, at least from this part of the building. I knew there was one goblin for sure on the second floor and then four or five on the third.

I didn't get a good enough look at anything higher to be certain, but I assumed those were filled with goblins too. Megan nodded that she was okay with attempting the climb, but first, she strung her own tripwire across the bottom of the stairs. This probably wasn't the best place for practice, but I was still struggling with my follow-through. Tailf3ther suggested I separate my eye movement from bow movement. That would be hard to do, but he believed I could hold my shot but let my eyes move onto the next target.

Before, my eyes were always attached to the bow, only looking where it pointed. Changing that habit was going to be hard. As we reached the second floor, Megan gestured that there were three goblins ahead. I couldn't see past her to confirm myself, but she started counting down. On three, she moved as stealthily as she could into the second floor. One goblin was awake and appeared to be sucking whatever leftover meat it could off of a squirrel bone. The other two were asleep.

I put an arrow through the side of his head, but the other two goblins were too far away. The sound of the body crumpling to the ground woke them, and all hell broke loose. Echoes of goblin shouts and screams reverberated through the tower. Chunks of cement and brick started to rain down as the goblins above attempted to find the right angles to hit us. Dammit. The windows on this floor opened onto a flat roof with greenhouse-style skylights.

The next building over wasn't tall–we could see only the apex of the angled roof–but it was tall enough. Goblins ran out of the darkness beneath the gable and crossed the expanse. Five of them. One Piercing Shot put two down. I drew to repeat the feat with Dual Nocking, and my vision suddenly flashed white. When it came back an instant later, I was on the ground. Then the pain came. The side of my head rang, and my neck felt like someone tried to break it with a swift twist.

"Dorion!" I rolled toward the wall and stood. A goddamn brick. That's what hit me in the head. I had looked away from the goblins on the next floor for just a moment, and they capitalized.

"I'm good! Go up!" As I turned to snipe the three goblins jumping from the flat roof and through the windows, I heard Megan's feet stomping on metal stairs. How she understood the assignment from so few words, I don't know, but I do know she was a badass. If the goblins beaming me in the dome with bricks were defending the stairs, they couldn't continue attacking me. I put down one of the three roof goblins with a headshot. The next one took an arrow to the chest.

It survived, but it slipped and fell down the hole face-first and didn't get back up. The last one skidded to a stop and turned to run. An arrow went right between its shoulder blades. I heard Megan grunt. She had made contact with the goblins on the level up. They had just taught me a good tactic, and I was going to use it against them. While Megan fended off sharpened metal poles, I moved around the hole in the middle until I had an angle up on my enemies. Thwack.

That one hit a thigh, but Megan finished the job with a thrust and beheaded the second.

"Up!" she yelled. Good call, Megan. Yeah, let's rinse and repeat. For an instant, we were both in the stairwell. I got the angle again on the next floor. There were five of them this time. Two of them intended to beam me in the head with stones. One managed to retreat, but the second made a clapping noise when my arrow went up through its jaw, slamming its mouth shut just before the tip burst through the top of its skull. The rock in its hand clanged loudly off a metal railing as it fell down the hole.

A blue Bolt arced by my nose, close enough that I smelled something like ozone and felt the air suddenly warm. The floor next to me erupted with splinters, like a baseball splashing in water.

"Shaman!" Megan called. The echo of a firecracker came up from below. Goblins were coming up from the bottom. That was not ideal.

"I got low!" I shouted. I backpedaled into the wall so I could see into the stairwell as I scanned the edge of the next floor up. Leaning out, I shot at a goblin with a brick and missed, pinging off a tank. Seeing the flicker of movement in my peripheral vision, I turned and shot into the stairwell with Dual Nocking. I aimed for center mass to have a better chance of hitting the one following behind. It worked. Another Bolt sizzled down the hole, this one targeting Megan.

I heard her feet on metal, so she must have retreated into the stairwell. Where the hell was the shaman? Fourth floor? The fifth? I couldn't tell. I winged another goblin poking into the stairwell and heard footsteps again, but this time from high above.

"Coming down at you!" I warned Megan. Instead of getting pincered, Megan burst forward through her original threats, going deeper into the room and away from the stairs. Smart. Smart. Smart. Zap!

"Up! Up!" she yelled. I couldn't see her, but I could hear her, and I had to trust her call. I sprinted into the stairwell and bounded up the stairs. Shing! The shaman was staying busy, but it sounded like it missed Megan. Megan had her back against the wall, fending off three goblins. I wanted to stop, but that wasn't what she wanted me to do. I passed her floor and kept going. One goblin appeared at the top of the stairs with a headless ax handle.

This arrow went clean through its neck without my activating Piercing. I pressed myself against the wall to let its body roll down the steps past me. It gurgled and pawed at the hole in its throat the whole way. At the top of the stairs, I dropped to my stomach. I wasn't faster than a Bolt spell, but I was faster than the shaman throwing it. As soon as its eyes shifted in my direction, I knew what was next, so I hit the deck. The same shaman yelped.

When my head came back up, it glared down the hole in the center of the room. I didn't find this out until after, when I watched the video, but Megan hit the shaman in the ass with a broken brick with a well-aimed throw from below. I rushed a shot and grazed its arm, enough to have maybe severed a tendon in its elbow. The shaman glared at me and stepped back, setting its stance for another Bolt. But its foot found only air, and the shaman fell backward. Its body slapped the shit pile.

When I looked over the edge, it still moved, but its back was broken. I gladly put an arrow between its eyes. The brewery was quiet again.