Chapter 6 - Pristine
Pristine
Untraced by the world outside here
Anyways
Let’s get real
-Mollusk Mail
The stairwell was cool and dimly lit, a stark contrast to the humid, twisted forest of the sixth floor. His boots clanked against metal stairs, the sound sharp in the confined space. He descended carefully, each step slow and deliberate.
As he suspected, it only went down one floor. It appeared either one or two floors was the max.
Half-covered in vines, its rusted surface bore the faint number “5”, just barely visible beneath years of wear.
He opened it cautiously, half-expecting another ambush. The overgrown cubicle jungle above him had been nothing but trouble, and if experience had taught him anything, it was that quiet meant something worse was waiting.
Gripping his newly crafted weighted club, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
And froze.
The fifth floor was… normal.
Pristine. Perfect. Unblemished.
For the first time since this nightmare began, Jim stood in a completely ordinary office space.
Bright, fluorescent lights hummed softly overhead, their glow crisp and steady. The carpet was clean, a neutral gray that stretched evenly across the entire floor. Cubicles stood in neat, symmetrical rows, their desks perfectly organized—not a speck of dust, not a single out-of-place paper.
Even the air smelled different.
No damp earth. No mildew. No burned circuits. Just… a hint of stale coffee and printer ink.
Jim narrowed his eyes. It was too perfect.
He took a step forward, half-expecting the ground to give way, for reality to twist and warp again, revealing this to be just another trick.
But nothing happened.
He kept moving.
Rows of empty office chairs sat neatly tucked beneath polished desks. Computer monitors sat dark and lifeless, but each keyboard was perfectly aligned, each mousepad unblemished, as if the entire floor had been meticulously arranged.
There were no signs of struggle.
No overgrowth.
No static-glitching monsters.
Just… an office.
It made his skin crawl.
Jim kept his steps light as he moved past cubicle after cubicle, his weapon tight in his grip. His gut told him that something was off—but he couldn’t see it.
That was the worst part.
At least in the forest-office above, he had known where the danger was. He had seen it lurking. Felt it creeping.
But here?
Here, the danger was invisible. Waiting.
He thought he heard a noise behind himself and spun, waiting for another sneak attack.
Nothing.
He turned away from it, moving deeper into the pristine office space. The eerie normalcy still gnawed at him, every perfectly placed paperclip and spotless desk screaming that something was very, very wrong.
And then… he heard it.
A subtle creak.
Then another.
The sound of something shifting, just behind him.
He whipped around, heart pounding—nothing.
Just a row of office chairs sitting perfectly in place.
Jim exhaled, shaking his head. Paranoia was creeping in.
He turned back toward the hall ahead—
CREEEEEAK.
The noise came again—louder.
Jim froze.
Something was moving.
Behind him.
He turned again.
The chairs weren’t in the same place.
There were more of them now.
A gaggle of office chairs, all identical—black leather, wheeled bases, ergonomic design—were slowly rolling toward him.
They weren’t being pushed.
They were moving on their own.
Jim gritted his teeth. “Oh, screw this.”
The chairs lunged.
Jim dove sideways, narrowly dodging as the front line of rolling horrors shot past, their metal legs scraping against the floor like scuttling insect limbs.
One chair whipped around fast, its seat tilting upward, revealing sharp, metallic pincers that had been hidden beneath the cushion.
He fired off an inspect
[Level 4 Chair Mimic - HP 40/40]
“Are you fucking kidding me?.” Jim muttered, gripping his weighted club.
One of the chairs lunged at him, its “armrests” unfolding like spider legs, claws clicking.
Jim swung hard, slamming the chair’s “head” (if it had one) with a sickening crunch. The force dented the leather, revealing a metallic skeleton beneath.
The thing screeched in a sound that was half modem noise, half animalistic cry.
The other chairs rolled forward fast, encircling him.
Jim backpedaled, weaving between desks, using the terrain to his advantage. The chairs were fast—but not agile.
He led them through a narrow hallway of cubicles, forcing them to bunch up.
A desk blocked part of the path.
Jim vaulted over it.
The chairs tried to follow—
Crash.
The first one flipped over, its wheels tangling in the mess of wires and computer towers. Another chair slammed into it, causing a brief pileup.
Jim didn’t hesitate.
He rushed forward, swinging his club downward, smashing one of the chairs into the floor.
It convulsed, its seat cushion tearing open to reveal twitching cables and strange, pulsing organs beneath the synthetic fabric.
Jim stomped down hard, breaking it completely.
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Three more chairs untangled themselves, rolling after him again.
He ducked behind a water cooler, breathing hard. If he stayed in one place too long, they’d corner him.
Then the floor shook.
A deep, rhythmic thudding echoed through the hall.
Something big was coming.
“What now?” he sighed
Jim glanced over his shoulder.
And saw the big ass walking copier.
[Level 7 - Copier Golem - HP 80/80]
A massive, multi-limbed monstrosity, built from a combination of printers, and copy machines, all stitched together in a grotesque, shifting mass of paper trays, rollers, and snapping scanner lids.
Its “head” was a photocopier, its glass scanning bed flashing with eerie green light as it stepped forward on four thick, clunky printer legs.
It was huge. Nearly seven feet tall, its chest cavity spewing out random sheets of paper with error messages printed across them.
Its arms, two thick mechanical appendages ending in jagged, multi-jointed claws—clattered open and shut as it locked onto him.
Jim tensed.
The chairs flanked him from the side.
The Copier Golem loomed ahead.
Then Jim saw his chance.
He ran straight toward the Golem.
It swiped at him—he ducked, rolling beneath one of its massive arms.
The momentum of the missed swing carried the Golem forward—straight into one of the spider-chairs.
The impact was brutal.
The Copier Golem’s claw arm crushed the chair’s seat, causing the mimic to shriek and convulse.
The other chairs reacted immediately.
The Golem had attacked one of their own.
And they didn’t like that.
Chaos erupted.
The chairs swarmed the Golem, rolling in erratic patterns, their metal limbs scratching and slashing at its paper-spewing torso.
The Golem roared, swinging wildly, knocking chairs aside like ragdolls.
Jim stayed on the sidelines, watching, waiting.
He didn’t need to fight them head-on.
He just needed to let them kill each other.
The chairs latched onto the Golem’s legs, causing it to stumble. One chair crawled up its back, wrapping its “seatbelt” around the Golem’s scanner lid and pulling.
The Golem spasmed, its movements becoming slower, jerkier.
Jim saw the moment.
He rushed forward, club in hand, targeting a weak point—one of the exposed roller mechanisms at the Golem’s hip joint.
CRACK.
His weighted club slammed into the joint, shattering the mechanism.
The Golem staggered, unable to support its own weight.
It lurched, groaned—then collapsed, crushing the last remaining chairs beneath it.
Jim flopped to the ground spent, breathing heavily.
Another noise. If it was more spider monsters he might just give up.
He glanced over and saw a cord sliding across the floor like a snake. It took him a moment to realized it was attached to the golem and it was heading toward an outlet in the wall.
It was going for more power.
Jim threw himself ontop of the cord that suddenly encircled him like a snake.
He struggled to breath as it constricted around him.
His hand closed on his glass dagger and he pulled it loose.
His vision began to darken with his lack of oxygen but with some sawing he manneged to cut through the cord.
It fell around him like a limp noodle and he finally saw a ding in the corner of his vision.
[Level Gained]
[Perk Gained: Machines Managed]
As the Copier Golem’s massive form collapsed, gears and rollers grinding to a final, agonized halt, something unexpected happened.
A metallic chime echoed through the air, and a large wooden chest materialized in the middle of the wreckage, right where the Golem had fallen.
Jim stared at it, chest still heaving from the fight.
“…You have got to be kidding me.”
The chest was old, with metal reinforcements along its edges, the wood cracked and worn, as if it had been sitting here for centuries.
He approached it cautiously.
Last thing he needed was for this to be another mimic.
He nudged it with his boot.
No movement. No teeth.
He exhaled, gripping the rusty latch and flipping the lid open.
Inside…
A beaten-up old tin cup.
Jim’s eye twitched.
“That’s it?” He picked it up, turning it over in his hand. It was dented, scratched, like something you’d find in a hobo’s travel kit.
Jim stared at it.
Then back at the massive pile of wreckage from his fight with an entire army of demon office furniture.
“…A freaking cup?”
He nearly threw it across the room.
But then—something weird happened.
As he moved to put it down, the cup shifted in his grip—like it wanted to pull away.
Jim froze.
“…What?”
He tested it, tilting the cup slightly.
Nothing came out.
He shook it.
No sound. No weight.
Jim narrowed his eyes. He reached down, picked up a random stapler from the ground, and dropped it into the cup.
The stapler… vanished.
Jim blinked.
Slowly, he turned the cup upside down.
The stapler did not come out.
“…Oh.”
He smirked.
“Okay, that’s actually awesome.”
He used an inspect.
[Battered tin cup of holding]
Jim ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head. Not what he expected, but incredibly useful.
He spent ten minutes playing with it, if he touched something with it he could will it inside storage, it didn’t have to fit in the opening. When pulling things out, he just stuck his hand in it and he could pull massive things out just like Mary Poppins bag.
Didn’t quite make sense, but he was a worker not a physicist.
He ended up putting all of his equipment save daggers and club in it. Now he didn’t have to worry about carrying around a pack.
Satisfied, he clipped the cup onto his belt, grabbed his weapon, and moved on.
Jim was starving.
With the furniture horde dealt with, he figured he’d take a quick detour. There was a vending machine on this floor.
A small kitchen breakroom was nestled in the corner of the office, the door still intact, the sign above reading:
“EMPLOYEE LOUNGE - PLEASE CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF”
Jim pushed the door open, stepping inside.
It was exactly what you’d expect from an office kitchen—except for the eerie emptiness.
The fridge stood open, shelves barren.
The snack cabinets were completely empty.
Even the vending machine was powered off, its interior cleared out.
Jim sighed.
“Of course. Not a damn thing left.”
His stomach growled.
Then—he saw it.
A coffee pot.
It was still sitting on the burner, filled halfway with rich, dark liquid.
Jim frowned.
“…That’s suspicious.”
Nothing in this place worked. The lights were on, but everything was dead. And yet…
There was fresh coffee.
He narrowed his eyes.
Slowly, carefully, he reached out.
The moment his fingers brushed the pot’s handle, the liquid inside shifted.
And then—
The pot SHRIEKED.
The glass cracked, the lid flying off, and the dark liquid inside ROSE UP, taking shape.
A swirling mass of steaming-hot, pitch-black liquid, humanoid in form, its limbs sloshing as it screeched in a high-pitched, gurgling wail.
Jim yanked his hand back just in time as a tendril of scalding-hot coffee lashed out, splattering against the counter with a hiss of burning liquid.
“Yep. Should’ve seen that coming.”
The Coffee Pot Mimic attacked.
Jim jumped back, gripping his weighted club, watching as the mimic oozed forward, dragging its glass-pot like a cracked shell, its coffee-form shifting between liquid and semi-solid.
It swung another tendril at him.
Jim dodged, letting the attack splatter against the fridge.
“Too slow.”
He smashed his club forward, cracking the pot further, sending shards of glass flying.
The mimic shrieked, convulsing.
Jim pressed the advantage, grabbing a metal tray from the counter and swinging it like a shield, blocking another coffee-lash attack.
The mimic lunged.
Jim stepped aside, knocking its “head” with a brutal strike, sending burning coffee splattering everywhere.
The mimic gurgled violently, its form weakening, losing cohesion.
sending shards of glass flying.
The mimic shrieked, convulsing.
Jim pressed the advantage, grabbing a metal tray from the counter and swinging it like a shield, blocking another coffee-lash attack.
The mimic lunged.
Jim stepped aside, knocking its “head” with a brutal strike, sending burning coffee splattering everywhere.
The mimic gurgled violently, its form weakening, losing cohesion.
Jim took one final swing—
CRACK.
The mimic collapsed, spilling lifeless coffee across the counter, its body steamed into nothingness.
He looked longly as it disipated, that was one corpse he would have devoured.
Jim exhaled, wiping sweat from his brow.
“Lesson learned, never trust office coffee.”
With the mimic dead, Jim searched the last bit of the kitchen.
Still nothing.
Empty.
No food.
No supplies.
Nothing useful.
He went back out into the main floor, checking desk to desk to find supplies.
Unless he needed five hundred staplers, he found two other things. Jack and shit.
It was as if this floor had been stripped bare, left only with the mimic creatures and their unnatural perfection.
Jim sighed.
At least he had the Cup of Holding now. That was something.
Taking one last glance at the eerily pristine office space, Jim moved toward the other end of the floor.
The next stairwell had to be nearby.
It was relatively easy to find the stairwell door, the monsters seamed to have been cleared out.
Jim wasted no time descending the stairs. He skipped Floor 4 entirely, not even glancing at the door before moving down. There the stairs were again blocked and the only exit floor 3.
With a sigh he moved on.
