The fifth floor of the Imperial Library was the stuff of nightmares.

The stench of old, rotting blood and pus-filled wounds suffused the stale air. Oak had not noticed it earlier, but now that the flesh was all around him, he could sense a faint heartbeat traveling through it. The floor had a pulse, and blood flowed through the veins he was standing on. It should have been completely dark, but the flesh gave off a slight glow, casting everything in an unsettling red light.

If it bleeds, you can kill it, Oak thought, trying to comfort himself. It wasn’t really working.

Geezer and Ur-Namma had followed him through the entrance to the fifth floor, and the three of them were standing in a hall with a counter and some chairs covered in cursed flesh. Four hallways diverged from the room. One to the right, one to the left and two straight ahead, with enough room between them for a row of ritual chambers.

Oak walked around the room and checked the hallways to get an idea of the layout. It seemed like the entire floor was arranged as a grid of rooms with hallways in between. He returned to his companions and collected his thoughts. There was not much to collect.

“I feel a heartbeat under my feet,” he whispered.

Ur-Namma nodded. “So do I. No matter what caused all of this, I would bet my life the epicenter of it is in the large ritual chamber at the center of the floor,” he said and tapped his chin. “We need to get to the entrance to the southern tower. It is located on the south side of the library, which is on our left. If we are lucky, we can just skirt by the edges of this floor and never approach the heart of this madness.”

Oak almost burst out laughing. “What are the odds of that happening? You and I both know we are not that lucky.”

“Practically zero, but here's hoping,” Ur-Namma replied. “Let’s just head down the hallway on the left and see where it takes us. We will deal with things as they come.”

“Fine by me,” Oak said, and pulled out his falchion. This was the type of place he would not explore without a weapon in hand.

They left the room and walked down the leftward hallway in tense silence. Being utterly surrounded by glowing, cursed meat was making Oak twitchy and he strained his hearing to the maximum, trying to see if he could notice anything moving close by. He thought he heard something. Almost like a whisper in the air. It was just at the edge of his hearing, and he could not grasp it before it vanished.

Oak stopped and tried to listen carefully, but the only sound he heard was the beating of his own heart, thundering in his ears.

I’m imagining things. I have to pull myself together.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to walk forward once more. One foot in front of the other, with Ur-Namma and Geezer acting as his shadows.

They passed multiple reading rooms and ritual chambers with their doors open. Nothing disturbed their journey, and Oak was ready to let out a sigh of relief and conclude that he had really been imagining things, when the whispers started again.

“Hey, elf?” Oak asked.

“Yes?” Ur-Namma stood there nonchalantly, like there was nothing to worry about.

“Have you noticed a strange, blood-curdling whispering at the edge of your hearing?” Oak asked. “I need to know if I’m losing my mind here.”

Ur-Namma cocked his head and listened for a bit. “Why, now that you mention it, I have. How quaint. These dwarves are a riot,” the elf said, and shooed Oak onwards. “Let us move before something adds our voices to the choir.”

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There wasn’t really anything else Oak could do, so he crumbled to himself and started walking again. That pointy-eared bastard is entirely too unflappable. I’m pissing myself here and he is treating this like an afternoon walk in the woods, he thought, and tried to focus on the task at hand. At least he still had his rocks. It was comforting to know he had something in his pockets to throw at a problem if the need arose.

All hopes of a quick exit to the southern tower were dashed, when the three of them came to an intersection of hallways and found the route they needed to take entirely covered by a wall of red flesh. There were even some sections with actual skin on the wall and bizarre looking tumors covered the surface.

It was, to put it bluntly, utterly revolting.

Geezer took one look at the wall and stayed far back. Oak did not take that as a good sign. The dog had good instincts when it came to danger.

“So, what now?” he asked. “Should I try to chop us a way through?”

Ur-Namma rubbed the bridge of his nose and thought for a moment. “I'm going to say yes. If this has to come to a fight, I see no harm in being the one who starts hostilities. In most cases, it is preferable to give the first strike,” he said. “We might also find that you collapse that wall with a couple of good chops and we continue our journey unopposed.”

“If that happens, I owe you a drink in the next tavern we encounter,” Oak said.

“Noted,” Ur-Namma said and pulled out his longsword. Then the elf looked at Geezer, who was standing a couple of paces behind him and retreated next to the hellhound. “Whenever you are ready.”

Oak nodded and rolled his shoulders. Time to start swinging. The two-handed falchion whistled through the air as Oak struck the wall with all of his might. He achieved mixed results.

The good news was that the blade cut into the flesh almost up to the hilt. The bad news was that Oak had just put a sword length of steel in the wall and he had not found the other side.

The wall quivered silently, and blood gushed by the bucketful from the massive wound Oak had hewn into the wall, wetting his boots. Then every tumor on the wall exploded into movement. Large, barbed tentacles burst from the wall and slapped Oak in the chest with bruising force that put him on his ass.

“Shit!” Oak screamed and shuffled backwards as fast as he could. The forest of tentacles that had spawned from the wall tried to reach for him, but a quick burst of flame covered his frenzied retreat.

The black tentacles searched for an enemy they could reach and found nothing. The barbs of bone clicked against each other as the tentacles writhed in frustration. It was like looking into the nastiest nest of snakes in Creation.

Geezer barked like mad, but the hellhound was in no rush to run to Oak’s defense. Far from it. Not that Oak blamed him. He knew Geezer was a bit of a coward sometimes, so it was not a surprise to find the hellhound hiding behind Ur-Namma’s stick thin legs and staring at the tentacles with wide eyes.

One by one, the tentacles retreated inside the wall. Once every barbed appendage was inside its tumor, the wound Oak had struck shivered. With a disgusting slurping sound, the wound closed and the flesh knit itself back together.

“It looks like trying to cut our way through is a fool's errand,” Ur-Namma concluded. “We do not have a choice in the matter. We head towards the central chamber.”

Oak was still trying to get his breathing under control. Being ambushed by tentacles had not been among the possibilities he had considered when he struck the wall of flesh. He felt hot and cold at the same time. Casting again so soon after he had almost strained his soul to the maximum had not felt good.

He had maybe one or two bursts of flame like that in him, if even that before things would get dicey.

“Sure. Fine by me, not that anyone asked my opinion,” Oak said and scrambled to his feet. “By the Chariot, I almost soiled my breaches there.”

“Have some decorum, human.” Ur-Namma grinned a little too widely. “A warrior does not soil himself, no matter the circumstance.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Oak replied, and carefully maneuvered himself around the corner to the right, eyes peeled for any tentacles trying to lunge at him from the wall on his left he had just taken a beating from.

There wasn’t even a hint of movement to be seen, but Oak stood ready and waited until Ur-Namma and Geezer had passed the danger before he turned around and took point again. The center of the fifth floor awaited.

At the end of this unfortunate escapade, Oak was left with a bleeding cut on his chest and a pair of wet boots, completely covered in blood. His footwraps felt soggy, and they squelched as he walked.

Lovely. Wet feet. That is the missing ingredient this boiling stew of shit really needed.

Oak stomped forward. He was going to murder whatever called the central chamber its home and he was going to enjoy doing the deed.