The Hobgoblin was just a scout. The System doesn't send a boss without minions.
"They know we are here now," I said. "The noise attracted them. We have maybe twenty minutes before the rest of the pack comes upstairs to see why their friend stopped screaming."
I looked at the hallway. It was narrow. Defensible. But a hole in the floor wasn't enough. We needed active suppression.
I opened my [Blueprint] menu. The wireframe world overlaid my vision. I saw the steel I had harvested from the kitchen appliances. I saw the wood from the furniture.
And I saw the heavy-duty staple gun in Silas's backpack.
"Give me your bag," I ordered.
"My comics are in there!"
"I don't need the comics. I need the spring mechanism."
I worked fast. My hands blurred, guided by the System's auto-assist. Metal bent like clay under my fingers. I fused the staple gun with the steel scraps, creating a tripod-mounted device that looked like a sadistic science fair project.
[Construction Complete: Nail-Driver Turret (Mk. 1)] [Ammo: Industrial Nails] [Rate of Fire: Slow]
I placed it at the top of the stairs, pointed directly down the throat of the stairwell.
"Load it," I told Silas, handing him a box of three-inch nails.
"This is insane," he muttered, jamming nails into the hopper. "We are fighting monsters with Home Depot supplies."
"Home Depot," I said, tightening the tension spring, "is the greatest armoury on Earth."