The mansion was too quiet.

  Not the good kind of quiet - the soft hush of snow or the breath between wind gusts. This was the hush that followed after something dangerous had passed. Or worse, settled in.

  Andrew crouched in the doorway, fingers pressed to the frame. Splinters dug through the seams of his palm. He was unraveling again. Third time this week. Cursing under his breath and yanking a thread from his hip pouch - wrong color, didn't matter - he cinched it through the tear at her wrist, knotting himself back into usefulness.

  He moved low, slipping between shadows and ivy of the entrance hall like he’d done a hundred times before. His stitches creaked with the damp. The kind of place that made him feel more like a rotted rag than an actual doll. He hated that. Outside, the air had been hazier, but there was space to breathe and it wasn’t so stupidly dusty. Inside the mansion, the air was stiff with perfume and dust. Like the place had been trying to hold on to dignity while the world outside rotted. His boots barely scuffed the marble.

  He stepped over the rusted remains of a chandelier, its crystals scattered in tiny, broken pieces. Whatever crystals were whole had been looted long ago, but the silver of the chandelier remained - it was too heavy for most to carry on their own. It wasn’t strong enough to use against monsters. It could be used for decoration, but it was common enough in most former-settlements that he would be lucky to turn much of a profit off of it - especially whatever scrapings he would get off of it. Metal dust in wasn’t useful, actually - it didn’t stitch wounds or plug stuffing. It could be used to weld pieces of porcelain back together, but so could most adhesives and healing magic. He was here for thread. Nails. Shiny things. Potential tools. Maybe a button. Maybe something that moved. The quiet pressed down worse than the dust.

  Quiet usually meant one of two things: either something already cleaned the place out, or something was still here, waiting. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

  He moved through the study first, stripping ribbon from a half-rotted curtain and carefully slicing pretty pictures out of a book with his sharp, fragile shard of glass. They would sell well enough, but he wanted to find more. Into the parlor: nothing but a cracked mirror and mildewed lace. The servant’s wing looked better - lower stakes, fewer traps, fewer creatures.

  In the kitchen, he found a pile of old linens. Brittle, but usable. He stuffed them into his satchel. His shoulder ached - stitches pulled loose again. He’d deal with worse before he was done here. Not worth repairing, yet.

  Then, he heard it. The clicking, clanking, screeching sound of monsters. Scrapbound, if he had to guess. The things were everywhere in houses like these - once the humans were gone, mice and rats had tried to move in, only to die from radiation, food poisoning, and who knows what else. Then they rose again, infused with pieces of the materials around them when they died. From the sounds of it, he’d be dealing with Rustgnaws, Splinterkin, maybe some Paintskins or Shardlings, if he was unlucky.

  He began setting up traps for the monsters - snares, mostly. Snares were best for his purposes and worked effectively. He grabbed a half-rotted broom from nearby and leaned it against the table with as little clatter as he could manage. Then, he set about tying his snares - nearly invisible if you didn’t know they were there, built to catch on anything that went up the stick, and could easily hang anything caught. Only issue was that he only had so much wire he could use for said traps - mortifab monsters were lazy, as a general rule, but few more so than the scrapbound. As most scrapbound were ambush hunters, they would want either high vantage points to attack any prey.

  He looked around - shockingly enough, kitchens didn’t have much to use for building your own traps. However, he could reset the spring traps, if they weren’t already salvaged. Place them in other places in the room. Checking through the cupboards, he only found two - both had been sprung for a long while and were incredibly rusted, but he could still use them. He just needed to be strategic. Andrew wasn’t entirely sure where to put them, sadly, but he did his best. He moved them out of the cabinet and set them both near the bookshelf he was intending to climb up. Worst case scenario, the scrapbound would notice the traps and avoid them, which would effectively kill one of their ways up the bookshelf. Best case scenario? The traps killed a few of them and their corpses blocked the way, which would both take down their numbers and slow the live ones down. That was his reasoning, anyway.

  As there wasn’t much else he could do, Andrew clambered his way up the bookshelf as quickly as he could manage without causing even more of a racket, crouching down in a shadowed corner once he was sure that there were no Paintskins or Dustbacks up here. Then he hunkered down, preparing to do something that had the potential to be incredibly stupid. He opened his stomach, and pulled out a few things he thought he may need, among them was a whistle - he’d been given it when he was still a member of the Charhoods (a group of dolls and other (sentient) awakened beings, out in the desert) and hadn’t felt the need to give it back when he left the group; he still traded goods with the lower ranked beings in the group, all this time later. He blew three short (loud) bursts on the whistle, a common distress signal among dolls and a very easy attention grab for nearly every mortifab out there.

  He quickly patched his stomach as he watched the doorway; his loudness had not been for nothing. More than half a dozen scrapbound scuttled through the doorway with that obnoxious clanking noise their joints always seemed to make. The noise never failed to get on his nerves and put him on edge, perhaps intentionally. He hated that noise so much. As they scuttled through, he could tell they didn’t notice him - most scrapbound would freeze the moment they believed they were detected, unless they believed that they were about to be attacked (which they were rarely able to do, with a combination of a low intelligence score (generally), a low perception score, and being unfamiliar with ranged weapons (again, generally), among other things).

  Four of them were Splinterkins, three of them were Rustgnaws. One was a Shardling - a massive headache. Shardlings were fragile, but they were fast and stupidly good at camouflage, not to mention that they were smarter than their wood and rust-based counterparts. As far as scrapbound ambush hunters went, Shardlings were rivaled by none. Taking it out first would probably be best, but he would have to wait until some of his other traps were sprung. No less than four of the scrapbound hung themselves on the broomstick, writhing a few moments in the air before dying. That left four to kill - the stupid Shardling, two Rustgnaws, and one Splinterkin.

  Killing the Splinterkin would have been easier with fire, but he didn’t want to risk that in here. He picked up the bow he had pulled out of his stomach (made of a rubber band that had been cut and tied to a sturdy pile of twigs - taped together to give it length, width, and strength. He took aim at the Shardling, pointing a ceramic-tipped arrow at the monster, before releasing his grip on the taut string. The Shardling hadn’t moved much, it was just surveying the area around him. As Andrew released his breath, he also released the arrow. It shattered the monster’s glass parts, all of them, which all but incapacitated the Shardling - it was still alive, just unable to move and (presumably) in some pain.

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  The other two monsters whirled on my position before charging me - they knew exactly where Andrew was and that he could make long ranged attacks, so they weren’t going to try stealth or camouflage. However, he had set himself up on the side of the bookshelf I had leaned the spring traps against. The Splinterkin fell for the spring trap, but pulled both of them down on itself. Oh well. He broke into a run as the Rustgnaw followed him, making its way up the shelf and closing in on his location, before he jumped off the shelf. He sprinted over to the dead Shardling, picking up two of the larger pieces of its glass body off the ground and turning to face the metal monster behind him.

  He whirled around and attempted to shove the glass shards into the sensitive neck of the Rustgnaw behind him - only, he had miscalculated. Instead of getting its neck, they stabbed its shoulder and underbelly respectively. The makeshift glass knife shattered in its armored, metal, slightly rotted underbelly, but the one in its shoulder stuck, limiting its future movement. Only issue was that, rather than just falling onto him as a limp corpse, it attacked him as a living, breathing monster. He felt the Rustgnaw begin eating away at his cloth body, so he knew he had to do something fast. Becoming monster shit was not one of his goals for the day (or.. ever, really).

  Reaching out next to him, he grabbed for another glass shard and got a fist full of them - his stitches began coming undone with all the tiny, cold pieces of shattered glass in him. But.. maybe he could use this to his advantage. The thing was eating his other shoulder, so he had to be fast. He reached up with his good arm and repeatedly slapped the monster in the face, aiming for its eye - and after a few hits (and more stitches tearing) he was able to get it in one of its big, bulging eyes. The monster screamed, backing off of him to try and rub the jagged glass shards out of its eye, but only making the problem worse in the process.

  He whirled to his feet, grabbing the last large-ish piece of glass off the floor. He took a running start, body slamming the scrapbound and knocking it prone, before falling on it with his makeshift knife, stabbing into its neck multiple times until it fully stopped moving. Once he was sure it was dead (it wasn’t hard, all he had to do was wait for the red, negative numbers to stop floating off of it), he turned back to the Shardling. It was still alive and very clearly in pain. He killed it with a single, swift thrust to the throat with the piece of glass.

  His next order of business was to patch himself up - again. He grabbed some of the bits of cloth from the curtains, grabbed the sewing needle, the spool of thread he always kept in his stomach, and began stitching himself back together. Fourth time this week. It had been a long Monday and it was only a bit after noon, according to his sense of time.

  Next up on his to-do list: Loot the corpses. He hadn’t leveled up yet, but he wasn’t far from it. But, nice as the EXP was, the money he could make off the monster parts would be an excellent reward. He focused on each of the corpses, highlighting the stuff he could salvage as well as what the stuff he got was called.

  Name: Rustgnaw

  Level: 2

  Status: Deceased

  Loot: Scrap Metal Shards (x2), Corrosion Reagent (x2)

  EXP Yield: 12

  Name: Shardling

  Level: 1

  Status: Deceased

  Loot: Sharp Glass Shards (x3), Crystalline Tooth (x5), Pure Glass Shards (x2)

  EXP Yield: 10

  Name: Splinterkin

  Level: 1

  Status: Deceased

  Loot: Splintered Wood (x4), Resin-Coated Wood (x3)

  EXP Yield: 18

  Well, isn’t that a nice bonus? Shame the Shardling wasn’t a higher level - it could have given me a beefy bit of EXP. Oh well. Those Pure Glass Shards should be good to sell for that group I know of - Moonbrand. Those mages would probably pay pretty well for them. Resin coated wood might not go too badly either; if they can’t use it in potions, I’ll just sell it to the highest bidder. I think humans used to use it for building. Maybe I can sell it to split-off groups that need better fortifications?

  Shoving all my newly gotten loot into my stomach (moving my weapons to my satchel), I prepared to just leave the building when I heard it: footsteps. Quiet, yet still present. They were too soft to belong to anyone prepared for combat, meaning that it was either another monster or a newly awakened doll - probably one in for a deadly surprise with the monsters filling this place. If it was just one or two scrapbound, they’d probably be fine for a little while (the things only move when actively attacking or when threatened). In larger numbers, though…

  He climbed up the stairs as fast as he could (not an easy feat for one of his stature), trying to get to the doll. He could hear the clanking of scrapbound joints - there were dozens of them. He ran through the hallways, keeping his eyes open. Andrew wasn’t even sure why he was doing this - why help some random doll? If it was in a place like this, it would probably break within a day outside, anyway. Leaving would be safer for it and for him. Pausing in a doorway, he could hear the steps - the ones that were soft and sounded almost human and the ones that were very clearly monstrous in origin. He peeked around the corner and saw her - a beautiful porcelain doll. Her hair was a soft blond with undertones that reminded him of a sunset and, when she glanced back, he saw her eyes - they were as blue as he remembered the sky being, back in the day. Her cheeks were slightly pink (though, that was probably just painted on). And then he saw her conundrum.

  The porcelain doll was on the other side of a large chasm. She had to choose between staring at the monsters for eternity (or until they finally decided to pounce) or trying to make the jump. Watching her turn so her body was mostly facing the drop, he was surprised to see her walk back a few steps towards the monsters. Then she sprinted towards the chasm at a remarkable speed before launching herself off the cliff. Andrew would have sworn she died, if he didn’t hear the crack of shattered porcelain too soon for her to have fallen or seen her hands begin losing their grip on the little ledge she had latched onto. He ran up to the edge of the cliff, safe in the knowledge that the scrapbound would have a hard time following her, and went down on his stomach. It felt like the way he could grab hold of her best without risking his own topple into the deep, dark hole. He got down just in time, because he barely caught her hands when they let go of the edge. The poor thing had cracks all up her arms and was too limp to be conscious - hopefully having fainted from pain rather than something stupid like fear (which he knew would get anyone killed).

  He hauled her up out of the precipice, before carrying her back where he came from. Getting her outside would be a good course of action, in his mind, but he could tell that carrying her down stairs wasn’t an option. He stopped in a secure-looking study/office room, setting her on the ground, fortifying the entrances to the place, and making absolutely sure that they were as unlikely to be caught unawares as possible. When he had made sure of that, he looked back towards the doll. She was beautiful, even with the cracks in her arms. Perhaps that’s what she had been made for - good looks. Not like him, made from scraps and built to be easily fixed (he was a living breathing result of the Ship of Theseus thought experiment), and played with constantly.

  He checked his satchel and his stomach for stuff he could use to repair her. Sadly, he didn’t have any glue, and couldn’t find any that wasn’t already dried out in the office. He looked back to the Resin-Coated Wood he had on hand and sighed. He knew what he had to do, but losing out on payment in any form was never something he enjoyed. With another sigh, he began taking pieces of Resin-Coated Wood and took some pieces of it, pushing them into the larger holes and cracks on her arms. Then came the smaller cracks. He took the wood and broke it down into even tinier pieces, pushing them against/into the cracks, before grabbing a softer, more flexible piece of cloth (sighing once more at lost profit) and stitching it tightly around her arm. It was, quite possibly, the most poorly done makeshift job he had ever completed, but that was to be expected. He wasn’t a healer. He was a salvager and a fighter. His fixes were all better suited for cloth dolls, anyway - seeing as he had plenty of practice stitching himself back together.

  Once he had treated her as best he knew how, he hunkered down nearby, bow knocked and ready, and waited for her to wake up.