Ludwig crouched and punched through the rotten floor of the house.
He then set his weight and drove his fist into the boards.
The floor gave in with a wet, ugly crunch. It did not burst into clean splinters the way healthy timber would have. It sagged, folded, and collapsed around his hand like something that had spent years becoming soil while pretending to remain architecture. Dust puffed upward, gray and bitter, carrying the smell of mold, old smoke, stale piss, and dampness so deep that even fire would probably complain before burning it.
Redd stood by the broken doorway, arms slightly raised as if ready to react should the whole building decide to come down with the floor. His imperial knight uniform looked painfully out of place in the abandoned ruin. Too clean, too official, too tied to a world of ranks and titles that this house had clearly never respected.
