By the time Frank reached the eastern boss chamber, someone had already rolled a runner across the blood on the floor so the inspection party wouldn't get its boots dirty. At the staff entrance, a goblin arena hand was hammering the runner flat with a mallet whose loose head twisted farther off the handle at every blow.
Frank had stopped at the damp seam outside the laundry passage on his way up. The mark from yesterday was still visible and still wet, but the moisture hadn't traveled beyond it. He noted the hour and left the wall alone. There was already a boss-room ticket in his pocket, and a stain that hadn't moved was not a reason to shut another route.
"You're going to put that through your foot," Frank said.
The goblin lowered the mallet and looked toward the far wall, where a horned figure in ornamental armor was rehearsing a sword stroke before an empty throne. "If I stop now, she'll tell me I'm behind. If I finish with a broken toe, at least the carpet's flat."
"Neither's a good way to spend the morning."
Frank set his cart beside the entrance, took the mallet, and drove the wooden wedge firmly home with his own hammer. RB stayed in the collection box, looking out between a scraper and the repaired hook he'd taken to sleeping beside. The goblin accepted the tool back with open relief.
"I'm Rusk, arena crew," he said, turning the mallet over as though he hardly recognized it now that it worked. "Are you from maintenance? I didn't see your name on the shift board."
"I'm Frank, from Maintenance, and they sent me about a carpet," he said, nodding toward the larger rug. "Am I standing on the problem?"
Rusk looked down at the runner, then at the vast red rug extending from the throne to the fighting circle. "You're standing on the cover. That's the carpet, and this is what we put over it so nobody has to see it."
The rug had probably been beautiful before it arrived in the dungeon. Deep blue knots formed hunting scenes along its borders, with pale threads picking out riders, deer, and trees that looked like they'd grown somewhere sunlight reached the ground. In the middle lay a patch the size of a wagon, stiff with old blood and a newer slick of something black and sticky. The embroidery around it had been scrubbed until the fibers rose in little snarls. Beneath one edge Frank could see a raised square that didn't belong in a properly laid rug.
A woman carrying a clipboard crossed the chamber toward him. She wore the same black stage uniform as Rusk, although hers had a strip of silver braid along the collar. Her eyes went first to Frank's tool cart, then the red danger cord across the staff door.
"We requested cleaning, not an investigation," she said. "Our next party is scheduled in an hour and a quarter."
"Who's responsible for the room?"
"Vesa, the performance supervisor. I decide when the doors open, the boss decides what the visitors see, and neither of us decides when the Core sells another admission. What do you need?"
"Because I've been told to restore a carpet without closing the floor under it. I want to know who can give me enough time to do it properly."
Vesa lowered the clipboard a little. "You're not the first person to ask me that. You're the first one who asked before promising the Core it could be done."
The blue timetable ink on Vesa's hand had rubbed across the board where she'd moved the raid twice already. Rusk watched the smudge from the staff door. If they lost the show, he might lose his shift as well.
"If you stop the show, who moves the crew?" Frank asked her. He had seen enough cancellations end with the lowest-paid workers being sent home without their hours.
"I can keep them on scenery repair for today, at least." She said that last part more quietly, and a moment later raised her voice toward Rusk. "Don't stand there waiting for a decision. Take the runner up before somebody nails it down too."
At the throne, the armored figure lowered his practice blade. He was a minotaur, broad across the shoulders and wearing a magnificent breastplate that had been made to look damaged without actually losing its strength. A strip of white scar tissue crossed his muzzle. His right horn bore a painted chip that matched a scar on the shield hanging behind him.
"What's wrong with my carpet?" he asked in a voice that could have carried through a battle. "And don't tell me it's blood. Blood is part of the performance."
"Blood dries stiff," Frank replied. "The weave catches boots. If this thing is meant to be fought on, it's a trip hazard."
The minotaur came down from the dais, put his enormous blade onto a padded stand, and pressed a heavy hoof into the raised square. "I'm Brakka," he said. "My last visitor lost his footing there and nearly spoiled the whole encounter."
"Did he get hurt?"
"His knee gave out on the turn. He crawled off with the others and we had to reset the entrance." Brakka glanced at Vesa. "You told me that was being dealt with."
"I was told the problem was the stain."
Frank crouched and lifted one corner of the rug. Beneath it was a brass ring set flush into a square iron plate. There was no paint marking, no inventory number, and no way to reach the ring while the carpet lay in place. The plate's outer seam was packed with grit, and the lip on the side nearest the throne stood slightly proud of the floor.
"That's an access hatch," Frank said.
"To what?" Vesa asked.
"Wouldn't know until I see the drawing."
Rusk stared at the plate. "The old crew told me the rug must never be moved. They didn't say there was a hatch under it."
"Did they say why it must never be moved?" Frank asked.
"They said Brakka hated interruptions."
Brakka looked at the bloodied cloth and then at Rusk. "I hate fighting when I can't feel the floor beneath my feet. Nobody asked me whether I wanted this covered."
The dispatch ticket allowed little time; the unidentified hatch alone would take longer to inspect safely. Frank walked around the carpet, checking the nearest exits and the markings where stage lighting and floor traps shared a service gallery. There was no obvious trap on the hatch itself, but the outer fighting circle had pressure-triggered scenery. He kept RB in the box rather than letting the rat nose toward machinery he couldn't see. Brakka followed at a polite distance, offering descriptions of the moments when the carpet had shifted beneath him.
"Can you stand where you usually turn?" Frank asked.
Brakka moved to the edge of the stained patch and demonstrated a careful half turn. His hoof caught one folded loop of the weave. He stopped without completing the swing, then looked at Vesa.
"There's your answer," he said. "I can't do the final charge on that."
Vesa consulted her timetable. "If I cancel one rehearsal, I can give you twenty minutes. I can't cancel the raid without authority from Boss Operations."
"Twenty minutes isn't enough to lift the rug, inspect an unidentified access panel, and put everything back," Frank said. "It might be enough to check the rolled edge and write a closure request."
"I need a way to tell the Core something more useful than 'maintenance says no.'"
"Tell him the last performance injured a visitor and the boss can't make his scripted turn safely."
Brakka gave a low grunt. "That's an accurate description. I can endorse it."
Brakka lowered himself onto the edge of the dais while Vesa reached for the summons mirror. Without the breastplate and the enormous sword in motion, he looked less like the monster advertised on the entrance posters. The leather binding at one knee had worn a dark band into his hide. He caught Frank noticing and shifted his leg underneath him.
"It's an old injury," Brakka said. "It'll last longer than most of the audiences. I can work with it if I know where to put my feet."
Frank looked at the band on Brakka's knee. The minotaur would have to make that turn again tomorrow, whether the rug stayed or not. Frank had spent twenty years watching schedules win arguments with aching joints.
The Core appeared over the throne with his usual overfed cheer. "My favorite arena team! I hear we're refreshing the guest experience. You're being so proactive!"
Vesa did not smile back. "We need the west fighting zone closed until the floor is examined. There's an unlisted access hatch under the imported rug. The surface is catching Brakka's hoof."
"A little uneven ground adds authenticity," the Core said. "Our guests want to feel the peril."
"I want them to see me hit things with a sword," Brakka said, "not trip before I reach them."
The Core's smile held while Brakka waited with his hand on the bad knee. Vesa refused to fill the silence for him. Frank kept the inspection sketch raised; if the Core wanted to call an exposed hatch decorative, it could at least do so while looking at it.
"Could we rotate the encounter toward the eastern pillars?" the Core proposed.
"Not without an approved trap change," Vesa said. "Tev has the current layout, and the eastern pillars are part of the rig."
"Then by all means arrange a collaborative inspection. We'll describe the schedule adjustment as a special event."
The Core vanished without authorizing the change in writing. Vesa caught Frank's eye and made a brief note on her board.
"I'll get the closure stamped," she said. "He always makes that part sound as though it happened on its own."
When the raid was redirected through a side chamber, Brakka changed out of his breastplate and worked with Rusk to roll back the heavy carpet. The rug wasn't particularly interested in moving; several corners had been tacked into the mortar with iron spikes, which explained the torn fibers. They eased it up by sections, laying boards across the clean stone so that no one dragged wet cloth over the stage mechanisms. Frank used his pry bar to free the rusted ring and cleared the packed dirt from the hatch seam.
"I'm not opening this without Tev," he told Vesa. "The hatch might belong to an old service duct, but the next space may run under the trap grid."
Vesa had the original floor ledger brought from the booth. According to its current sheet the carpet covered a perfectly ordinary slab. A much older annotation, copied in faded brown ink, marked the same square with the letters A/C. There was no key to the abbreviation.
"Air channel?" Rusk suggested.
"Access crawl?" Vesa said.
"Could mean either," Frank answered. "Write down what we actually know."
While they waited for Tev, Brakka crouched beside the rolled rug and touched the blue hunting scene. One of the embroidered riders had been torn through the middle. For the first time that morning his expression looked less theatrical than tired.
"They brought it from a hall that burned," he said. "That's what they told me. I liked that it survived."
"Where would you like it kept?" Frank asked.
Brakka considered the stretch of bare stone. "Somewhere visitors can see it without having to kill me on top of it."
"We can measure for a wall hanging. Construction has to approve the anchors."
"I can pay for the sewing out of my costume allowance," Vesa said. "If the Core hasn't spent it on more dramatic fog."
Rusk looked at the rug as though deciding whether he was permitted to make a suggestion. "There's a tapestry rail in the north viewing gallery," he said. "The old one hasn't held anything since they took down the battle scenes."
"Can it take this weight?" Frank asked.
"I haven't tested the weight. I know the rail's there because I clean behind it every second shift, and nobody else seems interested in the dust." Rusk's grip shifted on the repaired mallet. "Might be worth getting somebody to look at it."
"Write it on the request," Vesa told him.
"Will you sign my name?"
"I'll sign my own name. You found the location, so why would I give somebody else the credit?"
Brakka turned over a corner of the rug and found a tiny embroidered horn player near the edge. The figure was nearly hidden by a stain. "That one was my favorite," he told Rusk. "Always looked as if he was calling everyone home." For all his stage armor, Brakka handled the ruined thread as if it were the last usable piece of scenery he'd been given.
Rusk tried to fold the damp edge of the rug, and the blue threads began to pull. Frank slipped a board underneath. He could inspect an anchor and keep a heavy roll off a wet floor; repairing old embroidery belonged to somebody who knew thread.
"If the rail takes the weight, we can hang it where nobody has to walk on it," he said. "You'd still need a conservator to clean those fibers without tearing them. I can tell you whether the anchors are sound, not how to save the picture."
"That's enough," Brakka said. "It's more help than the cleaning order offered."
Tev arrived with a lantern and a folded circuit drawing. He inspected the access hatch, confirmed that the adjacent trap circuit could be isolated, and agreed to a preliminary opening once Boss Operations signed the temporary closure. The machinery beneath proved to be an old air duct with a corroded damper wheel, not an active trap. Nobody had maintained it because nobody knew it was there. Dust had gathered against the damper, leaving the chamber with poor ventilation whenever the stage torches ran hot.
Frank turned the wheel one careful fraction and felt the seized spindle resist. He left it alone rather than force the whole assembly apart just before another shift. A controlled repair would require proper bracing and somebody from ventilation, which was not the job he'd been sent to do.
When the access plate was shut and temporarily marked, Vesa signed the restricted-zone notice. Brakka carried the cleaned section of rug to the dry storeroom himself, taking care not to drag the embroidery through the blood. The room would operate with a smaller fighting area until the floor and ventilation were cleared, but the workers could now see the surface they were standing on.
A ledger window formed above Frank's notebook while he added the access hatch to the inspection map.
MAINTENANCE LEDGER
Employee
FRANK
Classification
RANK 1: DUNGEON CUSTODIAN
Task
Boss room hazard survey and restricted access
Operational credit
+12 XP
Rank 1 experience
136 XP
Brakka was back at his practice stand when Frank collected the cart. Without the rug, the minotaur's careful turn finished cleanly, and the edge of his blade stopped exactly where Vesa had marked the safe boundary. He watched the result for a moment, then faced Frank.
"Will they let me keep the stone bare?"
"That's for the performance department."
"I know whose decision it is. I was asking what you thought."
Frank tested the raised edge of the access plate with his boot and glanced at the dark stains around it. "I'd rather mop stone than try to get blood out of a rug."
Brakka's laugh shook the shields on the wall. RB, perched on the cart handle, flattened his ears and made a small offended noise. Frank paused long enough to check the latch on the collection box and then continued toward the staff passage. Behind him Rusk was asking Vesa whether the blue rug should be folded or rolled, and Vesa was telling him to wait for an answer from someone who knew cloth. At least the rug was going into dry storage rather than back over the hatch.
RB'S THOUGHTS
(⊙_⊙) (ಠ_ಠ) (╬ಠ益ಠ)
At the staff door, Vesa called Rusk back. The delay had already eaten his break, and he had promised to meet his sister at the training pens. Vesa took the mallet Frank had repaired.
"Go," she said. "I can flatten a runner."
Her first blow landed crooked. Brakka laughed so hard she threatened to charge the noise against his performance budget. Rusk left grinning, his paid hours still on the board.