By eighth bell, the fourth-floor maintenance door had a second scorch mark, this one above the frame. A crack spread through the mortar whenever someone used the stairs. Frank had already turned two workers back. Whatever the wizard had done to the hinges, the weight above the lintel was now his concern.
Someone had carved PROBABLY TREASURE beneath the STAFF ONLY plaque. Whoever had done it had taken the time to cut the letters evenly, then abandoned the chisel marks at the last E. Frank wondered whether the person had stopped because the stone was too hard or because someone had finally told them what STAFF ONLY meant.
The scorched door had been a good joke when Frank watched it on his viewing glass. The wall above it was less entertaining. His ticket made no distinction between bent hinges and a shifting lintel, and he doubted whoever filed it had climbed the stairs to look.
The work ticket called it DECORATIVE LOSS, priority ROUTINE. Frank folded the slip into his toolbox so it wouldn't blow down the stairwell.
A goblin clerk came up the stairs with one hand against the wall and a sheaf of papers trapped beneath his chin.
"Don't use that wall for support," Frank told him. "There's a loose stone above the door, and I'd rather it didn't come down while you're underneath."
The goblin snatched his hand back. Latch wore a clerk's coat with pockets overflowing with receipts. A red sealing wafer escaped from one pocket and skittered beneath the stair.
"Wonderful. I needed that seal for the loss report," Latch muttered. He straightened, rubbed the red wax from his fingertips, and thrust out the top page. "Sign this before your people close the room. My inventory has been wrong since last night, and somebody downstairs thinks the missing fixtures are my fault."
Frank read the heading and took the pen. "You've put the damage under Decoration. That frame is carrying a lintel."
"I know it is a door, Frank. The report concerns the lights." Latch planted a finger on a column of numbers, nearly tearing the thin paper. "Four registered brass sconces. All four missing, brackets damaged, and the mana feed behind the wall reported exposed. Security identified the damage after the party cleared the fourth floor."
Frank remembered fitting the four sconces on the gallery wall through the public arch. The locked maintenance door was merely a staff shortcut. Procurement had supplied brackets for the wrong thickness of wall, forcing him to make replacements by hand. None of that explained why adventurers had ripped the fixtures away. He'd inspect the damaged mana conduit from the service side.
"They aren't loot," Frank said, handing back the paper for a moment. "They pulled out all four?"
"Every one. Security found the empty brackets when the floor was cleared." Latch's ears dropped. "They were registered fittings, Frank. Nobody approved stripping them, and now the Core wants an explanation for four missing items."
"And what did Security record?" Frank asked.
"A smashed fixture on the floor and three carried off with the rest of the party's haul. Nobody stopped to sort the brass from the dungeon's actual rewards. I have the closure time and the inventory numbers. I don't have a way of getting the things back."
The form assigned Maintenance responsibility for inadequate installation. Someone had already crossed out the objection box.
"You can't have my signature on this, Latch. I haven't looked at the wall yet, and you know as well as I do who pulled the fixtures loose."
"The Core won't authorize replacements until somebody accepts the loss. If you refuse, I'll be the one explaining why." Latch glanced up. "I've already been told to be solution-focused."
Frank held the pen over the liability box. Latch had been called careless for losing four sconces a party had ripped from the walls; Frank was being asked to certify a repair before inspecting it. If he refused everything, Latch took the blame alone. If he signed, they'd have the admission they wanted. “I can sign what I see,” he said. “Give me a copy without the liability claim. You can record the theft, and I can record the wall.”
Latch stood with the paper in both hands, deciding whether that was a useful answer or the beginning of a disciplinary meeting. Before he could choose, the wall above the damaged doorway began to laugh.
The Core's face appeared in the light panel wearing a painted tie with no neck to hold it up. Frank had once asked how it stayed in place and received a written warning for inappropriate attention to executive presentation.
"Good morning, gentlemen! I see we're practicing our conflict-resolution skills. Wonderful initiative, Frank."
"Morning, Chief." Frank took the folded ticket from his toolbox. "The missing sconces are a Property loss. The wall and mana-feed line need Maintenance and Trap Crew. I need a repair order and somebody qualified to isolate the flow."
"Of course, of course. We don't want a little departmental misunderstanding holding up today's dungeon schedule." The face rotated toward Latch. "You can solve the replacement question together, can't you?"
Latch gripped his paperwork. "The fixtures are missing, sir. I can only account for the loss if the incident is recorded correctly."
The panel dimmed enough to turn Latch's knuckles gray against the paperwork. "And we will record it correctly. That's why we employ such conscientious people." The smile came back. "Frank, can you simply repair the mana conduit in the meantime?"
"Not while mana is flowing through it. I'm not certified to isolate that branch."
"Ah." The painted tie flickered at the bottom of the panel. "I'll have a technician sent over from Trap Crew. Collaboration! You boys really should do more of it."
The face vanished, leaving the stairwell quieter than before. Latch stared at the crossed-out objection box on his form.
"He's going to ask me again," he said.
"Then you'll have something to tell him."
"That's easy for you to say. You don't have an end-of-day inventory count."
Frank retrieved Latch's fallen sealing wafer and returned it. "I've got a wall that could fall before lunch. You get the fixtures accounted for. I'll document the condition of the frame."
Latch dusted the wax against his sleeve. "Send me the inspection number," he said, and went downstairs reciting the four missing registration numbers.
Frank fetched a folding barrier with a loose leg and braced it with a chock. He covered WET FLOOR with DO NOT ENTER and added a smaller warning: FALLING STONE. A person might step over a puddle sign; a loose lintel deserved more respect.
The service passage ran behind the encounter rooms, bare pipes and working lamps instead of theatrical carving. Its locked hatches kept the staff routes separate from the public galleries. Frank welcomed a stretch of corridor where nobody was carrying a sword.
The inspection cover resisted his chisel. Frank worked it loose gently and found a copper mana channel torn from its ceramic cradle. The etched line along its edge still glowed faintly. Being a skeleton did not make him eager to find out what an active feed could do to bone.
He eased the cover back into place, marked the panel LIVE MANA FEED with chalk, and returned to the secured service landing to wait for somebody with the proper isolation equipment.
A warning gong sounded on the visitor side of the sealed door. Dispatch's board marked the gallery cleared, but the public-route indicator stayed green. From beyond the wall came the drag of metal on stone, then somebody speaking too quickly for Frank to catch. He did not open the hatch. The repaired wall could wait; one careless look into an occupied public corridor could turn a maintenance call into an encounter.
He set his chisel down behind the barrier and watched the indicator until the public route returned to its locked, empty status.
Once clearance was confirmed, Frank added INCORRECT PUBLIC-ROUTE CLEARANCE to the ticket. He kept the hatch locked while he waited for the qualified isolator. The damaged wall could wait; his bones were still useful attached to each other.
The Construction trainee arrived before the specialist. He carried a sack of mortar and an authorization stamped START IMMEDIATELY. The form named the door but not the live mana feed behind it. He tried to put the sack down on the service landing; Frank stopped him before the torn cover could catch its bottom seam. "I'm here for the frame," the trainee said. "My supervisor said we had to get a prop under it before noon."
"Then where is the prop?" Frank asked. The boy looked down at the sack. The paperwork authorized mortar, not a support. If he fetched one now, he would miss his work window; if he began without it, the lintel might shift. Frank showed him the crack above the frame and asked whether he wanted his name on an unsupported repair. The trainee watched the mortar dust sift down as another cart passed upstairs. "No," he said. Frank wrote his own name on the delay order. "Ask Stores for the longer timber. Tell them I'll sign for the time."
A delivery team arrived with a trolley of sealed kitchen stores and found the stair blocked by the barrier. They asked to use the staff shortcut through the door instead. Frank showed them the false-clearance number and directed the trolley around the dry service route, adding two flights to their journey. One porter swore. Frank helped turn the heavy front wheel at the bend. A closed passage had a real cost, but opening this one on a doubtful indicator would transfer the risk to somebody else.
Tev arrived two bells later, carrying an isolation wand in one hand and the half-eaten remains of a lunch roll in the other. He kept the food clear of his instruments, a decision Frank appreciated more than the apology for the wait that never came.
"Show me the exposed line," Tev said.
Frank took him through the service passage and opened the access cover he had marked earlier. Tev leaned close to inspect the loosened ceramic support. "Old fittings. Somebody kept the original mana branch when they converted the fourth floor. That ceramic wasn't rated to take heat like that."
"It was rated to hold up glowstones," Frank said. "The spell wasn't in the installation instructions. I just need the right branch off, and you can argue about the model afterward."
"You say that like I don't have six active traps tied into the same mana junction." Tev tucked the last bite of bread into his pocket, apparently unwilling to waste it. "If the feed map's wrong and I cut the east run, I'll spend the rest of the day resetting blades."
At the junction, three branches were labeled EAST WALL, EAST LIGHTS, and nothing at all. Frank's crossed-out drawing showed where an old pressure-plate route might once have joined the unlabeled run. Neither man trusted the map alone. Tev brought his testing wand to the wall and asked Frank to hold the revised sheet where they could both see it.
Tev compared the wand's readings with Frank's drawing. One branch fed the pressure plate's trigger runes, another the wall glowstones, and the unmarked one the damaged sconces. He sealed the last branch, locked its feed gate, and checked the exposed channel for any remaining mana before giving Frank clearance.
"Put the new label in your own book," Tev said, shaking a cramped hand. "The official drawing won't be changed before someone moves the wall again."
"Already wrote it down. You might want a copy."
Tev looked at Frank's penciled crossouts. "I'd prefer a drawing that isn't held together with meal stains."
“Then start with one showing the right routes.” Frank held the paper steady while Tev copied the connection. They spent ten minutes arguing about which symbol meant an abandoned branch. The answer went into both their books, not the official record. They both knew it would matter the next time a crew opened the wall.
The trainee returned with the correct support timber and the same sack of mortar. His supervisor had signed Frank's delay notice without comment. That did not mean the boy had liked asking. He laid the supplies on the dry patch Frank had marked rather than beside the exposed floor joint.
The boy checked the ends of the prop against the opening before lifting it into place. He had found timber long enough for the job, but nobody had told him where to put the load. Frank indicated the wedge points while Tev finished his isolation record. The trainee made a note beside the drawing without being asked.
Frank put a hand on the temporary support while the trainee settled the first wedge. The boy reached under the timber with bare fingers, then stopped himself and took the lever from the tool tray. Frank had been ready to warn him; he waited instead. The wedge seated crookedly. The apprentice eased it out and tried again, leaving his own hand outside the load path.
"They covered that in Construction?" Frank asked, nodding to the lever.
"They gave us a pamphlet. I lost mine on the first day. Somebody used it to wrap nails."
"I've still got one. Page four's missing." Frank showed him the hairline fracture along the lintel. "What matters is where that weight goes until the mortar sets. See that mark? That's where it was sitting yesterday."
They cleaned the loose joints and laid slow-setting mortar where the prop carried the load. The trainee wanted to take the support away when the surface looked firm. Frank showed him the gap that would open if they pulled it before the inner mortar cured. The support stayed. A completed visible patch was not permission to treat the wall as sound.
The Core asked whether the room could reopen by noon. Frank pointed at the curing mortar, although the Core had no eyes in that section of the stairwell. On the second call, the trainee answered before Frank could speak. “No, sir. If we pull the prop, the lintel may move.” He said it in a voice that shook, then waited while the Core tried to find a more cheerful way to ask. Frank let the boy answer for himself.
Latch came up the stairs carrying a recovered sconce cradled in both hands. Its glass shade was cracked, and the brass stem had been hammered nearly flat. Someone had wrapped the original registration tag around it with string.
"One recovered," Latch said. He set the fixture on the cart rather than risk the uneven floor. "Security found it beneath the stair after the floor was locked down. The other three went out with the party. Nobody on our side was authorized to pursue them."
Frank lifted the battered fixture by its base. "Can you keep it on the damage record?"
"I already tagged it. And I listed the remaining three as unrecovered inventory." Latch sounded a little more like himself. "The Core may still count every one against the wrong budget."
"Then put the replacement bracket on the incident report, not my installation sheet."
Latch squinted at the wet mortar and the temporary prop. "I can ask. If they make me choose between a new bracket and the recovery credit for this one, they'll take the credit."
"Put it in writing anyway."
Frank checked the temporary brace and marked the job safe for restricted staff access only. The old door was beyond salvaging. A permanent entrance needed a different plate, sound hinges, a full cure, and Procurement's approval. Most of that lay outside his authority. His work ticket could honestly close one hazard and leave the entrance itself closed.
On the completion form he circled only what had actually been done: MAKE PUBLIC ACCESS SAFE; ISOLATE DAMAGED MANA FEED; TEMPORARILY CLOSE ROOM.
WORK RECORD
Assignment
FOURTH-FLOOR ACCESS REPAIR
Structural stabilization
+24 XP
Mana-feed hazard secured
+18 XP
Experience total
60 / 500 XP
Open dependency
REPLACEMENT DOOR AUTHORIZATION
Tev found him washing mortar from his chisel at the utility basin. He had come to check that his lockout was still secure. The masonry wasn't ready to be disturbed, and the two of them ended up waiting while the last tools were loaded.
"Management wants that door open tomorrow," Tev said.
"Then somebody ought to get Procurement out of bed. The frame's safe for now. That's different from a working door."
Tev rolled one shoulder, wincing as the strap of his harness caught on his collar. "Sometimes I think it'd be easier to get transferred somewhere they know what a shutoff is."
Frank couldn't remember another workplace. He could barely remember his first day at this one. A transfer sounded good in theory, but the idea of being ordered somewhere unfamiliar made him pause.
"Maybe," he said. "Let me know if you find one."
At the depot, Latch's revised report waited under a paperweight made from a cracked tile. One sconce had been recovered and three were listed as stolen. Both men had signed the observations without accepting liability for the theft. Latch had added a separate line for the false public-route clearance even though it complicated the form. “That happened too,” he said when Frank noticed it. He looked miserable about the extra page and oddly pleased.
A depot tally listed the extra porter time caused by the closed stair. Latch held it up beside his property-loss form. "They want to charge the detour to Maintenance," he said. Frank wrote the false-clearance number under the charge. "Then tell them which office left the public route marked empty while it was occupied." Latch added a copy to the incident file. For once, the missing sconces were not the only numbers troubling him.
In his quarters, Frank left the inspection sheet on his chair and turned the viewing glass toward the wall. He had spent the day refusing requests to reopen a broken doorway; he was not spending the evening watching someone force another one. The fourth-floor door remained behind two warning boards, and the replacement order still lacked a signature.
Down the corridor, someone was laughing about the afternoon's raid. Frank could hear the words only in fragments. He sat with his back to the glass until the shift bell faded.