A click beneath the front wheel of Frank's loaded cart stopped him in the west passage. A rug nearly matched the stone, its fresh copper tacks hammered straight along the wall. The weave rose over one edge of a pressure plate. The cart hadn't crossed the trigger completely. Frank put a hand on the handle and didn't move until he was sure which way would take weight off it.
Decoration rarely installed anything that straight. Frank eased the cart back.
"Tev?" he called toward the wall housing. "You around?"
The ventilation rattled overhead. The alternative route meant hauling his cart up three flights, but he couldn't leave an untested trap for the next worker.
Frank marked the carpet edge and sent a priority request. The crystal estimated an hour; an hour was an estimate for the person sending the notice, not for the next cart coming downhill. He blocked the approach with his own cart and sat on an overturned bucket where he could stop anyone who mistook the rug for an ordinary floor.
Two Construction workers arrived with a beam between them. Sul, a broad ogre, bore the front end on his shoulder while his partner walked backward, calling the corners.
"Hold up," Frank said. "New plate under the carpet. Don't cross it."
Sul stopped immediately. His partner took another step before feeling the weight pull against him. "That thing went in last night," Sul said. "Drainage moved a pipe through the old fitting, so we shifted the plate over."
"Who signed the test?"
The workers exchanged a look across the beam. Neither knew who'd commissioned the trap, and neither tried to pretend otherwise.
"We were told it'd stay off until the traps crew came through," Sul said. "Do you want this beam left somewhere?"
"By the service wall. Not across the door. Someone's bound to come through looking for a shortcut."
They set the beam down, almost crushing the rear worker's boot. Sul chalked a warning on the timber so another crew wouldn't carry it onto the rug.
Tev arrived forty minutes later with grease on his wrist and no patience left. He stopped at Frank's chalk mark and the beam abandoned by Construction. "Who cleared this passage for traffic?" he asked. Frank told him about the relocation and the missing test signature. Tev knelt beside the plate, checked the dormant indicator twice and held up a hand before Frank could approach.
At the wall housing, Tev found an unsigned amendment to the installation order folded behind the rune diagram. He unfolded it carefully. "Nobody was supposed to arm this until tonight. I set the trigger rune to dormant myself."
"Could've taken a test pulse as a release," Frank said.
"Maybe. Or somebody upstream has decided testing and opening are the same thing." Tev took a slim instrument from his tool belt and eyed the rune housing. "Back up another pace. I want room if this thing decides to demonstrate."
Frank moved farther back as instructed. Tev braced one arm against the stone pillar and held his testing wand to the rune contact. The mana-fed ceiling lamps flared abruptly, wiping out the shadows.
"Wonderful news, everyone!" The Core's voice boomed along the west passage. "Our newest defensive installation is ready to protect the dungeon. How about a round of applause for Trap Crew?"
"No," Tev said, not loudly but with a sharpness Frank had never heard from him before. "Don't run the sequence. I'm at the control housing."
"Tev, always such a perfectionist! You can be proud of the work you've done."
"Chief," Frank called, moving no closer to the plate, "he's telling you that it's not locked out."
"Frank! What a delight to have our favorite skeletal specialist present for the demonstration. Everyone is perfectly safe provided they follow the approved procedure."
"The procedure," Tev said through his teeth, "is to let me finish making the thing safe."
The stone shuddered. Tev pulled his hand away from the housing and threw himself behind the pillar. A blade swept through the passage at Frank's rib height, hit the far wall, and drove chips across the wet floor. Frank stayed where the bucket and cart had forced him to wait. He hadn't evaded anything. He'd chosen not to stand in the blade's path before he knew it existed.
The Core chimed its approval. "Visual confirmation of full operation! Splendid!"
Tev remained behind the pillar, flexing his fingers. He steadied the lockout clamp against the wall before he could close it. Frank kept his attention on the blade until Tev had secured the clamp.
The blade's notch marked where Frank's cart would have been if he'd crossed. Sul's partner would have walked straight into it, facing backward.
"I put it in standby," Tev said. "I know what I did."
"I've no reason to argue with you." Frank let him finish securing the rune housing. "Can you get the command log? We'll need to know where the release came from."
Tev rubbed his face with the clean part of his sleeve. "I'll have to ask Records. They don't like giving out command logs."
"Ask anyway. I'll put my name on the incident."
Tev glanced at him, then at the blade. "Put mine on it too. I want the time I clamped it recorded properly. Not after somebody's moved it."
Tev checked the feed, locked the mechanical blade, and repeated the verification while Frank watched the indicators. The light-panel repair could wait until the trap could no longer fire. Tev's hands were steady again by the third reading, but he kept them close to his chest when the Core chimed from another corridor.
Once Tev released the safe side for ordinary maintenance, Frank found that the light panel's holes didn't line up. Its rim pressed against the etched mana strip. He filed the fitting, seated it, and stood clear while Tev restored only the lighting branch. The blade remained locked. Nobody asked for a demonstration to prove the lamp could work.
At lunch Frank found Moss in the staff dining room, trying to eat her stew while someone from Scheduling explained why the night crew had been assigned three jobs with the same start time. A pair of sanitation slimes rested in feeding troughs by the far wall beneath hand-lettered STAFF signs. The Core had once categorized them as equipment. They had started refusing work orders until someone changed the forms.
Moss pushed her bowl away when she saw Frank's incident sheet. "Are you injured?"
"No. Tev nearly was." Frank laid the paper beside her tray, careful not to set it in spilled broth. "The plate triggered while he had the housing open. Chief announced it like he was cutting a ribbon."
Moss read the incident sheet and asked how close Tev had been to the blade. Frank showed her his sketch; she wrote the lockout time beside it.
"If we send this with only the fault description, they'll call it a calibration mistake," she said. "I want the announcement time and the command request. If Records won't release the log, that refusal goes in the report too."
"Thought you'd say something like that."
"I wish I didn't have to." Moss looked at the line where Tev had signed. "He'll get asked about this more than once. Make sure he knows."
Moss signed and slid the sheet into the inspection chute before another department could return it. When she picked up her spoon, a skin had formed on her stew.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
"There's a food-waste ticket downstairs," she said after a moment. "Northern ramp. It's been bounced between Custodial and Security twice. Can you take it before the afternoon traffic comes through?"
"What's on the floor?"
"A peel, according to the ticket. There's also oil from a broken lamp bracket, which somebody decided wasn't worth including in the same order."
"I'll get the grit and a barrier," Frank said.
"Good. And eat something if you've got a way of doing it." She gave him the look she'd used for twenty years when she remembered that he didn't, and then went back to her ruined stew.
The northern ramp sloped into the old defensive section, its stone polished smooth by carts and boots. Frank had reported a cracked railing bracket three weeks earlier. Construction had deferred repair after a visual check.
A yellow peel lay in a film of lamp oil halfway down the ramp, beyond the locked service grille. Dispatch had not released the public route for cleaning. Frank reached for the barrier controls, but a horn sounded around the bend before he could request clearance.
Through the grille, Frank saw a knight in bright armor burst around the corner with a spear across his chest. Behind him came two companions, one calling his name and the other shouting for him to slow down. The knight kept looking over his shoulder, not at the ground ahead.
Frank struck the staff-side warning bell, but its signal had to pass through Dispatch before the public route would close. His voice would not carry through the grille.
It was already too late. An armored heel landed on the peel and slid; the knight tried to plant the other foot, found the oil, and jammed his spear point against the stone as though he could pole-vault out of the fall. The shaft twisted under him. His shoulder struck the railing just above the cracked bracket, and the weld parted with a sound Frank felt through the floor.
The knight went over the edge still gripping the spear. His armor struck the defensive stakes below with a crash that carried through the service wall. Frank checked the broken railing first. An entire section had gone, leaving the public approach open to the pit. Then he looked at the lamp oil running toward the lower drainage grate. The corpse had landed directly across it. Of course it had.
The woman in a blue cloak threw herself toward the broken railing. Her companion caught her by the back of her belt and hauled her away from the opening before the remaining section could give under her weight. She twisted against him, swearing, then went suddenly quiet when she looked down.
"Somebody get a healer!" the woman shouted. The words carried faintly through the grille. Frank pulled the emergency closure lever and sent the incident code to Dispatch, knowing neither action could undo the fall.
He took the staff stairs to the observation slit above the old pit. The knight lay among the defensive stakes while his companions tried to reach him from the public approach. Their own healer knelt beside him. Frank remained behind the locked grille; he had no business entering an active encounter route.
The woman in blue reached the lower ledge first, too quickly for the narrow steps. When the healer stopped working, she stared at the knight's hand still curled around his spear. She bent to pick up a small brass clasp that had fallen from his cloak and held it between both palms.
"We told him not to run," she said to no one in particular. "He heard us. I know he heard us."
The remaining companion stood motionless while the woman knelt. Frank held the service route closed and marked the failed railing bracket on his diagram. He could not enter a live visitor area, and the last thing this floor needed was an employee in the path of an armed party. It was already one corpse beyond schedule.
The woman stayed beside the body, turning the brass clasp in her hands. Frank circled the broken weld on his drawing. It was precisely the joint he had reported three weeks before. If the Core called the failure unforeseeable, he could supply the original work-order number, the date, and the person who rejected it.
A rectangular notice opened across Frank’s vision. He tried to look past it at the drainage grate, but the figures followed his gaze. He had no eyelids with which to dismiss management’s timing.
DUNGEON CONTRIBUTION EVENT
Assigned hazard
NORTH RAMP FOREIGN OBJECT
Result
ADVENTURER DEATH WITHIN ASSIGNED ZONE
Dungeon resource gain
VERIFIED
Environmental attribution award
+250 XP
Safety status
INCIDENT REVIEW PENDING
Two hundred and fifty XP. Frank checked it twice, convinced the ledger must have confused him with whoever designed the pit. He had spent the morning keeping workers away from a dangerous trap for considerably less. A man had slipped on a peel beside a leaking lamp, and somehow the official record treated Frank as a highly productive employee. He could get used to being paid. The method was another matter.
"You're kidding," he murmured.
The staff-side incident clerk, who was recording the closure, glanced toward him. "Did you have another fault to report?"
"Just the railing, the oil, the blocked drain, and a request to keep the next party out." Frank folded his inspection note before the clerk could assign the broken stakes to Maintenance as well.
The rest of the party left through the visitor stairs. Dispatch waited until the public route was empty, then locked the gate and secured the pit mechanisms for the staff reset. Frank came down the staff stairs with his cart to inspect the blocked drain before Processing arrived. The knight lay across the grate, still gripping his spear. Lamp oil had collected beneath him.
"You couldn't have landed a foot to the left," Frank told the body. The grate would have to be cleared before Processing could wash the pit down. He had just found a dry place to set his tools when the Core chimed.
"Frank! Excellent timing. I have wonderful news about our staffing needs."
"If it's a replacement railing crew, send them up the ramp."
"Even better! Your transition into paid employment has opened a wonderful opportunity for another worker to join our introductory service program."
Frank looked at the knight, then at the panel. "You're not doing what I think you're doing."
Light rose from the floor beneath the corpse. The Core lifted the spear and buckles aside for inventory. Flesh drew back from the broken breastplate; bone separated, aligned and began to pull together in threads of dull animation. The whole process took less time than getting a properly signed requisition for a new drain cover.
Twenty years earlier an apron-wearing goblin had watched the Core do the same thing to Frank. The goblin had asked a question Frank remembered word for word. He found himself asking it now.
"You're doing that here?"
"Where better to welcome a valued new member of our dungeon family?" the Core said.
"Somewhere that isn't a pit full of stakes. He's still on the damn drain."
"Always thinking about practical details! That is why I'm assigning him to your department."
The new skeleton sat up. One of his wrists turned the wrong direction before the joints settled. He looked at his hands, then at the empty armor beside him. "Why aren't I wearing any skin?"
"It has been recovered for dungeon operations," said the Core. "Welcome aboard! Your name is Bob."
"Bob?" The skeleton tried the sound. "Did I have another name?"
"We believe in fresh starts. You have been restored to productive service at the dungeon's expense, and that cost will be repaid through twenty years of indentured employment. We're all very happy here. I know you'll love it."
A personnel notice unfolded before Bob's empty eye sockets. He moved his head to one side. The notice moved with him. "Does this mean I get paid?"
"Your restoration is a generous benefit. For questions about work assignments, please ask Frank."
"What do I do?" Bob asked.
"For now," Frank said, "stand up and come out of the pit. One step at a time."
Bob looked at his feet. "Which one first?"
"Whichever one holds you up."
Bob climbed two steps while Frank kept the path clear of loose stakes. He stopped and asked whether he could take the rest of the day off. Frank told him that Personnel would conduct his orientation, and no, he did not think orientation counted as a day off. Bob nodded, then asked when he should report for orientation. Frank repeated himself. The Core congratulated them both on effective teamwork and went quiet.
Once the new recruit was safely behind the staff gate, Frank went back for his scraper. He collected the peel, spread grit across the oil and checked the remaining rail from a safe side. It shifted under his hand. He braced the surviving section as a temporary measure and posted a closure sign on both approaches. The railing was not repaired; nobody was to reopen the ramp until Construction replaced it.
Clearing the spill earned another eighteen XP, bringing his total to 355. That was two hundred and fifty for the accident and eighteen for the work afterward. Bob, meanwhile, had started a twenty-year labor obligation before he had learned which of his feet went first.
The Core appeared again as Frank wrote the incident number. "A thrilling day for employee advancement, Frank!"
"I want the entire railing inspected," Frank said. "Here are the two unanswered reports and the failed bracket. I want the replacement approved too."
"Such proactive thinking! An inspection is authorized immediately."
Frank copied the approval number. "Replacement?"
"We'll assess all available options." The panel went dark.
Frank added the new inspection authorization to the folder of rejected repairs. There was still no crew scheduled to replace the railing. Personnel arrived for Bob and asked whether Frank had finished his induction paperwork. Bob wanted to know what induction meant. Frank handed over the unsigned sheet and went back to the barrier.
Moss found Frank after shift bell beside the closed ramp with his incident report under a wrench. She checked the diagram first, then the deferral notice, then the new inspection authorization. None of them contained a replacement date.
"The Core hired somebody," she said. "Personnel sent me a new skeleton who wanted to know whether the staff stairs came with instructions."
"Bob. Knight from the pit. Two minutes ago he wanted to know how long twenty years was."
Moss looked at the contract and back toward the still-broken railing. "They put him under you?"
"After orientation. I signed for a rail inspection, not an assistant."
"I'll see that he gets an actual handbook. And I'll keep this report." She initialed Frank's statement about the rejected repair and sent a duplicate to Construction. Frank watched it go. A signed record could make someone replace the railing. Complaints about a dead visitor usually just made the Core change the subject.
At the late-crew table, two monster handlers were arguing about whether washing an ogre counted as overtime or equipment maintenance. Frank joined them. He said the north ramp was closed and somebody would have to replace the entire rail. One handler wanted to know how a knight with a spear had managed to trip over a peel. Frank gave him the short version. The table laughed, then went back to arguing over the last bread roll.
Moss passed on her way to the night desk. She did not tell Frank to get back to work. She only held up the duplicate incident sheet, now stamped RECEIVED, and went on.