IN OR OUT?

Brother Fixuruppur was hard at work, no, not his regular job; there he was, a baker. His side job as a member of the sacred order of resetters. Not many people realise this (in particular not explorers inconsiderate bastards that they are,) But that big dramatic fancy light show when they step into an ancient tomb? And all those torches light up one by one to show the way? They go on the fritz if the pitch isn’t kept well, and the magic powder isn’t dry, and of course, the triggers aren’t maintained. Oh god, the triggers. They are usually pre steel age by a hell of a long shot, and authentic historically accurate iron? Well, that stuff ain't cheap and rusts like you wouldn’t believe.

To make matters worse, copper degrades fast, and those wooden stakes? They need sharpening. Then, of course, there’s the godsdamned snakes; if he could ask the original designers one thing, it would be why did it have to be snakes? Did they forget that those snakes need at least a few rats a month, or the first explorer to get that far falls into a pile of old bones? Oh, and of course, they bloody shed, a lot, and those egg shells without which you don’t get new snakes? They need removing after hatching, meaning some poor sod has to shove their hand into that pit and clean it out. (Brother Fixuruppur was extremely grateful he was one of a progressive sect, they allowed him to use a net instead, at least. Some of the older and more orthodox orders insisted that the trials of resetting built character. Though what the hell was supposed to be character building about being bitten by snakes was beyond him. Though he did envy the other orders their skin tone, not a wrinkle between em. But maybe getting wrinkles depends on lasting long enough to wrinkle.)

Then, of course, there were the big traps; they were finicky, incredibly so. The teachings insisted all adventurers must have the possibility to survive and make off with the treasure. Something a lot of members disagreed with on the grounds that every time some wazzock in a silly hat made off with an ancient treasure, it had to be replaced with an identical one. All of which came out of the pockets of the order. There were workarounds, of course; it was an open secret in the order that a lot of the contemporary replacements were cheaper metals, often pot metal or copper with a mere gold plating. As such, the higher membership was filled with people wracked with guilt that the treasure was merely wrapped with gilt. Of course, the diamonds and jewels in the eyes were real(ly fake, hey, even pot metal replicas don’t come cheap, and a vow of poverty will only take you so far.)

Today had been a long, hard, and very tiring day. For starters, one of their best hydras had gone and died without leaving behind a descendant. Meaning he had to find, lure in, feed, and entrap a brand new, and since they had no cage-bred left completely feral Hydra, and those things were bloody cranky. That and if given a choice between prime cooked steak or unfortunate dungeon resetter would usually opt for the be-robed and still moving option, even if they were not on the proposed menu. Then there was the issue that it wasn’t exactly tomb trained yet, meaning he would need to go in every single day for the next six months, or till the damned thing learned to use the bottomless pit like a civilised being and clean up with a shovel and brush. He didn’t sign up for this job to be a glorified zookeeper. (Hell, he didn’t sign up for this job at all, his dad filled out the application for him like running a bakery wasn’t enough work all by itself.) Then on the way out, he’d realised that the tomb was using the old mk2000 self-lighting braziers, which now had to be replaced with a newer (albeit identical looking, the order were very particular about historical accuracy and preserving historic infrastructure as authentically as possible,) model that didn’t require topping up with fresh oil every week, (seriously if he ever met this tombs, designers, he would deck them for that decision, and if he came across even one more tomb designed without future sustainability in mind then godsdamnit he was going to learn necromancy just so he could have the pleasure of killing them a few times, slumbering unspeakable evils lurking in the great beyond or not.) Would it kill them to remember just every once in a while that your fancy braziers are only good so long as your wood is not 1. wet, wet wood sucks at dramatically bursting into flame, and as such needs soaking in historically accurate flammable oil on a regular basis to raise the flashpoint to a tolerable level. 2. from a near-extinct tree that will in the foreseeable future become extinct, requiring some poor sod to raid every antique dealer in the world in a desperate search for an identical or close alternative that will, of course, catch on fire as soon as some pratt in a hat wanders into the tomb and sets the bloody things off. Or his personal favourite 3. crumble into dust from sheer age, that happens often enough you don’t need to worry about the traps killing the adventurer anymore, all that dust in the air? As a baker, he had quickly learned dust plus open flame leads to a bad case of terminal tan, and in this case, a ruddy tonne of paperwork for him, including some to explain why he had to hire staff who knew how to use a feather duster. In the end, he had justified that one by explaining historic accuracy required it as human dust somewhat ruined the believability of the inviolable air of the place, as no people means a hell of a lot less dust.

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Then came the worst news of all, a series of magic alerts from one of the other tombs. They were being set off backwards from the middle. That meant that this was the OTHER type of tomb; it wasn’t about pretending to keep something out. This was about keeping something in. That meant evil, possibly undead; they were like bloody cats. Try to keep em out; they want in, try to keep em in they want out, stubborn gits. This was going to mean so much paperwork.

“Brother Bodgejob,”

“Yes, Brother Fixuruppur?”

“May want to mark for overtime, oh and pack the extra thick masks.”