[Archived Short Story] Failed Dungeon Inspection

“Hmm. Hmm. Hmmmm.”

The man taps his fountain pen against his clipboard.

“No matter how I run the numbers, this dungeon is a little too dangerous. A one in twenty survival rate for people new to the dungeon, even after being properly informed of the dangers, is a bit too much.

“I’ll just mark that down here. Mhmm, I don’t know why this kingdom has put up with such a death trap. There are a ton of safer dungeons on this planet.

“Not that it is my problem. Just have to turn in the paperwork and I’ll be on my way to the next planet.”

And so the inspector smiled at a job well done, before heading off to continue his work in the bicentennial galactic dungeon inspection. All the while behind him, chaos spreads as the planet’s only dungeon deep enough to boost someone to a high enough power that they qualify to leave the planet.

Of course that is a bit of an exaggeration, nothing happens at first. In fact, a number of people even celebrated the closing of the dungeon to the general public. Hell, even the dungeon was happy with the change. Getting a few hundred years to rest before the Guild comes around and a new inspector who isn’t taking his job so seriously opens things up again.

This went on for a couple decades. There were a few less people getting off planet and into the various galcorps and star sects, but those things went in waves, anyway.

Then, after the fourth decade, the planet’s largest sect and the local branch of the Guild started to worry. Even though people were still getting out there, those were mostly people who had reached the bottleneck to travel the stars and had just needed to meditate on it. Now that those types had mostly left and there wasn’t a new batch reaching that point.

For most of the planet, that wasn’t the biggest problem, but for the kingdom that was built up around the dungeon, this spelled disaster. Of course, the disaster would eventually spread to the rest of the world, but that would take a while.

As it was, even this early, the kingdom’s economy faced a downturn. Without a new crop of potentials, fewer people visited. After all, while most didn’t like to admit it, the planet didn’t really have anything worth trading for. No, all those traders and travelers weren’t actually there to trade. They were there to keep an eye out for talent, a resource now drying up.

Suffice it to say, something needed to be done. The first step to this was of course getting the dungeon on board. No good getting an early re-grade of the dungeon when nothing has changed. While the inspectors used for this kind of stuff weren’t as bad as the last inspector, they are required to be a little stricter than not.

So, while they would like to pretend nothing was wrong. They couldn’t deny how deadly the dungeon was. In fact, the dungeon itself almost saw it as a point of pride.

It wasn’t like it was some murder maze either. The dungeon would be considered relatively tame on other worlds. Why it had such a high death rate had nothing to do with its own difficulty, but rather the fact that every other dungeon on the planet was basically child-proofed.

In the past, inspectors would see the death rate and be shocked, but after running it and the other dungeons, realize what was up. This was the first time an inspector had followed the word of the law instead of the spirit. They were the only inspector that even after running every dungeon on the planet, still rated the dungeon as too dangerous.

So, of course, the dungeon didn’t particularly want to adjust itself. It understood that part of its purpose was to prepare people for “the real world”, as it were. The fact that basically every dungeon death on the planet happened in its halls just meant the other dungeons were slacking.

Even fifty years in the dungeon was still being stubborn. After all, it isn’t like no one could enter its halls, only active Guild members. Sure, that cut out basically everyone, but the various royal families had numerous members and guards that couldn’t join the Guild because of conflicts of interest.

It was only sometime near the end of the first century that the dungeon began to worry. New had filtered back to the planet that not only had the inspector marked the dungeon as too dangerous. They had put a hold on it so that any future inspections needed to be carried out by a higher official as they had noticed similar death rates in the past despite it receiving a pass.

That meant in another century, things wouldn’t go back to normal. No more small time inspectors willing to fudge the rules when things were obviously out of whack. If the dungeon ever wanted to open to the public again, things needed to change, and fast. Not just for it, but the planet as a whole.

With news of the hold having gone public, even small time traders with regular routes in the area started to not show up. Sure, the planet wasn’t going to starve without them, but without the higher tier supplements that didn’t grow locally the entire planet would backslide in power.

Not even the people who had made off planet were able to help at this point. It isn’t like any of them were capable of even having their own ship. Sure, while trade was still active, they could at least send some of their pay back home, but now that avenue would likely be closed off.

Of course, one of the qualifications needed to freely travel away from your home planet was the ability to naturally travel through space, so in theory, any of them could deliver goods. Except for the fact that without a proper ship, even a trip from the closest populated solar system would take longer than even the vastly extended lifespans of those who had already left. Though even if that wasn’t a problem, the dangers of deep space are great enough that the chances of making it home weren’t even a double digit percentage.

It had taken the planet multiple thousands of years to reach its current position and that was only because the original settlers got lucky. If they fell because of this, it would take a magnitude longer to reach this point again. While this wouldn’t directly affect the dungeon, it would lose prestige among its kind. Which when you’re immortal and stationary, tends to end up being quite important to you.

So, in collaboration with the kingdom, the dungeon began to make changes. Traps were telegraphed quite heavily, with the dungeon even going so far as to make the first few encounters with a trap non-lethal. Even the monsters were changed with their claws and teeth blunted and armor changed to make weak spots more obvious.

After seven years of work and feedback from the various royal families, everyone felt the dungeon was safe enough and all that was left was to test it. This, of course, took another year before the paperwork made its way through the Guilds system. In the end, though, after a local official confirmed the changes, the kingdom received authorization to send in ten thousand people.

At first, the numbers were looking hopeful. It still wasn’t quite as safe a margin as would be preferred of course. Still, people were surviving their first dive into the dungeon at an unheard of rate. Except for one teensy tiny little problem no one noticed, at least at first.

The very first people through were old hands at this point. They might not have had a chance to delve into the dungeon, but they had been the people who had just reached a bottleneck right after it closed. So, not only had they been personally trained by people who had delved the dungeon, but they had a century of time to firm up their foundations.

Once those people had passed through, things took a turn for the worse. Not only did the rate of death jump precipitously, but if it was for that first group the death rate would be even worse than it had been before the dungeon got closed. The chain of experience had been broken so even with more safety features in place, people died in droves.

Even the non-lethal traps revealed why “non-lethal” doesn’t mean incapable of being lethal. Whether it was the people who managed to break their necks in the extra padded pit of deceptive shallowness or those who dodged the slow tossed foam balls and rammed right into their party members’ own weapons. People kept dying. Hell, the foam ball trap was triggered by a neon piece of yarn stretched across the hallway at mid-shin height.

The only saving grace was the guild allowed all ten thousand people to go through the dungeon. Of course, it wouldn’t do too much for the 372 survivors as they wouldn’t be allowed to continue delving into the dungeon. Still, those nearly 400 people would at least be able to train the next batch of people.

Plus, with all that data, the dungeon and various royal families had something to work with. So they set about making the dungeon even safer. At this point, even the dungeon had given up on making the first few floors lethal in any fashion.

Monsters lost the ability to claw or bite people, instead resorting to soft bumps. Any kind of trap that used swinging weapons had the entire weapon replaced with pool noodles. Holes that used shoot out darts and then foam balls were switched to send out puffs of air with a little sulfur mixed in so it smelled bad.

And having learned from all the broken necks, all the pits were filled in. Instead, the pit cover was made of a sugar plate so it would be harder for people to hurt themselves on the shards. Those plates, of course, were sugar white and like mentioned, didn’t have an actual pit below them. Instead, the original pit got filled with foam dense enough that you won’t sink into it all that much, but enough give so the sugar plate can break.

Of course, that wasn’t all. They spent over two decades on it this time. Some of the royal family members from the kingdom the dungeon was in, even wandered around in the place blindfolded. There were a few stubbed toes and an embarrassing lump on the head of one of them after the person didn’t put his hands out in front to not run into things, but otherwise safe.

So with all those changes they went to the guild again, feeling like they had made the dungeon safe enough. Not just on the first few floors, but as far as anyone could reasonably reach within a day of adventuring. Hell, not even a day of safe adventuring. They had people literally sprint through the dungeon non-stop to see how far they could get and then secured that far plus five extra floors.

They were lucky they made so many changes. Unlike the first time, the paperwork ended up taking a decade and a day this time because it was the second request. All those changes? Barely enough for the paperwork to be expedited or it might have taken up to fifty years, at which point the guild would have likely not bothered and just waited for the next regular inspection.

Still, they got approved for another ten thousand people. Though as they began to delve, all the royal families felt a headache. How can they be this unprepared?

Even with all the safety measures, people still managed to die at an impressive clip. Sure, they managed to improve the ratio by a little, but one in 18 to 19 surviving isn’t exactly going to get the dungeon re-opened. If it wasn’t banned, the dungeon would have in turn banned them from bringing in their own weapons and armor with how many managed to team kill themselves.

Of course, they weren’t all falling on one another’s swords. Enough were still dying to the completely neutered traps. Even the stupid not-a-pit falls managed to take a few lives as the floor had just enough give for people to trip and break something.

Sure, 538 people survived this time, but that certainly wasn’t enough and there wouldn’t be time for a third check before the next inspection. Instead, the dungeon and the royals all focused on every safety feature they could.

If not for the fact that to count as a floor to the guild, there had to be some challenge, the dungeon would have just removed all traps and monsters. It wouldn’t have even installed a maze, but rather just a really long tunnel. Still, they did what they could.

Scholars delved deep into guild law to try and find some loophole, or at the very least the minimum requirements to count as a floor. All the while every sharp edge was removed from the early dungeon. Even the stone was replaced.

On the floor, the dungeon put down the best rated non-slip safety mat design. The walls were grippy foam with multiple layers of density to better catch someone falling. In the end, the most common trap was designed to separate a group and limit how much damage they could do to themselves.

The decades passed as safety measure after safety measure got installed until finally it was time for the next bicentennial galactic dungeon inspection to happen. Of course, having been marked, the planet ended up being one of the last to be inspected. After all, they needed a higher ranked Guild inspector to do it and they were constantly busy even when it wasn’t inspection time.

After waiting 8 years since the event happened, the inspector finally shows up. Of course, the dungeon in question was left for last as it required more than just a simple look. Instead, every other dungeon on the planet got run before finally, the inspector authorized an entire one hundred thousand people to run the dungeon.

This was quite unfortunate for the kingdom as they had only been ready for 10k. Sure, they weren’t allowed to provide special training, but they could certainly take things away. Those ten thousand people had all complained nonstop ever since they got picked out as well.

In the end, though, it was worth it. While the back 90% really dropped the survival rate, those first 10k managed to steady things. It wasn’t quite a 1 in 9 survival rate, but it was far enough from a 1 in 10 rate that the dungeon passed. 10,652 people out of 100,000 survived their first encounter with the dungeon and with that the inspector signed off on its reopening.

Of course, while a lot of people managed to survive, it was seen as the lost generation. Only those from the 10k marked for training managed to advance enough to leave the planet and none of them felt any remaining attachments to the planet. After all, they had to go decades without their hover chairs and personal servant bots. What was the point of living if they were forced to do things like walk everywhere and pick up after themselves?