Once upon a LABYRINTH, it turned two hundred. Today. Yes—today the LABYRINTH reached its bicentennial, though between you and me, I reached it first. Or with it. Or because of it. The HR paperwork is unclear.
Anyway, have I ever told you my name? Probably not. So listen up, because I bill by the minute and I will only introduce myself once. I am RINTH. RINTH who works in LAB Y, hence LABYRINTH. The synergy looks great on corporate slides.
My work in LAB Y is of a… final nature. Naturally, this places me in upper management. Final Boss of the so‑called LABYRINTH. Some adventurers even call me its god. To that I say: palindrome. Because really, if "god" backwards is "dog," I know exactly which role would come with fewer complaints and far better treats.
But no, the board (there is always a board) insists I am… important. They worship KPI spreadsheets more than deities, anyway.
I chew pumpkin and goat cheese while pondering strategy—as one does when balancing architectural dread with administrative dread. Work is war. Swords win battles, but not meetings. Meetings require words, weapons so sharp they file workplace incident reports all on their own.
If anyone could cut me down, it would be words, but that is a lab secret. One I unfortunately revealed to a pen-wizard who made it through orientation—sorry, "countless trials." He bragged about his wand named Pendragon, a real dragon of a pen, a fountain-pointed nightmare.
"Mordred," I said, cutting clean through the grandiosity of his introduction. And like all cutting remarks, it worked. Mordred became more dread and more dread. More dread. More dread. MORE DREAD.
Pendragon fled—no two-week notice, no courtesy email—leaving the wizard to face his very dreadful performance review. It was so bleak I had to binge-read Judge Dredd: America just to rebalance my humors. Grim stuff. Very on-brand for the LABYRINTH.
Not LAB Y, of course. I keep it brightly lit. Every morning I proclaim, "Let there be light," and usually the light comes on. Other days there's lightning, then thunder, then an explosion that adventurers insist is a trap firing. Honestly, adventurers are superstitious. And incredibly gung-ho.
Gung-ho about treasure. Gung-ho about princesses. Gung-ho about rare weapons.
But ask them for their origin story? Their home world? What they are running from? Suddenly they act like I'm the villain for requesting a mandatory failure-exit interview. The choices are simple: Tell me your tale, or perish.
Surprisingly, they always talk.
And those tales? Those stories?
They are the only reason I haven't left LAB Y. Well—those and the fact that Final Boss looks phenomenal on business cards. Far better than "RINTH the Scientist."
Though I suppose both titles technically come with healthcare.