I woke up on the day of the dungeon apocalypses like any other normal work day. I rolled out of my bed in my RV, took a quick shower, made coffee, turned on the news, and nuked a quick and cheap breakfast. The beer I had the night before was still on my breath so I would have to brush my teeth but until coffee was consumed nothing mattered. This was just another hot summer day in many hot summers I had as an on site safety inspector. The plant I was working at was in mid turn around and they were paying me to stand around and make sure no one got hurt. Well, more like they paid me to do the paperwork if someone got hurt because the company really didn't care if their contractors got hurt. After all I also was a contractor so I could be replaced if work didn't get done or someone lost a finger.

It wasn't always like this. I started as an OSHA certified Safety Inspector back in the early '80s shortly after OSHA was founded. Back then the education of proper workplace safety and everyone going home at night was a hot topic. Now everyone thought the extra time spent on safety got in the way and made their work day longer. Fresh out of high school kids mocked me for trying to make sure they didn't lose a hand, but they were young and full of "piss and vinegar" like I once was.

Moving back for a moment: I am a 63 year old man with completely gray hair that's a little too long. I am overweight, out of shape, Harley riding, complete badass, and still a womanizing MAN. All but that last one anyway. My late wife died about 3 years ago now and I can't bring myself to go after another lady. She was the thing that kept me going. Even after we had kids I still had my eyes on her first, although I never told my kids or her that. My kids are now grown. One is 23 and the other 28. We had kids a little later in life and while we did our best to set them up in life to not have to be blue collar workers like Ol' Dad. We succeeded. One is a programmer on the West coast and my youngest moved off to live with her Doctor husband and is a dentist assistant. We make it a point to talk at least every Wednesday. Since we're all busy it's hard to find time in different time zones. We try to stay close and they really are the reason I am still going all jokes aside. It wouldn't be hard to find time if I had a typical 9 to 5 like my kids. Unfortunately that was not in the cards. The shitty part about being an on site safety inspector is the 4 or 5 months worth of 12hr days every summer.

I could find a more consistent job but man it's nice having over half the year off. I make ~72-85k in the summer months working every single day of an industrial plants "turn around" and then take the rest of the year off. It works out well for me. At this rate I'll be retired in 3 more years and I'll be able to womanize and bother my kids all day long. Well at least bother the kids. No one wants an overweight 63 year old man but appearances must be kept up. I still feel like that young hippy I was in the 80s when my wife and I met. I actually don't want another woman in my life. It's just that I work with young tradesmen who spend their entire paycheck a day after they get it. During turn around the local bars and strip clubs make money hand over fist. It's not unheard of for women to be in this line of work but this summer there aren't any in the group I am overseeing. All guys. One big sausage fest of testosterone and ball sweat. It's as fun as it sounds.

Enough about me, let's get back to my last day on earth.

The coffee pot is now full, my breakfast is ready, and the TV is on. It's 4:30AM and my day has started. I've got to be on site in about 30 minutes but the work site is only 10 minutes away from my RV. I always find a campsite close to the plant to avoid long commutes. Some guys refuse to get an RV but this ol' baby has saved me tons of money. I have a small comfortable house in Arizona but having to travel 4 or 5 months a year makes having an RV a necessity in my wise old opinion.

My morning ritual is done, it's time to ride. I grab my thermos, backpack of tools, half helmet, leather biker vest, and dawn my ride. I have a nice clean 2005 Harley-Davidson Dyna Wide Glide. It's got a bad ass custom gray paint job, lots of chrome, after market pipes, and ape hangers. It's my baby. I might not love this bike more than my kids but it is a close thing. I set off and soon I'm off the gravel of the camp site and on the highway headed to the plant I'll be working at today. Not shortly after I get on the 2 lane highway a lifted black matte trick comes screaming by me and blaring its horn. It's Tyler again. This is a daily occurrence. The old man drives too slow for the young whippersnappers. It then dawned on me that I forgot to brush my teeth. No big deal Tyler keeps a bottle of mouthwash in his truck. Won't be the first time we're both red eyed going through security. Won't be the last.

I pull up only a few minutes behind Tyler. He's standing leaning up against his Truck talking to his pipe fitter. They've been on numerous job sites with me and I run into them a lot. They might not be "Safe" all the time but they are good about being actually safe. They know I am not the kinda guy to write them up for no reason so we've been friends for a number of years now. They know how to actually be safe and it doesn't involve being tied off working 6' off the ground with a 15' fall protection lanyard. I cut them slack because they don't cut corners on the important things. They aren't stupid.

I pull up next to Tyler's truck, pull in my bike's clutch, and "Let 'Er Rip" for a moment. I revel in the sound of this bad ass bike and the deep throaty rumble it makes. Tyler is trying to shout something knowing no one can hear a damn thing over this beast. Another mornin' tradition. My fun over I kill the bike and walk over.

"Hey old man you gonna ever go over 30 on that thing? I think that ol' beauty would appreciate moving in the fast lane for once. Why don't you let me give 'er a go?" Tyler started off. "Sure just as soon as you let me go hill hopping in your pavement princess". We go back and forth for a minute before I open his back driver side door, grab the mouthwash, and poor a bit in my mouth and rinse out the beer smell. Tyler's pipe fitter Jason laughs because of my audacity. "I owe you one again. Next bottle is on me" I say. Tyler shoots back with "I'd prefer it if you got us a bottle of schnapps next time but yeah that'll work". We joke around but we're not the ones actually drinking on the job. There are some here who do but not us.

We begin walking towards security and Jason starts mooing like a cow. The other Welders and pipefitters start mooing back in response. This isn't unheard of but it is a new tradition for this site. Jason and the other workers are doing it to piss off the plant management. It seems to work but they can't just fire all the contractors and get new ones. Sure one here or there might be doable but there's shareholder profit to think of. Someone think of the shareholders. Besides those dickheads are forcing mandatory 6 day work weeks for the laborers. I at least volunteered to do my easy job every day, they got roped into it by management. It sucks for them so I understand the resentment.

We make it through security just fine and I walk over to my company provided golf cart and take off at the slow, safe speed of 8mph. Why 8mph? Because OSHA did a study and found that almost all golf cart injuries involving someone being ejected from the golf cart happened in golf carts traveling over 11mph. It still beat walking like the manual laborers have to do. I stopped to pick up the plant supervisor and one of the managers walking along. They had a golf cart but there's broke last week and it's currently out for repairs. They couldn't take my "safety wagon" per company policy so I picked them up. We headed off for the morning managers meeting and I get ready for my safety talk.

The meeting was boring as always. They wanted me to give a talk on staying hydrated and the need to take extra heat breaks working in temperatures over 110°F. The temperature was going to be sweltering hot today so that meant work was going to be slow. Crews were going to work for an hour, take a 15 minute break in a cool area, drink water, and continue. The boys all knew this. It was a standard thing. I still had to give the speech. I waited a few minutes and corralled everyone inside the break tent. Everyone was forced to wait inside before getting their morning assignments and paperwork.

I started my speech:

"all right everyone the big wigs at *pretending to check notes* Casper-Frami wants to make sure everyone is drinking plenty of water and taking their heat breaks. Now I know everyone here just wants to rush away their 12 hour day and get absolutely the most work done but I am here to remind you that being safe is the #1 priority and I don't want to be filling out any incident reports today. That's a lot of paperwork and my handwriting sucks. Everyone understand? Cool. Stay safe, make good choices".

Was it tongue and cheek? Yeah. Was it stupid to remind workers to take their damn breaks and to drink water when they're sweating their ass off every day in 100 degree weather? Yeah. It made the guys chuckle and in my experience was the best way to make sure everyone actually paid attention.

Normally this is where everyone would break up into small groups and the foreman would commence chewing ass of anyone who was slacking off yesterday. Instead the work group and I all fell to the ground as a new system message popped up in all of our faces and the ground started shaking. It wasn't even 5:30 am yet and the world as we knew it had ended.

"Congratulations! Your world has been selected as a beta testing site for a brand new state of the art planetary governing system. This system will be run by an intelligent and good looking planetary system AI that will alter the way you live on "My '' new planet. Instead of a boring industrial civilization like you had you're now going to be fighting for your lives in a dungeon filled subterranean civilization. Say goodbye to the sun because it's gone forever! You're now going to be using new classes I create to survive in a world of traps and monsters where you have absolutely no clue where your next meal is going to come from or IF it's going to come at all. Please keep your hands and feet inside the drop portal at all times while we relocate existing family groups and say goodbye to all that nice technology you love".

The ground fell out from all of us and we fell into complete blackness. It was a rough landing and a lot of cursing happened before the lights came back on.