been stimming with the idea of making an oc that's pmd dungeon trap bait, just to justify the kind of character that's still embarrassed in pornworld where kink traps are just as commonplace as a chestnut trap
explorer Fennekin named Aela, explores alone, no matter what dungeon she goes to she always ends up stepping on some comical dungeon trap and stumbling out in a triple diaper or tranced or locked in a substitute doll kigu or something.
everyone thinks she's doing it on purpose because of how much it happens, but she strongly maintains every time that it was an accident when she waddles back into treasure town in whatever porn scenario she got stuck in this week.
she spends half her time off of missions getting curses removed, usually leaving some bit of impact even after the removal (she's definitely at least a little incontinent after all the diaper traps she's stepped on). she even has a bright pink collar permanently around her neck that she got early on in her career that can't be removed.
i think it's also important that she's still a good explorer even with this ontological dungeontrapbait status. sure, if you call her for a rescue she's probably gonna end up coming up to you muzzled and with a comically large tail dragging her down, but she *is* coming up to you and is still gonna get you out with her explorer badge. the fact that she's still a pretty good explorer despite everything 95% of the time just makes the dungeons where she does lose and gets kept as the brainwashed pet of a Salazzle for a month all the more embarrassing.
You know how, in stories where some treasure-hunting adventurer goes into some ancient lost ruins in search of a particularly special artifact or treasure horde, and there's all these traps left behind by some civilization so long gone that the ruins are all overgrown with jungle vine, moss, or some other form of vegetation (or it's filled with snakes, beetles, or some other vermin) with or without crumbling stone, worn rope bridges, or some other signs of the structure being old and worn...
I gotta ask, if the place has been protected by traps since it was built, then why would any part of it show wear of any sort other than old age alone, looking like countless generations of people wore down stone steps or bridges or whatever else? Have there really been THAT many people who tried to break into this place? (Also: Do the vermin never set off the traps accidentally?)
BUT MORE THAN THAT: if it's so long abandoned, old, and untended by a lost civilization that (presumably) is no longer there to tend it, then why do the modern-times adventurers come across multiple skulls/skeletons and other signs of previous would-be raiders having been killed by the traps... which are still sitting in wait, ready to be sprung by the next attempt? Is there some secret hidden someone who lurks around, just waiting for people to get killed by the traps, and then who resets the crushing room and the wall spikes, opens the fallen-down stone doors, closes the trap doors, refills the stock of poison darts and/or arrows in the walls, puts back any large rolling boulders, and rebuilds crumbled statues and other stoneworks? Also, if everything is so old that rope bridges might fall apart at any moment, why would the trap mechanisms not also be falling apart? Why should they work as well as they ever did when they were first made? Organic material components break down over time, metal can corrode in environments where there's enough water present for plants to grow or vermin to thrive, and even stone mechanisms would eventually wear down if the traps have been set off countless times before.
(am now picturing the Knight in The Last Crusade who guards the Grail, waiting centuries for the right person to come along, and most of the time, even if someone does show up, they don't even make it to the inner room to fight the Knight, so after waiting a respectable time after hearing the traps in the outer passages get set off, he's saying to himself: "Well, I guess that's another one who didn't make it very far. Better go reset the traps." )
SO:
In your dungeon, who would reset the traps?
Fairies, gremlins, magic somehow indefinitely sustained by some secret power source, perhaps the very creeping vines that cover the walls have enough intelligence and freedom of movement that they are in charge of dungeon maintenance...
...or maybe it's this guy?
" 'Ello. "
(btw, am now also imagining some kind of scenario where there's an entire working dungeon ecosystem (on purpose), where the artifact in the ruin provides energy (instead of sunlight) to the plants, which perform maintenance (including trap-resets) and where insects feed on the plants, larger vermin feed on the insects, and dumb wandering animals larger than the vermin feed on them... and also randomly set off the traps, which provides the important function of routine testing to make sure the traps are working smoothly as designed. Alternatively, the larger fauna (such as gremlins) might perform maintenance instead of sentient flora. "Oh, hear that? There goes the trap in corridor 2-57G. Today was Bob's turn to test there, I wonder if he survived?" )
(alternatively, are none of the traps actually automatic at all, but instead all function by some life form(s) in the walls manually setting each one off, firing each individual dart, moving the spikes and walls and trap doors because they are always watching for intruders to come by? The sci-fi equivalent would be that nothing would be set to automatically go off, but instead some kind of dungeon/spaceship/building master-control AI is watching everything all the time and chooses each trap to turn on at just the right time... a fantasy-world equivalent of THAT would be some magical being with a crystal ball (or hundreds of them) watching everyone who enters and choosing what perils to inflict on which people, and when. (Like a GM in an RPG, haha)
(Note: Totally am NOT planning to use any of this stuff for anything anywhere in my writing, just couldn't help thinking about it when watching Indiana Jones movies... so it is all up for grabs for anyone (or everyone) who might want to use it, that's why it's here.)
(hoping it won't keep taking up space in my head, causing me to think of more and more related concepts)
btw if i do more posting about Aela the Fennekin aka little miss dungeontrapbait i'm gonna be doing it on my noterook so if you love her you should look there
