Boring Monks

It was a mess.

Darkness and confusion. No one knew where they kept the reset key anymore. Over the ages things had just worked no one bothered to check how to fix things if something went bellyup. They knew there had to be a key somewhere that reset everything, all thanks to the human-sized keyhole that said 'insert and turn to reset' in the middle of the control room.

The temperature thermistors were going out of whack without sufficient feedback from the central control. They were decoupled enough to run steadily for thousands of years, the calibration was not going to be maintained going forward. Winters came longer and earlier, summers impotent and shorter. They called it the everlasting winter.

Amidst the confusion there was a group that grew and thrived. The Most Venerable Order of Boring Monks saw its ranks triple over a matter of half-a-year. A warm bed to sleep at night and two hours during the dry, two square meals a day, clean water to shower, and a company of a large number of similar-minded men and women. These were all one could ask for in these testing times. Alcohol was banned and so was loud music and dancing, but any sort of physical fraternization would be overlooked. All in exchange for reading the hymns, making physical copies of all available knowledge, and two hours of physical labor. The potatoes weren't going to grow themselves, harvest, clean and cut themselves, and fry in the pans. That was the other complaint. The major one. Food consisted of only the heartiest of grains and vegetables, which meant potatoes played a very big part in the diet of the Monks. Meat and eggs were reserved for special occasions.

The order wasn't meant to grow in the manner that it id. It was founded originally by a group of men -- and later women -- who had abstained, often involuntarily, from sex and merrymaking of any kind. Unlike there more violent counterparts, the Celibates they called them, the Boring Monks had no strict rules barring fraternization between the sexes. As the membership swole, the identity of the group changed, they went from involuntary abstainers to voluntary abstainers, and finally the semi-abstainers. Sex didn't feature prominently in the lives of the members of the Most Venerable Order.

It wasn't not much after the incident that some higher-up dunderhead decided to take the name of the order too literally. The point of the existence of the order, it was decided, was to bore. We already bore everyone your honor, someone had quipped during the extended meeting. The order decided tunnels were the way to go. Under the mountains, under the sea, across the valleys, beneath the dying trees. The stores would be underground, the meeting halls too. Overground would be limited to living quarters, farming, and relaxing. For no reason other than to satisfy their name, the order had gone underground. They should ban farting downstairs too, someone had joked in the newly-built corridors, which was overheard by a supervisor. It was promptly implemented -- overground was the designated fartspace. A region of impurity. Where no senior Monk should have to go to.