The smell of roasted pumpkin filled the courtyard.
It didn't smell like the cinnamon-spiced lattes of my previous life. It smelled like sulfur, charred meat, and something surprisingly sweet. Like barbeque ribs cooked over a tire fire.
To the goblins, it was the finest perfume in the world.
I sat on my rock, watching them eat. The "Grave-Maw" pumpkins had been subdued, chopped up by my skeleton sous-chefs, and roasted over a fire made from the adventurers' discarded wooden shields.
The goblin children were gorging themselves. Their cheeks were stained purple with juice. For the first time since they arrived, their ribs weren't quite as visible.
"Delicious, My Lord!" Kob, the elder, waved a chunk of roasted carnivorous vegetable at me. "Truly, the flavor of death adds a certain... zest!"
I nodded slowly. Clack.
"Enjoy it," I said. "It cost us dearly."
I wasn't talking about the battle. I was talking about the spreadsheet floating in front of my face.
[MANA AUDIT][INITIAL RESERVES: 200][AGRICULTURE SPELL COST: -20][SANCTUARY UPKEEP (4 HOURS): -40][CURRENT MANA: 140]
I did the mental math. 140 Mana remaining. 10 Mana per hour upkeep. 14 hours.
I had fourteen hours before the barrier collapsed, the adventurers returned, and my bones turned to dust.
I looked at the happy, purple-stained faces of the children.
This is a classic startup problem, I thought, rubbing my nasal cavity. High burn rate. Zero revenue. And I just spent my seed capital on snacks.
I needed to cut costs. Ruthlessly.
"Kob," I said.
The goblin scrambled over, wiping pumpkin juice on his sack-tunic. "Yes, Great One?"
"The feast is over," I said, standing up. My knees popped like gunshots. "It is time for a performance review."
I marched into the center of the courtyard. My black cloak swirled around me.
"Assembly!" I roared.
The skeletons, currently standing around the fire staring blankly at the flames, snapped to attention. Bones clattered against armor.
"Line up," I commanded. "By department."
They didn't move. They just stared.
Right. They didn't know what a department was.
I sighed. The sound was a long, dry rattle.
"You ten," I pointed to the ones with the least rusty swords. "You are now Security. Your job is to stand at the gate and look scary. If it breathes and isn't green, stab it."
They nodded mechanically and marched to the gate.
"You ten," I pointed to the ones who had successfully farmed the pumpkins without losing a limb. "You are Agriculture. Go find more seeds. Do not fight the vegetables unless they swing first."
They shambled off toward the garden.
"The rest of you," I looked at the remaining eighty skeletons. They were a mess. Missing ribs, cracked skulls, holding weapons that were basically rust held together by habit. "You are Sanitation."
I pointed at the castle. It was a ruin. Rubble everywhere. Bird nests in the chandeliers. Dust thick enough to plant potatoes in.
"Clean it," I ordered. "If I find a single cobweb in the throne room, I will disassemble you myself."
The Sanitation Department looked at each other, then at the castle. They marched inside.
"System," I thought. "Optimization check."
[ANALYZING WORKFORCE...][SECURITY: OPTIMAL][AGRICULTURE: ACCEPTABLE][SANITATION: CRITICAL FAILURE]
Critical failure?
I walked into the castle to check on them.
It was a disaster.
One skeleton was trying to sweep the floor using his own detached arm as a broom. Another was trying to polish a statue but was just grinding dirt into the stone with a rusty gauntlet. A third had walked into a wall and was just keeping walking, endlessly bumping its forehead against the stone. Thump. Thump. Thump.
"Stop!" I yelled. "You're making it worse!"
They froze. The one holding his own arm tried to salute, but since he was holding his arm, he just slapped himself in the face with it.
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
"Inefficient," I muttered. "They are brainless drones. Without direct micromanagement, they are useless."
Direct control cost mana. Leaving them on autopilot cost nothing, but produced nothing.
I walked back to the throne room. I sat on the uncomfortable chair of fused bones.
"Status," I whispered.
[CURRENT MANA: 135]
Five mana gone in thirty minutes. Why?
[ALERT: WORKFORCE ACTIVITY INCREASED.][ACTIVE MINIONS CONSUME TRACE MANA.]
My eyes—well, my flames—widened.
"You mean..." I hissed. "They cost more when they work?"
[AFFIRMATIVE. STATIONARY SKELETON: 0.01 MANA/HOUR. ACTIVE SKELETON: 0.1 MANA/HOUR.]
I sank back into the throne.
I had just ordered eighty skeletons to deep-clean a castle. I had essentially cranked up the AC with the windows open.
"Halt!" I projected my voice through the castle. "Cease all operations! Everyone, freeze!"
Silence fell over the castle. The thump-thump of the wall-walker stopped.
I sat in the silence.
I had 130 Mana left. I had saved maybe an hour of burn time by stopping them. But a frozen company is a dead company.
"My Lord?"
Kob peered around the doorway. He looked worried.
"Are you... unwell?" he asked. "Your soul-flames are flickering."
"I'm fine, Kob," I lied. "I'm just doing the math."
"The math?"
"The cost of existence," I said. "It's expensive."
I looked at the goblin. He was smarter than the skeletons. He had a soul. He had agency.
"Kob," I said. "If we needed to find... energy. Pure energy. Where would we look?"
Kob scratched his large ear. "Energy? Like the blue stones the adventurers dropped?"
"Yes."
"The humans dig them from the earth," Kob said. "There is a mine. Two days North. But..."
"But?"
"It is guarded. By the Kingdom's soldiers. And they have... The Sun Priests."
Sun Priests. That sounded like hard counters to a Skeleton Lord.
"Too risky," I muttered. "Not with my current assets."
I looked around the throne room. My eyes landed on the back wall. behind the throne.
There was a door there. A heavy, stone door carved with screaming faces. It had no handle. It had no keyhole.
I had noticed it yesterday, but ignored it in the chaos.
"What is that?" I asked, pointing a bony finger.
Kob shivered. "The Deep Crypts, My Lord. Even the previous... master... never opened it."
"Why not?"
"He said the rent was too high."
I paused. "The rent?"
I stood up and walked to the door. I placed my hand on the cold stone.
[DUNGEON DETECTED: THE CRYPT OF THE FIRST LORD][STATUS: SEALED][ENTRY FEE: 50 MANA][REWARD POTENTIAL: HIGH][DANGER LEVEL: EXTREME]
50 Mana. That was five hours of life. If I paid it, I would have less than 8 hours remaining.
But if I didn't pay it, I would run out in 13 hours anyway.
It was a gamble. A gamble with my literal life force.
"Success," I whispered to the empty room, "is just failure with better marketing and higher overhead."
"Kob," I said. "Gather the Security team."
"My Lord? You wish to... attack the humans?"
"No," I said, tracing the screaming faces on the door. "We are going to do an internal audit."
I needed that loot. Whatever was in there, it had to be worth more than 50 Mana.
"But My Lord," Kob stammered. "If we open it... what comes out?"
"Hopefully," I said, "a refund."
I focused. I pushed the blue energy from my bones into the stone door.
[PAYMENT ACCEPTED.][MANA: 80/200]
Pain shot through my arm. My radius bone developed a new hairline fracture. I gritted my teeth—literally—and pushed.
RUMBLE.
The stone door groaned. Dust fell from the ceiling.
Slowly, agonizingly, it ground open.
A blast of stale, frigid air hit me. It smelled different from the rest of the graveyard. It didn't smell like dry dust.
It smelled like ozone. And... fresh blood?
[SYSTEM ALERT][SANCTUARY EXPANSION DETECTED][NEW ZONE ADDED: THE DEEP CRYPTS][WARNING: ZONE CONTAINS HOSTILE ASSETS]
"Hostile assets?" I repeated.
From the darkness of the crypt, two red eyes opened.
They weren't the blue, cold flames of my undead. They were burning, angry crimson.
A low growl vibrated the floorboards. It sounded like a chainsaw idling inside a metal drum.
Grrrr-clank. Grrrr-clank.
"That," Kob whispered, backing away, "is not a refund."
I stepped back, raising my staff. My Security team—ten skeletons with rusty swords—formed a shaky line in front of me.
A figure stepped out of the shadows.
It was a suit of armor. Massive. Black iron. Spikes on the shoulders. But there was no body inside. Just a swirling red mist. And it was holding a receipt—no, wait. That was a giant axe.
[ENEMY DETECTED: BOUND ARMOR GUARDIAN (ELITE)][LEVEL: 15][YOUR LEVEL: 1]
I looked at my rusty skeletons (Level 1). I looked at the Elite Guardian (Level 15).
I looked at my Mana (80).
"Okay," I said, my voice cracking. "I think we made a calculation error."
The Guardian raised the axe.