“One more thing: the construction of the park truly begins only when the first wards have broken ground. However, there is no other new construction of haunted parks planned anywhere else in the world” Saronium tells her host.
“Who supplies the kind of magical wards that can keep ghosts from escaping the park?” Enno asks the rental healer.
“That I don’t know. I know only that they require regular maintenance, and failure to observe maintenance schedules led to civil war in Perseria! Maybe you should contact the Supreme Council!”
The two best-kept secrets of the haunted park world are the magical ward builders and the loot-making systems. However, ghost crafters mostly keep to themselves, even though some information about ghost crafting is publicly known, Saronium muses.
“The Supreme Council... Who on the Council would even know anything about the building of haunted parks’ magical wards?” Enno asks her.
Marzban overhears the two. “You still haven’t told us about what angelic beacons did to their wearers!” he babbles in a creepy tone.
“All I ever heard about angelic beacons was that otherworldly entities controlled the wearers while activated, and they saved the wearers from death!” Saronium explains to the aswarans, feeling uneasy at the insistence of the ghosts.
“I can’t just... show up at the Supreme Council’s headquarters and ask about haunted park equipment!” Enno protests.
“You want us to become a haunted park boss, we need to have the right equipment! You sold our gear off!” Tissaphernes protests in turn. “We need new gear before the park opens!”
“Yeah, milord, we need weapons, armor of the same standard as in Perserian service, or we won’t be able to function as a boss!” Marzban yells at his captor. “And I want a caparison with tassels for my warhorse, lacquer and trim for my armor, with my own motif!”
“What do you think your station is as a haunted park boss? You sound like you want to be the last boss of my park!” Enno is about to lash out at his captive aswaran. “You may as well lacquer the armor yourself!”
Are all aswarans such crybabies? Enno, disgusted by this display of petulance, leaves the cell they are held in. And Saronium follows him out of the jail annex.
Feeling like haunted park matters are sensitive, Enno summons his herald to his bedroom.
“I can’t believe that these aswarans could be so... petulant! They had the gall to demand that we re-arm them before the park enters service!” Enno laments, while being reminded of how ornate Marzban wants his gear to be as a haunted park boss.
“You were the one who thought that you could save on the ghosts by using the aswarans under your custody as a haunted park boss!” the rental healer responds to the lord’s lament.
“They feel like being elevated to boss status should be accompanied with gear reflecting their status! But you have seen the consequences of these aswarans throwing tantrums earlier today! If that’s the cost of keeping these ghosts around as a dungeon boss, this boss is going to be the single most expensive boss of my park!” Enno keeps lamenting.
“That was a bad move, milord! You really think their old gear is worth more than the cost of their replacement gear?” Bryzax yells at his liege lord.
“What costs a fortune is the armor. Especially barding, but even a suit of lamellar heavy armor costs several times more than a xyston, a shamshir and a composite bow put together!” Enno retorts. “Maybe if we could refurbish armor from noble criminals, dead or alive, we can re-equip the ghosts for service as a haunted park boss for a fraction of the cost of making new armor!”
“If I may, milord, perhaps the loot of your new park could be modeled on the gear they will wear, or at least the heavy armor, polearm, bow, one-handed sword and shield! So at least make the heavy body armor count!” the rental healer suggests him.
“I think it’s a bit premature to think about the loot when the wards aren’t even up yet! Also, how often did you see bosses wear the loot you stand to win?”
The trio feels like it’s going to degenerate, but the dinner is almost ready, and the 16 champions are invited to it in the great room, along with Enno’s servants. Same goes for Bryzax, too. With spit-roasted meat, cheese, bread and apples being served.
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“It is my hope that, now that the population has had a chance to have a say in the decision, the tensions will abate across the land while the construction of the park gets underway. And we also secured a boss for this park to be built in an exhausted quarry!” Enno harangues the guests.
“Really? These three ghost cataphracts we fought would become a boss of the park? They gave us a run for our money!” the electricity wizard comments on the fight.
“I hope that you know what you’re doing, milord...” the vandal sighs.
“One question: how many of you have seen combat on militia duty?” Enno asks the champions who came to the palace. “These ghosts were actually banished ex-Perserian aswarans, elite heavy cavalry among the finest in the world!”
And so it appears that the majority did see combat on levy duty, but at least two didn’t: the vicar and the mentalist, for those who didn’t see any kind of levy duty.
After everything I heard about haunted park ghosts, I am surprised that Marzban even has a personality beyond its combat role at all, Enno has questions surfacing about his experience with the aswarans under his custody. The Caladon Bog bosses had clear limitations. How did Marzban even get the idea that being a haunted park boss is like being a lord, only that you get killed, whatever that means to a ghost, over and over? A direct vassal to me perhaps, but some level of lordship for sure.
“Milord, if you anger these captive ghosts more than you already did... your park will be dead on arrival! Treat these ghosts well, and you might still be able to make the most out of the park!” Bryzax warns him. “By locking them up in a cell like common criminals, you humiliated them!”
“They are common criminals because these ghosts disturbed public order and safety! They are locked up in the same cells as past criminals who committed similar crimes! They were maimed in the fight, it would not make sense to torture them!” Enno responds to his herald. “But humiliation is an aim of punishment!”
Later that night, Concetta returns from the trip to the broker with three buckets of gold since the ghosts’ old panoplies found buyers very rapidly. However, she spent the proceeds from the sale of the barrel of magical alcohol on an empty barrel and a new set of witch gear.
“I had no idea that a suit of aswaran armor was worth a bucket of gold...” Enno comments on how quickly such an expensive suit of armor could sell, as he looks at the 10-quart buckets filled with gold. “I really hope that this new dress will keep you motivated to keep practicing alcohol magic! Now, get these buckets of gold to the treasury!”
“I think I will need to save up to get my own besom and cask so I can sell magical booze on the market!” Concetta thinks that she should practice alcohol magic on the marketplace.
“I’m lending you five hundred gold, and you have three months to repay this amount! At five percent rate!”
Time to get myself a besom and a cask! He loaned me enough to buy a horse-drawn cart, horses included, and besoms cost about as much as a horse-drawn cart, Concetta then goes around town looking for a besom and a cask.
Perhaps if I could charge a tariff on magical alcohol imports if taxing repairs of high-end gear and funeral goods and services isn’t enough to pay for the haunted park’s costs! Or increase fines for preexisting crimes! Enno starts worrying about how to pay for the price of keeping a would-be dungeon boss happy with expensive gear. Marzban is probably one of the most obnoxious haunted park bosses in the world…
When he goes to sleep that night, Enno starts turning into his bed. He doesn’t seem to be comfortable…
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Enno assembled his advisors in the grand hall of the palace, while rioters were outside the gates of the palace grounds. They were demanding explanations for the sudden explosion of item-specific financial burdens: taxes on funeral goods and services, high-end gear repairs, tariffs on magical alcohol imports, additional fines for certain crimes… and now taxes on inn stays and healing potions?
“All these new taxes, and what do we have to show for it?” a protester hollered.
“This haunted park is still delayed and is about to bankrupt the dominion!” another protester hollered.
“When ghosts are roaming around the land, the living are suffering for nothing!”
“Down with our lord! Down with the haunted park!”
Back in the grand hall, the foreman of the haunted park construction site delivered the report on the status of the haunted park’s construction site.
“Milord, it seems like the haunted park is still several months away from opening, and several million gold over budget! Should we abandon the park?” a distraught foreman reported in.
“What purpose can we possibly have for an exhausted quarry otherwise?” Enno asked his advisors.
“It would take a few more million gold to finish the park, milord!” Bryzax told him.
“Everything began with these forsaken ex-Perserian aswarans that I decided would be a boss! They demanded to be outfitted with luxury gear at our expense, or there wouldn’t even be an unfinished haunted park right now!”
I really wonder if this haunted park is ever going to earn back what the realm spent on it… Enno shook when his advisors told him about the costs incurred to build it, and how the park was behind schedule. But at the same time, demolishing the haunted park would be an admission that I wasted so much money on that haunted park! I really wonder how it got to this point! Was there anything I could have done to prevent this from happening?
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The lord awakens from this nightmare. Is this how this whole adventure of the haunted park going to end? Money issues? Or inability to get the park built on time on top of that? The core information I need to even budget properly is, unfortunately, a well-guarded secret. But perhaps these ghosts could have a clue, and I believe they are those who would even make this park a reality at all… he starts sweating and hyperventilating.