When they return to their prison cell later that night, Tissaphernes lets loose a mention of taking out a big loan to get all 3 aswarans the gear they feel they need to function as a haunted park boss. Which he had the trio put as collateral.
“The bank let you take out that loan without a living co-signer?” an astonished Bryzax shakes his head in utter disbelief.
“The onus is on you to repay the loan on your gear! How do you plan on repaying the loan?” an angry Yutolio asks the aswarans. “I hope you’re happy now that you commissioned the gear you wanted!”
“You already caused enough mayhem in town today, before you crawl back to your cell, you’d better tell us what a grivpanvar or a wuzurgan is!” Enno asks the ghosts.
“A grivpanvar is a lancer cataphract. Wuzurgans are the top class of Perserian citizens” Marzban explains to the trio of living before they return to the issues of loans.
“I have an idea for you to repay the loan to the Bank of the Frontier: we will no longer deny funeral services to executed convicts or to criminals who died in jail. However, families of such criminals will need to pay a fee before they can recover their loved ones’ bodies, payable directly to the executioner. For this reason I issue you three a limited executioner license, which lasts only for the next four fortnights!”
“Milord, you’d better pray for the park to be ready for ghost installation within that timeframe...” Bryzax points out.
“You heard the lord. You want to get the wards installed in four fortnights, we need to get to the Haunted Park Construction Guild! Now!” Marzban shouts in their direction.
Damn it! Where in the world is Saronium? Enno ruminates about the implications of not having her on hand for something as crucial to the safe operation of a haunted park as wards. Or even the design of the park’s other bosses. However, he’s left wondering where the offices of the Haunted Park Construction Guild are.
“I’ll stay here and take care of the palace while you’re away on official business” Yutolio announces while they leave the prison annex.
At this point, Enno gets to Concetta while Bryzax goes to the armory to equip his suit of armor for this trip. He is a little concerned about the dangers of the Guild.
“Okay, Concetta, maybe you could sell some of your magical moonshine and then pay back the five hundred gold...”
“Where, milord?”
“The Haunted Park Construction Guild. I must get my ghosts... repaired, if you will. Would you please come with me?”
“Please help me get the barrel of magical moonshine on the carpet then! The barrel’s heavy!” Concetta closes the moonshine barrel’s lid and then slowly rolls it on the floor. And Enno helps her in the staircase.
Once they arrive at the palace’s rooftop, the three loads Concetta’s barrel of magical moonshine on the flying carpet. And the ghosts follow shortly thereafter.
“You’re the one who brought up the Haunted Park Construction Guild. So you will fly the carpet to the Guild!” Enno bosses Marzban around, treating him like a direct vassal.
“As you wish, milord...”
Marzban proves to be adept at flying a carpet. And, despite the full barrel of magical moonshine weighing more than any two of the living people riding the carpet, it’s still much faster than riding even a warhorse.
Once they arrive at the Guild’s headquarters, a monastery housing wizards and a variety of artisans dealing in loot and in construction, they land at the front door in the dead of night. Enno knocks on the door:
“Open up! I have defective ghosts to repair!” Enno yells as he knocks on the door.
After hearing about defective ghosts, one of the residents of the monastery arrives at the front door. Who in their right mind would even call ghosts defective? a locus crafter ponders what the new respondent would even have to complain about.
“What do you mean, you have defective ghosts to repair?” one of the locus crafters asks the lord, while the ghosts are behind the other people.
“For some reason, some elite trash from Upper Perseria arrived in Kaeshana, and started gaining unpleasant personalities upon arriving here! They even try to take on lives of their own, and even break out of their molds as haunted park ghosts!” Enno explains the issues with his ghosts in tow.
“Honestly, sir, we had so many fights over gear and park financing with His Lordship here: he wanted to build a new park for his realm, but just because he secured a boss doesn’t mean his park is viable!” Marzban then gets interrupted in his explanations.
“He even forced us to take out a loan for us to get the gear we feel is necessary to have us function as a boss!” Tissaphernes adds his lament to their makers.
“It seems like they commissioned three sets of armor and weapons that are all fit for kings! They spent and borrowed a quarter of a million gold to do just that!” Bryzax laments.
“He believed our current personas would make us eligible for a limited executioner license, valid for four fortnights!” Ermahgerd’s anger starts to show. “The faster we get this business done, the better!”
There’s only one way to repay our debts using this limited executioner license: torture the richest criminals in custody, using instruments such as the rack and pinion, and bill their families at death! And we will be able to torture way more people than any living electricity wizard currently in Kaeshanian service can! Make no mistake, we will need to torture people day and night for four fortnights! Tissaphernes starts getting restless and can’t help but wonder how to operate a rack and pinion. And on whom to use it.
“Is it normal for ghost riders to get unhorsed when their mounts collide against walls?” Enno asks the locus expert.
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“I never heard of ghost riders getting unhorsed, much less when ghost mounts hit a wall! But that’s because I never heard of ghost riders riding to collisions against walls! What do you want us to do?” the locus expert asks Enno.
“Make sure they can be properly refitted for service as bosses! Ideally, they should, together, be about as hard as a Caladon Bog boss”
“I can’t guarantee anything, but we can always try!”
Enno then starts explaining what mechanics he wants for the cataphracts as bosses per difficulty level. Sure it’s easier for those loci crafters to adjust the power levels, and to some in the haunted park world, this process feels like adjusting a crossbow’s mechanisms for shot power.
However, the living soon realize these adjustments are easier than adjustments to the mechanics.
“Oh… the best that can be done would have ghost-specific mechanics. This means no mechanic that involves more than one ghost at a time!” the locus crafter tells him.
“I can live with that. However, I would like to get a quote to get a four-boss haunted park built in a quarry, please… of which only three new bosses need to be made”
“For that, you will need to wait on the guild master tomorrow. As much as no one wants to get haunted parks built anymore, don’t take construction for granted!” the locus crafter informs Enno. “In the meantime, I will let you sleep for free in the guests’ room”
Bryzax and Concetta then return to the carpet to fetch the barrel of magical moonshine that the latter plans on selling to the Guild. Given the weight of the moonshine, they feel it’s better to bring the carpet directly into the monastery than to roll the carpet out. Meanwhile, the defective ghosts are brought to the locus crafter’s studio where repairs are carried out.
“And do you have any need for magical moonshine?” Enno asks when Concetta brings in the barrel.
“We were running low on alcohol, so I guess magical moonshine is better than nothing”
“That will be five hundred and fifty gold” Concetta names her price for the barrel.
I guess, if they are going to be individualistic as parts of a boss fight, they may as well be the first boss, the gatekeepers for the rest of the park, Enno comes to the grim realities of where these ghosts are going to fit in the park, before going to sleep in the guests’ room. Do they even know they are going to be the first boss of my future park? They act as if they want to be the last boss of the park…
The other two just stow away the carpet as well as get the barrel down to the cellar, while the locus crafter outfits the three defective ghosts with test gear.
Much to his surprise, the aswarans accept that they will have to make do with this gear, but only because it’s for tweaking other aspects of their future as a haunted park boss.
The following morning, upon awakening, the guild master meets with Enno, asking for explanations for these defective ghosts.
“I heard from one of my locus crafters that you came in here with defective ghosts that escaped the park they were installed at?” the guild master asks the lord.
“Yes, and I plan to install them at a different park in the future that I plan on getting built. However, these ghosts are not ready for installation because the wards aren’t yet built! And I would love to have a better idea of the cost and timeframe to build a haunted park, especially considering that I have no trash”
“Why the absence of trash?”
“I kept hearing about how trash made the adventurer experience unpleasant, how some people preferred to take longer routes to evade trash than to fight them, so I may as well build mine without trash”
“Do you have any idea of what you have in mind? People won’t accept trash-free haunted parks without good reason, and won’t accept what we, in the haunted park industry, call cutscenes either!” the guild master reminds Enno of the harsh reality of putting this requirement in his scope statement.
“Simple: my prospective last boss feels like trash is useless, and feels like it’s more effective to have a handful of bosses than hordes of trash! And maybe even give my last boss a background in haunted park crawling, or trade! Or at least in life, if I want my last boss to be undead”
“Do you have a construction site lined up?” the guild master asks, wondering how that will affect the design of the park.
“Yes. We will even tour it with you if necessary!”
“It will be necessary, since designing wards, bosses and loot systems will depend on it! Just leave your defective ghosts here and then I shall depart, with any other people you feel is necessary to tag along!”
The guild master tells the aswarans to stay here while maintenance is underway on them, but then Bryzax and Concetta are both going with Enno to visit the site of the haunted park since neither laid their eyes on the quarry.
“You will fly the carpet, Concetta! These aswarans stay here for repairs!” Enno blares his orders to his cook, before turning to the guild master. “Speaking of repairs, how much do these repairs cost?”
“These ghosts are still serviceable, but the repairs still cost a few thousand gold. Still far less than a brand-new boss! But you haven’t specified whether it was a dungeon or raid that you wanted to build”
“I don’t think Kaeshana can afford a raid, so a dungeon, and I believe four bosses is best for the size of the site” Enno has a rough idea of how big that quarry is.
The foursome fly on the carpet, and Concetta pays back her overlord for the seed money she borrowed from him to get her to sell the fruits of her use of alcohol magic.
From the air, the quarry looks like a dried lake, with one crane still operational, and mounds of slag marking the boundaries of the abandoned quarry.
“Ok, I might be wondering whether magical wards can be put up in four fortnights’ time” Enno asks for the timeframe because he feels his hands are forced by the ghosts’ time-limited executioner licenses.
“Yes; we will be using the mounds on the perimeter, while we will need to get an ogive colonnade built at the entrance, along with some queue barriers”
“How much for the wards?” the lord asks for a range of estimates of the costs of building magical wards.
“About six to seven thousand for the colonnade and the queue barriers, and that’s the cheapest part of the park!” the guild master tells the two about the estimates. “The rest of the wards run about four hundred thousand gold”
Yikes! Even with the taxes on funeral goods and services, on repairs of high-end gear, as well as tariffs on magical alcohol imports, that’s going to be one expensive proposition! And I wonder whether there can even be another item that can be taxed without provoking the ire of the population, and that might bear some relationship to haunted parks! Enno starts wondering how much the remaining 3 bosses and loot systems cost will cost.
“As a down payment, we will pay for the repairs to these aswaran ghosts I call a boss, the colonnade and the queue barriers” Enno suggests the guild master.
“Magical wards protect the park against structural damage of any source, on top of ensuring ghosts stay in. You’re going to need a specific kind of magic potions to maintain the wards”
Upon returning to the guild’s headquarters, they return with more detailed design notes on the construction of the haunted park, along with more detailed information on what bosses can and cannot be installed in the park.
“So ideally, I would want a boss at the very entrance of the park, the second boss at the crane, the last two at the bottom of the quarry, with the final one spawning after the loot from the third one has been collected” Enno drafts a plan for the park.
“And then you want each of the first three bosses to drop a piece of an item that can summon the last boss?” the guild master asks the lord.
“If so, it’s the third boss that feels like trash is useless, not the last one”
The locus crafter responsible for the repairs to the aswarans then reports on the repairs. “The repairs are finished, milord”
“How much for the repairs?”
“This runs for eight thousand gold” the locus crafter hands him a bill.
What? If repairing ghosts costs that much, I wonder how much the other three bosses cost, Enno then reluctantly puts the bill so that he can ask a courier at home to get the 15,000 gold to the Haunted Park Construction Guild’s headquarters.
“I guess, it’s time to return home…” Tissaphernes sighs, wondering whether they will pay back the loan for their gear in 4 fortnights’ time.