Upon returning to Kaeshana, the ghosts are about to be given instructions on who they are authorized to torture before they return to the city’s prison annex. He also fetches the dha won at the haunted park before he leaves the ghosts to the prison annex:
“You are not authorized to arrest criminals on your own. You can only act on criminals that are already under custody. Also, Marzban, until your shiny new sword is ready, you will have to make do with this dha to carry out the duties that come with your limited executioner license. I strongly advise that you ask about a criminal’s family wealth before you torture one; other than that, you have complete freedom to bill whatever the criminal’s family can afford. We must show the population that wealth affords no legal mercy!” Enno instructs the prisoners before giving the dha to Marzban, while Bryzax is about to fly around the land for the announcement of a change in policy for convicted criminals’ funeral rites.
“My sword can’t come soon enough! At this rate, Tissaphernes’ halberd will be ready before my sword is!” Marzban then storms off with the dha, asking the jailers about the background of the inmates.
“We must torture them before you chop these prisoners’ heads atop the tower!” Tissaphernes retorts. “That way we can bill the criminals’ families twice! It’s the only way we can repay our debts!”
The ghosts start questioning the jailers about the crimes the prisoners committed, as well as their financial means. With the richest of them being made to lie on a rack and pinion, and the limbs fastened to the pinions. Tissaphernes mans the upper pinion, while Ermahgerd mans the lower pinion.
The two ghosts hear the screams of the prisoner loud and clear, and even the various parts of the prisoner’s body breaking: bones, tendons and so on.
----------------------------------------
In the meantime, Marzban goes to the prisoner’s home, where he breaks the news to his family, along with the bill.
“I would have wished to meet under better circumstances, but your husband died in prison. To recover your husband’s body, to pay for the costs of imprisonment, which is payable to me directly, you will need to pay…” Marzban then states his price.
“I get that my late husband’s crimes are horrible, but I didn’t think it was that expensive to keep him locked away!” the soon-to-be widower is bewildered by the cost of the death surcharge added to the torture fee, which Marzban described as the cost of imprisonment.
“You have four fortnights to pay whatever amount you can! Any owed amount after this date will be added to future tax bills!”
Ouch. If we can’t collect the 300,000 gold by the end of this license, I wonder what will happen with our debts! Will our lord assume them or not? Marzban starts to shake, dreading the consequences of not paying the debts the trio incurred to get high-end gear.
----------------------------------------
The following day, knowing that the haunted park would be far more expensive than just 15,000 gold, he prepares the 3 buckets of gold for when the Haunted Park Construction Guild comes to the quarry so that the construction of the park may begin.
“Please, Bryzax, we must go to the quarry again, and break ground on the haunted park! We let the whole process of building the park linger on for far too long, so while the site is now official, I don’t think the people will be too happy about it until the construction begins!”
“Milord, with all due respect, there’s no telling whether the local population will come to the quarry for such things as the groundbreaking of the haunted park, and maybe even laying its cornerstone! They may still want to protest its construction!” Bryzax warns his lord, both wearing formal clothing.
“The items taxed for its construction mostly affect the rich. Say what you will about magical alcohol, but it’s not an item the masses consume much. The rich tend to spend much more on funerals, and they also tend to have more of the high-end gear whose repair is being taxed! It’s not about who bears the burdens of these taxes!”
“Since you might be breaking ground on the haunted park, it might be a good idea to carry a shovel along” Bryzax gets out to borrow two shovels from sappers.
And so the two fly on the carpet, with three buckets of gold and two shovels, ready to pay the Haunted Park Construction Guild for the construction of the magical wards, the queue barriers, the colonnade and the repairs to the ghosts, which appear only to have made them able to function as bosses.
When they arrive, they realize the guild comes in with a few masons, stonecutters and carpenters, as well as a flying carpet to carry the loads. Especially the ogives.
And a mob from the neighboring communities marching on the construction site as ground is about to be broken. They approach what will soon to be the queue barriers, pitchforks and torches in hand:
“Down with the haunted park! Down with the lord!” the mob starts chanting while no work has been done yet.
“No haunted parks!” other people in the mob chant upon Enno’s arrival.
Chants along these lines continue unabated. And yet, the residents of the dying village, including its resident blacksmith, tailor and leatherworker, also come out to see what they perceive as their final lifeline come to life. As well as a few people who ran haunted parks across the world.
But because Enno feels like the crowd is still somewhat hostile to the park whose building is about to start, he stays on his carpet.
“This quarry was chosen by the population of the realm as the location for the future haunted park, in accordance with their wishes! Are you willing to throw away what the realm’s people chose?” Enno asks the mob.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
“Milord, everywhere haunted parks were built, death tolls shot through the roof!” a protester then throws a rock at Enno.
“Haunted park visitors usually took to adventuring because they had no other choice, like they’re orphans, vagrants or banished from other realms! Or otherwise nowhere else to go!” Enno retorts to the protester, narrowly dodging the stone with an upward carpet move.
Eek… If that’s how it shall be, I hope the guild’s security is enough to make this ceremony, for which I left the palace, worth the trip, and the money I’m about to pay the Guild. Which should cover a lot more than just building the colonnade or the queue barriers, Enno feels like the hostile crowd might be a little less hostile when they realize that some of these haunted park visitors might have died in an attempt to rise above their stations. Or were simply undesirables in society, especially for those who go in with little or no arms skill.
“Perseria proved that magical ward upkeep is essential to the safe operation of a haunted park!” Saronium adds from underneath Enno’s flying carpet.
“It’s a little early in the construction of the haunted park to worry about magical ward maintenance, that phase will take about four fortnights!” Enno retorts to Saronium as well as the carpet.
“In anticipation of the haunted park’s construction, I bought a cottage in this village” Mijanou adds. “Which I plan to turn into a tavern!”
“Who… are you?” Bryzax asks that person announcing the opening of a tavern, after his lord lowers the carpet.
“You might not remember me, but I ran the Caladon Bog with you. You were a new tank back then, and I didn’t introduce myself to you. I am Mijanou” the saber dancer introduces herself.
“Bryzax. And the other person on the carpet is my overlord, Enno, the Lord of Kaeshana, who is the sponsor of the haunted park!”
And the two get themselves into position while they get off the carpet, in the presence of other workers from the Guild. They take their shovels with them, with Enno putting the shovel where the base of the first column is supposed to be, and Bryzax, where the second column should be.
“Today, after much political handwringing, and unrest, the time has come to begin construction of Kaeshana’s new haunted park! May this haunted park revitalize this region and provide thrills to adventurers from all over the world, along with putting Kaeshana on the trade map!” Enno then proceeds to turn the haunted park’s first sod.
Meanwhile, the Guild is busy at work in the quarry to extract what little stone is left at the quality standards required for the park’s colonnade. At the same time, the queue barriers are getting built, with queues of different lengths: the first four queues, from left to right, are at most ten feet long.
In a matter of hours, the first four queues are completed, along with the excavation work required to put the colonnade in place. In the meantime, while the stones are being cut for the colonnade’s construction, the guild master meets with Enno in Mijanou’s tavern:
“I’m glad you brought in the payment for the magical wards. Or at least the bulk of it. However, the remainder of it must be paid upon completion. Even then, you still have a hundred thousand gold left outstanding just for the wards!” the guild master sets the record straight for the park’s construction.
“I would love to know more about the boss’ design costs, and whether there are other fees I need to watch out for…” Enno asks.
“If you don’t pay for the option of the background music being played when not in combat, then you’re at the mercy of letting some otherworldly entity decide for you. Against bosses, on the other hand, you have no such option in dungeons. You might have had it in raids, though”
“How much is this going to be?” Enno asks.
“Whatever musicians you can get would then need to record it in our magical room we call a studio, and this doesn’t come cheap. About a hundred gold per hour of studio time”
Bards in haunted parks are, more often than not, better archers than they are musicians. Flute, trumpet, lyre or harp are their instruments of choice otherwise, he starts thinking about whether the recording costs are worth the cost. And he also knows that local musicians he feels can be worth a haunted park tune aren’t going to record their music unpaid.
“Boss design costs then. I have only one boss secured, I have three bosses left to go. And I sure hope that the other three bosses won’t prove as expensive as the ghosts I brought in for repairs; these ghosts’ gear cost them about three hundred thousand gold”
“Believe it or not, it’s actually cheaper to design monster bosses than sentient ones, and also bosses without adds. Three hundred thousand gold is, yes, a little expensive for a dungeon boss, but not abnormal. However, you save some money on the loot system if you plan on the bosses wearing the gear they drop”
“And liches then?”
“While liches are undead, for planning purposes, they are the same as sentient bosses”
“Sentient?” a confused Mijanou asks.
The guild master turns to the saber dancer turned tavern owner. “Sentient ghosts, in the context of haunted park design, means ghosts based on people”
“Speaking of loot, I would want the cloth and leather armor to be based on what I and my herald are wearing respectively. Palette swaps are acceptable, so long as the whole set is consistent”
The guild master draws a rough draft of the cloth and leather armor that Kaeshana’s haunted park is slated to drop, but it crossed Enno’s mind that some pieces are missing. Namely, the axe, the mace, the two-handed sword, the dagger and the gun. If I am to have two liches haunting my park, I may as well have one of them wield an axe and the other, a mace. These weapons are common among living magic-users, so it makes sense that they wield them in death.
A few hours later, the guild’s stonecutters then inform the guild master that the park’s cornerstone is ready. They even have it on a carpet. A marble slab a little wider than a foot.
“That was quick to cut a cornerstone down to size for the park’s colonnade. I really wonder if people just fear the wards’ malfunction or they fear something else altogether” Enno comments on the cornerstone about to be laid. “The footprint of the haunted park is limited”
So while Enno gets to the first pedestal, the other eight pedestals are being carried to their positions so that all 9 columns in the entrance colonnade will begin construction. Luckily for them, the queue barriers are already spaced apart more or less where the park’s columns will be.
The weight of the cornerstone is such that Enno must take it slowly to hoist it from the carpet and onto the designated slot.
“With the haunted park’s cornerstone being laid, more than ever, the haunted park is going to be a reality!” Enno stays brief as the cornerstone is laid.
“Why make such a deal of the park’s cornerstone when queue barriers already had good progress made on them?” Saronium asks him, shortly after the cornerstone is laid.
“Were you there for other ceremonies of either groundbreaking or cornerstone laying?” Enno asks the traveling healer.
“No? Other haunted park builders tended to keep their construction under wraps; you’re the first haunted park builder who builds a haunted park under the public eye!”
“Damn, building my haunted park in secret would have saved me headaches! But there is no turning back now! I will live with the consequences of overtly building it!”