A few more days later, Enno starts realizing that no one in the realm appears willing to buy the prison annex even as its fixtures are removed, except for torch sockets, doors and windows.

“Bryzax!” Enno shouts across the palace’s great room.

“Yes, milord?”

“We must announce that the prison annex is put up for sale! We won’t be able to sell it otherwise! Also, we have yet to decide on voice actresses for the even-numbered bosses of the haunted park!”

“Milord, do you have any idea how much you think you can get for the prison annex?” the herald asks.

“Probably a rich merchant family could buy it, but the real savings will come from not having to pay for the upkeep of the annex and the prisoners. The faster the annex is sold, the better!” Enno then storms off to see Yutolio over at the treasury.

Oh goodness, I wonder how much it’s going to cost; a multi-floor castle tower is expensive as hell. Also, I wonder who would buy something that expensive… some noble’s sibling? Enno is left wondering who could even want to buy the prison annex. A foreign bank?

“Yutolio, how much did we collect in mortuary taxes since it existed? Or in taxes on repairs of high-end gear?” Enno asks the palace’s healer.

“About twelve thousand gold” Yutolio answers him.

“Damn… this haunted park will take forever to pay for itself! I still have five hundred seventy thousand gold to pay, and that’s not counting the loot system, nor the cost of the last two bosses!” Enno sighs, realizing that there are expenses he has already incurred. “The savings from the sale of the prison annex will take a while to materialize, and the best we could hope for is that some fief holder dies intestate, or at least sells it, before the park opens”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to kill off an heirless knight just to pocket the fief’s sales price, along with the quint and requinto associated with the sale, milord” Yutolio warns him. “If you had a noble criminal, perhaps you could then strip that criminal of land and title, but don’t provoke a noble into committing a crime, much less frame a noble for one!”

“Or perhaps some knight that has gone deep into debt for some reason and may look at selling their fief to repay their debts!”

Damn it… the banks won’t lend for haunted park construction, but will lend for high-end battle gear. We’ll need to go to the fair ourselves and auction off the prison annex! Enno starts wondering whether that will be enough since he realizes that he might be looking at a minimum of half a million gold more. And he is left in the dark about the loot systems’ cost.

The fair in question is held on the other side of the city relative to the executioner’s house, where the ghosts reside. Also, he doesn’t plan on going to the fair without Bryzax. And, of course, it’s the first day of the fair. So he has come to expect imported high-end gear to be sold, as well as magical alcohol, with tariffs to match, but torture instruments are nowhere to be found.

Upon arriving at the fair grounds, which are near the tournament grounds still being repaired, Enno makes his announcement:

“The city’s prison annex is now closed, and we are auctioning off the city’s prison annex! Ideal for storing a wide variety of goods, or for large families, the prison annex is a tower that also offers proximity to the palace!” Enno makes his pitch.

“Please be advised that any bids you place are exclusive of the requinto!” Bryzax announces to the fair’s attendees, before the lord states the sale conditions.

I’m lucky that the prison annex isn’t a fief in its own right, a possible bidder for the prison annex feels like he should bid on it, knowing that he would then only need to pay the 4% requinto on the purchase of the prison annex. Or really, any real estate property above a certain value. If it was a fief, then I would be looking at paying 24% in title transfer taxes on an already very high sum.

Various bids are then fielded for the prison annex, whose proximity to the palace and other upper-class residents of the city make it a much more desirable place than it was before the closure of the annex. But once the final bidder has named his price:

“Two hundred sixty thousand once, two hundred sixty thousand twice, two hundred sixty thousand thrice, sold!” Enno announces before the winner comes forward.

The priority is then to repay the debts these ghost torturers incurred to buy their gear, of which only part has been delivered, Enno starts thinking about how to use the money from the sale of the prison annex and the associated requinto. But essentially, the main conditions attached to the sale of the prison annex are that it must not be used for punitive purposes, nor for sanitation or as a rival haunted park.

With the purchase of the prison annex being confirmed, the buyer then proceeds to ask his banker, whose representative is in another stall somewhere else on the grounds, to draft a bill of exchange so that the buyer could transfer the cost of the prison annex to the Kaeshana branch.

With that said and done, the Haunted Park Construction Guild’s quartermaster is looking for Enno on the fair grounds:

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“Milord, I am Mardonion, the quartermaster of the Haunted Park Construction Guild. I met with your alcohol witch when you sent defective ghosts for repairs, she sold magical moonshine to us, would it be possible for the Guild to get another barrel of that moonshine?”

“Mardonion, you must realize two things: her magical moonshine is the residue from what she called practicing her rotation, and also the price is much higher since magical moonshine obtained by this method tends to result in unique vintages, unlike magical wine!” Enno retorts. “But I have another question: what progress has been made on the last two bosses of the haunted park?”

“The GM had the liches named after the two founders of the Bank of the Frontier since the details you provided about them seemed to match them to an extent, minus lichdom. Do you have any objections?” Mardonion asks him.

“Really? I wonder if the current leadership of the Bank has objections to raise; I believe the Guild should run the proposed names through them first! I don’t want to get into trouble with the BotF, and not the least since Tissaphernes took out a loan from that bank for the park’s loot! But as far as I’m concerned, I have no objections”

“One more thing: the GM of the guild has clearly expressed a preference for your alcohol witch as a voice actress since he had no luck trying to find a voice actress willing to play an alcohol lich!”

“There just aren’t a whole lot of theater actresses; it seems like girls prefer music or dancing if they do performing arts! Maybe the part is abhorrent to some. Follow me!”

Mardonion follows Enno to the palace, where he is taken to the kitchen. He finds Concetta and the other servants preparing ingredients for tonight’s dinner.

“What is it now, milord?” an annoyed Concetta asks Enno upon seeing him and another man next to him.

“This man is the quartermaster of the Haunted Park Construction Guild. He would like to buy another barrel of magical moonshine from you” Enno tells his cook, referring to Mardonion.

“The fair has begun already? Why wasn’t I told about today being the opening day of the fair?” Concetta yelps.

“Another thing: the guild master had no luck trying to find a voice actress for the last boss. So, for now, you would be his best choice for the alcohol lich part, lest you want an otherworldly actor’s voice to be used!” Mardonion tells her before she leaves the kitchen for another alcohol magic drill.

“Otherworldly voice actors? How do they sound?” the chef asks the quartermaster.

“The three ghosts have their original lines spoken by an otherworldly voice actor”

“I wouldn’t have known” Enno sighs.

Now I have a better idea why these three ghosts all sounded the same: their voices are that of the same otherworldly voice actor! A flash is lighting in Enno’s mind, even though his three ghosts having identical voices didn’t bother him in the slightest. What bothered him was their sadistic tendencies. Especially Tissaphernes.

“However, we already finished recording the park’s background music. With one three-minute track, a flutist and a harpist, we were able to record it in one day” Mardonion provides an update on the park’s BGM.

“I am not that picky about the park’s BGM, only I just want to know what style was in use. What that BGM is supposed to evoke” Enno asks the quartermaster.

“A false sense of safety. It would feel pretty eerie to listen to it. Also, often magical wards are installed inside ornaments or other fixtures, and music is installed inside the wards, which stops when the bosses are in battle, at which point boss music is played”

“How these wards are even maintained? All I kept hearing about magical ward maintenance was that Perseria failed to respect haunted park ordinances by failing to maintain the magical wards!” Enno asks a question he had no answer since the very beginning.

“Most haunted park operators sign service contracts in which they agree not to service the wards on their own. You need supplies such as sandalwood oil, incense, and myrrh to do so. Perseria might have fought Pandemonium, but the financial burdens of doing so was such that not even the revenues from their haunted parks were enough to pay for the war effort”

“Now I understand what made Perseria unable to maintain its haunted parks! They were in a delicate financial situation because of war! It must not have been easy for the city council to make the decision to terminate the service contract!”

Mardonion then turns to Concetta upon her return from the alcohol magic drill, from which she returns a little uncoordinated.

“I guess you must have made some good moonshine. It seems like Janick is...” Mardonion gets interrupted by the alcohol witch.

“Janick? Who the hell, hic! is Janick?” Concetta yelps, a little drunk.

“Janick is the park’s last boss. She is at an advanced stage of completion, and her mechanics are finalized. If you accept to be the voice actress for her, you will be told about the boss’ mechanics, but only to the extent that it’s relevant for you to record your lines! Promise me that you won’t reveal the boss’ mechanics to anyone until the boss is ready for testing!”

“I guess, hic! I have no choice, hic!” the cook tells the quartermaster.

“For now, all you need to know is that the longer the fight lasts, the drunker she gets”

Drat! That’s totally unlike her! All she really wanted up to this point was to cook and be an alcohol witch! Now, I don’t expect this part to make her famous, but has Concetta drunk too much, or practiced alcohol magic too hard? Enno wonders if she is making the right choice.

“One last thing: the last boss won’t be fully completed until the loot is, because the first phase involves four types of adds, with their own abilities and weapons”

“Really?” the lord seems a little surprised by the apparent need to wait until all the weapons the park will drop are ready. “You would think that you could conduct mechanical testing with the ghosts wearing only generic gear!”

“It might be easier to perform mechanics tests with ghosts wearing generic gear for magic-using ghosts, like Seloniel…”

“Seloniel? Is that some code name for the second boss?”

“Unless the Bank of the Frontier, or her descendants object to it, Seloniel is going to be the name of your park’s second boss. As for doing mechanical testing on ghosts wearing generic gear, your first boss has proven that even seemingly minor changes in weapons can have significant impact on their effectiveness, even with ghosts wielding them. For some reason, weapons only seem to affect ghosts’ combat effectiveness if they actively use their weapons to attack, whereas, for the living, even magic-users might see some difference”

“I suppose you had better luck trying to find a voice actress for Seloniel than you had for Janick…”

Mardonion turns to Concetta. “Just put the barrel of moonshine on my carpet; it’s parked a little outside of the fair grounds”

“Goodbye, Concetta… Stay safe!”

But really, Mardonion takes Concetta to the fair grounds, so that he can fetch Concetta’s barrel of magical moonshine on the palace’s rooftop, with the flying carpet and the other supplies he brings back to the haunted park’s construction site. And, after dropping off the supplies, they go to the guild’s HQ to record Concetta’s lines for Janick.