Coalstone Lunch — Miners, Machines, and Mild Existential Dips
Coalstone smells like ambition and rusted lullabies; Resorexia Gloomweaver rules it like a CEO who learned etiquette from a spider and bookkeeping from a hydraulic press, and the village answers with a rumble that is equal parts hymn and complaint. On a plateau day that tasted faintly of ore dust and the polite regret of broken boots, I joined the miners for their noon break because a cat who knows policy also knows where the best gossip and the sharpest knives are served—figuratively, I mean; there are actual knives and we all have better manners here. The lunch circle sat in the shade of a slag-heap that the municipal engineers have stubbornly labeled "reclaimed public art," though everyone knows reclaiming involves a lot less art and a lot more muttered curses. Around me: a dwarf whose knuckles still registered in calluses like small topographies, a beetle‑jawed beastman with tattoos that read like maps, a human foreman whose lunch pail carried more receipts than food, and three android apprentices who pretended synthetic tea tastes better when you try really hard to smile. Also present, by minor inevitability, was the occasional hired mercenary who'd taken early retirement from the Gunslingers and now made the quality assurance rounds—someone has to test the morale.
They were an interspecies chorus of practical misery and quiet pride, and they ate like people who know the work will hurt but must be done so bread can be purchased and children kept from learning hunger as a curriculum. I hopped onto a crate, tail flicked, and announced my presence with a purr that reads like a mic drop. The dwarf, who introduced himself as Harn Ironthumb and carries the kind of understatement forged in coal, looked up and offered me a piece of smoked jerky as if I might be inspecting his table manners. I accepted—civility matters—and the beastman, Olun, grinned with teeth like little harvest moons and asked, "So, Benetton, the feline of statecraft, what do you think of our new work rota?" Their work rota was a marvel: three shifts, two conveyor belt redundancies, and a mandatory siesta for everyone over fifty because Resorexia is statistically unkind to anyone who ignores naps.
They talked shop the way old soldiers talk about weather: specifics first, elegies second. Harn explained the new seam being opened under Permit 27A: "It goes down slow; the strata swings like it's got mood lighting. Reorexia wants yield up by twelve percent this quarter, so we jack the pressure and hope the supports hold. We use a hex-batten to brace and the Delta-03 lads come in to spool the pilings—nice folk, loud—though the new warding gel keeps misbehaving when rain's bad." I nodded, which is a complicated feline yes—part amusement, part judgment. The beetle-jawed Olun sniffed and said, "We sign the bonds. We plant the markers. We sing the chants to the ore because it likes rhythm. But management keeps asking for faster, fewer breaks, and their 'efficiency consultants' keep filing charming little disparagement notes about 'cultural inefficiencies.'" He spat into his palm, rubbed his jaw, and smiled like someone who'd rather bite policy than accept it.
The human foreman—Jarro, who always looks like he's ready to both weep and produce a spreadsheet—pushed a thin sheaf of papers forward. "Resorexia signed a new clause last harvest: automated rostering if we miss yields. Robots will pick if we can't—same contract that gives them rights to refuse unsafe routes. We love the autonomy clause, but there's worry: if androids get jobs that pay better and the robots unionize for ergonomic rights, what then?" The android apprentices, who listened with the kind of patient curiosity reserved for both ethics classes and new firmware, chirped in with polite tones. "We will not take jobs from sentients unless there is demonstrated risk," one said, voice like a well-adjusted kettle. "Our designs prioritize augmentation and assistance. Also, we enjoy the jerky." This earned them a round of fond, suspicious laughter because androids are deliciously earnest and miners are pragmatically suspicious.
I intervened with the kind of feline diplomacy only a shadow-manipulating cat can pull off: "Work practices are simple: safety, compensation, and dignity. If Resorexia wants yield, it must underwrite reclamation and protection. Otherwise, you mine ghosts and the ghosts will mine you back." I watched Harn's brow furrow as he carved a small notch in a scrap of coal—miners count by notch, not clocks—and Olun chuckled because metaphor tastes good when it's true. Their concerns weren't abstract: dust control, arc-ventilation, a clause for rotational rest to prevent repetitive-swing syndrome, and a grievance process that actually resolves grievances before they manifest as strikes or, worse, sabotage that finishes the factory and takes the pension along. They wanted real unions with real teeth—metaphorical teeth that bite into corporate profits, not bodies—and a municipal inspectorate that didn't wink at violations because someone had a beautiful ledger.
Resorexia's shadow loomed like a contract—elegant, efficient, and mildly predatory. She'd elevated Coalstone with arc-cores and mechanized lifts; she'd also tightened quotas and introduced a bonus system that rewarded supervisors for absenteeism statistics, which is administrative cruelty dressed as fiscal prudence. Harn spat again and muttered, "She gives us helmets and lungs filters—paid for by the company—she's generous in numbers that make accountants cry with joy. But when the ore's expensive, the payroll narrows in the margins that matter." Jarro rubbed his temples and complained about the rostering algorithm: "It schedules the young for night extra because their risk is statistically tolerable. Maybe it's efficient in spreadsheets; it breaks people in practice." Olun hissed at that. "People are not spreadsheets. They are stubborn creatures with bad manners and better jokes," he said, which prompted a round of laughter because laughter lubricates the grinding parts.
There was talk of permits, because nothing glazes a miner's soul like the phrase Mines and Geoscience Bureau. Harn snorted, "The Bureau issued us a clause on seismic sensors. We've to install them or the permit lapses. Great. But the inspectors come during festival week when everyone's shirt is on the wrong day and expect miracles. Also, the permit process favors companies that can pay someone to tender the tender." The android apprentice blinked and produced a printed flowchart, delicate and precise, like a paper bird. "We can optimize the application process, reduce the need for middlemen, and assist with digital scans for the Mines and Geoscience submission," it said. Jarro smirked. "We'll accept mechanical assistance but not corporate proxies who rewrite the rules." He tapped the flowchart like a talisman. The miners discussed reclamation bonds, rehabilitation timelines, and whether the municipal council would honor their tradition of "ore-wives"—a ritual where miners dedicate a day to cleaning each other's equipment as a social safety net.
I suggested, with my tail curled in the practical geometry of a cat who sleeps on documents, that the miners press for three simple clauses: guaranteed breaks proportionate to workload; an enforceable air-quality standard with independent monitors; and a profit-sharing ordinance where a fraction of ore revenue funds a community trust for housing and healthcare. Harn, practical as a rock and twice as sensible, nodded. "If the Empire insists on standards, we'll take them. We'll be neat and legal. We'll file the claim, keep the receipt, and if Resorexia cries, we'll ask for the invoice to show proof. We like our jobs but not as a death sentence."
They ate, and the talk moved to lighter things—stories of goblin mascots who stole helmets, of attempts to teach a very literal steam golem to whistle, of a beer that once tried to unionize with the local barmaids. They laughed and traded insults and secret recipes for stew that involved so many spices the county labeled it "arguably soup." I folded my shadow near their feet, listening in the way shadows do: patient, omniscient, and a little amused at mortal stubbornness. Before leaving, I reminded them in my soft, silky voice—because I am a cat with policy sense and a history of sharp advice—that they should document everything: the rostering emails, the hazard reports, the breathalyzer readings for dust, and the broken respirators. "File, file, and then file again," I advised. "If you keep receipts, the law becomes a ladder, not a trap."
They grinned, shook my tail once in a ritual I have come to accept as miner‑blessings, and returned, caps on, to the belly of the mine. Resorexia's silhouette watched from the manor stairs—silk and lattice and the glint of possible mercy—while the miners descended. I sat a moment on the slag-heap, licking jerky residue off my paw, and considered the balance: a Baroness with contracts and hydraulic lifts, miners with jokes and notch-marks, and an Empire that likes its borders tidy and its workforce functional. Coalstone will hum, I decided; it may also mutter. It will demand better filters and better laws and, if necessary, better fists. And if all else fails, I have a shadow large enough to hide a few inconvenient ledgers until the auditors remember they like coffee in the morning.
Lake Abgrund — The Dragon, The Budget, and a Very Wet Lecture
Lake Abgrund used to be the kind of place that taught children what "unified civic terror" looks like in practical terms: one dragon, one tax collector, and an entire village that learned to schedule funerals around the beast's gastroenteritis. Lagarfljót Worm was the sort of ancient, horned scowling leviathan that makes poets write elegies and accountants invent new ways to justify a levy called "tribute" on the grounds that dragons are expensive. He wore his dread like a crown and his appetite like municipal policy, and for years the local economy was simple: you paid the dragon or your barn learned new hobbies in spontaneous combustion. Families budgeted for both grain and regret, children were taught to count both coins and scale patterns, and the mayor kept two books—one legitimate for auditors and one practical for explaining to the dragon why tithes were late and the stew was underseasoned. It is an excellent, if morally dubious, way to ensure civic unity; nothing brings a town together like the ever-present threat of having your roof remade with policy-compliant salvaged timber after a dragon tantrum. I liked to watch them from the pier sometimes, tail tucked, ledger open; economic fear does tend to sharpen pencil skills.
Then Nikkibella arrived, which meant the lake learned about manners and municipal negotiation in a single, very dramatic afternoon. Nikkibella's specialty is not small talk—she prefers legislative charm with teeth—and she thinks of diplomacy the way some people think of elaborate weaponry: you aim for the center and include a brochure. Lagarfljót, to his credit, was not wholly unreasonable. Dragons have egos, sure, and they like being fed, but they also possess a weird pride in ritual. Nikkibella, who is precise about policy and merciless about improvisation, decided that tribute was inefficient and that the dragon's horn made for a regrettable emblem on municipal flags. So she taught him aquatic manners: a regrettably theatrical combination of plant-manipulation magic and a public budget line item labeled ICE MITIGATION—SPECIAL PROJECTS. She entangled the lake's flora like a polite but firm hand around a throat, shaped water into blades like someone who moonlights in culinary butchery, and then demonstrated, with a flourish that would have made a Venetian executioner blush, exactly what the cost of continuing predatory economics would be. She severed a horn with a blade of water—clean, efficient, and glamourous in the way only a small war against a national mascot can be—and then threatened to freeze the lake in a way that made the municipal council ask the finance clerk to add a contingency budget line for "catastrophic glaciation." It was, in short, an intervention that transformed a taxation problem into a local governance case study.
Lagarfljót surrendered in the way beasts do when faced with either a plausible threat or an opponent with better insurance: he yielded with the offended dignity of a creature who has been profoundly inconvenienced. He bent the knee, which in a dragon is a theatrical business—imagine a thing whose limbs were not designed for humility—for the better part of the afternoon. It was spectacle and savings in equal measure: Nikkibella had removed the horn, imposed a binding municipal regulation requiring the former predator to either perform public works or accept a revocable baronetcy, and then handed him a pamphlet entitled "Civic Participation for the Recently Monumental." The pamphlet contained a list of acceptable employment: guard the fishery, host occasional educational demonstrations about scales, and attend the annual "Stay Sane, Don't Eat the Mayor" seminar. It was statecraft with a side of edible humiliation, and the villagers, who had learned to compute both hope and ration charts, cheered because someone had got them sockets and a dragon that would now run community outreach programs instead of spontaneous conflagrations.
In Netherward logic, any creature that yields to municipal order must be municipalized, because governance is a religion and paperwork is communion. So Lagarfljót became a baronet, which is the Empire's way of being polite about subjugation: a title, a stipend, and contractual obligations with a clause for "rehabilitation and community service." The transformation was awkward—dragons do not wear sashes well and baronial correspondence confuses a throat used to hoarding—but it worked better than most of the Empire's economic experiments. The dragon's horn was sent to the University as a "cultural asset," a label that meant several things: historians would argue about provenance, artisans would petition for a piece of it, and the finance office would happily catalog a new asset for amortization. The town celebrated with a breakfast where the mayor announced a new budget item that read like municipal redemption: funds for emergency housing, an arc-core to warm the lakeside orphans, and a shrine where Lagarfljót could offer public apologies on alternating Tuesdays. There were speeches and soup; I approve soup as a state instrument because it keeps bellies full and tongues safe.
I watched the post-surrender conversation—because I am a cat that enjoys drama, and because policy is best observed after someone loses a horn—with the particular relish of a small carnivore cataloguing human ritual. Nikkibella, in that moment, was both charming tyrant and practical legislator: she drew up a compact that included obligations and privileges, a clause on seasonal migration patterns to preserve the lake's ecosystem, and a probationary schedule that required the dragon to report its activities weekly to the local ombudsperson and to attend anger-management classes led by the Templar of the Allfather. The Templar, for reasons of both theology and tactical curiosity, agreed to supervise and added a curriculum about the dignity of non-consumption. The dragon, to everyone's surprise, took to community service with a certain clumsy sincerity: Lagarfljót's morning work now consisted of dredging invasive weeds that offended the docks; his afternoon was sometimes spent in supervised fish-restocking; and on Fridays he read to children about the challenges of being misunderstood, which was both a civic benefit and a minor tourism event.
The dragon's terror—what we might call the emotional economy of his submission—was worth recording. In a private exchange, observed by me from behind the mayor's credenza because privacy is a fiction and I am excellent at eavesdropping, Lagarfljót trembled with the particular fear reserved for creatures that had never before needed to be financially literate. He was terrified to death, which in dragon terms means he had existential panic about diminishing reputation and social relevance; Nikkibella, who is fond of practical pedagogy, listened with an expression that read like a social worker who punches bureaucratic holes in tyranny. He said, in a voice like boulders rubbing, that he feared being laughed at, fear that the children would point and not tremble, that bards would swap heroic epics for cautionary nursery rhymes about pride and poor retirement plans. Nikkibella offered him a pamphlet, a stern tone, and, eventually, a hug that involved fewer spikes than one would expect.
He bent the knee because he had seen what the alternative looked like: ice, municipal ordinance, and the very real likelihood of a statue dedicated to him being unveiled with an explanatory plaque detailing his seasonal overeating. He bent because even monsters, in the calculus of sovereignty, prefer contractual dignity to chaotic feasting. It is the way empires civilize things that would otherwise remain terrible: give them titles, integrate them into committees, make them pay taxes, and then watch them grumble into useful servitude. The village gained a retired dragon who occasionally hummed lullabies to the docks; the Empire gained a brand—Baronet Lagarfljót, mascot of aquatic compliance—and the finance office gained a new line item labeled "dragon stewardship," which made the auditors nod with the exacting pleasure of people who find new categories to reconcile masterfully.
And me? I sat on the pier, tail curled around a municipal ledger, and licked my paw while I made a note in the margin: dragons can be domesticated with force, law, and a drawer full of municipal pamphlets. Nikkibella, for her part, logged the entire episode with the satisfaction of someone who enjoys policy as performance art. She added a footnote that read: "Do not forget to invoice for emergency glaciation mitigation." I purred because it is pleasant when chaos becomes paperwork, and because the lake, now that it had an ex-dragon performing gentle acts of community service, hummed with a different, less flammable kind of life. The children sang a song about a dragon that learned to knit, the mayor learned to breathe without counting ruination, and the baronet learned the humiliating comfort of a title that requires attendance at civic functions. In the ledger of history, it was a neat clause: problem solved, dignity purchased, and a dragon on a retainer.
Templar of the Allfather
There are moments in governance that smell like iron and incense, and then there is the Templar of the Allfather, which smells like both and a little like a church kettle that's been repurposed as a weapon; imagine a temple that used to house a valkyrie named Brynhildr—someone whose legend arrived pre-sharpened and still had the nerve to be polite about it—and now, after a conversation involving an ungodly punch to the abdomen, the valkyrie runs the place with the blunt kindness of a warrior who learned administration as a follow-up to battle; she bent a knee to Nikkibella in a sequence that reads like myth if myth were into contractual immunity, and the Templar became a Baronetcy, which in Netherward terms means sacred rituals now come with municipal oversight, a small stipend, and a clause about public dispute resolution that insists on attendance and impeccable manners. I, Benetton, observed the whole thing from a pew that doubles as a filing box because a cat's dignity requires both synagogal acoustics and an easy reach to the municipal ledgers. Brynhildr's temple now offers rites, blessings, and dispute mediation with a side of righteous intimidation—she trains stewards with a sermon and a shield, and people leave both spiritually better and painfully more punctual about their taxes. It's excellent PR, and better yet, it's monetized compassion: the Templar hosts arbitration days where the offended and the offended-again trade grievances over stale wafers and servant coffee, while one of Brynhildr's acolytes adjudicates with the cold efficiency of someone used to measuring hearts by the damage they can deliver.
You must picture Brynhildr in her new role: less the raging spear and more the administratrix of absolution, though she still does the occasional ungodly punch for effect and morale. She keeps a ledger that's heavier than most minor nobles and lighter than a full conquest, and she insists that anyone who seeks mediation bring evidence, two witnesses, and a sympathetic pastry. She restructured the temple's calendar into outreach programs that read like both piety and economic development—morning rites that double as food distribution, midday lessons on honorable commerce taught by retired shield-maidens turned accountants, and evening disputations where the consequences for false testimony include a forced week of public apology performed in interpretive dance, which few enjoy and most remember. The baronetcy status allowed her to petition for municipal funds to repair the Templar's docks, stabilize the pilgrim walkway along Lake Abgrund, and run a vocational program where veterans teach conflict de-escalation using blunt-force metaphors that actually work. In short: Brynhildr turned the Templar into an engine of local economic stimulus with the ruthless elegance of someone who knows the shape of a blade and the weight of a budget line.
One afternoon, after a service where the choir—mostly former mercenaries with surprisingly good pitch—sang an arrangement of an old hymn about fiscal responsibility, I joined Brynhildr and Princess Boninacarla in a small back chamber where they had laid out the accounts and a pot of tea that smelled faintly of rue and municipal intent. Boninacarla, with the sort of calm that makes policy sound like a pleasantly inevitable tide, was there in ministerial mode: clipboard, pen, and a face that has practiced mercy as a useful instrument. I positioned myself on the windowsill because a cat needs a vantage that allows dramatic entrance and quiet exit, and because I like to be near the papers when people start promising things they later must explain on oath. Brynhildr poured the tea with the seriousness of a woman who understands ritual as process and mugs as minor treaties. When Boninacarla asked about the temple's finances, Brynhildr spoke plainly and with the same direct cadence she used when training recruits to take a blow.
"We have more pilgrims and fewer pyres," Brynhildr said, which is a tidy way to say the place is both safer and more profitable. "The village used to lose people to fear—mothers kept children indoors, fishermen measured their nights by whether the dragon coughed on their roofs—and commerce contracted like a nervous fist. Since the baronetcy, people come for blessings and stay for the market. We run communal kitchens, and our stipend funds local apprenticeships in craftwork and defensive training. We stabilize the waterfront and operate a dispute tribunal that charges a small fee—yet we waive it for the indigent and take in trade goods as partial payment. The economic boost is not merely numbers: it is confidence. When you stop planning your life around being eaten, you buy a boat, repair a roof, and sign a lease. Those are the real multipliers." She spoke like someone who'd once been carved by war and now measures impact by the number of meals not burnt in the night.
Boninacarla, pragmatic as municipal law and sharp enough to tattoo a statute with a smile, asked the precise question that ministers love: "What are the measurable outcomes?" Brynhildr presented a ledger that had the modesty of a battle plan and the clarity of someone who has learned to track both sorrow and profit. "Pilgrim foot traffic is up thirty-seven percent this quarter," she said, tapping a number that made Boninacarla's pen hover like a hawk. "Local stall revenue—especially food vendors—has increased by twenty percent since we began subsidized market days. Our dispute mediation program resolved fifty-seven cases last month, which prevented two public brawls and one minor arson. The vocational program placed thirty-two veterans into municipal roles and trained seventy apprentices in carpentry and dock maintenance. Most importantly: the town's insurance premiums decreased because fewer structures are razed and our cooperative firewatch reduces claims. We also sponsor a weekly market that prioritizes local produce; it drives trade to Jagdwalder and gives farmers a predictable market, which means lenders are now willing to extend credit for new equipment." She listed these like a commander listing victories, and in the air there was the satisfying sound of arithmetic that favors small, concrete kindness.
Boninacarla, who carries policy like an instrument and not a sermon, smiled with a calculation that was almost tender. "This is the sort of civic boost we aim at," she said. "We will support the Templar with seed funding for a fishery restoration program, and the Ministry will underwrite a small loan pool for temple-affiliated cooperatives. The Templar's arbitration days reduce public disorder, which reduces policing costs, and your vocational training provides municipal laborers without long procurements. It is efficient and humane. We'll pilot an extended grant through the Ministry of Interior to expand your apprenticeships, on the condition you maintain open audits and transparency measures." She looked at Brynhildr with the affection of a strategist who has found a reliable ally.
Brynhildr nodded, but in that nod there was the warrior's skepticism that policy requires teeth as much as paper. "We will accept, if the funding does not come with strings that make us preach obedience to bankers. Help us build cooperative stores rather than corporate kiosks. Help us secure fishing rights from predatory merchants who'd take our stock and leave our docks to rot." She tapped a finger on a statistic that stirred Boninacarla's frown: "We need protection for goods in transit and an extension of tariff leniency for heritage crafts. Markets are only useful if the profits remain local long enough to seed the next generation."
Ever the cat with a taste for chaos folded into policy, I interjected with the sort of remark that gets people to laugh and then do the sensible thing. "Also, please consider hiring more cats," I said, which was part diplomacy and part advertisement for feline presence in civic administration. "We keep records, we reduce mice, and we offer quiet moral judgment." Brynhildr chuckled—a sound like a blade sheathed with courtesy—and Boninacarla allowed herself a smile that suggested a photo op and a budget line could co-exist. "We'll put it on the list," Boninacarla said, adding a note in the margin. The meeting dissolved into practicalities—schedules for audits, a timetable for apprenticeship expansion, a clause to ensure the Templar's market days coordinate with Jagdwalder's harvest cycles to encourage trade rather than cannibalize it—and a small agreement that the Templar would host a civic festival to celebrate the region's new stability. Brynhildr promised to organize a demonstration of ancient rites, with a modern twist: instead of a blood-price, attendees would bring non-perishable goods for the communal pantry and sign up for conflict-resolution classes.
When the meeting ended, I padded out into the temple yard where the choir practiced, where veterans taught knot-tying like it was an art of peace, and where a few trainees sparred with padded shields that smelled faintly of tea and sweat. Brynhildr stood in the square and spoke to a small crowd about dignity, about civic duty, and about turning sword-honors into service. People listened because when a valkyrie speaks, it's hard not to, and because the promise of a steady market and fewer dragons is persuasive. I curled at her feet and felt the hum of the place—temple, market, tribunal—and I thought, with feline satisfaction, that the Templar of the Allfather had become the very sort of civic heart the Empire likes: useful, performative, and effectively municipalized. The baronetess bent the knee once for power, and then bent it again for the work; she had become a steward of both faith and finance, and the town had begun to breathe easier, which is a municipal metric I personally approve of, partly because it reduces the number of emergency petitions I have to notarize and partly because the smell of soup at noon is a very persuasive argument for governance done well.
Mors Citadel — Of Liches, Leases, and Laundry
Mors Citadel is the sort of place that gives night terrors a union card and sends the dues to accounting; a tower of stone and sighs where skeletons have better attendance records than most nobles and wraiths keep their hours by the clock because even undeath learns punctuality when pensions are involved. When Mhelfrancovince arrived and exhaled his particular brand of conqueror's aura — the sort of pressure you feel in your bones like someone rearranging the furniture of fate — Mors Regia, Lich King extraordinaire, bent the knee in a performance that read equal parts awe and careful actuarial calculation. The Citadel, once a folklore hinge where villages measured seasons by the frequency of grave-robbing nights, has become domestic, municipal, and mildly suburban under our stewardship; it now has a baronial title, a corporate integration with the Hellheim Horde — which is a splendidly named undead brigade that files its uniforms in color-coded racks — and the sort of benefits package that makes necromancers weep with jealous paperwork lust. I, Benetton, watched it all from the parapet because a cat should see how the world folds, and because where else does one find a vantage that overlooks both the grave and the grant application office?
Mors Regia is not as theatrical as you imagine; liches learn restraint when you introduce them to ledgers. He governs with a taste for irony: once he demanded souls for tribute, now he prefers direct debit and prefers it masked as "ritual subscriptions." The Citadel hums with modern comforts that would make ancient phylacteries sigh in envy — modern plumbing (yes, even liches enjoy the miracle of flushing without summoning an existential specter), regulated heating that keeps bones from creaking aside, and electrical appliances adapted with runic safety to accommodate incorporeal appendages. There are electric kettles that boil water for tea at precisely 3:07 a.m., a time Mors Regia prefers for his nocturnal symposiums; there is central lighting controlled by a touchscreen that sometimes serves as a portal for dissent when interns find a misconfigured rune in the menu; and there is a Holographic TV system in the great hall that displays the empire's propaganda with better color fidelity than a funeral. It is a civilized undead's dream: you can be timeless, pale, and still binge-watch a serialized melodrama about dynastic accountants while sipping broth from a mug that doesn't leak ectoplasm. The Hellheim Horde, for its part, has uniforms that are both militaristic and inexplicably chic — gravecloth tailored by smug seamstresses who whisper about cufflinks — and they take great pride in their retainer status, which now includes scheduled drills, dental plans for jawbones, and a pension that vests after three centuries of service.
We had a conversation in the Citadel's new council chamber, a place retrofitted from mausoleum to municipal meeting-room with tasteful upholstery where the sun rarely visits and the fluorescent lights hum like a choir of small bureaucrats. Mhelfrancovince sat like a man who has made careers out of both conquest and conciliation; Nikkibella, who can make a battlefield sigh and a minister sign the same day, stood near a window that was mostly decorative for reasons of atmospheric integrity; Gerald DeRivian, whose face has had too many adventures to be surprised by skeletons but who still enjoys a good necromantic anecdote, leaned against the table; I found the warmest stack of ledgers and planted my posterior there, because one must assert one's authority. Mors Regia, skeletal and studious, presided with the slow dignity of someone who knows time personally. We spoke of how the undead's lives have improved since we introduced the conveniences of modernity — and by "improved," I mean both materially and administratively: they now have utilities, unions, and the occasional existential therapy subscription billed to the Hellheim account.
"Public health is public when it includes everyone," Mhelfrancovince said, fingers steepled, the man who signed decrees like love letters. "If our realms are to be stable, they must be cohesive. That means plumbing standards, arc-electric codes, and pension frameworks that cover all citizens, even those currently classed as 'ambulatorily nonviable.' We tax and register, Mors, because registration brings access: sanitation teams, electricity, and a representative on the Harbor Board. The Citadel will be a model for integration." He said it as if he were describing a new font. "In return, the Hellheim Horde will provide ordered security; we need their presence for rites, for deterrence, and for sensitive night patrols where living guards historically nap."
Mors Regia's jaw creaked in what I have learned is a lich's equivalent of a smile. "Integration is preferable to incandescence," he intoned, the voice as dry as parchment left in the sun. "The dead tire of chaos. They prefer a steady call to duty, uniforms that fit, and a drill schedule that respects the bone's natural rhythm." He picked up a pamphlet about occupational health for undead laborers and commented with a latent pride about their new dental plan — apparently jaw articulation benefits increase morale and reduce complaints about loose mandibles during formation. "Do you understand, sovereign," Mors Regia asked, "that previously our recruitment was based on terror and unpaid overtime? You now offer contracts, and they have applied for benefits. There are, as it turns out, spectral forms for everything, and they prefer a Staffordshire teacup to improvisational haunting between the hours of one and three."
Nikkibella, who once punched a dragon and turned it into a reluctant baronet, crossed her arms. "We modernize because it's efficient, and because it reduces collateral spectacle. An undead brigade that draws pensions is less likely to ransack a market because unemployment checks have been processed. Also, PBS-style programming calms the restless. Have you seen the effects of binge-watching historical dramas on a skeleton's propensity for riot? It's remarkable. They simply watch 'Dynasty of Dust' and then file petitions in triplicate. Productivity increases." She delivered the last line with the enthusiasm of someone who once negotiated with an actual mountain and won an easement.
Gerald chuckled, the kind of short bark that contains both irony and the smell of damp earth. "We also gave them domestic amenities so they stopped exuding gloom into neighboring districts. Modern plumbing means fewer unscheduled hauntings in the aqueduct, which is a public service. The Hellheim brigade were once an intermittent menace at town festivals; now they man the barricades and politely advise fireworks committees on safe distances. We taught them to queue, which helps. Discipline and paperwork work wonders." He rubbed at a scar, thinking of nights when the Horde's enthusiasm for dramatic entrances needed the restraint of a municipal memo.
I, naturally, interjected with a feline nuance because someone had to talk about comfort and aesthetics. "They're happier," I said, tail flicking, "because they get hospice-grade heating and a Holographic TV. You underestimate how wholesome a lich finds a seven-season melodrama. Also, consider the morale boosts from washer-dryers adapted to respectfully clean spectral cloaks without shredding bones. Practicalities matter. And mandatory dental? That was a masterstroke. Jaw discomfort is not motivational."
Mors Regia made a small laugh, which rattled like bones knit poorly. "The appliances required adaptation," he admitted. "We installed runic filters so electricity does not scorch ectoplasm, and the plumbing has sealing charms because corporeal waste is, frankly, distressing to our sensibilities. The Guild of Arc-Electricians worked with Raumel's institute to produce ghost-safe wiring. We now have heat without the need to kindle tombs, and we have a Holographic TV that scrolls municipal news and the occasional instructional manual on civic etiquette for the undead. Our retention rates increased by nineteen percent since the introduction of subscription knitting channels."
There was a pause where everyone considered the strange, bright bureaucratic future we had delivered to a population once content to lurk in the margins and shout bad poetry at moonlight. Mhelfrancovince tapped a protocol: "Integration required oversight. We will issue a civil service charter for the Hellheim brigade — hours, duties, compensation, grievance procedures, and, crucially, a clause on respectful wakefulness. We must ensure they are accredited for crowd control and civic ceremonies alike." He smiled in a way that suggested he enjoyed the idea of undead forming a respectable honor guard for municipal festivals.
Gerald added, practical as ever, "We'll provide training exchanges. The living police can learn restraint from the undead — they are patient in ways corporeal men are not — and the Horde learns non-lethal tact because you cannot incarcerate what is already beyond cell walls. Also, we need to regulate necromantic commerce. No private reanimation without a license. You cannot have rogue souls being resold like antiques." He delivered the last line as if it were both a warning and a memoir.
Mors Regia considered that and answered, with the faintly regal amusement of a king who's been mortal and returned to collect interest, "We will keep the rituals sacred but licensed. The dead will have dignity and laundromats. We will patrol the docks, attend municipal holidays, and demand only that the taxes be paid in the form of seasonal offerings, properly documented, and traceable." He gestured and a spectral clerk materialized to record the minutes, which is to say the undead now keep better records than three provincial guilds combined.
We ended the meeting with a plan that read like a hymn to modern governance: standardized benefits, tailored infrastructure upgrades for incorporeal citizens, a coded occupational chart, and a friendly advisory council comprised of living and dead representatives. The Hellheim Horde marched out in uniforms that gleamed under arc-light, brushing against banners bearing both municipal and necromantic sigils; they snapped to attention with a kind of pride that made the municipal stall-owners clap because spectacle sells sausages. I settled on a windowsill and licked a paw while the Citadel hummed with a mix of ritual and electric fan noise, pleased with the odd outcome: an entire undead population happier because they had heat, holograms, dental, and a voice. In the ledger of the realm, it reads like this: governance modernized mortality, mortality supplied security, and security allowed the markets to open earlier. It is, in its own grim way, a success story — neat, profitable, and oddly domestic. If anyone asks whether the undead appreciate such comforts, I will say yes, and then point them toward the late-night knitting channel where a lich once wept over a particularly poignant episode on the economics of revenge.
Ombrello and the Sale of Sins
Blitzmetropole is the city that smells like ambition had a midlife crisis and decided to reinvent itself as an alchemical startup; it gleams where other cities grumble, and its streets are lined with neon tinctures and plaques that politely explain the ethics of things you would not expect to be ethical. Ombrello Laboratory, once a sleek room of promises and patents, became the city's cautionary exhibit when Reichenberg Corporation's experiments—equal parts corporate hubris and late-stage slide presentation—went necromantic. They didn't intend a scandal; they intended a market advantage: better reagents, cheaper reanimation, faster productivity loops. Instead they invented an undead problem that filed grievances, remembered its workplace rights, and required severance. The experiments bled into the gutters as animated complaints, and the ethical boundaries evaporated in a cloud of acrid smoke and very bureaucratic lawsuits. Under pressure—public outcry, Union-of-Undead petitions, and a particularly persuasive audit—Reichenberg was compelled to sell everything. The company's transfer to Netherward Enterprise reads like a corporate exorcism: assets, patents, labs, and a legacy of unpaid apologies bundled under a new brand and a firmer set of municipal covenants. Blitzmetropole became a Viscounty under imperial oversight, and the Ombrello ruins now post notices in three languages reminding everyone about "proper reanimation procedure," right beside the sign that advertises espresso and ethically sourced reagents.
You should picture the press conference that preceded the sale as a theater of terrified executives and slightly vicious civics. Reichenberg's board shuffled like a pack of frightened accountants; they were coiffed, pale, and suddenly very aware that their stock options did not buy moral immunity. Mhelfrancovince attended with the quiet gravity of a sovereign who prefers deeds to dramatics—he does not shout; he signs—and Nikkibella stood like a storm in sensible boots, which is to say the company had finally run into a force that accepted no sweeteners. Gerald DeRivian looked on like a man who has watched laboratories implode and decided paperwork was a better weapon; he had a way of being both kindly and threatening, a combination that intimidates more reliably than any sword. I, Benetton, curled in the shade of a podium because every good coerced acquisition needs a cat witness to make the minutes smell palatable.
The executives' arguments were the delicious kind: legalese offered as apology, revenue projections presented as penance, and a final, wobbly plea that something called "proprietary contingency protocols" be preserved. Mhelfrancovince, with the discretion of a man who has swallowed entire rebellions that way, outlined the Empire's position: Reichenberg must divest; assets will be transferred to Netherward Enterprise; Ombrello's undead will be integrated into Hellheim command or provided dignified retirement with pensions, and all future reanimation requires municipal license and transparent oversight. He did not roar; he wrote clauses and watched their faces go pale with something close to intellectual fainting. Nikkibella added a succinct addendum about ethics boards, emergency deactivation protocols, and a public apology tour that would include responsible outreach to the families of the reanimated—because in the new order, even revenants need relatives on file. It was practical, humiliating, and administratively delicious.
Reichenberg's legal counsel, in tones that attempted to pass for gallantry, promised compliance and protested only in the procedural manner of those who plan denial as a fallback. They signed the transfer with shaking hands, and the public records reclassified their patents under Netherward Enterprise. The Ombrello Laboratory's undead—formerly a corporate hazard—became municipal assets and then, under careful negotiation, incorporated into the Hellheim Horde's command with formal employment terms, grievance processes, and uniforms that actually fit better than expected. The undead protested (in that peculiar way of the recently animate, which involved a great deal of rattling and a subtler sort of sigh), filed claims about severance, and demanded pensions. The city, which had once tolerated necromantic spillovers as unfortunate collateral, now administered them as liabilities with line items and a tender efficiency that made auditors purr.
There was another conversation later, smaller and more intimate, that I watched from a window ledge where the light hits a certain angle and makes the dust look like applause. It was between me, Gerald, and Evisceratia Wrathsteel—the Ombrello laboratory's top swordsman wraith who, after integration, had been proposed a baronetcy and a place in Hellheim command. Evisceratia is what you get when lethality meets formality: a wraith with the manner of a duelist and the administrative appetite of someone who has read municipal code for pleasure. She had once been the lab's first line—a blade who punished unauthorized exits with clinical disregard—and now she wanted to know what dignity looked like when it included benefits. She stood in a corridor that smelled of ozone and antiseptic, her edges soft with ectoplasm, and asked direct questions.
"You have given us uniforms, officer schedules, and dental care," she said, voice like silk against chainmail. "You have provided a pension schedule, an assigned barracks, and a schedule for polite drills. We are grateful for the latter; it is easier to parade than to haunt. But what of honor? We were not merely instruments of convenience. Do we remain soldiers, or become municipal guards with a badge and a grievance line?" She flicked what might have been a wrist, and a tiny spectral emblem pulsed to her palm.
Gerald answered in the way steady men answer: with practicality wrapped in a promise. "You will be both. The Hellheim brigade under corporate retainer will serve municipal security functions and be trained for crowd control, rites of passage, and ceremonial guard duty. You will be integrated into the chain of command that answers to Mors Citadel's barony and to the municipal constabulary for civil matters. Your role as swordsman—Evisceratia—will be honored; you will be afforded a rank and a command roster, and your grievances will be heard by a tribunal with living and spectral members." He incline his face like a man who believed in balancing dignity and duty.
I interposed, because diplomacy is improved by a cat's sense of the ridiculous. "Also," I said, tail flicking, "we will provide hobbies. Knitting circles are very therapeutic even for the recently undead. The baronetcy comes with a small stipend for hobbies, which helps one transition from spontaneous vengeance to municipal pride." Evisceratia's laugh—rattling and entirely sincere—echoed down the corridor. She liked the idea of a knitting circle if only for the irony: a fearsome wraith taught to handle yarn without accidentally unraveling a governor.
Evisceratia then addressed practicalities: operational limits, the ethics of reassigning souls, and the procedure if a disgruntled researcher attempted to reanimate on the side. "If a scientist attempts private reanimation," she asked, "what is the authorized response?" Gerald's eyes had a glint of fond irritation—men used to dealing with burnt-out labs and worse. "The procedure is clear," he said. "Immediate seizure of equipment, formal arrest if a living subject is involved, and immediate transfer of the matter to the municipal necromantic oversight board. Unauthorized reanimation is a felony with special clauses for bioethical violations; it carries both prison terms and civil penalties. The reanimated subject, if sentient, will be afforded municipal rights, and the researcher will be barred from future research unless significant restitution and retraining are completed. We prefer reeducation to eradication when possible; it's cost-effective."
Evisceratia considered this and asked about cultural integration: "Will the Hellheim brigade be permitted rituals of remembrance? We have memory rites, and they are important to identity." Gerald nodded. "Yes. We will permit and fund appropriate rites. You will have a day of remembrance recognized on the municipal calendar. Inclusion does not erase identity; it formalizes it. You will have a voice."
She smiled (if one can say a wraith smiles), and the corridor breathed like a place that had found its balance: blades folded into routines, undead finding pensions, and the city converting a scandal into a managed workforce. The laboratory staff—alchemists, engineers, the timid interns afraid of both lawsuits and spectral retribution—now worked under Netherward Enterprise oversight, with safety protocols, ethics committees, and the occasional mandatory seminar on "Proper Reanimation Procedure: A Three-Language Primer." Machines hissed and alchemists swore and everyone pretended not to be thrilled that the undead now have dental plans. Nordenbergwald became, in practice and in paperwork, an ecosystem where magic argues with engineering and they both end up at the same repair manual.
I left that evening with the satisfying sensation that a disaster had been administratively domesticated. Ombrello's undead had been absorbed into municipal life with rosters, rights, and something that nearly passes for pride. Reichenberg's executives had left with abraded dignity and very practical pensions; the city had acquired labs, patents, and a new category on the balance sheet labeled UNDEAD LIABILITIES WITH BENEFITS. I curled under a streetlamp and licked my paw, content that a mess had been turned into a municipal program, and that somewhere, in a barracks, a wraith named Evisceratia would learn to knit without accidentally unraveling the economy.
Mhelfrancovince and Nikkibella did what they do best—handshakes, charters, a display or two of force for those who needed to be reminded that modernity arrives both with arc-cores and with an invoice. They offered vocational programs, integration clauses, municipal loans, and a political vocabulary that translated local myth into civic compliance, and the Republic accepted because progress, like a well-engineered bridge, feels inevitable when someone wires the lights first. I, Benetton, watched from the shadows of a library stack in the Gericht Institute, licking notes and cataloguing the arrogance of inventors and the modesty of machines. I recorded declarations, footnoted concessions, and made sure the All-Seeing Eye's reports were cross-indexed with local sentiment: a ledger that would speak in decades. And while the Empire turned Nordenbergwald into a realm and stamped treaties with its droll charm, I flicked my tail at a robot's polished boot and mused that conquest has changed—now it arrives in papers, patents, and pension plans, and the monsters it produces are the ones that need grant approval.