Victor held the femur—deer, most likely—up to the torchlight. The message carved into its surface was brief, precise, and terrifyingly casual.
Amusing. One week extension granted. Entertain me, Manager. Or feed me.
"He calls you Manager?" Sniv asked, peering out from behind the throne.
"I introduced myself as such," Victor said, tossing the bone onto the pile of debris they needed to clear. "It establishes a professional distance. He's not eating a victim; he's negotiating with a service provider."
"Service provider?"
"We are now in the entertainment business, Sniv. And like all entertainment businesses, we have a strict deadline to produce a hit."
Victor stood up. "Seven days. That's our runway. If we don't have customers by then, we get liquidated."
The campaign began at dawn.
Victor convened his department heads—Security (Guard-1), Operations (Mining-Lead), and Logistics (Sniv)—in the ruins of Floor One.
The entrance hall was a disaster. Collapsed pillars, piles of bat guano, scattered bones from fifty years of neglect. It looked exactly like what it was: a dead, empty ruin. But to Victor's eyes, it was a storefront that hadn't been renovated in decades.
"This," Victor said, gesturing at the mess, "is a problem. It says 'nothing to see here.' It says 'don't bother coming in.' We need to change the narrative from 'abandoned' to 'dangerous but rewarding.'"
"Clean it?" Mining-Lead asked, hefting his pickaxe. He looked eager to hit something.
"Curate it," Victor corrected. "We're not maids. We're stage directors. Clear the rubble from the main path so they can walk in without twisting an ankle. But leave the dust. Leave the cobwebs. And the bones..."
He walked over to a pile of goblin skeletons—remnants of the previous administration's failures.
"Arrange them," Victor ordered. "Don't just leave them in a pile. Make them tell a story. Put a skull on a spike right in the center. Scatter a few ribcages near the shadows. We want them to feel fear, curiosity, and excitement. In that order."
Guard-1 scratched his head. "Scare them... but make them come in?"
"Exactly. It's the haunted house principle. People pay to be scared, as long as they think there's a prize at the end."
"And the trap?" Guard-1 pointed to the pressure plate that had killed Marcus. The stone slab was reset, the spikes retracted, but the trigger mechanism was still active.
"Keep it," Victor said. "But mark it. Faintly. Scrape the stone around the edges so it looks slightly different from the floor. Maybe leave a broken arrow pointing near it."
Sniv gasped, clutching his clipboard. "Boss want humans to see trap? Boss is crazy?"
"I want them to find the trap. If they spot it, they feel smart. They feel like competent adventurers. And competent adventurers get confident. Confident adventurers go deeper."
"And deeper is where we want them," Victor finished. "Floor One is the brochure. Floor Two is the tour. Floor Three... is the sales pitch."
The bait was the hardest part.
The Hero's sword—the "Fire-Stick"—was their most valuable asset. The blade glowed with a steady, orange pulse, humming with magical energy. It was a Soulbound weapon, useless to anyone but its deceased owner, but the glowing effect was undeniable.
It screamed loot.
Victor chose a spot on Floor Three—the top of the mining shaft, where a natural rock formation created a pedestal visible from the corridor below.
He placed the sword carefully. From this angle, the glow would reflect off the copper deposits in the walls, creating a beacon of warm light that would be visible even from the stairs of Floor Two. It looked mystical. Ancient. Expensive.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
"Perfect," Victor murmured. "The Golden Arch. The Siren's Song."
Sniv stared at it, mesmerized. "Shiny. Very shiny. Sniv wants to touch."
"That's the point. If a goblin wants to touch it, a human will die for it."
Victor turned to his Chief of Staff. "Ready for Phase Two?"
Sniv swallowed hard. "Sniv goes back to... outside?"
"We need rumors, Sniv. We need buzz. The guards you saw were skeptical. A few bones and a clean floor won't bring them in. We need to convert that skepticism into greed."
"How?"
"Go to the road. Find travelers. Don't hide this time—well, hide a little. Let them catch a glimpse of you. Maybe drop something shiny near the path. Mutter about 'lights in the temple' loud enough for them to hear. Be a mysterious forest cryptid."
Sniv looked horrified. "Boss wants Sniv to be seen? Humans shoot seen-things."
"Briefly seen. Then run like hell. We want them to think: 'That goblin was carrying treasure. Where did he get it?'"
"And if they shoot Sniv?"
"Zig-zag," Victor advised. "Humans are terrible shots with moving targets. Use the trees. Use the rocks. And remember: you're fast, they're heavy. You have the physics advantage."
Sniv didn't look convinced, but he nodded slowly. "Sniv zig-zags. Sniv is fast shadow."
"Good. Take a piece of pyrite from the mining pile. Make sure it catches the sun."
The waiting was the worst part.
For three days, the dungeon operated in a state of high tension. The mining team continued to stockpile iron (Victor still had no idea how to smelt it, but inventory was inventory). The farming team harvested mushrooms with nervous efficiency, constantly glancing at the floor as if expecting the Minotaur to burst through the stone.
Floor Four remained silent. Asterion was keeping his side of the bargain, for now.
On the evening of the third day, Sniv returned, breathless and grinning, covered in mud and pine needles.
"They talk!" he gasped, collapsing on the floor of the Boss Chamber. "Merchants. Big wagon. One said, 'Saw goblin with gold coin. Ran toward ruins.'"
"Did you have a gold coin?" Victor asked.
"Sniv used pyrite. Fool's gold. Humans are... not smart. They see shine, they stop thinking."
Victor smiled. "Excellent. And?"
"Other human said, 'Maybe old stories true. Maybe Silver Dawn left things behind.' Then they argued about split percentages."
"Perfect." Victor leaned back on his throne. "The seed is planted. Greed is a powerful fertilizer. Now we wait for the harvest."
It didn't take long.
Two days later, the proximity alarm triggered.
[ARMI]
PERIMETER ALERT: Intrusion Detected (Floor 1 Entrance)
Entities: 2
Classification: Humanoid (Human/Elf)
Threat Level: Low
Gear Rating: D- (Poor)
Victor stood up. "Showtime."
He moved to a concealed observation gallery overlooking the entrance hall, peering down through a narrow viewing slit.
Two figures stood in the sunlight filtering through the cracked ceiling.
They were young. Painfully young.
The first was a human male, barely twenty, wearing leather armor that looked like it had been bought at a surplus store. He carried a wooden shield and a short sword that had seen better days.
The second was an elf—or half-elf—female with a bow. Her quiver held maybe a dozen arrows. She looked nervous, eyes darting to the skull on the spike Victor had arranged.
"Creepy," she whispered. Her voice carried clearly in the acoustics of the hall.
"It's just bones, Mira," the human said, puffing out his chest. "Goblins put them up to scare people. Means they're hiding something."
"Or means they eat people, Jace."
"Look at the dust." Jace pointed to the floor. "Tracks. Small feet. Lots of them. Rumors were right. It's active."
Victor smiled. Good boy. Analyze the data.
They moved forward, stepping carefully over the cleared rubble.
"Hold up," Jace hissed. He pointed to the floor in front of them. The faint scratch marks Victor had ordered around the pressure plate. "See that? Discoloration."
Mira squinted. "Trap?"
"Definite trap. Amateur work." Jace smirked. "Step around it. Left side."
They skirted the trigger mechanism with exaggerated caution.
That's it. Feel smart. Feel superior.
They reached the stairs to Floor Two. Jace paused, looking down into the dark.
Then, from deep below—from the pedestal on Floor Three—the faint, orange glow of the Hero's sword pulsed.
It reflected off the walls, a beacon in the dark.
"Mira," Jace whispered. "Do you see that?"
"Light. Magic light."
"That's not a torch. That's... that's loot. Real loot."
Greed replaced fear on Jace's face. It was a transformation Victor had seen a thousand times in boardrooms, usually right before someone signed a terrible contract.
"We check it out," Jace decided. "Quick scout. Grab whatever it is, get out."
"What about the goblins?"
"They're just goblins. We can handle a few rats."
Victor stepped back from the viewing slat.
"Sniv," he said quietly.
The goblin appeared at his side.
"Let them get to Floor Two. Then scare them. Don't kill. Throw rocks. Screech. Make it sound like there are fifty of you."
"Scare... not kill?" Sniv looked disappointed.
"If we kill them, no one knows what they found. We need them to run back to Oakhaven and tell everyone they saw a magic sword."
Victor grinned—a sharp, confident expression that felt almost like his old self.
"We need customer testimonials."
Sniv nodded, catching the mood. "Sniv gives good show. Sniv is very scary."
"Go."
The goblin vanished into the shadows.
Victor listened as the footsteps of the two young adventurers echoed on the stairs. They were walking deeper into the trap, driven by greed and confidence, convinced they were the predators.
They had no idea they were just the marketing budget.
End of Chapter 13
[ARMI]
Session: Day 11 Afternoon | Status: INITIAL ENGAGEMENT
Marketing Event: [First Contact]
Target: Jace (W) & Mira (A) | Status: BAITED
Strategy: [Catch and Release] (Rumor propagation)
ROI Status: PENDING (Rumor mill lead time)