The Necro-Industrial Revolution

The castle was quiet. Down in the Great Hall, the visiting merchants were fast asleep by the roaring fire, completely exhausted from their journey and heavily sedated by the premium meat stew and ale.

Up in the private study, Jack sat behind his wooden desk. The room was comfortably warm, heated by a small coal fire in the hearth.

A soft knock came at the door.

“Enter,” Jack said.

The wooden door opened, and Karen stepped inside. She looked tired, but she gave a polite, nervous curtsy. Standing just behind her in the dark hallway was the quiet merchant in the dark gray coat.

“Lord Jack,” Karen said softly. “Merchant Vane is here, as you requested.

“Thank you, Karen,” Jack nodded. “You may go to bed. Get some rest. Tomorrow will be another busy day.”

Karen smiled gratefully, bowed her head, and hurried off down the hall toward her room.

Vane stepped into the study and quietly closed the door behind him. The click of the iron latch seemed very loud in the quiet room.

Vane did not look like Merchant Gary or the other loud, boastful guild traders. He was a thin man with sharp, observant eyes and a face that was completely forgettable. He didn’t wear excessive jewelry or expensive furs. He looked like a man who preferred to blend into the background.

“Please, sit,” Jack offered, gesturing to the wooden chair opposite his desk.

Vane walked over and sat down. He kept his posture straight, his eyes scanning the room quickly before settling on Jack.

“Karen said you had a private contract to discuss, Lord Jack,” Vane said. His voice was smooth and incredibly calm. “I must admit, I was surprised. You completely dominated the auction today. You secured iron, seeds, and building materials. You seem to have everything a growing fief could possibly need.”

“I have raw materials,” Jack corrected smoothly, leaning forward and resting his arms on the desk. “But raw materials do not plant themselves in the dirt. Iron does not forge itself into plow blades. I have a massive surplus of resources, Merchant Vane, and a severe deficit of human hands.”

Vane’s expression did not change. He simply waited.

“I saw your wagons in the courtyard,” Jack continued, keeping his tone flat and businesslike. “They are heavily reinforced. The backs are enclosed with thick wood, and there are iron bars over the ventilation slits. Those are not wagons designed to carry grain or cloth. They are designed to carry cargo that might try to escape.”

Vane remained perfectly still for a long moment. Then, a slow, thin smile appeared on his face.

“You have very sharp eyes for a northern lord,” Vane acknowledged softly. “Most men just see a simple trader’s cart. But yes. I operate slightly outside the standard trade guilds. I deal in specialized labor. Indentured servants, debtors from the many cities, and outright slaves. The Empire frowns upon the trade openly, but there is always a demand in the deep mines and the logging camps.”

“I need labor,” Jack stated directly. “A massive amount of it.”

Vane pulled a small, worn ledger from his inside coat pocket. “I currently have eight strong men and four women in my wagons down in the square. Mostly debtors from the capital. I can sell you the lot for a fair price in Imperial Gold.”

“Twelve people will barely make a difference,” Jack dismissed, waving his hand slightly. “I am not looking to buy your current stock. I am looking to place a custom forward order. To be delivered by early summer, when the mountain roads are completely clear of mud.”

Vane raised an eyebrow. “A custom order? How many hands are you looking for, Lord Jack?”

“Fifty,” Jack said without hesitating. “Twenty-five strong men capable of swinging a pickaxe or hauling timber. And twenty-five strong women capable of working a tannery, managing crops, and cooking for large groups. I do not want children, and I do not want the elderly.”

Vane actually dropped his charcoal pen. It clattered against the wooden desk.

The shadow broker stared at Jack, completely shocked. “Fifty? Lord Jack, that is not a labor order. That is an entire village population. Moving fifty slaves through the checkpoints without the Imperial border guards asking difficult questions is incredibly dangerous. It requires bribing dozens of officials and hiring heavily armed mercenary escorts.”

“Which is why I brought you here,” Jack said calmly. “You are a professional. You know the hidden trails, and you know exactly who needs to be bribed. But I am aware that an order of this magnitude requires immense capital.”

Jack reached under his desk and pulled out a small iron lockbox. He placed it firmly on the wood between them. He took a small brass key from his pocket and popped the lock open.

He turned the box around so Vane could see inside.

Vane leaned forward. He expected to see the Imperial Gold Jack had collected during the auction earlier that day.

Instead, his breath hitched in his throat.

Resting on a bed of dark velvet were five large, rough, uncut gemstones. There were three deep red rubies and two brilliant blue sapphires. They were completely raw, unpolished, and massive.

Jack’s skeletal Night Shift had found the small cluster of precious stones while digging deep into the lowest, hardest layers of the mountain bedrock while digging for coal. To Jack, they were just shiny rocks. To a merchant, they were a fortune.

“Raw mountain gems,” Jack said quietly. “Pulled from the deep earth. Because they are uncut and unrecorded by the Imperial assayers, they are completely untraceable. You can sell them to the capital’s jewelers, or to the underground guilds to craft magical artifacts, for ten times the cost of the bribes you will need to pay.”

This tale has been pilfered from NovelFire. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Vane reached out with a trembling hand. He picked up one of the raw rubies, holding it up to the light of the hearth fire. He checked the clarity and the weight.

“This is…” Vane swallowed hard, regaining his professional composure. “This is more than enough to cover the cost of the slaves, the bribes, and my own premium, Lord Jack. I can deliver fifty healthy workers by the first week of summer.”

“Excellent,” Jack nodded, closing the iron box and sliding it toward Vane. “But before you agree to the contract, you need to understand the rules of this fief. I have a very specific law regarding this labor.”

Vane slipped the heavy box into his deep satchel. “You bought them, My Lord. You can work them to death in the mines for all I care. It is not my business.”

“I am not going to work them to death,” Jack corrected sharply. “Dead men do not mine coal, and starving men try to burn the castle down while I sleep. I do not want to manage a village of desperate, hopeless people who hate me.”

Jack leaned back in his chair, folding his hands together.

“When you deliver these fifty people,” Jack explained, “you will read them my terms before they step off your wagons. They will serve the Frost-Grip fief as bonded laborers for exactly twenty years. During that time, they will be fed well, they will be given warm shelter, and they will not be beaten without just legal cause.”

Vane frowned, highly confused by this strange northern lord. “And after twenty years?”

“After exactly twenty years of loyal service,” Jack stated firmly, “their debt is entirely erased. They will be granted full, legal freedom. Furthermore, they will be given full citizenship in my valley, and a plot of farming land to call their own.”

Vane stared at Jack, trying to find the trick in the words. “You are giving slaves a guaranteed timeline for freedom? And land?”

“I am giving them hope,” Jack said pragmatically. “Psychology is a powerful tool, Vane. If you chain a man and tell him he will die a slave, he has nothing to lose. He will plot a revolt, he will steal, and he will run at the first opportunity. But if you give him a clear finish line and a massive reward at the end of it, he will put his head down and work.”

Jack tapped his finger on the desk to emphasize his point.

“More importantly,” Jack added, a cold smile touching his lips, “they will police themselves. If one slave tries to run away and risk the entire group’s deal, the others will stop him. I won’t need to hire dozens of cruel guards with whips. The twenty-year rule ensures absolute loyalty, and it guarantees me a fiercely loyal future populace that will defend this valley with their lives.”

Vane sat back in his chair, a look of profound respect washing over his forgettable face. He had dealt with hundreds of cruel, stupid nobles who simply beat their slaves until they broke. This young boy was operating on an entirely different level of leadership.

“It is a brilliant strategy, Lord Jack,” Vane admitted quietly. “You turn desperate captives into willing pioneers.”

“Do we have a deal?” Jack asked, holding out his hand.

Vane reached across the desk and grasped Jack’s hand firmly. “You will have your fifty workers by early summer, My Lord. I swear it on my ledger.”

“Use the western mountain trails when you approach the valley,” Jack advised, releasing his hand. “Avoid the main Imperial checkpoints entirely. I do not want the Holy Church or the tax collectors asking questions about my population growth.”

“I know the routes,” Vane assured him, standing up. “I will be like a ghost. Goodnight, Lord Jack.”

Vane slipped out of the study, moving as silently as a shadow, carrying a fortune in uncut gems.

Jack sat alone in the quiet room. He let out a long, slow breath. The labor bottleneck was officially solved. When summer arrived, the village would more than double in size. They would have the hands needed to expand the farms, run the forges, and push the fief into true industrial production.

But there was one final task he needed to complete before the merchants left in the morning.

Jack stood up, grabbed his cane, and walked over to the window. He looked down at the courtyard. Sitting near the wagons were several heavy wooden barrels Jack had purchased during the auction. They were filled with the highly expensive alchemical cement.

Jack closed his eyes. He reached his mind down through the stone floors of the castle, plunging his awareness deep into the dark crypts below.

With his new Iron Core, the connection was completely effortless. There was no pressure in his skull, no blinding headache. It felt as natural as opening his own eyes.

“Awake,” Jack commanded smoothly.

Deep in the dark crypts, his undead retainers instantly rose to their feet. Rusty, Dusty, and the towering figure of Bones stepped forward in their iron armor. Behind them, the fifteen skeletons of the Night Shift stood at attention. Even Bucket, Spade, and Scrap—the original digging crew Jack hadn’t used for a long time—stepped out of their dormant niches.

Jack directed them out of the crypts. They moved silently into the courtyard. Following Jack’s mental orders, the towering form of Bones and the sturdy Rusty easily hoisted the heavy wooden barrels of alchemical cement onto their bony shoulders.

Jack marched them down the mountain path, completely bypassing the sleeping village, and headed straight into the dark entrance of the coal mine.

Giles and the human carpenters had built thick, tar-coated wooden doors to seal off the toxic side-tunnels of the mine. Those wooden doors had worked perfectly to route the fresh air and push the deadly choke-damp gas out of the main tunnel.

But wood was not permanent. In the damp, underground environment, the wood would eventually rot. The iron hinges would rust. If a wooden door failed while human miners were working in the main shaft, the toxic gas would flood the tunnel and kill them all in minutes.

Jack was not going to leave his people’s lives to the mercy of rotting wood.

The skeletons reached the first side-tunnel. The thick wooden door was firmly shut.

“Break the loose rock,” Jack commanded.

Bucket, Spade, and Scrap stepped forward. They picked up heavy iron pickaxes and began smashing the loose stone around the edges of the tunnel entrance. They gathered the broken stone blocks and began stacking them directly in front of the wooden door, building a thick, solid rock wall across the opening.

“Open the barrels,” Jack ordered next.

Dusty used the flat end of a pickaxe to pry the wooden lids off the barrels. A sharp, intensely chemical smell immediately filled the cold mine shaft.

The alchemical cement was not like normal mortar. It was a thick, dark gray resin.

Following Jack’s precise instructions, the skeletons used iron trowels to scoop the thick resin out of the barrels. They slathered the cement heavily over the newly stacked stone blocks, packing it deep into every single crack, gap, and seam against the bedrock walls.

Because of its alchemical properties, the cement did not need hours to dry. The moment it made contact with the cold air of the mine, it began to harden rapidly.

Within thirty minutes, the resin had cured completely. It turned into a solid, impenetrable layer of smooth, dark gray stone. The side-tunnel was now permanently sealed. It was absolutely airtight. The toxic gas was locked away behind a foot of solid rock and chemical resin, never to threaten the human miners again.

Jack moved his entire undead crew deeper into the mountain. They repeated the process flawlessly at every single dangerous junction.

They built stone walls, poured the alchemical cement, and sealed the depths of the mountain perfectly.

Jack sat in his study, maintaining the link with absolute ease. He watched his undead workers secure the foundation of his empire’s energy supply. By the time the sun began to rise over the snowy peaks, the coal mine was entirely safe. Barnaby and the human miners could dig for years without ever worrying about a sudden pocket of deadly gas.

“Return to the crypts.” Jack commanded softly.

The skeletons dropped their empty barrels and marched back to the castle.

Jack opened his eyes in his study. The morning light was shining through the window. Down in the courtyard, the merchants were beginning to wake up, shouting orders to their drivers and preparing their wagons for the journey back south.

Jack smiled, feeling a deep, profound sense of accomplishment. The trade was done. The mine was safe. The labor was secured. The winter had thrown its worst at him, and he had completely broken it.