Zoli ended up building his Corporate HQ below his mansion inside the mountain.


    First, he had the conviction that a CEO should not be forced to travel for long on the few days he did not work from Home Office on his boat or in his beach house in the Caribbean. Secondly, building the HQ in easy-to-reach places would be in danger of being raided by the mercenaries.


    He built an "Executive Floor" with its own office for all his managers, a few lavish meeting rooms, and networking areas. Every office got a few screens with the respective data shown, and he placed a few in the meeting rooms and networking areas too. Then he added a station for the future secretary of each manager next to the offices.


    Every manager needed secretaries, after all! They can’t and should not be forced to do administrative work! Of course, there were no secretaries currently, but it was anticipation for the future. He even created corporate-approved formal wear for his managers, there was no way they would be allowed to attend work in shorts and shirts, only the CEO had that right, after all.


    Another investment was the floor below, where the workforce would be seated at a later date. Of course, it was an open office space, since it was the easiest to restructure and repurpose if need be. And the cheapest to build. He had no workforce either but wanted to wait with recruiting until he had figured out, how many workers each department needed.


    After two days of constructing and bankrupting himself again, he called the first executive meeting. The multiple-hours discussion, held in Corporate can be summarized as follows:


    “We need more mpd" Raymond stated "As soon as we have a larger MOB with higher Levels and thus higher daily upkeep, the current income will not be sustainable. Constructing terrain, respawning the MOB, and providing loot will be almost impossible."


    “We need a larger MOB” Dana continued “The previous CEO bought a good selection, but the quantity is too low for the size of the dungeon. The density per Zone is insufficient.”


    “Also, we have at this point only normal Level 1s in the MOB.” Colette interjected


    “Yes, although some are good, normal Level 1s can’t be counted on defending the dungeon and providing the service the dungeon is here for.” James seconded her.


    “Our production capacity is non-existent” Peter warned.


    “Even if we had that capacity, we can not procure materials for manufacturing" Cynthia added "The previous CEO did not invest in mines and ores, and just creating material is inefficient. We need mines and ores."


    “Even if we had mines and ores, and production capacity, we lack research capabilities to do anything with them” Egon cautioned


    “To build any of it, we lack in the engineering department. The Honoured CEO can create things at will, but we should not burden him with such trivialities if we can direct it downwards to the workforce" Winston brown-nosed.


    “I would not recommend opening the dungeon yet” Jenette added “We could increase our mpd by opening, but with our current Level of service, with no loot and a non-challenging MOB we would lose customers and the cost of respawning would be higher than the increase in income. In the long term, certainly.”


    Harold and Ellen just sat there, with their fingers in their noses. Basically. They did talk a lot, but for the meeting their contribution was redundant.


    They finally agreed on the course of action. i.e. Zoli told them what they will do, the managers nodded and Zoli was in the clear: if something went wrong, it was the managers who agreed, so it was their fault. The managers realized this and pushed for having Team Leaders to put the blame on, and since Zoli needed to expand the staff, agreed and created two Elite Level 20 Team Leaders and an Elite Level 22 secretary for each manager.


    Even Janine got two of those undersecretaries. But then, he needed to create three Normal Level 15 workers for each Team Leader so they could push the blame further down. With these 101 new workers, the company started to take shape. The cost of 406 mpd for the upkeep and four day''s worth (actually, it was around a week, since all of the new workers needed corporate attire, and the more workers he summoned, the less Mana he got) of income for summoning them was a well-spent investment.


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    The idea was to close off everything but the Forest Biome, recycle the MOB in the other Biomes to free up mpd and get the mess in the Forest in order first. As soon as the Forest could provide a good enough service, they would open up the dungeon to get Mana from the mercenaries and start renovating the Lake Biome next. After that was opened up, the Mountain Biome was next, all the while funneling a bit of Mana into the Grassland Biome, to complete it and receive mpd from there too.


    The terrain itself was beautifully constructed, with hills of different heights, with the lowest part set as zero elevation, between thirty and a bit above three hundred meters, with ditches, ravines, and valleys interspersed, everything covered in dense deciduous forest. Here and there, there were small creeks and streams and a few small pools and wet places that didn''t reach the level to be called a swamp.


    There were a few horsts too, covered in short grass and moss sporting steep sides, and a couple of clearings and glades, but most of the vegetation still consisted of woods. That is, a temperate forest mostly with oaks, but heavily interspersed with beech, chestnut, sycamore, walnut, wild service tree, and some willows near the streams and pools, and a few copses of fruit trees. And a lot of bushes and shrubs.


    Of course, Zoli wasn''t able to differentiate between them or name them. He could point out the difference between redwood and palm, but nothing more. He had no idea, what the shrubbery in his past office was called and what to do with it, but thankfully the Dungeon Operating System – with the added intervention of Egon, Cynthia, and Ellen – was able to inform him about their names and for what they were used.


    For some strange reason, every species had the added designation “Dungeon” in it. Egon informed him, that these were “magical” variations of the “outside” species, with certain “mystical” properties. For dummies: valuable for the outside world and for some strange reason cheaper to plant than the “outside” variations. Zoli didn’t care about most of the information, but the last one was important.


    The terrain and the greenery were done – and Zoli had to acknowledge – well done by the previous dungeon manager, all that was left was the MOB. The Forest Biome was around 350 square kilometers, divided into 45 Zones, but as Dana pointed out in the meeting, the MOB density was low:


    - two Dungeon Brown Bears and one Dungeon Dire Bear


    - four sounders of boars (one dominant sow, two other sows, four sounders, three juveniles, and four squeakers each) and six unattached males (one Dungeon Dire Boar, and five normal ones),


    - one Dungeon Dread Wild Cat


    - a murder of crows (one Dread, three Dire, and ten normal ones)


    - one pack of Dungeon Wild Dogs (one Dungeon Dire Wild Dog, and six normal ones. For some strange reason the dire version was a Bolognese)


    - one pair of Dungeon Imperial Eagle


    - one Dungeon Dread Saker Falcon (that one he recognized, it was a cultural thing. He needed to provide it with a crown and a sword)


    - twelve families of red foxes (two adults and four juveniles each, three families were of the dire variation)


    - ten packs of Dungeon Golden Jackals (two adults and five juveniles each, one of the packs was Dire Dungeon Golden Jackals – a ridiculous name)


    - three lynxes, one of them the camouflage-capable monster


    - an unkindness of ravens (one Dread, three Dire, and a dozen normal ones)


    - two tigers


    - six vipers (one each of the Dread and Dire versions)


    - two lonely Dungeon Dread Wolves


    - four wolfpacks of one Dungeon Dire Wolf and nine normal Dungeon Wolves (four of them young ones) a piece,


    - some does, bucks, rabbits, cats, rats, badgers, and a shitload of critters.


    The Zones were continuously numbered, but their placement was haphazard, to say the least.


    Zone 45 was bordering Zones 1 and 13, while Zone 44 was placed on the far side of the Biome. The numbering made no sense whatsoever. It was like the previous CEO did make one Zone, jumped to the next, tucked another next to the existing ones, and after a time remembered the old Zones and tucked another next to the first.


    Zoli had no idea, what the numbering of the Zones meant, he vaguely remembered reading something about it in the New Hire Orientation Package, and was not interested in Harold''s, Colette''s, and Ellen''s explanation, but felt it was a mess, and needed to be corrected. He decided to re-number the whole Biome, leaving Zone 1, near the Southern edge of the Biome, as a starting point. Zone 2 went due South then in a clockwise fashion Zones 2-5, then starting again at the Southern edge of Zones 6-10, and so forth. Next to the Mountain Biome, he ended up with Zones 42-45, simply because the Lake Biome and the border were in the way.


    Fortunately, renumbering did occur with only a minuscule cost.


    What next?


    Of course! It’s time for some promotions!