Fantasy Economics 101 - Chapter 1

Life is fleeting, contracts are forever

The morning sun already peeked past the horizon by the time the newly reborn skeleton finished organizing the tools and resources he had at his disposal. After the initial shock passed, the first thing he did was to gather everything the old necromancer and his two skeletal minions possessed, including all the clothes and items they had on them. He let the old man retain a sliver of dignity by leaving his underclothes on him, but as for his robes, he already wore them, if only to feel less naked.

Although the concept of modesty hardly applied to the undead, it didn't mean he had nothing to hide, and while the robe would have been too small if he still had his skin and muscles, due to his currently rather bony disposition, it fit him relatively well at the moment. He also put on one of the worker's boots, as the old man's were just too small, and while he did set aside a pair of gloves as well, he didn't wear them for the time being, as they got in the way of delicate movements.

Speaking of which, after emptying the backpacks and laying everything out on the ground, he crouched down and stared at his own right hand before reaching down and picking up a single gold coin. He thought it would be difficult to do so without fingertips, yet he could easily pinch it between the bones. Or rather, there was some kind of pale, blue shimmer around his phalanges, and the coin was firmly trapped between the ones surrounding his thumb and index finger. It was peculiar, but his knowledge of the precise workings of the undead was spotty at best, so he presumed this was normal. At least as much as being a skeleton could be ever considered as such.

There were also many other peculiarities he had to consider too, and while he didn't have any brows on his face, the way the smoldering light in his eye-sockets changed shape still gave the impression that he was frowning.

The coin he held in his hands was unfamiliar to him, and the fact it was made of gold baffled him to no end. He had no idea how long it had been since he died, but back when he was alive, the Attu Empire used a common monetary system it shared with most other nations on the continent. Ten small bronze coins were worth a large bronze coin, a hundred large bronze coins were worth a silver coin, and a hundred silver coins were worth a large gold coin. It was based on the coinage of the old Warran Republic, and the system was as widespread as it was stable.

Yet, despite all common sense speaking to the contrary, this old man, with his ragged robes and weathered farming implements, carrying only a few days' worth of food and no other valuables, had sixty gold coins in total. Sixty. And the majority of them were carried by the skeleton workers, no less! Back when he was alive, he could buy a small townhouse for that kind of money and would still have had enough left over to live comfortably for several years, yet this man was carrying them around in a pouch like they were but loose change.

But putting the coins aside, he was just as confused by the brass implements the skeleton workers were using. If he was this rich, why couldn't he afford steel tools? Not only that, while the wooden handles were in comparatively good shape, the metal of the pick-axe and hoe had strange pock-marks on them, and the shovel was in even worse shape, the corrosion eating a more than a handful of holes through the blade, big enough for him to see through. Despite that, the tool itself remained unexpectedly sturdy, and when he put it to its intended use, he could cut into the soil with minimal effort.

All of these things were strange and disconcerting, but they had little to do with his current predicament, so after his initial curiosity was sated, he cast them aside and continued to rummage through the necromancer's belongings. He was looking for some form of identification, official papers, or something that could tell him where he was, or failing that, when he was. Much to his dismay, the only writings he could discover were a barely legible note, and a worn tome with a skull embossed on its cover, practically screaming that it was a necromancer's grimoire.

That was something that gave him a pause for a moment. He had taken it for granted that the old man was a necromancer, for rather obvious reasons, but what was he doing operating in the open like this? Granted, while conducting a ceremony to create an undead in the middle of a vast forest might have seemed comparatively well-hidden from prying eyes, it weren't mortal eyes from which the necromancers had to conceal themselves. The gods did not appreciate when others trod upon their domains, and Unalas, the goddess of the underworld and souls, was especially litigious whenever someone infringed on her proverbial turf, for which raising the dead definitely qualified.

As he considered this, his eyes suddenly flared up like a pair of tiny suns, and after dropping the necromancer's book, he jumped into the pit and frantically looked around. He very nearly forgot about something incredibly important. Fortunately, thinking about the gods made him recall his Contract Amulet. He bought it before he embarked to the Eastern Steppes, and since it cost him a small fortune, he always wore it around his neck, even while sleeping or bathing. It had to be somewhere in his grave, and he had to find it.

The hole the necromancer's minions dug around him wasn't too deep, but since the sun just started to rise, and the trees around the monoliths blocked out most of the light, it would've been hard for a normal man to see anything in the dimness of the pit. For once, being an undead carried a benefit; unlike living men, he didn't perceive the world through eyeballs, and so he wasn't beholden to their weaknesses. Of course, seeing through magical means had its own downsides, such as the muted colors and a wafting blue mist that covered everything and limited his line of sight to a hundred paces at most, but neither of those proved a problem in this situation. In fact, after looking around for just a few breaths' time, his ethereal eyes caught the glint of something in the soil.

Using his hands, he tried to reach for it, but while his bony fingers and the strange aura around them could easily dig into the soil, the source of the light had proven to be lodged deeper in the soil than expected. Undeterred, he climbed out of the pit, only to return with the shovel, and after a few minutes of furious digging, the light finally moved. Frantic yet cautious, he cast the tool aside and scooped the remaining dirt away with his hands. At last, the moment he laid his eyes on the object still wedged in the ground, the relief washing over him nearly caused him to lose all strength in his legs.

He quenched his fists to center himself, then continued to scrape away until the small silver pendant was successfully dislodged from its resting place. It was a triangular piece of metal, about the size of a chicken's egg, depicting three palms with a round red gem set in the middle. The three palms were the symbol of Unalas, and the fact the medallion was completely intact even after all these years was a small miracle in and of itself.

After climbing out of the hole, he picked up the rough brush from among the tools piled up by the backpacks and began cleaning the item like it was the most precious thing in the world. In a sense, it was just that, considering it was his best chance to be properly resurrected.

True resurrection in the empire wasn't just a hopeless dream. While almost everyone had a sliver of mystic power in them, and simple magicks, healing cantrips in particular, were common among even the poorest farmers and vagrants, death by accident, or at the hands of others, was just as ordinary. However, death did not have to be the end.

The Seven Gods of Eksilva were truly pragmatic. They cared little for prayer and belief, and were rather partial to payments made in coins, directly deposited to their temples. Of course, one could pay in goods, votive offerings, or even in the form of new shrines and monuments dedicated to the gods, but at the end of the day, silver and gold trumped everything else. When given the right incentives, the Seven were both able and willing to bestow miracles that not even the greatest of wizards of the continent could hope to match.

The miracle of resurrection was one of the most coveted and, correspondingly, most costly of them all. It was not due to its difficulty, or because of some manner of taboo, but the simple fact that one needed to pay not one, but two different gods, for the only thing they valued more than money was the sanctity of their domains. No god could interfere with the jurisdiction of another, as decreed by the almighty Originator, the source of all creation, and the Seven upheld his rule with greater zeal than their own clergy.

As such, if one wished for a second chance at life, one had to consult both Unalas, the Queen of Twilight, and Alma, the Resplendent Light of the Sun. One could bring back the soul to the deceased, if paid for services rendered, but could not mend a broken body or return it to life. The other could not only heal even the most grievous of injuries, but restore lost body parts, or even create a new vessel from thin air, yet without a soul, the body would remain but an empty shell.

Earning their miracles was already daunting enough, but there was also the matter of time to consider. After the body perished, the window for resurrection was but a few short hours, as the soul's journey had already begun. Once they passed through the Thirteen Courts of the Underworld, they would enter the Endless Meadows and wait for their time to be reborn, after which Unalas no longer held jurisdiction over them. Of course, this issue could be theoretically overcome by consulting with Bel-Garath, god of time, creation, and rebirth, but getting two gods to the negotiation table was already an incredibly complicated, not to mention costly, endeavor. Adding a third one to the mixture was nothing short of an exercise in madness.

However, as with all situations involving bureaucracy and red tape, there were always certain, so to say, loopholes one could employ to make the process more streamlined and less strenuous for all parties involved. The Contract Amulet was one such loophole. By paying the Temple of Unalas ahead of time, one may, in a sense, place their own soul in reserve. Set aside. Separated from the rest of the souls passing through the Courts of the Underworld and safe from their judgment. They never reach the Endless Meadows, and thus they never enter into the domain of Bel-Garath, meaning they would indefinitely remain under the jurisdiction of Unalas, ready to be delivered to their freshly resuscitated bodies at but a moment's notice. It was an easy and simple solution to a complex problem, though not without its flaws.

First and foremost, it only dealt with one side. The body still had to be carried to the Temple of Alma, and they had to be paid separately in order to complete the miracle. The process also wasn't foolproof at all, and if either the body or the medallion was lost, the contract was all for naught. However, that was not the case for him.

He still had his body, in a sense, and by all appearances, the Contract Amulet survived without any serious damage as well. So long as he could get to a Temple of Alma, there was a good chance he could fully resurrect himself. Not only that, but with the sixty gold coins he inherited from the necromancer, he had no reason to worry about the fees either. All things considered, while his situation seemed bleak at the onset, he felt that he might have been quite fortunate instead.

If not for this wandering necromancer, his body might have never been found, and so in a sense, this second chance he received was all thanks to the old man lying at the bottom of the same pit from which they dug him up. Feeling nominally thankful, he decided to at least give them a proper burial, and after laying the dead body on its back and placing the minions' bones on each side, he grabbed the shovel again and rapidly filled in the hole.

This time he was no longer surprised by the almost contemptuous ease with which the blade of the tool bit into the soil, yet that didn't mean there was nothing left to marvel at. Even after half an hour of constant shoveling, he didn't grow tired at all. As a matter of fact, the work itself felt easy, like the dirt was completely weightless, and by the time the pit was gone, he felt more refreshed than before he started. Was this normal for the undead, he wondered? Once again, his lack of insight into his new, strange form of life was somewhat disconcerting, but the idea that he would only have to put up with it for a short while gave him more than enough solace to endure its eccentricities.

Once finished, he returned to the backpacks and started sorting the items on the ground again. The things he absolutely couldn't leave behind were the Contract Amulet and the pouch of gold. He placed the latter directly into the empty bag, but the medallion caused him slightly more headaches. It was the only way to ensure his resurrection, and losing it would've been disastrous, so he didn't dare to put it in the bag. Back when alive, he used a thin leather strip to keep it around his neck, but while there was a bundle of twine in one of the bags he could use to replace it, he wasn't sure letting his lifeline freely dangle from his neck-bones was a good.

At last, he came up with a plan. First, he tore off a large piece of cloth from one of the scarfs that used to cover the skeleton minions' skulls. After he wrapped the Contract Amulet in it, he tightly wound some twine around it, and once he was satisfied with the result, he used the remainder to fasten it to his own sternum, from the inside. It felt eerie, threading a string back and forth between his own ribs, but it was a small discomfort to pay for its safety.

The whole process only took a few minutes, and after he made sure the item was secure, he returned to the bag. While it looked sinister, he decided to take the Grimoire with him as well, as even if he didn't plan to stay undead for long, he imagined it might contain information that could make his brief unlife easier. Besides the book, he also packed away anything that looked even remotely valuable, which wasn't much. At last, he picked up the shovel. While it was a worn, crude instrument, it could still serve as a makeshift weapon, or at the very least as a substitute for a walking stick when crossing treacherous terrain.

He put everything he didn't need, including the trail food and water skins, into the other bag and stashed it in the hollow under one of the dilapidated monoliths. Standing back up, he made mental note of everything. Now, he had a second lease on life, a goal, and the means to achieve it. There was only one thing left to figure out, so he pulled the robe's hood over his head and whispered, "Where in the world am I, anyway?"