Chapter 5: Goblin Capitalism 101

The demon army’s procurement problem began, as most existential threats did in Milo Finch’s experience, with a requisition form.

It was written on smoked vellum, stamped with a skull whose eye sockets had been filled in with what looked suspiciously like jam, and addressed to him in looping crimson ink.

URGENT: SUPPLIES REQUIRED FOR GLORIOUS CAMPAIGN OF NIGHT

Item 1: Iron spearheads, quantity: many
Item 2: Black bread, quantity: more than last time
Item 3: Medicinal mushroom paste, quantity: not poisonous kind
Item 4: Boots, quantity: two per soldier if possible, one if tragic
Item 5: Ominous banners, quantity: morale

Signed,
Grask, Acting Quartermaster, Third Basement Legion

Milo stared at the word many until it began to develop teeth.

Across the desk from him, Demon Lord Valyxia, Sovereign of the Nine Ashen Oaths, Unburnt Heiress of the Crimson Throne, and currently the proud owner of exactly fourteen copper coins in liquid operating capital, lounged with theatrical menace in a chair that had once belonged to an archduke and now belonged to woodworms.

“Aha,” Valyxia said, steepling her claw-tipped fingers. “You see, my dread accountant, the machine of conquest stirs. Already the legions hunger for war.”

“They hunger for bread,” Milo said.

“Bread is the foundation of war.”

“So are shoes, apparently.”

Valyxia’s golden eyes narrowed. The candlelight loved her in a way Milo found deeply unfair. It gleamed along her black horns, sparked in her wine-dark hair, and turned every dramatic motion into a painting someone would hang in a cathedral they later burned down.

“Shoes,” she said, with the grave disdain of an immortal tyrant forced to acknowledge laundry, “are a logistical detail.”

“Logistics are what happen when reality vetoes speeches.”

At the far side of the office, two imps who had been pretending not to listen made strangled snorting noises. One immediately slapped the other with a stack of overdue invoices to cover it up.

Milo adjusted his spectacles. They were not his original spectacles. His original pair had been crushed beneath six hundred pages of tax documentation in another world, along with the rest of him. These were castle-issued spectacles, made from smoky quartz and anxiety, and they had a tendency to show him line items when he was trying to sleep.

On his desk, papers had multiplied overnight. Payroll schedules. Debt notes. Inventories. Apology letters from skeleton janitors who had accidentally unionized after misreading his memo about workplace grievance procedures. A castle that had seemed like gothic ruin and melodramatic poverty three days ago had revealed itself, under the merciless gaze of accounting, to be a collapsing bureaucracy held together by curses, unpaid enthusiasm, and one demon maid named Liri who could sharpen knives loudly enough to influence policy.

Valyxia leaned forward. “The goblin market opens today beneath Hollowfang Bridge. If we arrive in full dread splendor, surely the merchants will tremble and offer tribute.”

“They’ll raise prices.”

“Because they fear me.”

“Because you look like you can’t comparison shop.”

The Demon Lord went very still.

“Milo Finch,” she said softly, “are you suggesting I lack bargaining presence?”

Milo glanced at her skull pauldrons, her cloak of shadowfeathers, and the ceremonial sword taller than he was, then imagined her trying to haggle over boot leather while an entire market smelled desperation through the smoke machine aura she seemed to emit naturally.

“I’m suggesting,” he said, “that if you personally show up needing many spearheads, the price of iron triples before you finish descending from your ominous carriage.”

Valyxia’s expression curdled into wounded grandeur. “I can descend very economically.”

“I’ll go.”

The room fell silent except for a distant scream from the west tower, followed by someone yelling, “Sorry! Training accident!”

Valyxia blinked. “You?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“Preferably with someone who knows the way and won’t start a war over a bulk discount.”

“Goblins are notoriously treacherous,” Valyxia warned. “Their markets are dens of blades, lies, fried things on sticks, and financial instruments no sane soul would sign.”

Milo felt, to his surprise, a faint stirring of professional interest.

“Financial instruments?”

“Do not get excited.”

“I’m not excited.”

One of the imps whispered, “His eyes got shiny.”

Milo ignored him.

Valyxia rose from her chair with the smooth, apocalyptic grace of a storm cloud deciding to become a person. “Very well. You shall go as my envoy, veiled in dread authority. Take Grask. He knows goblin customs.”

As if summoned by terrible timing, the office door opened, and Grask ducked inside.

Grask was an orc built like a regrettable architectural decision. He wore a quartermaster’s sash across his chest, a dented helmet under one arm, and an expression of permanent administrative suffering. Behind him shuffled three goblin-sized empty sacks and one very full worry.

“Lord Accountant,” he rumbled. “Market soon. If miss early bell, all good boots gone. Last season we buy left boots only. Morale complicated.”

Milo stood, gathered a blank ledger, two pens, a purse of copper advances, and the tiny ember of hope that this might be simple.

He should have known better.

Nothing in Eldoria that involved commerce was ever simple. Magic obeyed contracts here the way gravity obeyed mass. Every promise had weight. Every title had teeth. Ownership clung to things like scent. Debts could curdle in the air, visible to those with the right eyes—or, in Milo’s case, the wrong cheat skill and a lifetime of audit trauma.

As he crossed the castle courtyard, the morning mist dragged itself between cracked stones and black thorn hedges. The Demon Lord’s castle loomed behind him in melancholy splendor, all broken spires and gargoyles missing union-negotiated break schedules. Servants paused their chores to bow.

Not to Valyxia.