It was about Zone 5’s Sub-Zone.

  “So, Boss… all right, all right, honored CEO, sir, the idea is to make the whole hole into an obstacle course. Only a light touch of MOB, basically only the boss… ehmmm… Sub-Zone Leader and a few critters… Interns here and there.”

  “And that would be a challenge?”

  “Oh, yeah, boss… CEO, sir. It's dark, cramped, slippery, and has steep points. And a couple of natural traps and dead ends. The adventurers… ehmm… customers would need dedicated gear and good Skills. Well, and bring light sources. One of the devs proposed a scheme to run a background check, and if the adv… customer was unfaithful in the last week, a stone block will drop on his head here, in this narrow place.”

  Zoli thought it was a good idea to limit unfaithfulness to only one week. Mercenaries probably had a girl in every other town and rolled in the hay every night even on campaign. If the miniatures were correct, there wasn't much cloth to remove in the first place. That reminded him of that one female, back in his previous company. She secured a good career by looking nice and accommodating certain superiors. It was a treat to fire her when she overstepped and tried to blackmail one of the managers, and was surprised when she was presented with carefully curated data.

  “Why would any customer enter such a difficult place?” Zoli wondered.

  “Probably for sports. Climbing mountains, crawling around in caves, jumping from high places, and casting Fly or Levitate. Rowing on wild waters. If you can think of something like that, there is a chance, someone would do it for fun or payment. Sir. Honored CEO."

  Burke was probably right – back on Earth whole industries catered to adrenaline junkies. The customers, they were planning to cater to would enter company premises of their own volition, to face carefully planned and executed adversity. What was crawling through… thirteen kilometers of dark caves compared to that?

  “Present the Org Chart." Zoli agreed on the scheme "What kind of merchandise do you propose?"

  “Well, Boss, ehmm, CEO sir, we should put a Dread Giant Cave Scorpion at the end, Level 10, and randomly seed Cave Scorpions, Cave Crawlers, and Centipedes as Interns throughout the caves. Winston, no. No undead, we discussed it already!"

  “But undead and caves should go hand in hand like crossbows and kids!”

  “No undead.” Burke was firm in his position “They doesn’t fit the theme and the salary would be prohibitive. We are an animal-based company!”

  “No undead. We should aim to keep the overhead below the revenue and paying exorbitant wages for specialists is a bad way to aggregate accurate applications. What about merchandise?"

  “Well, Boss, sir, CEO-man, sir, we still don’t have much in the way of loot…”

  “Merchandise!"

  “Yes, neither that. As I was saying, the dungeon, ok, yes, the company doesn't have much to play with. However, placing some mineral deposits there would fit the theme. Of course, we would need to buy the nodes first. I talked with Egon about that, and he is certain, they could research some jewelry and such when we have the raw materials. Quartz crystals would be the first possibility. There are quite a few closely related versions, clear, smoky, citrine, and amethyst, to name a few."

  “The cost?”

  “There are two possibilities, honored CEO, sir." Raymond started to explain "If we source one-off nodes, the cost would be low at the beginning, but in the long term, the aggregate expenditure would be unsustainable. We would advise to source them only for research purposes, or as non-renewable merchandise for special places."

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  “Like the special offer employees in the even-numbered Zones, Boss.”

  “The other possibility is renewable nodes. The initial cost would be higher, and we would need to reserve a certain amount of MPD for the minerals to respawn, so to speak.”

  Renewable resources? Zoli was immediately sold. After all, renewables were in fashion back on Earth, he could only imagine the excellent press, building only on renewable assets – the same strip mine could sustain the company forever, without felling all those poor trees and destroying picturesque slums in the ass end of the world!

  “Egon, what kind of merchandise could you research with those stones?"

  “Honored CEO, sir, without having a sample on hand, R&D can only speculate at this time. We are quite certain, we could combine the gems with the already researched pendants, and if we have access to metals, we could probably make rings and other things too. Of course, we could buy licenses, and build up from those. It would speed up the research immensely.”

  “Hold on acquiring licenses. With our current backlog of need-to-have benefits, licenses are out of reach. Develop distinctive deliverables from what we have and integrate them into intuitive initiatives. Burke, how many nodes are we talking about?"

  “We shouldn't put all that many into the cave – we aren't a mining operation. The devs calculated one or two citrine and amethyst nodes each as the main prize and around half a dozen nodes each of the clear and smoky varieties should suffice. Enough for the adventurers… customers to crawl around, but not that many that it would cost the company a lot of currency and MPD."

  “Honored CEO, sir." Peter interjected, "We have discussed the challenge with Finances and R&D, and outlined a scheme to let R&D have flexible methods of implementing innovations while exploiting future-proof resources."

  “Yes, honored CEO, sir" Egon agreed, while Raymond was nodding "The idea is to place one-off nodes of every quartz into the caves, so we can research applications, and just place placeholder signs where we want the renewable nodes to be placed at a later date. The expenditure would be lower without recurring costs till the company opens."

  “It would be also a good idea to have one-offs of a wide selection of other minerals, preferably all of them. Putting them in the Mountain Biome wouldn’t disturb the growth opportunities and the restructuring of the Forest Biome, and having access to them would enable R&D a distributed array of early models.” Raymond clarified.

  It was actually a good idea, it was almost like Zoli came up with it. Having a leg up in early research would be certainly beneficial. There were only two challenges with the proposed scheme. First of all, the research schedule was already packed full and secondly, the company was starved for currency as it was. Every SIB they were presented with was funneled into the acquisition of new Perks, that were needed for basic and further growth.

  Zoli simply couldn’t spare the money at the moment to buy even one-off nodes for R&D’s hobby.

  “So, this is what we will do." Zoli presented the most excellent solution to the complex challenge "You can have the four one-off quartz nodes for research purposes. Put up placeholder signs, where the future nodes will be placed. Don't forget to summarize the cost, type, and value of the nodes! You should also have a cross-department meeting on how to coordinate an economically sound schedule for acquiring further nodes, and how to facilitate the costs into the schedule. Negotiate optimal total linkage!"

  Not willing to hear another point to decide upon, Zoli quickly left the meeting. So much work was clearly enough for the day! He decided to continue his hike to survey the completed parts of the company, and evaluate, how dedicated the employees were.

  Low-level employees worked the hardest, when they felt the constant gaze of a superior, after all. If the superior in question was the CEO, the work was done in an even more dedicated and excellent manner. Of course, a CEO couldn't constantly look over the shoulders of every small-time intern (that was the job of Team Leaders, Group Leaders, and all those other sub-managers), but sometimes it was good practice to let the workforce know, that the boss was around and interested in them.

  Of course, a manager wasn’t interested in the slightest in the existence of the nameless masses, but it was a scientifically proven fact, that as long the employees thought, they mattered, dedication and motivation soared.

  Zoli looked across the pond at the fake mill with the Spiders and debated where to continue his exploration.

  He also debated, if letting R&D research a company car, so he wouldn't have to walk was a good idea. Well, of course, it was a good idea, but driving around dense woods probably wasn't. Naturally, he would need a driver too, a successful CEO was entitled to not needing to drive themselves.

  In the end, he decided, a company car and a driver wasn't necessary at this time. Not, because it would clog up the research schedule, but because he remembered, he was the landscape and could move to any point without needing to… well, traverse the distance between Point A and Point B.

  Zoli turned South and not-traversed the distance between the pond and the lookout tower in Zone 2. It was time for a dedicated dispensing of motivation by looking over shoulders.