As it turned out, this was just the first of many gifts that Cmyk would receive while going about town. He also found that one didn’t need money to actually buy things. With Ulf as a guarantee, quite a few shop owners agreed to let the minion have the wares with as little as a promise for him to pay them back in the next few days. What was more, all of them were eager to add a free item to the purchase to get on his good side.

The tailor had gone out of his way to find clothes that would fit, the blacksmith had agreed to part with the second-best sword on display… and the absurdity of the situation was that the more things Cmyk took, the more people were willing to give him.

In half a day, Cmyk had managed to visit everything of note within the town—with the exception of the palace—had made over a hundred acquaintances, and acquired enough gifts to fill a small room. The whole experience seemed rather pleasant. What was more, the minion had also found what he had been set out for: hay. In the case of the latter, it had also come with a cage and an obscenely large white rabbit—courtesy of one of the local farmers.

Come evening, when the stall and shop owners had closed up and Ulf, along with Cmyk’s other newly made friends, had departed to get back to their own lives, the minion returned to his dungeon. Needless to say, Theo was furious.

“What’s the meaning of this?!” the dungeon shouted. “I give you a simple five-minute task, and you spend a day chatting with people, buying everything in sight, and… is that booze I smell?”

The minion knew he was at fault, so he did the only thing that he knew would get him off the hook: hold the cage with the rabbit in front of his face.

“What the heck is that?!” Theo asked, still furious. Even back in his previous life, he wasn’t one known for his patience. Being able to watch his minion wander about town instead of doing the work he was supposed to, didn’t help either.

Undeterred, Cmyk shook the cage.

“You bought a lazy fat rabbit? Actually, how exactly did you afford all that?”

With a blank expression on his face, the minion took out a roll of parchments from his belt with his left and waved them next to the cage.

Those are ower’s papers, the spirit guide explained.

“Just great! You’ve been out for a day, and you’ve already gotten me in debt! I guess you can call your bed goodbye!”

Terrified by the prospect, the minion took several steps back. There were a lot of terrible things that Theo was capable of doing, and this seemed like the worst. No bed meant that Cmyk would have to resort to chairs for sleeping, which—now that he had a fleshy body—no longer were comfortable.

There’s hay beneath the rabbit, the spirit guide said in an attempt to diffuse the situation. Cmyk could use that to spin the gold needed to pay off the debt, as well as buy more hay? You’ll need more than a few gold coins to buy the land deed.

“Hmmm.” Theo didn’t sound overly convinced.

Look at it from a positive point of view. Him mingling with the locals has earned him trust. It’ll be a lot easier for him to get things done, which means you could be left alone.

Theo rattled the table in the main room. He didn’t trust the ex-skeleton as far as he could throw him. However, the guide did have a point. Clearly, a lot of people had found his minion trustworthy enough to sell him things on credit. For the sake of Theo’s dream of eternal sleep and procrastination, he decided to let matters slide this time.

“You better not let me down,” the dungeon said. “Go get spinning!”

Theo lifted his minion, moving him to the top floor. Thus, work finally began. Even with Theo and Cmyk’s combined efforts it took them an hour to spin the first gold coin. The process was long and arduous, driving the spirit guide to hysteria just by looking. Once done, both minion and master agree to take a short break, pleased with their achievement.

The next day, the work continued. The second gold coin was made in a quarter of the time. The third was ready in a matter of minutes. After that the floodgates broke. Coins poured onto the floor, as Cmyk and Theo synchronized their efforts. To no one’s surprise, the hay was completely gone, to the grouchy annoyance of the fat rabbit that had been deprived of its comfort.  

“Good job!” Theo said, caught by the thrill of the moment. “Now take those coins, pay off your debts, then get more hay.” There was a slight moment of hesitation. “And you can spend the rest of the money however you wish. Just get the hay first!”

Eager to get all this “work” business over with, Cmyk gathered the gold coins and left. Five hours later, he was back with a whole lot of new things—mostly pillows, fluff filled blankets, and silk sheets—and, of course, several stacks of hay.

There was no trace of the gold coins Cmyk had left with, but Theo was far from annoyed. His only focus at present was getting the coveted land deed. According to the spirit guide—which Theo had started calling Spok—the cost of the deed would amount to roughly five hundred gold coins, a thousand to be safe. The goal in sight, Cmyk gave an apple to the fat rabbit and went to work with only marginal reluctance.

In no time, the floor was covered in coins. Stacks of gold piled up around the spinning wheel, forcing Cmyk to make a trail each time he went to get a fresh stack of straw.