Zoe took Dave to a four-star hotel in Manhattan and checked him into a room for a week, one that came with a game capsule.

Zoe used her credit card for the room since Dave's auction money was still sitting in Conquest. But she charged Dave another fancy dinner date.

Dave agreed to take Zoe to the first fancy dinner the evening after next. Zoe left after they said goodbye and Dave went up to his hotel room.

Dave was amazed how luxurious the room was. The decor was tasteful and didn't look anything like the normal cookie cutter cloned hotel stuff. The king-size bed was softer than any he'd slept in before. In the living area was a mini-bar and a fridge filled with snacks and drinks. In one of the wardrobes were numerous toiletries and thick bathrobes with the hotel logo embroidered on them, as well as stacks of neatly folded towels of all sizes.

The bathroom was literally bigger than his apartment. The loo and bidet were in their own closed off area. Along one wall was a whirlpool tub big enough for four and a separate shower stall with more nozzles than he had fingers. Two sinks with lighted vanity mirrors and two triple-paned dressing mirrors with built in smart-mirror function were along up another wall. And the FLOOR was heated, it had its own separate thermostat!

Most importantly, he could log in to play Conquest from the hotel room, just as promised. A discreet alcove behind a door held a custom game capsule installed in it.

Ordering a meal from the hotel kitchens he took a quick shower, then put on one of the thick robes and waited until there was a knock on the door. The food was wheeled into his room on a cart by uniformed hotel employees.

After the meal, which was infinitely better than the hospital food he'd suffered through the last few days, Dave climbed into the game capsule and logged onto Conquest.

Dave appeared in Moria, the 'Kill' signal still projected in the sky for all to see.

He changed back to his draugr form with the Ring of the Death God and then tore a scroll, appearing in the Red Fortress. He looked around then headed for the teleportation gate and used it to transport himself to the Dead Realm.

Opening his land management panel he located the land granted to him by the king. It wasn't far from the palace, just outside the area occupied by the undead surrounding the undead-city.

Dave summoned Stinger from his unit's management panel. Dave rode on top of stinger and ordered him to go to his land.

It took a while for Dave to reach the land and when he got there, he could see basilisks nomming on herbs and drinking from a river that went through the land.

The area was fertile and forested with a river running through it. He opened the land management panel, it provided costs and a list of materials needed to build stuff in this place. There were barracks, shops and a mansion. There was even a breeding stable for the basilisks.

But before he could build anything he needed to buy the blueprints.

Dave looked at the costs and what materials he would need. All the materials were available to harvest from his own land, he wouldn't have to purchase anything from outside.

Logs would be harvested from the forest and turned into lumber, rocks quarried and chiselled into building-stones. He needed a stonemason to work the rocks into building material.

Dave summoned a hundred elite skeletons from his unit management panel and ordered them to start chopping down trees.

But they all just looked at him uncomprehendingly.

Dave summoned Bud, and asked the ghoul to explain to the skeletons what he wanted.

"Chop-chop manokay, chop-chop monster okay. Chop-chop not-enemy...Not," Bud shrugged. Bud had become quite verbose after his last evolution.

"Wait here," Dave ordered the undead and rode back to the Undead-City.

"Hey Dikenz," Dave saluted.

"Ahh, me fave-rit cust'mer."

"I need to buy some blueprints for land management. Show me what you got."

"O'course," Dikenz sent a list of his available blueprints. The prices for basic building blueprints started at 10,000 CP.

Dave scrolled down and purchased blueprints for barracks and a breeding stable.

He also bought the blueprints for a mansion.

There were many other blueprint on the list but they were grayed out.

"Why can't I get the blueprints for the mage-tower?" Dave asked

"That'd be because ye don't have a superior mage in yer unit. Ye need a lich or a mage of at least Death-Knight rank to have a mage-tower. It's the same fer the archery range ye need a Death Knight ranked archer, we call em Dead-Eyes. Ye'r a melee combatant and Death Knight so the barracks be available."

Dave came across two oddities in the list. The first was a blueprint for what appeared to be a large tomb with statues and obelisks all surrounded by high stone walls. The second blueprint was for a fenced and gated graveyard plot of fallow land with a large area specifically earmarked for some sort of tree to be placed in. The buy-buttons weren't grayed out, so both blueprints were available to him for purchase. But what the hell were they for?