Lord Maldrake the Unmerciful installed the suggestion box because his chief torturer informed him that minion morale had reached “concerning levels.” Maldrake found this deeply irritating, mostly because he had assumed fear was an adequate substitute for morale. Still, poorly motivated minions tended to miss patrols, mishandle prisoners, and chant his name with disappointing enthusiasm during thunderstorms.

He ordered a black iron box mounted outside the great hall beneath a sign reading, SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVING SERVICE WITHIN CASTLE MALDRAKE. He expected demands for better food, fewer executions, or perhaps an additional holiday during Plague Week. By lunchtime, however, the box was overflowing with folded papers, diagrams, petitions, and something that appeared to be a complete engineering inspection of the south dungeon.

The first complaint concerned Stairwell C, whose steps apparently varied unpredictably between six and nine inches in height. According to the attached incident report, seven goblins had sprained ankles there, one orc had fallen down two entire flights, and a captured paladin had escaped because the pursuing guards were “unable to maintain safe footing.” Maldrake read the report twice, then demanded to know why nobody had told him the stairs were defective before now, only to discover that three previous maintenance requests had been filed under “cowardice.”

The next stack came from the skeleton department, which had submitted a formal complaint concerning workplace visibility. Maldrake initially objected that skeletons did not possess eyes, but their supervisor had anticipated this argument and included twelve pages explaining glare, low-light navigation, depth perception, and reflective hazards caused by polished skulls near torchlight. The department also requested vision coverage, protective tinted visors, and clearer markings around stair edges, which Maldrake considered ridiculous until someone quietly reminded him that six skeletons had walked into the same open well that month.

After that, the complaints became distressingly practical. The lava moat had no guardrails, the torture chamber lacked emergency exits, the poison laboratory stored antidotes beside poisons in identical green bottles, and the portcullis controls required operators to stand directly beneath the portcullis while raising it. One furious minion had written an eight-page proposal titled PLEASE STOP MAKING THE BUILDING TRY TO KILL US, complete with cost estimates and a prioritized repair schedule.

Maldrake summoned his chief engineer and demanded an explanation for what he considered an astonishing degree of incompetence. The engineer cautiously pointed out that nearly every dangerous feature had been personally requested by Maldrake because he wanted the fortress to feel “ominous.” Decorative spikes, dramatic shadows, open flame, bottomless pits, narrow bridges, collapsing floors, and doors shaped like screaming mouths were apparently impressive for visiting diplomats but somewhat less convenient for employees carrying laundry.

The final complaint of the evening concerned the eastern tower. A former mason had apparently warned for years that the foundation was sinking, but he had eventually been thrown into the dungeon for “negative thinking.” Maldrake was halfway through reading the mason’s detailed structural report when the entire castle shuddered and the eastern tower visibly tilted several degrees toward the courtyard.

Three months later, Castle Maldrake remained the most feared fortress in the kingdom, but it had changed in subtle and unsettling ways. Railings surrounded the lava pits, emergency exits were clearly marked, bottles in the poison laboratory were color-coded, and Stairwell C had finally been rebuilt according to an apparently revolutionary concept called “making every step the same height.” Even the skeletons received tinted protective visors, despite continued debate over whether they actually did anything.

The changes worked almost immediately. Workplace injuries dropped, guard attendance improved, dungeon escapes became rarer, and Maldrake discovered that minions who were not constantly recovering from preventable accidents performed evil significantly more efficiently. Unfortunately, success encouraged participation, and the suggestion box soon became so popular that Maldrake required a second box beside it.

One morning he arrived to find both completely full. The first submission was a forty-two-page request for ergonomic chairs in the necromancy office, while the second demanded formal regulations concerning acceptable temperatures in the dragon hatchery. Maldrake stared at the mountain of paperwork, slowly lowered his head onto the table, and realized with absolute horror that somewhere along the way he had become responsible for human resources.