Thanks for trying the dev build and sharing your feedback.
Regarding the fiend, what was Isabella's skill level in fiend milking? It should grow to the second phase after around a dozen milkings if her skill level is D-, so if that's not happening then there's a bug. Puzzling, because in my current game the fiend is growing just fine. Edit: Just tested this with a new game. Isabella needs to be taught, otherwise when she milks the fiend it just rapes her and it won't grow from just that. Isabella won't accept the training if she's in the slave role but if you use train assistant -> sex training, she will accept it. Really, Isabella should be refusing to milk the fiend as an assistant also, because she's Proud and Willful and Lively and Clever and her obedience when you first get her is not very high. Fiend milking has a high obedience threshold, and Isabella is moronic so you can't frighten her, which means even after you lower her pride to Unashamed, you also need to raise her mood to at least Pleased before she'll agree to a fiend milking lesson as a slave. But the assistant role bypasses a lot of the obedience checks so it's a bit of a loophole at the moment.
Regarding upkeep. The costs are meant to be challenging but not so high that they force you to churn low-level slaves; your experience suggests that we might need to scale them down a bit. On the other hand, normal games start in the Slums, not in an apartment, and living in the Slums while you're working on your first few guild contracts can save you a lot of sparks. Do you think that the game should be easy if you immediately jump into an apartment rental and bypass the "slumming it" experience at the beginning?
You were playing a normal start with M'lord, correct? Did you immediately rent an apartment in the Taurus distract? Did you immediately get Isabella? Did you make her do the accounting? Even if you don't train her at all, she'll be saving sparks after a few decades as her secretary skill levels up just from doing the accounting. Billing seems to be around (below) 600 sparks with just you and Isabella and no extra rentals, so your 700/decade sounds about right. M'lord starts with 2500$, so if he immediately gets an apartment, he can live on his savings for about 3 decades.
There's also supplemental income from arena battles (at a minimum, whichever slave you're currently training can go to the arena and bring in 50$ per decade, plus Isabella/your assistant can go also if you have at least B+ guild rep, and after becoming an arena champion your gladiatrix can bring in over 100 sparks, so that's 150-200$ per decade just from battles; add races [Isabella makes a great pony] and you have another 50$ to 150$). So in total you can get 200 - 250$ of guaranteed income from the arena every decade, with another 100$ or so from the races if you maintain a winning streak [which Isabella can do]. So an average bill of 700 is offset 25-33%.
How long does it usually take for you to train a C+ or a B+ slave?
On normal obedience difficulty, a slave with average attributes (B+ temperament/intellect/nature and C- pride "Proud") qualifies as D- with 2 B+ skills and 4 D- common skills, optimistic mood, no devotion, and no aura stats above two (2 fear/taming/habit, 1 awareness). If the slave has lower temperament/intellect/nature or pride, obedience will be higher. So save scumming for optimal attributes shouldn't be necessary, although avoiding above-average temperament and nature means you reach D- earlier.
Once you have positive obedience and mood, the slave begins passively gaining devotion. If you give her intimate rewards (spend time or erotic), and you're not doing something that slows progress (like forcing rules she hates, or she has despair or spoiling), she should reach 1 devotion 5-7 days after reaching positive obedience. It can be faster if you have access to techniques that require high master skills / prior investment, like using spells Adverto Servili and Delikacia that also raise devotion, or giving the slave a Philtre potion which requires S+ alchemy assistant and a fiend that has grown enough to produce some mucus. So if it takes you 5 days to get a slave to positive obedience (on normal difficulty, 5 days should be plenty), you can easily reach D+ within a decade.
Now to qualify for C- the slave just needs some sex skills (D- in petting and D- in demonstration is enough) and a few more D- common skills (2 B+ skills and 9 D- is enough, and you'll get one of those "for free" from the arena if you send the slave there: D- gladiatrix -- and you can raise pet skill passively by enabling the pet rule once the slave has positive obedience). All of this assumes the slave started as a blank slate, but mature and young slaves usually have some sex skills already, and slaves often start with some common skills too.
Now to reach C+ rank you need a bit more sex training (C- petting and C- demonstration is enough) and a bit more common skills (raising two of the D- skills to C- is enough).
You can focus on a narrower set of skills and raise them higher instead of spreading out and getting many to D-, but of course training slows down as you progress to higher ranks.
While it's not ideal, you can also take loans to buy yourself an extra decade now so you don't end up in a cycle of training bottom-tier slaves. A 500 spark loan gives you 30 days and you lose 100$ on the repayment. With 500 sparks you can easily afford to buy a cheap slave from the market and then you have almost three decades to train her before the debt is called in. After you've repaid your first 500$ loan, you can take a 1000 spark loan that gives you 40 days (losing 250$ on the repayment).
Guild auctions as an income source were a key factor that I looked at for the rental costs. A D+ slave at guild auction can bring in 1000 sparks. A C+ slave at guild auction can bring in 3500 sparks. A B+ slave can bring in 5000+. Etc. To get higher auction value, you can make a slave appealing to a wider range of aucton participants by training her in multiple specializations. Also, if you spruce her up before the auction (raise her charm), it can drive the bidding higher. After a sale like this, you have time for a longer project. And after a longer project, you have even more sparks. Once you've built up enough of a buffer to train high-tier slave, you should be able to easily stay ahead of the costs as long as you don't burn down your savings carelessly.
What if you take the fear route instead? You can't reach C+ rank without at least one star of devotion, but you can substitute 4 fear in the aura for 1 devotion to qualify for C-. You can sell a C- slave for 850 sparks to various NPCs, or turn in for guild contract for 425 sparks plus speed award [which for a C- contract can be up to 500 sparks if you take contract and turn in slave same day, for a total of 925 sparks, plus the prepayment of 100 sparks], or sell at auction for considerably more.
So far, we're still considering that you're focusing all of your attention on training one slave at a time (with an assistant). If you start to train multiple slaves at once, you can rapidly increase your income. The "pig" slot in the barn and the dungeon require no special training to place a slave there, so at a minimum, you can train 1-2 extra slaves every day (using school/tutors/assistant to augment master's energy for common skills training). In my view, that's min/maxing and shouldn't be necessary to manage costs, but if you find yourself short, this is another way to get back on track.
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