- [Fi-Fi] -

A lively energy dances through the newly restored kitchen, a stark contrast to the oppressive darkness that looms outside the thick castle walls.

[{Restored} The Castle Kitchens]

{Item Spawning Zone} This primary kitchen nested in the heart of the Vampire Lord’s castle is fit to staff a hundred cooks, bakers, and pastry-makers. Together with the power of the Vampire Lord’s magic, this room is deeply interconnected with the rest of the castle’s spaces, unlocking additional features.

Room Effects:

• Real food will be prepared here for all living monsters, enhancing their strength globally throughout the castle.

• [Cooked Food]-type items will now sometimes be dropped by your castle's monsters upon defeat.

Room Power Sources:

◦ The walls are lined with ovens, fed with elemental fire from the basement [Boiler Room]

◦ Water and herbal ingredients stem from the [Blackflower Garden]

◦ Meat and gathered plants stem from [Bleak Forest]

◦ Various cooking implements are powered via mechanical clockwork from [Clocktower]

The room is active! Monsters are currently spawning here!

Fi-Fi, the skeletal maid, sings a sweet tune to herself, her voice ringing with an unsettling cheerfulness that fills the space. A golden bangle jangles on her wrist. Her bones — unusually shiny tonight — glimmer faintly in the soft glow of the flickering oil lamps, casting elongated shadows that sway across surfaces brimming with ingredients, tools, and the promise of an extravagant banquet.

— She waxed them, her bones.

She doesn’t have skin and all of that anymore, but she’s decided that she will do her best to look pretty anyway.

She works with nimble efficiency, her thin fingers dancing over trays and utensils as she prepares for a gathering that seems whimsically out of place in contrast to the black metal kitchen and flames spewing out of roaring ovens that are shaped in the faces of beasts.

Steam pipes are visible beneath intricately designed black metal counters, all sourced from the unforgiving mines deep beneath the castle. The old leaky bronze pipes in the castle have slowly been exchanging themselves out for these new black ones ever since the Master repaired the mine. They are much stronger and have fewer leaks, resulting in a higher pressure for many traps and devices.

Water drawn from the castle’s gardens pours into a large basin, its surface reflecting the vibrant flickers of golden-yellow flames from the oven. And inside that oven she is working happily by, a flame spirit blooms inside — leaping, twisting as it tries to fight her for the bread she’s baking in the oven.

The little monster makes an angry face, clamping down on Fi-Fi’s hand and biting on the bone. She flicks her fingers. “No!” scolds Fi-Fi, smacking the little star-shaped monster’s ‘arms’ away from the bread being baked as she reaches into the oven with her bony hand, unbothered by the heat.

A moment later, the face reappears in the back of the oven, looking at her angrily. “This is for the Master’s guests,” she warns. “Fi-Fi already gave you some before! You greedy baaaka~!”

~ [Fire Elemental] ~

A Fire Elemental.

Living in only the hottest of all places, fire elementals are living flames — fire brought to life by an overwhelming ambient magical force. Fire elementals spawn naturally anywhere fire and powerful energy collide and are seen as aggressively neutral toward everything, in that they will aggressively try to consume everything and everyone with a neutral, factionless zeal of hungry fire.

Elemental monsters will vary greatly in strength, making them unclassifiable in rank. Whereas a common household fire elemental could be a nuisance, the more industriously natured elementals can be a danger.

One famous example was born of a particularity mischievous elemental that nestled itself inside the back of a ruby dragon’s throat and consistently tickled it, causing the beast to violently spew powerful dragon’s fire day and night. The elemental parasitically gorged on these flames until becoming large enough to consume its host entirely from the inside out.

Type: Elemental Rank: F - SSS Common Drop: Cold Spark Rare Drop: Elemental Spawning Dust

The full shelves around her hold an array of darkly gleaming cookware. The air carries hints of real food — rich, fresh, warm. One would think this is a rarity indeed for the Vampire Lord’s castle. But the new Master is quite odd. There are humans here now, and they need to be fed.

She reaches inside, a moment of tense anticipation, before retrieving a perfectly baked loaf, its crust a brilliant shade of deep brown, steam coiling around it like a soothing embrace.

The clock ticks rhythmically on the wall, its hands gliding forth with purpose. Each tick is a heartbeat of the castle, maintaining an unsettling harmony with the world that flutters eerily just beyond the kitchen door. Fi-Fi glances towards it, her eye sockets twinkling with an animated glow. “It’s almost time. I should hurry!” she murmurs.

Fi-Fi puts her work onto a tray together with the rest of the food and heads out, pushing a silver trolley out to the dining area.

Behind her, the oven crackles with fat, where she forgot a roast chicken of the few she had prepared.

The little elemental greedily reaches up toward it.

— Ghostly, pale hands reach in, snatching it.

The elemental cries out. But the unknown ghost clutches the entire chicken against itself and then vanishes, flying up into the ceiling.

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- [Five Minutes Later, Elsewhere in the Castle] -

“I’m starving,” groans a man, walking with his partner down a corridor.

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The woman next to him sighs and agrees. “Let’s do another hour and then head back to the guild,” she suggests.

He sighs. “The food there is… sad…” he remarks, lifting his eyes. The man stops, and then motions for her to stop too.

“What?”

He tilts his head. “Does that wall look… off?” he asks, nodding to a wall in the hallway. The bricks are the same pattern as the rest of them, but their color is off by a full shade. “It looks different,” he notes.

The two of them look at each other and nod.

She lifts her hand, and a second later a fireball explodes against the stonework. Bricks and rock rubble fly everywhere, through the smoke.

Standing there, expecting to have found a secret passage, instead the two adventurers quietly stare and ponder.

There is no secret passage or room hidden behind the odd wall.

Instead, an entire roast chicken sits there on a pedestal — having been bricked inside a small closet-sized space. A drop of fat runs down its golden skin. As the smoke clears, it remains like a shimmering, golden treasure.

The two of them turn to look at each other, obviously deeply confused.

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- [Sanftes, the Fairy] -

How long has she been lost in here?

Sanftes the fairy keeps crawling through the holes in the walls, moving from one crevice to the next as she navigates a tiny labyrinth of spaces that almost feels like a miniature dungeon of its own right instead of the castle itself. It feels like it’s been days since she escaped that bedroom, since she was bitten by the Vampire Lord.

She rests whenever she can, curling up into nooks and crannies as she crawls between rooms. Sometimes she can glance into the castle below, through cracks and crevices — but they are never big enough to crawl through, and when she tries to break the holes open with magic, they repair themselves before her eyes.

Sometimes, she thinks she’s going crazy — but she can’t help feeling as if she’s being played with, corralled like a mouse through a maze. Sometimes she sees them — the mice — but they avoid her. She’s tried hunting them, but they’re too fast and they scamper down into the tunnels

Crawling forward, she keeps going.

There’s a slight groaning of wood from beneath her as she moves over a dark patch.

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- [Vampire Lord, Inkume] -

Inkume sits at the end of the long, once broken dining table in his dining room, honestly in quite a good mood. The table where he had first sat, all of those nights ago when he first arrived at the castle and had his first talk with Snatch about what this all was, is now fabulously repaired and cleaned. Even his wobbly chair is stalwart as a throne.

Feeling quiet content, he sits there and swirls a wine glass of blood. Everyone is here tonight. He’s decided, in honor of his newest employee — a witch — who he would like to meet, that after a month of so much happening and so many faces collecting under his shadow, it would be good to get everyone together all in one place.

Azalea seems a little odd these days, but she’s sitting there having a talk with Snatch about the afterlife. It’s nice to see the two of them getting along.

The wolf goddess, changed into the shape of a giant beast, ‘sits’ alongside nearly the entire half of one side of the table. She’s lying down, her snout resting on the edge. It’s the only way she can fit.

Even the gardener is here together with the Albrūn, although she’s inside of a big, clay pot and absolutely refuses to come out of it. Only occasionally will a pair of soft eyes peek over the edge his way before immediately vanishing back down again, the lid clattering.

The guest of honor isn’t here yet. Snatch said she was invited and then started getting ready, but she just hasn’t shown up yet. Maybe she’s the kind to over prepare? Oh well, there’s no rush. They’ll wait for her.

He can’t help but feel like someone is missing, though?

“Fi-Fi is here!” calls a giddy voice from the side as Fi-Fi rolls in the silver wagon and parks it next to another twenty or so that are already waiting by the wolf-goddess. She’s pretty big outside of the moonlight nights, after all. It takes a lot to feed her.

“So, what do you actually do here?” asks Snatch, narrowing her eyes and looking over at the wolf-goddess. “Except eat the Master’s food.”

The giant wolf glares at her, Azalea ducking down as the massive snout moves over her head. "Well, I also use his bath, and when I sniff out where you hid his crypt, I’ll sleep there too.”

“Back off, wolf!” yells Snatch, picking up a bread knife and pointing it at her. “Only I get to watch the Master while he sleeps!” Snatch lifts her nose.

“Watch?” asks the wolf.

“And you -!” starts Snatch, pointing the dull knife at Azalea.

The elven priestess lifts her hands and interrupts the ghost. “ — I am here to protect Inkume’s spirit and return to him the light of God’s love,” she explains. Azalea leans forward over the table, smiling as she looks away from her and toward Inkume. “I work to protect his soul and will make a pious, gentle, and decent man out of him.”

“I’ll kill you first!” yells Snatch feverishly, snarling at her even more violently than she had at the wolf. Raging, the ghost lunges, screaming.

Inkume has used: [Summon Spirit]

Snatch pops out of existence, and then, a second later, the flailing ghost manifests, dangling in the air in the grasp of Inkume’s outstretched hand. “Snatched,” jokes Inkume quietly to himself, resting his head on his fingers after he sets his glass down with the other hand.

He had never considered that ability before, but he saw the old Vampire Lord use it in that memory the other night. Inkume supposes it has its uses.

Snatch, frothing, points at the priestess she was dragged away from. “The Master will never be a gentle and decent man!” she shouts, slashing through the air with the knife.

“Thank you, Snatch,” replies Inkume. “Please don’t hurt Azalea,” he asks.

The ghost droops in his grip, sagging like a wet sack. “But… But Master,” she pleads, looking at him with giant eyes.

“Don’t worry,” says Azalea. “If you want, Snatch, I can put you to rest. You won’t have to worry about him,” says the priestess, clasping her hands together as she speaks in a kind, soft tone. A smile is on her face, and her eyes are closed. “I’ll take good care of him when you’re gone.”

Snatch screams, lunging forward like a stretching rope that streaks out from his hand. The ghost clatters into the cup of blood, knocking it over. Inkume grabs it, catching it before it falls off the table, but the cup splashes, the blood covering Azalea from head to toe, who jumps up in surprise. Azalea’s head hits the wolf’s lower snout, causing the wolf to bite her own tongue.

The wolf jumps up in surprise herself next, her massive legs and tail knocking over several carts and trays, sending everything scattering in all directions.

Letting out a surprised cry, Fi-Fi, trying to catch and save what she can, stumbles into the clay pot and knocks it over.

The albrūn inside the pot cries out, and the gardener tries to stabilize it as her eyes meet the gardener’s hollow sockets, and she begins to tense up, having made something close enough to count as eye contact with him.

Inkume jumps up, trying to get ahead of the chaos before she destroys his brand new dining room.

— A creaking comes from above, followed by a shrill, sharp scream.

The Vampire Lord looks up, watching as a small body tumbles out through a broken hole in the ceiling. Dust and debris rain down with her, and she lands directly into the chalice in his hands, kicking and screaming like a hellcry as she flails around in the small, shallow pool of blood in his cup.

It doesn’t take a second later.

The door slams open to the dining room, the wooden frames smashing against the stonework on either side.

A knight in shining armor, wafting in smoke, stands there with a silvered blade in her hand, and standing by her side is a boy he recognizes. It’s Cvet, Azalea’s brother. He screams, seeing his sister who turns his way, her face and body covered in red.

“Azalea!” cries Cvet.

The room falls quiet, apart from the screaming fairy in his hand.

Inkume looks down at her and then at the knight, whose grip tightens around the sword she’s readied. “...It’s not what it looks like,” says Inkume dryly, not sure if there’s even a point to his trying.

The fairy clambers over the edge of the cup. “Help! Help me!” she screams at the top of her lungs, trying to climb out of the inside of the bloodied chalice, but she keeps slipping and falling back in, sliding around inside of the cup. “I don’t want to diiie~!” cries the miserable fairy.

Inkume looks back up at the knight.

“It’s not what it looks like,” he repeats.

A door behind him opens, a wall of white fog blasting in from behind it as if that corridor were flooded with smoke. It’s misty, almost obscuring. A figure floats inside, off of the ground, and sitting on a broom. A witch, with a wide floppy hat and a collection of bones dangling from her broomstick that she floats in on toward him from behind. Her hands are raised, a strange, ominous magic over her hands as she displays a projection of floating skulls made out of what appears to be some kind of magical fog.

“...It’s… not…”

— Inkume sighs, stopping himself.

Why does he even bother? He might as well embrace it before fate makes it worse.

He holds his arms out to his side, a bloodied chalice with a screaming, wretchedly miserable fairy inside of one hand and Snatch — turned into a rabid, snarling thing — dangling from the other. His cloak billows behind him as blackened midnight and white fog create a wall into which the silhouettes of himself and his guests merge and meld. "Welcome to my castle,” greets the Vampire Lord, his ruby eyes shining through the bleakness toward the invaders. “Dear guests.”

A flash of silver cuts through the room, crashing over the top of the table.