The gang stood in front of the behemothic castle, its colossal shadow extending across the small valley even in midday.

“....I guess we are gonna have to stay for more than a day here to explore the castle.”

Ryder could sense the smugness radiating from Purple silently mocking him.

“I can practically smell that juicy, meaty prime steak. Don’t disappoint me, Ryder~” Purple cackled loudly as he forcefully punched the humongous castle doors wide open and left a fist-shaped dent. It caused a huge gust of dust inside the castle and sent the skeletons behind the doors flying. The sound of the iron door smashing against the wall reverberated throughout the valley. Green and Ryder cringed at how little Purple cared about the worn-out castle. The human sighed depressively and advanced into the building.

“I will guard the entrance, Ryder. You should have fun with Green.”

The duo turned around.

“Aren’t you curious about what’s inside the castle, Brown?” Green nodded in agreement.

“Someone needs to make sure there won’t be any distractions trying to enter the castle.” Even in her dragon form, her kind smile shined through.

The duo thanked her cheerfully. Green deposited all the supplies he was carrying to Brown before making their way into the castle. The earth dragon nested herself comfortably right in front of the entrance with a tall mudwall.

The light pouring through the large, enchanting glass windows illuminated the bloody hallways littered with corpses. Many of the skeletons had armor on them, while the rest wore torn dresses and suits. A silent hymn of death followed the duo’s rhythmic footsteps.

Ryder held his notebook close to his chest before sneezing, futilely trying to wave away all the dust occupying the lifeless castle. He opened it up again and sketched out a rough layout of where they had been. Green sauntered out into the large garden full of weeds and decayed plants. There were a couple of corpses lying on the ground as well. They looked...smaller. He solemnly stared at it, before using his innate magic to clear out a section of the garden and used his vines to lay the bodies to proper rest. He then revived a handful of flowers and placed them down on the grave. Ryder, witnessing Green, approached the graves and paid his respect along with his dragon before moving on.

The next location they arrived at was the banquet hall. The doors remained unbroken due to being heavily fortified from the inside. Unfortunately, the soldiers protecting the nobles were a little too confident that the attackers wouldn’t try destroying the rather thin wall with brute force. The duo stepped through the gaping hole and tried not to imagine the gruesome deaths that took place as some of the corpses have very incomplete skeletons. Green took a whiff at the ‘food’ that was on the only intact table in the hall before tilting it over, causing a loud crashing sound. Ryder sternly looked at him for disturbing the silence. Green blepped before trotting to the large puddle of black ash. It was about the same height as the hole in the wall. Ryder made a mental note to get Purple here later so he could learn what creature was this.

The sun descended further as they went past the garrison and the large courtyard before arriving at the hugeeee kitchen. Ryder’s eyes lit up in excitement as he examined every inch of the place. Green was glad there weren't any corpses around to potentially get them sick after dinner with the ‘bacteria’ thingies that his rider rambled about before. The human couldn’t stop remarking about the ingredients, how they were kept fresh with magic after so long and what dishes they could be made into. The duo then left the kitchen discussing what they could have for dinner later.

They examined the living quarters for the workers on the first and second floor, located right next to the spiraling stairs. Ryder wasn’t sure if this layout is typical for a castle, but he ignored the thought. Besides, he’s in another world. It’s already a surprise there are so many resemblances between the two worlds. There were rows of beds with small nightstands and chests beside it.

“Talk about privacy, yeesh,” The human quietly sent his condolences to all the once-alive introverted occupants. Green curiously opened up every chest with his vines and poked his face into it, hoping to find anything that caught his eyes. Ryder didn’t notice what the dragon was doing until it used its tail to smash open locked chests. It upset him. Yes, they were here to explore and loot the place, but these items belonged to the peasants. It didn’t feel right to steal from people who were already being treated badly when they were still alive. Green did not share the same sentiment. They had a small argument, but Ryder conceded after being reminded they were sorely lacking in money. So the duo rummaged through all the chests, albeit Ryder doing so guilty, and grabbed any interesting or valuable items they found. Right as they were about to head back to Brown, Green noticed something shiny was hiding between a bed and its frame. There were indeed tiny gems and a rotten letter stashed there. With this discovery, the duo applied the standard RPG tactic of going through every nook and cranny to search for more hidden loot. By the time they found a large enough sack to lug everything they found back to Brown, Purple was waiting impatiently in the setting sunlight.

After learning Purple’s own discovery, the gang decided they would rest in the royal chamber on the highest floor. It didn’t have any corpses and the bed was made out of a magical material that froze its pristine condition in time. Green and Ryder took their cooking ingredients before the other two went upstairs after closing the castle door.

In the kitchen, the duo methodologically cleaned the cooking apparatus as well as the ingredients. The menu for tonight’s dinner would be: Purple’s precious, precious prime steak (Ryder sheds a tear), a hopefully delicious and totally not poisonous pot of stew with well-preserved decades-old ingredients from the kitchen, garlic puffs, and Green’s favorite, a giant bowl of salad. The human could barely hold back the joy of finally cooking in a kitchen again, especially in one that is as grand as this. With Green as his assistant, the duo began their work.

As the stars grew brighter than the waning sun, Purple lit up the candles on their way to the kitchen on behalf of Brown’s insistence. Brown stayed at the chamber to complete her fortifications and traps to repel possible intruders.

After arriving at the kitchen to check on his steak, the purple-dragon rapidly calibrated his anti-gravity spell and sat on a kitchen counter far from the chefs. Green used his vines to make the garlic puffs and his salad simultaneously while Ryder muttered to himself the correct sequence of ingredients that he should dump into the stew. Purple’s large slab of steak had been left searing on a pan with a handful of aromatic herbs next to the boiling pot.

The demigod had to be asked politely by his rider to clean up the banquet hall so that they would have a comfortable place to eat. For the sake of savoring his steak as much as possible, Purple begrudgingly requested for the hall’s direction and left. The skeletons laying on the ground irked him, so he swept all of them up to the courtyard with his wind magic.

Once the banquet hall had been lit up to be as bright as the two moons hanging in the sky, Purple worked more of his magic to clean up the space. He then swiftly used a spell to restore one of the smashed dining tables and four chairs back to its original form. He then sat on one of the chairs and whipped out his book. However, he was immediately disturbed by a few immaterial residents of the castle. He found these ghastly beings entertaining when he was younger, but now they’re little more than just pests. He sighed in frustration before placing his book on the table and got to work. A demigod exorcising ghosts sounds like a shitty punchline to a crappy joke.

Brown was satisfied with her work in and outside the chamber before leaving for the kitchen. She froze when a spectre passed through the walls and floated towards her with a detestable appearance. Even as a dragon, she was always afraid of them in the way that Ryder is afraid of roaches. Brown did her best to dodge the spectre as calmly as she could, recalling her people’s advice that the more scared you are of them, the harder it is to shake them off. Her attempts were futile, however, as the spectre noticed her fear. She instantly broke into a sprint in her human form. Purple definitely would have noticed the issue, and he’ll likely be the only one who knows how to extinguish them. It’ll be embarrassing for her to appear so frightful of a mostly harmless being, but it beats having nightmares in a castle full of corpses.

Landing on the first floor, she saw two light sources across the courtyard. Her seismic sense informed her that the banquet hall would be where Purple was. She peeked at the spectre behind her and regretted it as more of its friends gathered. Once inside the courtyard, she bent her knees and slingshotted herself across it with earth magic. A mud puddle formed at her landing spot and dampened the impact. Through the hole in the wall, she saw Purple standing in the hall with a weird hand gesture. Just as the spectres zipped through the air, almost catching Brown, the demigod uttered his spell.

All the spectres, including the one that was almost seen by Green and Ryder, were shredded out of existence in an instant. Purple grinned condescendingly at Brown before going back to read his book. She wiped away the dirt on her clothes as she stood up and strolled towards the kitchen, feeling more annoyed than embarrassed.

Ryder asked what happened outside, and she assured that nothing was out of the ordinary. With the cooking concluded. Ryder held up a plate with Purple’s steak, Brown with the puffs and salad, and Green with the stew as well as bowls and spoons on his vines.

Purple thanked his rider, to the bewilderment of everyone, for the steak and gracefully began his meal with a fork and knife. It was equally astonishing to see the demigod’s expression bubbled in pleasure. Ryder was very tempted to take a photo with his smartphone, but he preferred it remained unbroken. Green placed the pot of stew near the table instead of on it due to its weight and they all shared a delightful meal. Thankfully, there was no food poisoning. Before Purple left for the library, in response to Ryder’s prompt, he explained that the creature responsible for the chaos in the hall likely belonged to the elusive troll creature, believed to have gone extinct in a joint extermination effort a long time ago.

The trio headed to the royal bathroom after cleaning up the dishes. The shower system was partly made up of magic, therefore, they were able to enjoy a clean and refreshing bath. Green was joyous when the bed held up to his weight as it meant that he could snuggle with his rider on a super comfy bed. Brown rested right next to the only opened window in the room, and the trio entered their slumber.

After consuming the leftover stew for breakfast, the young duo resumed their castle adventure on the second floor. They first came across a room once filled to the brim with awe-inspiring artwork, but it now remained a hollow reminder of its former glory. The artworks that were left in the room were mostly destroyed. Some charred, some torn, some smashed into pieces. There was only a type of art that was untouched. Two magical, three-dimensional paintings that look straight out of virtual reality. Like Microsoft Paint, but in the air. Green was utterly enamoured with the piece, hopping around like a little puppy. Ryder was less impressed, thanks to the internet, but he still appreciated the work.

The duo stopped at a guard post to admire the desolate view of the valley for a moment. They imagined what the place was like before the siege, perceiving echoes of a once peaceful past. Abandoned castles and war-torn valleys were not an uncommon sight, yet the young duo found themselves hard to ignore the ever-present melancholy in lands drenched in crimson violence.

The next room they visited was one that displayed magical items and relics, though only a few were left unstolen. From the holographic-ish descriptions of the items that remained on the displays, Ryder was jealous of their current owners. There were items that could flash-freezed any body of water smaller than a lake, destroy mountains by uttering a long chant, replace a lost limb with a deadly mechanical alternative, and many more. An unusual scribble caught the human’s eye when they were inspecting one of the broken cases. On its wooden base, someone left a clue: a symbol and a broken poem. Green noted that it was not the only display case with those two things. So, they went around the room collecting all these clues and attempted to piece together the puzzle. Unfortunately, Ryder has no context whatsoever as to what the poem means.

When they were about to give up, Brown passed by the room, so they called her in to help them solve this mystery. She revealed that it’s a popular children’s poem in the continent she once resided in. It tells the tale of how six primordial gods merged one part of their souls to create the sun, and the symbols represent those gods. After a series of intense deductions, they pushed and merged the displays to form a rectangle according to the symbols. They then patiently waited for the midday sun to get into the position and illuminate the rectangle. And it worked! The displays transfigure into one big chest which, when they opened it, revealed an insanely intricate amulet made of various precious metals. They could almost taste the ancient history carried within it. Brown suggested they should keep it even though none of them had any idea why this was so carefully hidden.

When the duo arrived at the library after parting ways with Brown, they were slightly shocked that none of the bookshelves or books were harmed. Ryder just assumed that whoever attacked the castle probably wasn’t all that interested in papers with invaluable knowledge. They also saw Purple reading behind a desk stacked high with books. They greeted their comrade and wondered if he knew anything about the amulet that was now on Ryder’s neck. The demigod smirked when he saw it, but chose to shoo away the duo and continue reading. Green was really annoyed while feeling stupid for hoping Purple would sate their curiosity. When they stumbled upon a cookbook, they decided to try the recipes out for lunch and head for the kitchen.

The recipes became Ryder’s hubris as he did not account for the fact that the measurement in ages past may not mean the same thing now, even if the “unit” of measurement retains the same name. Thankfully, Purple was engrossed in his books or he’d be throwing a temper tantrum for even daring to try and serve him such a terrible meal. Brown had to leave the castle and dump the leftovers far enough so as to not attract hungry beasts.

The adventure continues! The duo found themselves inside the offices of high-ranking officials, as well as a giant magical door leading to the treasury that was nearly pried open. From the large pile of black ash sitting in front of the door, there was clearly a mechanism that would incinerate anyone who dared to forcefully open it. The duo investigated the walls of the treasury to determine if it was possible to find another way in. Ryder’s magic sense concluded that it was not possible, not unless they wanted to send themselves flying in an explosive manner. And since the door mechanism has been damaged, it’s unlikely that it’ll function normally even if they could find the key.

Ryder held a meeting in the office, against Purple’s wishes, and discussed how they could break into the thing without blowing it up sky high.

Green first suggested he could make his vines so thin and small that it’ll slip through the cracks between the door and the wall and.... Green wasn’t recruited for his superior intellect.

Ryder suggested Purple could just teleport everyone in and out of the treasury, but demigod smartly pointed out that if it was that easy, there wouldn’t be a treasury anywhere in this realm. He also sneaked in a sneer and insulted Ryder’s intelligence.

Brown calmed the duo down sternly and suggested that they could try ‘tricking’ the door’s mechanism by making it ‘think’ that they opened the door legitimately with illegitimate methods. They all agreed, and a plan was formulated.

Time passed and the plan was ready. Brown’s hardened mud held up the door and restored it to its original position while Green’s vines seeped into the gap between the door and wall. Ryder placed his hands on the door’s round ‘handle’ and gave the ready signal to Purple. The demigod pushed his hand against the door, masterfully emitting a subtle mana flow into the magic-circuit inside the treasury. This was done so to get a ‘feel’ for the correct mana frequency that acted as the key without triggering it, which Purple handily did so within a minute. When his countdown reaches zero, he pumped a stupendous amount of mana in the right frequency and temporarily short-circuited the whole thing. Ryder used his draconic strength to turn the ‘handle’ as Green’s vines ensured all the physical mechanism retracted properly. Right before the magic circuit kicked back in, they opened the door in time, ending the heist in success.

Ryder and Green cheered loudly when they saw a shit ton of treasure inside the room. Purple went straight back to the library while Brown continued to make sure the heavy door appeared unbroken to the magic circuit inside. As everything was still kept neat and tidy, they faced little trouble carrying all of it out. Once Ryder was 100% sure there were no secret compartments or doors inside the treasury, Brown sealed the door shut and then carried all the loot back to the royal chamber while the other two continued their tour.

They passed through several other rooms that were rather mundane, but did stay longer in the infirmary to grab what little useful items were left within before reaching the final room in the castle. It was also one of the largest and isolated rooms in the entire structure as it belongs to an alchemist. Or perhaps a mage. Or more likely, both, because the room had vastly different equipment on each side. The left side had more solvents in bottles while the right had more scattered papers and scrolls. One corpse wearing a robe was pinned to the wall with a sword in its chest. The rest of the corpses, though, were suspiciously lying around a fancy-looking table with large parts of their bodies cleanly cut off.

Green pushed one of the corpses closer to the table.

Nothing happened.

He thought for a while, then summoned his vines to touch the table.

Nothing happened.

Ryder was still skeptical, so his draconic arm slowly reached the table and touched it.

Nothing happened.

Conclusion? Either the magic guarding the table had expired or there was something else going on back then. The human opened up its drawers and found a couple of books. The content was written in ciphers. The duo have no idea how to crack it, but Purple might. After an additional hour of exploring, the duo gave up searching for anything interesting and decided that they’ll just get the demigod to check this room later on by himself.

As the second day of their adventure came to a close, the duo headed towards the kitchen again to prepare dinner. They wanted to recreate some of the dishes that Ryder loved back in his world with the available ingredients. There was a lot of pastry, mushrooms and meat left, so the best they could do was beef wellington without beef. He saw a video of it before on Youtube, made by a bald guy with a beard, but he couldn’t recall the whole recipe. He still did his best as Green watched curiously. Brown joined in halfway through when they were figuring out how to wrap the thing neatly. What would otherwise have been a frustrating experience, Ryder found himself thoroughly enjoying this moment. It was something he longed for so desperately before landing in this world---having fun with a group of friends. It’s not the first time it happened, nor would it be the last for now, but it won’t stop him from feeling grateful.

They made three of it with meat, and one with the remaining mushrooms, all in different shapes. It didn’t come out of the crude oven perfect, but the smell alone was a sign of victory. Ryder called for Purple telepathically and they all carried their meal to the banquet hall. As they dined, Purple agreed to investigate the alchemical room during the night. Ryder and Green really hoped that he wouldn't try to hide his findings when they asked him about it tomorrow.

The gang also took this opportunity to discuss what they should do with all the loot they’ve gotten, including the books from the library. After all, they couldn’t possibly haul everything on their back to the nearest town. Comparable to a miracle, Purple astoundingly allowed the loot to be stored within his little, personal pocket dimension. The only condition he had was for Ryder to make him another steak like last night. Ryder was reallyyyy bitter about the condition because not only was he denied the taste of that meat, again, it would also easily cost half of the money they’ve gotten these two days. But, it was better than the alternative. Perhaps it was a mistake to have accepted that slab of meat as payment for their last gig.

The trio had one last good night’s sleep in the castle while Purple was doing his thing.

The sun rose up from its abyssal grave. They woke up, cleaned themselves, had sausages for breakfast, and prepared to leave the castle. Ryder cut out a chunk of the royal bed and made it into his new sleeping bag as Brown and Green gave the castle one last look. Purple emerged from the room just as the duo were about to call him out.

Once again, they stood outside the castle. With their supplies tightly secured, Ryder and Green bid the castle farewell, and the gang resumed their journey to save the world.