So here's something interesting about castles: they’re built to keep people out, and weird alien ones that never got the memo about the concept of corners are even harder to enter. I braced myself against the place's weird aura using my battle focus to keep its fear-inducing effects at bay. It wasn’t completely successful, but it let me explore the ruin in relative peace. I made my way around the structure, and despite the broken walls and weird reliefs burrowing in the ground all around me, I couldn’t see any obvious opening as I wasted about thirty minutes walking around the structure.

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  That was until I realised I was being an idiot and thinking like a human. My experiences in the jungle had taught me to appreciate how three-dimensional the world was and that the ground was just one dimension. I needed to climb! So I did my clawed finger tips, finding purchase with ease. The climb started off easily as my new and improved body showed its athletic ability. The only thing that was a bit annoying was my tail feeling like a heavyweight dragging me backwards, but that was remedied by wrapping the thing around my waist like a wrestling belt. Despite the ease with which I climbed the bloody building, I hadn’t quite realised how big it actually was. The stupid giant trees of the jungle had given the illusion that the building was small, but now that I had started climbing it in earnest, I realised this was bigger than any building I’d ever seen before.

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  After what felt like an age, I reached a circular opening. It had probably been a window once. Still, I was thankful there was no glass, but thinking about it, I realised my scales wouldn’t have even been scratched by something like glass. It was weird to think about how normal all the changes to my form felt. Still, I wasn’t going to complain; I was glad I didn’t have to think about the complexities and deal with that existential crisis.

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  Refocusing, I pulled myself through the window opening and jumped into the darkness beyond. I landed in a long hallway. The place was dark, making it almost impossible to see. Still, it was weird somehow; I could sense my immediate surroundings. It wasn’t like some super sense that let me sense the whole building; instead, it was more like I knew where my next step would be. I was extremely grateful for this ability as the place was filled with rubble. I thought it was weird that this ability hadn’t been on my character sheet. I guess it was just a normal sense for my new species. Still, something about it didn’t sit right with me.

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  As I got deeper down the hallway, the walls were decorated with more and more reptilian imagery. There were more dinosaurs and lizard people, as well as snake people? What the hell! The images got weirder as I went deeper down the corridor. From the simple day-to-day life of the reptilian folk to them worshipping the snakemen to them sacrificing what looked like especially furious humans on altars. I looked down at my scaled arms and wondered whether I was a reptilian now, or more like a weird, humanoid pangolin. Looking around, I hoped it was the former, but it didn’t look like this place was fond of the mammal kind.

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  The hallway eventually split into two paths. On the left were two doors, and on the right was a single, heavy, round door. It looked sturdier than those on the left. I had no clue which way to go, so I settled for the only way there was when faced with impromptu decisions.

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  “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe…” It landed on the left with the two doors. Well, time to go exploring. I made my way to the first of the two doors and gingerly pushed it open. I winced as the door opened partway, but scratched across the floor, forcing me to hold it still and stand there frozen for a minute, making sure no snake god kings and their lizard folk servants were racing up the stairs. After a minute of not hearing anything, I peered into the room.

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  The room was surprisingly well-lit as the last rays of the setting sun spilled in. I scanned the space—an ancient storage cupboard filled with barrels. I tapped one, hoping it was full, but much to my disappointment, it was empty. The disappointment intensified when, after prying open the lid, I was greeted by a sweet, spiced scent, just like the hooch Big Tony made at Christmas. I always wondered how he got his hands on cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves; he was a strange one, always smuggling in ingredients to chase his culinary dream. Obsessed with food since childhood, his knife skills were equally suited to the kitchen and the streets—hence the life sentence after killing someone who insulted his student's cooking. I wondered how he was doing in that tutorial now. Wait, would he view me as an ingredient if we ever met again?!

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  I let out a little chuckle at the stray thought before closing up the room and moving to the next one. That one had no window, but there in the center was a glowing pool of a strange green liquid. I didn’t enter immediately; instead, I peered inside, trying to see what the eerie green glow illuminated. The room was circular, and apart from the stone pool of glowing liquid, it was empty. I was so tempted to just close that door and ignore the room, but I did not want to leave anything unturned in this place. What if my dino mount lay in that pool! Sighing, I entered the room, preparing myself for the inevitable booby trap.

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  As my foot landed on the oddly warm stone tiles of the room, I was pleasantly surprised that there was no instant axe falling from the sky or hidden poison dart launched at my forehead. Still, as I entered the room proper, I kept my wits about me. Just because the trap wasn’t set off when I entered didn’t mean there weren’t other traps and hidden dangers about. I looked around me, taking what I could in the dark room. The green light from the pool is the only thing illuminating the circular room. Apart from the singular pool in the center, the room was completely empty, and even the strange artwork was absent. Apart from a singular piece on the ceiling. It was also the clearest image I’d seen yet. There were two snake men with cobra heads. One was gold and the other was black. The one in gold held a staff with a silver blade as long as his arm, emerging from its top. He was clearly a warrior, as he held it poised to attack. The black one was in a meditative pose, his legs crossed, surrounded by a red energy. His eyes glowed red, almost as if they had been painted on with real rubies.

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  The two snake men were clearly facing down something, but the creature they were facing was odd. It looked like a child's attempt at drawing a chameleon. It was way too big, where the snake men were drawn about the size of my forearm, and the chameleon dominated the rest of the ceiling. The weirdest thing was that the huge chameleon looked too human, smiling. Like those shitty creepypasta drawings that stopped being scary because they all looked the same and were obviously AI-generated. Still, this was uncanny; of all the things I could think of as evil deities, I wouldn’t have thought a chameleon with a creepy face. Also, due to the lighting, it took me a while to work out that the coloured circle around it was meant to be a lake or another body of water. I was a dinosaur-obsessed man, and that stretched to a general reptile obsession. I had never heard of a chameleon living in a lake, but then I also hadn’t heard of magic or goblins being real, so who knew how much of the old world rules still applied.

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  I tore my eyes back down from the image above and made my way to the pool, still scouting for dangers. As I reached the eerie, glowing well, I peered inside. I was so confused by what I saw and, again, lamented not having gotten an identity skill. Inside the well was a golden box as long as I was. It was surrounded by black chains adorned with hieroglyph-like symbols. I was tempted to reach in and grab the box before common sense caught up. There was no way this liquid was just water. I looked around for something to test the water and came up short. I sighed again as I realised even if I got a rock to throw in the liquid, it might not affect inorganic stuff. I looked down at my scaly arms and groaned as I knew what I had to do to test it. I pinched one scale and wiggled it out, wincing at the sharp pain as I yanked it out. I looked at the scale, noting that it was covered in blood. I looked to the place where the scale had been attached, and it was welling up with a small bead of blood.

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  This would do, I thought, and I shook my arm over the well. Only realising how dumb I was, I was popping my own blood in a strange well, which was probably used by a snake man cult. Too late. I thought as the blood fell into the strange liquid. Instantly, the blood hissed and smoked as though hitting a hot pan. Okay, I thought. No touching the weird green liquid. I walked around the room searching for anything else, traps, or secret doors, but I found nothing. I went back out the door and peered back into the storage cupboard. It had one of the only windows I’d discovered since entering this place, and I checked to see how much daylight I had. It was getting dark, the sun having almost completely set. No regen then.

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  Still, I peered out of the window. I had expected to see the jungle, but this window faced away from it, instead focusing on the mountains and beyond. It turned out I was on an island, and what I had assumed was a mountain range was in fact a single large mountain with a three-pronged peak. I had hoped to spy on the goblin town, but it was on the other side of the mountain, which was probably a good thing, as it was unlikely they would go all the way around the mountain to explore. They had a base and would most likely just secure their position. I pulled myself away from the window and decided to hole up in the cupboard. This was as safe as anywhere, I thought, as I closed the door, making sure not to set off its loud screeching. Tomorrow I will head through the heavy round door.

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