That is how a modest castle, barely larger than a particularly nice house, covered in green vines with red roses, arrives in a great, barren wasteland. It comes with a garden, helpfully built on top of the castle's (magical) foundations, and so it and all of its contents come with.

It really is a great, barren wasteland. There is a lot of sand, the occasional rock, and nothing that could be called "dirt", because that'd require substantially more moisture than seems present, uh, anywhere. The sun is up and it is making that everyone's problem, and there aren't even succulents or other such hardy plants around trying to defy it. There's just... sand. And the occasional rock.

The castle is followed shortly by its mistress, arriving in her coffin in a burst of smoke. She consults the living castle's heart chamber for an explanation of what exactly happened.

"... Well, that was very rude!!" she says, to no one in particular. She's not sure she could have had her castle placed in a more hostile place if she actively tried.

And then she needs to go save her poor garden right this instant! Her plants are not going to do well in this heat, and the dryness is going to murder them really fast. Not quite as fast as she'd die if she went outside, but still. Fortunately, this is a solvable problem, even if she... cannot go outside without bursting into flames.

This is going to be expensive on her living castle, but - the nearest door opens, and bits of stone start packing themselves around the plants to make something-like-pots. Which, naturally, start floating inside, in neat little rows.

If the sun takes offence to this, it does not inform her of it.

...wait, actually... maybe this wasteland isn't totally barren? A little, uh, thing, just, seems to be, she can sense it? It's unlike the bugs she's sensed in the past but it's definitely got a certain bugness to her life senses.

She's mostly busy putting her plants away, carefully staying out of the sunlight coming in through her open door, but with how dead this place is, it's honestly hard not to notice the smell of something, anything, alive. She covers her face with her cloak's hood, then pokes her face and nose just a liiiiiittle bit out into the burning sun. Her skin starts to sizzle and smoke, even under the cloth, but she has long enough contact with the open air to detect.... hmm. Yes. Definitely something alive, and it seems like it's... underground? She thinks?

And that's about as far as she gets before she needs to duck back entirely inside to prevent catching on fire. This sun has more bite to it than the one she's used to, ow.

It continues to approach her castle undeterred.

She is unfortunately not going to have her garden's contents all inside by the time it arrives, which does mean that she needs to choose between having the security vulnerability and leaving some of her plants outside to bake into raisins. She... will go with the one that doesn't kill her plants. And if the living thing is hostile and comes inside, she can deal with it then.

The living thing burrows out of the sand. It's... about the size of her hand? It can fly and has a segmented carapace and five pairs of feet and serrated mandibles.

It starts flying around and exploring the place.

Iovetra will allow this, but will be keeping an eye on it. She will politely follow it at a distance and make sure it doesn't get into any kind of trouble, or start eating things or something.

After flying around a bit, it lands near a plant and starts examining it carefully.

Examination is fine. But she is nonetheless on high alert and scoots to within easy snatching range, because examination might lead to eating.

The plant it is examining is a rosanguis - a blood rose. There are others growing on the walls of the castle, which she is writing off as probably lost to the horrible burning wasteland, but they're still a staple for her healing potions, so. She's bringing quite a lot inside.

Examination does, in fact, eventually lead to attempted eating!

Yep, she thought so.

The little bug-thing is carefully snatched at a speed it probably wasn't expecting, and has now lost interior exploration privileges. It is going to instead be held by this vampire until all of her plants are safely inside, and then she'll release it outside, where it can in fact go back to eating roses. Just, you know. The outside ones that she's writing off anyway.

"These ones are not for eating," she informs it.

How about Iovetra, is Iovetra for eating?

Iovetra certainly doesn't think so, but that is apparently up for some debate. She gives a little inhuman hiss of pain at the bite, but doesn't release or crush the bug in her grip. Just carefully adjusts the fingers of her non-bitten hand so as to be away from the biting end of the bug, and keep it from repeating the same trick. It can stay chomped onto her until it's decided she's not worth eating. Or until she dumps it outside. One of those.

Will it decide she's not done eating, though? Or will it keep trying to chew through her? A question worth asking. It's already decided, of course, but, you know.

She tries tugging her bitten hand away from the biting end of the bug, but not as hard as she could. That might hurt it, and trying to eat things is honestly pretty fair, really, even if she'd rather it didn't. This gentle pull isn't enough to release her from the critter's grip, so she will tolerate this unpleasant indignity with a grimace on her face. Almost all of her plants are inside, she doesn't have to be bitten for much longer. Soon she will put it back outside.

It's a bit strange, though - usually animals that take a bite of her release her after they get a taste. Vampires don't bleed, and compared to a squishy human, her flesh is dry, cold, and weirdly lightweight. Frankly terrible nutrition content. Plus, she can't imagine she tastes good.

Well, for whatever strange reason, this here bug is insistent in trying to get a piece of her in it.

Between its stubbornness, its jaw strength, and her own (comparatively) gentle tugging, it succeeds at ripping a chunk of her off. This does also mean that she successfully gets her hand free, though. She immediately moves it to further secure the bug and its biting end away from where it can take any more pieces off of her, apparently barely bothered by the wound in her hand.

"I'm probably going to give you indigestion, you know," she tells it seriously.

It makes some kind of chittering noise.

"No remorse, eh? Well, don't blame me if you end up vomiting your little buggy guts up in an hour or two. You brought this on yourself."

Aaaand that is the last of the plants from her garden inside. Okay, putting the bug outside is going to be a little tricky, and she might, uh, catch a little bit on fire in the process, but - the bug is going to be put back where it came from.

This involves stepping into the doorway and literally throwing it outside, and then slamming the door behind herself. She does not, actually, catch on fire, but it's a near thing. Ow. Still! Victory!

It buzzes in place in apparent confusion, then decides to burrow back underground.

It is free to do that!

She goes back to sorting out her castle's relocation - next is figuring out her water reserves. She has a reservoir, but it was meant for storing distilled water for her brewing, not just water-in-general, so it's not exactly large. After all, she lived next to a swamp, so a lot of her architecture decisions were based around keeping water out of places it shouldn't be, instead of keeping it contained. Still, there's some water to be scavenged from inside the castle itself, and she can certainly make a proper reservoir with it. A very sad an empty one, granted, but planning for the future in her new location.

Hopefully the sun will set at some point, because she's going to need to go scavenging for water if she wants to continue her gardening and alchemy ambitions. Life being present at all is a little cheering, though. It probably means she and her castle aren't going to starve to death; if nothing else, can can probably lure in some more bug-things and eat those.

The sun definitely moves in the sky. There are more small things to her life senses, burrowing around. Some of them are just flying around.

Another one will try to venture inside.

Well, the doors and windows are all closed. So. No entry.

How about the grounds?

As in, burrowing from underground and then into the castle?

The stone that makes up its foundation is thicker and stronger than ordinary rock, and furthermore puts itself back if something tries to move it out of the way.

So: also no entry.

No, as in, you know, the parts that are castle but not inside. The well, the armoury, the training grounds. Any of those around? Or is it just. Castle walls.

This castle declines to follow typical castle layout or planning, and in fact is more of a... large defensive stone house, with tall walls and gothic architecture... than an actual medieval castle with training grounds and an armory. There is a garden; it is now empty, at least of flora.

There are some roses on the building that is only nominally a castle, though. If the bugs want to get into those. But no going inside the castle.

Well they sure do want that! As well as to explore the garden a bit more.

Roses: are edible. And surprisingly nutritious! They have some thorns, but those are easily avoided.

The garden is pretty sad, without its plants. There is a path that circles around holes in the dirt, and a bench, and a table, all pathetically abandoned. The dirt that was left behind is comparatively neat, though; there's lots of stuff in it compared to the local dirt.

The bugs are delighted by the dirt! Good dirt. They approve.

The large stone house cosplaying as a castle does not have any kind of opinion about that.

They'll continue to play in the dirt and with the roses until night falls.

And that is when a vampire ventures outside! Aw. She'd thought they would eat the roses, but instead they're... playing in them?? And the dirt, too? That's very cute, honestly.

Are the bug things going to accost her or something? Or should she get to looking for water? (Digging underground will probably get her water eventually, but she's much, much faster overland, so. Exploring the nearby area by foot is currently more efficient; she doesn't have a form that's any good at burrowing.)