Frisk wakes up sore and dirtied. Vaguely, she remembers hiking a little mountain, and recalls the name Mt. Ebott. She remembers snagging her foot on a root or rock, then falling. A sharp blow to the head, a fall into darkness. For that matter, it's still dark. She blinks, trying to clear the darkness from her eyes, and eventually gives up. Deciding to wait for a little while, she lies back into what feels like a bed of flowers, eventually drifting to sleep. She wakes up to a feeling of warm sunlight on her face, and opens her eyes to look at her surroundings. Still dark. She blinks, then blinks again. Still nothing. Suddenly, she feels an instinct come over her, flaring in her chest all the way to her limbs. Moving with it, she stands and walks forward, turns right, and then feels a rush of air as she passes through what feels like a doorway of some kind. Reaching out to touch it, she feels a carved, weathered stone pillar, shot through with vines. She keeps moving forward, into the next room. Abruptly, she's startled as a high-pitched, almost boyish voice calls out; "Howdy!"
She waits for it to continue. "I'm Flowey. Flowey the Flower. Hmm… You're new to the Underground, arent'cha? Golly, you must be so confused. Someone ought to teach you how things work around here. I guess little old me will have to do. Ready? Here we go!"
There's a shift, and suddenly Frisk can see again. She seems to be in a dark room, the only walls to be seen made of a strange, green-glowing wire, across from a yellow-white flower…with a face. She absently thinks to herself; Flowers aren't supposed to have faces, are they?
Her reverie is interrupted by some more words from the high-pitched flower. Flowey, he said his name was. Okay, then, he (She? It?) seems nice enough. Maybe he can explain what's happened to me.
"See that heart? That is your SOUL, the very culmination of your being! Your soul starts off weak, but can grow strong if you gain a lot of LV"
Frisk look down, and sees a glowing red heart where her body should be. With strange calm, she wonders what he means by "LV."
"What's LV stand for? Why, LOVE, of course," he says still smiling cheerfully. Frisk is still confused, as he continues. "You want some LOVE, don't you? Don't worry, I'll share some with you!"
The way he says that last part makes her a bit nervous, but she stands her ground.
"Down here, LOVE is shared through little white 'friendliness pellets,'" he says happily, and a semicircle of spinning white discs appear behind him. He keeps grinning as he continues. "Are you ready? Catch as many of them as you can!"
With lightning speed, the pellets start shooting towards the red heart in Frisk's chest. Not trusting the flower, she tries to dodge, but doesn't respond fast enough. Three discs connect with her, and she's wracked with pain as she feels her skin being sliced by the spinning blades. Apparently, this zone is some sort of mental construct, not actually real.
"You idiot," the flower says, his friendly smile replaced by a devilish grin that seems too big for his face. "In this world, it's kill or BE killed. Why would ANYONE pass up an opportunity like this!?"
His grin disappears, his pupils shrink to pinpoints, and his face morphs into a skeletal nightmare as he summons more pellets…no, blades, in a swirling vortex around Frisk's near-shattered SOUL.
"DIE."
The circle of bullets slowly contracts, and Frisk can do nothing but sit and wait for her apparently inevitable doom as the flower cackles maniacally. Without warning, however, the white blades disappear into nothingness, and a quizzical expression appears on Flowey's face, and he begins to speak. "Wha— "
His incredulous query is cut short by a fireball, which blasts him out of Frisk's line of sight, before a tall, furred, goat-like humanoid with small horns strides quickly into view.
"What a terrible creature, torturing such a poor innocent youth…" she says with pity. Seeing Frisk's soul trembling with fear, she quickly reassures her. "Ah, do not be afraid, my child. I am Toriel, caretaker of the Ruins. I pass through this place every day to see if anyone has fallen down."
Frisk wonders for a moment. Why would she do that? I must be the first person in ages to fall there.
This thought is confirmed a moment later by Toriel. "You are the first human to come here in a long time," she says. "Come! I will guide you through the catacombs." Toriel disappears, along with Frisk's soul and the rest of the black room.
"This way," she hears Toriel say. After that flower attacked me, how can I be sure she's not going to either? She did save me, but… As she hears Toriel walking out of the room, she feels that burning instinct pushing her to follow, so she goes. Somehow, she can sense the way the room looks from above, as though she's looking at herself from outside. Pausing for a moment, she turns her newfound power upward, and feels a flare of that instinct in her chest as she senses the vastness of the ruins. She feels an odd sense of being centered. Afterwards, her wounds heal immediately, which is a pleasant surprise.
As she follows Toriel inside the vast building, she hears her footsteps stop and pauses to listen. "Welcome to your new home, innocent one. Allow me to educate you in the operation of the Ruins." Immediately on her guard from the last "lesson" she'd had in this new world, Frisk stiffens. However, she senses the goat-monster moving away, and hears four clicks in rapid succession, followed by a scraping sound. "The Ruins are full of puzzles. Ancient fusions between diversions and doorkeys. One must solve them to move from room to room. Please adjust yourself to the sight of them." Ha, Frisk thinks. No need to adjust, since I can't even see them to begin with.
Apparently finished, Toriel waits for Frisk to respond. After some consideration, Frisk decides to simply start walking. Toriel moves into the next room, and then speaks, explaining a little exercise apparently intended to teach Frisk how to work the puzzles in the Ruins. She completes it easily, despite being unable to see the marked switches with her eyes. Continuing to yet another room, Toriel explains the fact that humans in the underground may be attacked, but urges you not to hurt them. How does she expect me to survive down here without fighting? Frisk stalls a bit, then does as Toriel asks, engaging the dummy in a one-sided conversation. As she does so, she finds herself in the same green-bounded room as before, and sees a lopsided and patched dummy. Though it's not much for conversation, Toriel seems happy, complimenting you joyfully.
She claims there is another puzzle in the next room, but as Frisk moves through it, she senses none, even with her special power. As you approach the door, Frisk finds herself in the darkroom again, now facing a small, unusual frog. Deciding it can't hurt her too much, Frisk chooses to compliment it. It seems flattered as much as a frog can be, then quails under Toriel's stern glare as she comes into view. The darkroom then disappears, and Frisk continues following her through the room, sensing a number of spiked platforms ahead. Toriel stops just ahead of them for a moment, then seems to change her mind about something. She carefully guides Frisk through the spikes, and then speaks. "Puzzles seem a little too dangerous for now," she declares, almost to herself, then briskly walks into the next room.
In the next room, she seems quiet, then speaks, asking Frisk to walk to the end of the room by herself, then runs down the hall. What was that all about? Frisk wonders as she strolls down the hall, using her power to see where the path is, then notices a pillar at the end of the hall. She's behind there, isn't she, Frisk thinks, and is gratified to see her guess was correct, as Toriel pops out from behind the pillar and reassures her that she was not left behind. She then gives Frisk a cell phone and tells her to stay there, before leaving quickly.
Frisk stand there, mildly shocked and a bit irritated. Really. I'm bored. Why would she leave me here by myself? There's nothing for me to do, and there aren't even any monsters to talk to. On second thought, though, I'm glad that flower's not here. He was kinda scary.
As she started to grow tired, she decided to lean up against the pillar and take a nap, but was awakened a moment later by her phone ringing. "Hello? My errands are taking longer than I thought they would. Please wait 5 more minutes." Curling up against the pillar, Frisk dozed off and waited for Toriel's return.