Chapter 14: Puzzle Road

It had been a long time since Papyrus had walked down this road. Some parts were the same: the giant amazing trees, the white snow, the sound of the river, the silvery light, even some of the ice patches. But for the puzzles, some were different. He'd thought for a bit of trying to solve them on his way back, but things had changed.

"Isn't this a lucky day?" he said when Sans finally caught up to him outside the old maze square. "It's been so long and there's finally a human down here! This changes everything!"

"Yeah, it does," Sans said, thinking more seriously about it. "But let's keep this quiet for a while. No chatting about it on UnderNet or anything."

"Why not? Everyone will be so happy to hear we've finally got a seventh human!" That meant that the day was close that they'd all get to go free and see what the world above was really like.

"Except those nuts who keep causing trouble in the capitol," he pointed out. "Here, take my hand so I can get you through the barrier here."

"Oh, right," Papyrus said, taking his brother's hand so that they could walk across the maze square. If you weren't a sentry, the barriers here would block your progress going towards Snowdin. "This is still the same maze, right?"

"Almost, there's a few little tweaks we've made. But about the human, we can't let those nuts get him first. They'd lead us in a suicidal charge once the barrier is down, we've got to be thinking ahead strategically."

"Ah, so having the human will be our little secret." Although, that just made things more exciting!

It took a couple minutes for the human to catch up to them. Maybe he'd been nice and let them have a head start. In the meanwhile, Sans had explained what was different about the maze now. The safe path now had several arrangements that were shifted around regularly, while the tiles had been spread out so there was no cheating by walking around the square. But it was similar enough that he let Papyrus talk to the human about it.

Of course, he had to make it dramatic. This was a big moment, it needed big buildup! "Oh-ho, the human arrives!" Papyrus said with a wave. Frisk had stopped a couple feet from the square, glancing it over before looking across at them. "We've got a lovely assortment of puzzles to bamboozle and confound you today! And I think you will find this one quite shocking, nyeh-heh! For you see, this is the invisible electricity maze!"

"Electricity?" Frisk said, looking back at the square.

Papyrus nodded and brought out the key orb. "Yup! There's a barrier there that you can't get through unless you have this orb! But as long as you hold the orb, if you step on an improper tile, the orb will deliver a hearty zap! There is only one true path through the maze and you have to figure it out yourself! Sound fun? Because I think the amount of fun you will have, is quite miniscule, actually."

"Oh boy," he said, rubbing his head.

"Are you ready? Catch!" He then hurled the orb across the maze at full strength.

The key orb went flying by Frisk, so he had to scramble back a few feet to catch where it had fallen in the snow. "Sorry, got a little eager there!" Papyrus said.

The orb had a feeling of static at his touch. As he walked back slowly, he considered that there were many ways this could go wrong, including his tablet getting wiped to the point that not even going back would save it. There were several ways he could avoid that. Compared to the ancient barrier, these recent barriers were weak; Frisk knew that he could shatter them like glass in a snap. There was also the orb itself. If he insulated it enough, it would not be able to react to the tiles and he could just walk straight across.

But, he needed to be nice to Papyrus, who was looking forward to all the puzzles here. And really, to solve this legitimately was a cake walk. The tiles were hidden under a thin layer of snow, smoothed out to an even level with the untiled path. However, they had runes like electricity in order to react to the orb. It was embarrassingly easy to just walk where there weren't electric runes and not risk anything even holding the key orb. Once he crossed the second barrier, the whole puzzle shut down so it'd be safe to walk across freely even with the orb.

Sans didn't look too surprised, or his reaction was just too hard to read. On the other hand, Papyrus gaped at him as he crossed over easily. "You, you slippery snail, you solved that so easily! Too easily, that's weird."

"I can see the magic in the tiles," Frisk explained. "Also, you mean to capture a human? This maze is really bad for that."

"Huh why?" Papyrus looked confused while Sans seemed to raise an eyebrow (that he didn't have). "Can all humans see magic?"

"Only those trained to, which isn't that hard," he said. "No, the problem is the voltage you have can be deadly to us. We have more body matter, especially water, than you monsters, so making a mistake there is lethal, not disabling."

"Oh, that could be trouble," Papyrus said. "Sorry about that, we didn't realize it! But we can make it better. Just you wait until you see the next puzzle! It was designed by my brother Sans, so it will surely confound you! Nyeh-heh-heh!" Then he rushed off, nearly losing his hat in the process of going so fast.

"He seems to be having fun," Frisk said, amused at the sight. He didn't think he could be afraid of Papyrus. Sans, though...

"No kidding," Sans said. "He's been looking forward to this. But, why are you...?"

"SANS, ARE YOU COMING OR NOT?!" Papyrus called from ahead.

"Whoops, I need to go ahead," he said. "But we will talk."

"Sure," Frisk said, feeling his mouth go dry. Something moved out of the corner of his eye, so he glanced over to look. But there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. Well, for here. The trees cleared out because the cliff line was drawing near the road. Far out there, he could see more of the forest down below, with a heavier area of snowfall.

When he glanced back, Sans was gone already. Not even walking ahead to catch up, but just gone. There weren't even any footprints past where he'd stood, showing where he'd gone. Frisk shivered, then walked ahead himself. What should he say to Sans? Or was it better that this had happened? He was getting a chance to redeem himself a little by playing along with Papyrus, showing Sans that he meant no harm this time around. Maybe things would start on neutral grounds when they talked after this.

The next area was a plateau with only a few small trees scattered about. Most of the ground had been cleared and flattened. Was this some kind of sports area? Because there were two plateaus and on the smaller one he entered on, there were a few benches and a small wooden bridge to cross over. On the larger one, there was a cleared field similar to the maze he'd passed. It was oddly shaped, in a Z-pattern with a very regular hole at the far end. But there were at least two paths onward that he could see, maybe more that were blocked by trees.

Thankfully, he got a message from Alphys. 'That's the Ball field, no puzzles there. Don't go straight ahead, that's a dead end area. Go towards the hole and then ahead from there in order to keep on the main road. Also, the next puzzle is the one I have no idea how to solve or bypass, so good luck.'

Frisk sent her a quick acknowledgment, then put his tablet away and headed on by her instructions. Past the Ball field, a line of spruce trees grew along both cliff sides, deliberately making this into a corridor. And the heavier snow was starting to come here, filling the air with puffy flakes. It made him glad Toriel had put a warmth enchantment on this. Although, worried too because it also had the feeling of her gentle fire.

There were two lines of torches on long poles here, four in each of them. A sign a few feet ahead of them had some rules, along with a collection of enchanted stones. Behind the torch lines, there was another barrier that'd be a little tougher to crack, at least from what others might think. Frisk was still sure he could shatter it, just with a stronger spell.

"Now you've come to a masterful puzzle of torches that no one has yet solved!" Papyrus proclaimed, his black trenchcoat shifting in the wind.

"That's because I installed it just this week," Sans pointed out.

"That no one who has seen the plans has a clue of how to solve, I mean," Papyrus corrected himself. "Think you can be the first? Read that sign and give it a shot!"

He felt like the point of these puzzles was to slow people down, giving the guards here time to intercept them. Still, Frisk checked on the sign. 'Goal: have all the torches lit at once. There is a balance that must be achieved, unlocking the torch's power while making sure none are overpowered. Equalize the colors; lighting the torches by force will be responded to with force.'

As he glanced over tips on what the colors were worth, he realized this was a logic puzzle. Each of the torches had two rings for the stones, but they each already had two stones attached. The torches must have a value within a particular range while each line had an equal value of numbers. Yeah, these puzzles were meant to waste time. He wanted to play along and not just break the barrier, but he needed to get through to get help for Toriel.

Frisk tossed a fireball at the nearest torch to see what kind of force the response was. The torch caught on fire, but flared up and shot a stream of fire at him. As it was single direction based on where the fireball had come from, it was easy enough to step out of its path. The torch remained lit for about half a minute, then extinguished itself.

Well, that was easy. He backed up, casting Fleetfoot on himself. Then he dashed forward, sending fireballs at the torches in pairs. By the time they reacted, he was past the spot they aimed at. All eight torches got lit and the barrier came down. The puzzle deactivated, although the torches themselves remained lit up.

"Hmm, I see this one is flawed too," Sans said, rubbing his lower jaw.

Papyrus' eyes lit up. "Wowie, that was amazing! I've never seen anybody cast that fast!" Then something occurred to him. "Wait, but that's cheating, isn't it? Because I saw the plans and they're supposed to balance the numbers and colors out, or something. We can't have this, you've got to redo it without cheating."

"It said the goal was to have all the torches lit up," Frisk pointed out. Before they could respond, he added, "But I've really got to hurry, that's why I didn't bother with the balancing act. My Mom, I mean, Toriel, she was sick yesterday and when I got up today, she had a fever and she hasn't woken up yet. I've got to get to town to get a healer to bring back to the Ruins. I got the door unlocked, so I really got to hurry up or, uh," he rubbed his eyes. Dang it, why now? He had to keep composed, get through this all.

"Oh no, that's awful!" Papryus said, coming over and patting his arm. "We're sorry, we had no idea."

"Your mom?" Sans asked.

"Well she's a monster that adopted me, but she's still my Mom," he said. "I hated leaving her alone, but there's no choice, she needs help and I don't know how to help her."

"In an emergency like that, we can bend the rules," Papyrus said, then looked down at his brother. "Right? You're the official sentry."

Thankfully, Sans nodded. "Sure thing. Actually, hold on, I can do something more." He dug around in his coat pocket until he pulled out a small orb that he handed to Papyrus. "It still works the same, but just in case the healer needs to bring her back into town, you ought to solve the puzzles so they're deactivated for the rest of the day."

"All right, but where are you going?" Papyrus asked.

"I've got a few tricks, I can get over to the Ruins to check on her, then zip on over to town to alert the healer," Sans said. "Don't worry, kid, we'll get this settled as quickly as we can. And I'm sure between the two of you, the puzzles along the rest of the way won't be a problem."

Frisk felt pretty sure that Sans wouldn't harm another monster, and he knew that the skeleton could move about in strange ways. He could have the healer waiting to meet up with them in town. "All right, thank you."

"Be seeing you, take care," Sans said, then walked off through the lines of torches.

"Like he said, we can get through the rest of the puzzles quickly," Papyrus said. "Think of it as a challenge, a time limit! Let's go!"

"All right," Frisk said, feeling more relaxed than before. Some of it was because Sans was gone, but he couldn't deny that Papyrus seemed like someone who could cheer others up without trying. He'd be a natural for the Sunbeam club; they might even happily take a skeleton along if they'd take a kid with such a high corruption. Since he had to get along with Papyrus, he asked the first thing he could think of for a topic, "Hey, do you like baking?"

His eyes seemed to sparkle as they walked along quickly. "Like it? I love baking! That's actually my job now, well kind of, ever since I stopped being a sentry here. I cook fresh meals for people who don't have the time for that, even got to expand our kitchen because I've been doing really well! But I love making breads! I've actually gotten really good at making cute clover rolls, so I've branched out to making other shaped breads. I'm working at cracking a heart-shaped sweet roll now that is sure to be popular, that is once I manage to get the shape regular on a consistent basis."

"That sounds nice," Frisk said. "I've been learning from Mom. Actually, she won that baking contest just recently, but then she got sick..." that made him feel bad again.

Thankfully, Papyrus didn't let him feel like that for long. "She's the one who won? That's amazing, I'd love to get to chat with her when she feels better! Actually, you know, I'm the one who put that contest together."

'Really? That's great, I'm glad you did because she had a lot of fun working towards it."

"Oh, you could tell that from that pie," he said, nodding along. "I am so jealous, actually, cause pies are not an easy thing to make. I'm getting to where I can make a good quiche, so I'll probably be able to branch out from there, but there's so much to think of. And her pie, well that was just heavenly! I've never thought of pairing caramel and apples, but they were so scrumptious together, like spaghetti and meatballs with marinara sauce!"

Frisk had to fight down a laugh at the comparison, which didn't seem right. But it was an amazing feeling. He was worried and he hadn't slept well last night, but here he managed some happiness, even a smile. How could he forget this guy? He was so lively and fun in spite of the dark attire. Or rather, how could he kill Papyrus? Although that was easy to answer: he hadn't even tried to speak to him, hadn't tried to know him as a person rather than as just some monster like all the rest.

Another wooden stall was by the road, like the one earlier. A rough looking dog with wiry fur and a rainbow punk tank top was standing behind the counter, his ears turned towards them. "Papyrus? Who's with you?"

"Just a fellow from the Ruins, Doggo," Papyrus said, waving to him. "We're in a hurry, sorry, got to get a healer to his sick mother back there."

"Is that why the gate broke down?" the dog asked, shifting his ears and eyes to keep track of them.

"Yeah, no worries, I'm sure it'll be back up once this situation is resolved," the skeleton said.

Doggo nodded. "Good. Hope your mom gets well soon."

"Thank you," Frisk said, giving the dog a quick pet as they went by. Doggo smiled and wagged his tail. While he might've been a monster, he was still a friendly dog it seemed. "Hey Papyrus? What puzzle's up next?"

He rubbed his skull, glancing ahead. "That was... okay, okay, got it! This area here has a spike fence blocking the way forward and to find the switch, you have to find the map." But when they got to the path ahead, there was no spikes. Just a long strip of metal in the snow which had a bunch of holes in it. "Wait, I was pretty sure the spikes came back up when I passed by."

How to say this? "Maybe we can come back to figure it out once this is all taken care of," Frisk said.

"Right, we'll do that! Although the Dogi usually just challenge anyone who tries to pass through their area here, hiding the switch to give them time to catch up. But the next areas have some real classic tile puzzles, and a more modern crazy one invented by the great Dr. Alphys, just wait until you see that one! If the spikes aren't down, we'll at least have fun figuring those out!"

What lay past the door into the Ruins wasn't something Sans was familiar with. There were history books which said that the old capitol of Home was inside somewhere. Because of that, he'd thought that maybe it led into that city. Instead, there was a long enclosed hallway of violet. There was an old green chair by the door, but otherwise it was empty. That at least made it simple to warp down the hall, which only had one turn before it turned into stairs.

And those stairs led into a familiar house. Sans had been in the castle at New Home fairly often, although most of that had been dealing with the few rooms judges used. While that and other parts of the castle were grandiose, the living area and this house were both cozy simple places that seemed like any family would fit into. It suited Asgore, Toriel as well now that he thought about it.

It didn't take long to locate where the bedrooms were. The first one looked to be a children's room, not a place he could imagine Frisk staying in easily. And in the second one past that, he found her. Sans felt a little apprehensive of doing this, seeing her when she wouldn't recognize someone was visiting. Still, someone who knew better how to judge an ill monster's condition needed to see her. Probably someone better than him, but he at least knew more than Frisk. If this was bad enough, he might need to bring the doctor directly here even if that negated Frisk and Papyrus' efforts to clear the road.

Her fever was high; that needed to come down even though there were lots of signs of fire magic in her soul. Since she did favor fire magic, some care would need to be taken to make sure her temperature didn't dip down too low once the cause of the fever was healed. That alone meant she'd be better in a healer's care. For now, her spirit was still strong and her body was holding together. It was an illness of some sort, but what?

Then he noticed: around her heart, there was some kind of spiritual bruise. It didn't look emotionally induced. Rather, it was like someone had managed to grab hold of her soul and handle it roughly. What kind of being could do that? Humans? But no, Frisk was genuinely broken up with tears when he'd been telling them about this, that he didn't know what to do to help her. That was when he should still have some emotional detachment, some disconnection from others. From what Toriel said, he was forcing himself to make connections to become less detached.

If Frisk had attacked her, then his LOVE should have gone up, and significantly since he addressed her sincerely as Mom. Not gone down to 9. This wasn't his fault. Something else was the cause of that bruise, and trying to heal that was likely what caused this fever. And Sans couldn't really do much right now since the healer would insist on bringing her back to be watched closely.

Still, Sans put his hand on hers for a moment and gripped it. "You hang in there, we'll get you back in shape."

She'd been mumbling deliriously this whole time, most of which he couldn't understand. But a bit seemed clear then, her saying, "Don't hurt yourself, my child, Frisk."

She still worried about that kid even though she was suffering. He felt like smiling at that. But, back to action. Sans patted her hand, then went to the door and used a bit of magic on it. It was something he was adept in casting without being noticed for it. When he left Toriel's room through that doorway, he walked into the healer's house and clinic in Snowdin. There was a weird feeling in the middle, what Papyrus found unsettling. Sans had done this so much that it didn't feel weird anymore.

"Excuse me, could we get the truck to go fetch a sick lady in the Ruins?" he asked snowy owl monster that served as one of the healers here. It required some explaining, but he and his partner agreed to get the vehicle ready to head out once Papyrus and Frisk got back to town.

Frisk was clearly having a bad day, not able to enjoy the puzzles as much as he might because of worrying over his mother. He just hadn't been able to tell them at first because he got scared of them. Which was fine, Papyrus knew of monsters that would be scared to hear that a human was down here. But even distracted like that, Frisk was doing really well at the puzzles. Not only had he solved Sans' torch puzzle in an unexpected way, but he figured out the current X and O tile puzzle arrangement in a snap on his first try, just looking at it once he knew how the tiles worked. It was amazing!

This human was just all around amazing. He liked cooking and puzzles, was smart and clearly cared about others a lot. And there was how he handled Evan when the young sentry showed up. They'd run into him once they were done with the tile puzzle. "Yo dudes, hang on," he said, twirling a spear about at his side. "I came out to check on the gate, you been there?"

"Yeah, we're just getting back from there," Papyus had said. Although, he hadn't been sure what to tell Evan. He was a good kid, but he worked with Undyne and it didn't seem right to call her in before they solved the situation with the sick lady.

"So what happened?" Evan asked.

"The door said 'please knock', so I knocked it down," Frisk admitted, not afraid. "I'm sorry to take it literally, but I'm in a hurry to get a healer to the ruins."

"Yeah, his mom is really sick so I'm helping him get to town quickly," Papyrus said.

Evan immediately dismissed his spear. "Whoa, really dude? Sorry to hear that, guess we can let it slide. Besides, we can always build it better next time. Well I had to deactivate the ice puzzle just ahead to get here, so that's clear. I'm gonna go check on Doggo and Sans, then I'm heading back. Later!"

"Thanks, sir," Frisk said, bowing his head. He had such confidence. Along with everything else, he was a really cool person. It was kind of a pity that they'd have to capture him once this was over and send him away. He'd be a cool friend, that was sure.

But this was a big deal! With the power of seven human souls, the barrier on the mountain could be broken and all the monsters would go free. Papyrus would finally get to go out to some real wide open spaces, to find the highways, the different cuisines, the surface forests, maybe even the puzzle gauntlets and labyrinths the humans made. But Frisk didn't seem bad either and to get to the surface...

Well, never mind that. Frisk was worrying again and he needed cheering up now. That was definitely good to help him with too. "It's always so nice being out in the forest at the start of a snowstorm!" Papyrus said, making some snowflakes twirl around his white gloves. "Kind of a pity I didn't bring a scarf out today, those are always fun to get flapping in the wind."

"It is very pretty around here," Frisk agreed. "But why is it snowing underground? And so cold around here? It's supposed to be a steady warmish temperature at this depth below the surface."

"I remember that from school! It's a, what was it, a closed circuit weather system? Something like that. Anyhow, this place is actually pretty dangerous if left as is. For one thing, there's a massive body of water under Waterfall called the Abyssal Lake because it's so huge, dark, and mysterious. No monster has measured it ever. But not very far from it, there's a bubble of lava that's always rising up from much deeper. If the lava melts its way through to the lake, there'll be a huge explosion of steam and Mt. Ebott will reveal its true nature as a volcano. Which would be very bad for us."

"It'd be pretty bad for my old home too, since the city's not far from here," he said.

There was a human city near Mt. Ebott? "Really? I didn't know you all lived so close. But anyhow, we had to find a way to take control of the volcanic bubble and harness its pressure so that it could be dealt with safely. And somebody way back then found a way to do it, but it required turning this area really cold. There's a huge system involved, including the power plant in the Core which produces electrical power for the whole underground. Here, we need to harvest the cold snow and water to turn to ice, which we send downriver to the Core to keep it and the lava bubble in Hotland from getting too hot and exploding."

"But you'd need to regulate the resulting steam, as well as equalize temperatures into a stable cycle," Frisk said, figuring it out on his own from there. "I see, so the steam must get funneled through to here by the hot and cold air trying to even out. Then it gets windy and rainy in Waterfall, and ends up snowy here so you can make the ice."

"That's right, you're really clever Frisk! I had to study all that a long time to finally understand what was going on and how the paper always knows what the weather's going to be like. I don't think I could compete with you." Except maybe in cooking because Frisk said he was still learning that. Although, he had a very exceptional teacher.

"Not really, I've just studied a lot of things to figure them out, so it was just applying what works in one place to finding how this works." Still, he didn't seem very happy with that.

Something had to cheer him up. "But you still took less time than me," Papyrus said. "I bet you must have a lot of friends with that kind of mind."

And he cringed at that as if it was a terrible thing to say. Why was that? Complimenting someone should make them happy. "Not really," Frisk said, oddly distant and cold in his words for a moment. "I end up having to try harder to have friends than others. I threw myself into study to counter... other things, only you can't really study for friendship so right now, I," his voice changed again, really hurt, "I just have Mom, and somebody online I've not actually met, so..."

That hurt just to think about, to do so much work to know all kinds of things, but then have hardly nobody to share those things with. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you upset," Papyrus said, putting a hand on Frisk's shoulder. "Hey, but we can be friends. We'll have to come out to solve the whole puzzle road after all, and it'd be more fun as friends!"

That did make him smile. "Thanks, it would be fun. Just as long as you guys tone down the voltage on that one puzzle. And if we get an actual arrangement on that colored tile thing, that seemed really interesting."

"Sometimes it comes up with ones that are actually impossible," he said, remembering a few of those stories. "Like ones with a full line of red across the path, or a bunch of blue and orange with no purple. They try to arrange it so that the machine won't pick those arrangements again, but Alphys hasn't come up with a way to make it completely scan out the unsolvable ones."

By then, they had made it to the long bridge just before Snowdin. On the other side, Sans already had the healer alerted and ready to go. The pale blue truck had its darker hood on, covering the bed so that a patient who couldn't move on their own could be transported back while kept warm and dry. "How'd you get a truck like that down here?" Frisk asked.

"Well there's some really clever guys who liked the idea of cars and trucks that we saw in stuff that came in from the surface," he explained as they started crossing. "We've never had one of your vehicles get down here, but we do know how to build stuff, and so they figured out how to build their own with some engine diagrams and such. Of course, they probably don't work the same and there's not many working cars. There's not really the space to drive them around save for a few larger roads in the capitol. But we got this rescue truck made to run in the snow in case of trouble."

Frisk was just behind him. "That's handy."

Papyrus nodded. "Sure is! We even got a ramp for it built to reach the lower level of the forest! Except, there's not really any roads down there and anyone who goes down there, even with the truck, has got to be careful. It's nearly all wild down there, but the trees have got to stay because they help purify the air and make it fresher. That's part of that closed off weather circuit, there's blowers and shafts that get it into New Home and I think the old Home ruins too."

"Interesting system, I'll have to look into its construction if I get the time. It'd be quite a feat to... um..."

Glancing back, he saw that Frisk had stopped and was looking down. "What's the matter?" Papyrus asked, stopping to turn to him. "Afraid of heights? Don't worry, this bridge and the ropes are perfectly safe! It's actually made of stone, with invisible paint put onto bits so that it looks like a wooden bridge! Isn't that cool?" It had been another project of his, which several of his neighbors had helped out with. That had been back when he and Sans had first moved in.

Frisk brought a hand up to his neck, touching an odd necklace there. Part of it hung tight to his neck, while some beads dangled from the front. "Don't do it," he muttered.

"Don't do what?" Papyrus asked.

Then something seemed to grab into his body, digging sharp claws into his soul. It was a sickening feeling that was strangely familiar. Scarily familiar. Papyrus tried to jump back, but whatever it was stayed with him, darkening his vision and dizzying his mind.