Nafi followed Toriel into the next room.
It was very purple.
She liked purple as much as the next person, but this was a little ridiculous. Literally the only things not purple was the red leaves laying between the two staircases on the other side of the room, and Toriel's white fur.
Toriel climbed the stairs on the right side, stopping at the top to wait for Nafi to catch up. She didn't have to wait long as Nafi quickly ran up the stairs, not wanting to lose the purple dressed goat in the sea of purple bricks.
As they entered the next room, Nafi was yet again greeted with purple assaulting her eyeballs. This time however, there was a purple door at the other end of the room, set in a darker purple door frame. On the floor was a light purple path, two lighter purple switches on the path, four off the path - two on either side.
"Welcome to your new home innocent one," Toriel said, "Allow me to educate you in the operation of the Ruins."
Nafi wondered what Toriel mentioned by new home as the goat moved to the switches on the floor, stepping on the four on the outside and finishing with flicking a yellow - glorious yellow! - switch that had been previously hidden behind her. The door opened.
"The Ruins are full of puzzles, ancient fusions between diversions and door keys. One must solve them to move from room to room. Please adjust yourself to the sight of them," Toriel said as she moved into the open doorway.
Nafi drank in the sight of the yellow in the mass of purple, before moving to follow Toriel. She got distracted by a purple sign on the purple wall, and stopped to read it.
"Brave ones, foolish ones, both walk not the middle road."
She raised an eyebrow at the obvious answer and continued on her way.
They entered the next room, this one with slightly less purple in the form of two small canals full of water running across the room bridged by brown wooden bridges. Oh, and three yellow switches, two covered in writing in the wall across from them.
Toriel walked over to a sign, "To progress, you will need to trigger several switches. Do not worry, I have labeled the ones you need to flip."
Taking a moment to read the sign ("Stay on the path!"), Nafi easily flipped the labeled switches causing spikes that had barred the way to retract. Why did she have to do this? Those were easily stepped over.
"Splendid! I'm proud of you! Let's move on to the next room," said Toriel as she walked past.
Nafi was silently fuming. These were considered traps? These were easy! Did Toriel want to die or did she just not realize the danger she was in?
In the next room was a training dummy.
Toriel turned to Nafi. "As a human living down here, monsters may attack you. You will need to be prepared for this situation. However, worry not! The process is simple, when you encounter a monster you will enter a fight. While you are in a fight, strike up a friendly conversation and I will come to resolve the conflict."
Nafi stayed silent despite her many questions.
"Practice talking to this dummy." Toriel indicated said dummy.
It looked… like a dummy.
She squinted at it and brought her HUD up.
Attack 0, defense 0, health 10. Why is she getting stats from an inanimate object?
The green and red heart appeared and she immediately pulled out her sword, looking for the flower but aiming it at the dummy.
Toriel interrupted her semi panicked searching, "Oh no! Dummies are not for fighting! They are for talking."
Nafi slowly put her sword away once she was certain there was no harm in doing so. She stared at the dummy for a moment, before speaking. "Hello, how are you."
Toriel smiled, and the heart disappeared. "Good job! Follow me."
Nafi glanced around the room again before following.
The next room was a very long room with a winding path.
"There is another puzzle in this room, I wonder if you can solve it." Toriel mused to herself.
They moved through the room, Toriel getting to the end before Nafi, when suddenly a large white frog jumped out. Nafi almost sliced the frog's head off, but with animals her first instinct is not to kill them. It was only when she was putting her sword away that she realized the heart was out again.
Activating her HUD once again, she looked around for the flower. She quickly had to dodge what looked like… flies? Why were extinct bugs here? Much less attacking her? She slid out of the way again and looked at them, yet never got a stat. She turned to look at the frog, to check if her HUD still worked, to see Toriel chasing the frog away with a glare.
Ignoring Toriel's repeat stats, Nafi glanced around the room for more flies but didn't see anything else.
They continued through the room and walked past a sign that Nafi quickly read.
"The eastern room is the western room's blueprint."
Before she could wonder what that meant they came out to a room of spikes, surrounded by water.
"This is the puzzle, but…" Toriel started before being interrupted by Nafi brushing past her and jumping into the knee-deep water and walking to the other side. She climbed up on to the other side and looked back at the surprised Toriel. Nafi waited for her to walk through the spike maze, constantly looking around for attackers. She would not be caught off guard again.
When Toriel got to the other side, she said, "Well that's one way to do it…"
They moved into the next room, yet another long one with a winding path, and Toriel stopped and looked at Nafi. "I was going to test your independence in this room. However, from your show in the other room, I believe you are independent enough. I must attend to some business, and you must be alone for a while. Please remain here, it is dangerous to explore by yourself."
With all of her strength, Nafi prevented herself from snorting.
Toriel didn't notice and continued, "I have an idea, I will give you a cell phone. If you need anything, just call. Be good alright?"
Nafi nodded and looked at the cellphone as Toriel walked away. She walked up to a pillar at the end of the hall and sat down to fiddle with it.
Wait, some of these buttons look familiar.
She called on her console, and observed the buttons. Ok, so they weren't exactly the same, but the console looked like an old keyboard and the… what was it called? Oh right, the num-pad looked really close to the phone buttons.
As she put the console away, she saw movement back down the hallway. Her bow was in her hand and an arrow notched in less time than it took to fire it. The arrow hit something, and pinned a yellow flower petal to the ground. She cursed herself for not checking to see if anyone was near before opening the console. She put her bow away, and checked to see if the 'infinity' enchantment worked. Yep, still have all her arrows. Nice to know.
She turned her attention back to the phone and after a few minutes pushing all the buttons, she stood up and left the room. Almost immediately the phone rang. Thankfully, Nafi did figure out how to answer the phone.
"Hello? This is Toriel. You have not left the room, have you?"
"I looked outside," Nafi replied.
"Well, please stay there. There are a few puzzles I have yet to explain and it would be dangerous to solve them by yourself."
Nafi rolled her eyes, "If you say so."
"Thank you. Be good, alright?"
*Click*
Nafi heard nothing else from the phone. She finally removed it from her ear, and continued walking, down the hall to her left.
It was a dead end with a bowl of… something, surrounded by water on all sides of the room. She decided that she didn't want to know what it was. She turned around and walked in the other direction.
"Ribbit, Ribbit. (Thank goodness I found you. I'm not as young as I used to be.)"
Nafi jumped, activating HUD and looking around wildly. She spotted a frog next to the door.
"Ribbit, Ribbit. (Excuse me human, I have some advice for battling monsters.)"
Nafi forcibly calmed herself down. "Which is?"
"Ribbit, Ribbit. (If you act a certain way, or fight till you almost defeat them, they may not want to battle you anymore. If a monster does not want to fight you, please… use some mercy, human.)"
Nafi nodded slowly, she would keep that in mind. The frog hopped away. She got back on track.
To the right of where she first came in was more hallway, this time with leaf piles dotted around the walls. She continued down, coming to the end of the short hall quickly and turned left into another room. She barely stopped before she stepped on a weak area of floor, marked by very obvious cracks across the tiles. Nafi jumped over it and landed next to another one of the frogs. The hear-, soul not heart, her soul appeared and she had to restrain the instinct to pull out her sword and slice the thing's head off.
With great effort, she grit out, "Hello, I like frogs." The frog was obviously confused but blushed anyway and hopped off. The soul disappeared.
Nafi walked away, on guard, HUD on, and ration making its way to her mouth.
Who knows what else lives here.
*Ring Ring* "Hello?"
"Hello! This is Toriel. For no reason in particular, do you prefer cinnamon or butterscotch."
"... Both, I guess?"
"Great! Thank you. Be good!" *Click*
"...What's cinnamon? Or butterscotch?"
The next time the phone rang, Nafi was staring at a dead tree. The traps in the later part of the Ruins fluctuated from easy to hard, and she definitely sprained her wrist falling down one of the holes. It didn't help that she had tripped into a wall fighting a living vegetable.
It's honestly by chance that no one ended up dead and everyone walked away from her happy. Especially since she definitely didn't heed the frogs advise on more than one occasion.
Although the ghost was a new one. Good thing he could just be jumped over.
Nafi reached for the phone, before Toriel came walking around the tree, hanging up quickly once she saw Nafi.
"Oh, my child! Are you hurt?"
Nafi tried to hide the sprained wrist from the mothering gaze, but it was in vain. Toriel healed the wrist, and a few other scrapes and bruises. Nafi pulled away as soon as she was healed, looking around the tree at the homely cottage. "That is your home?" Toriel disguised her hurt at Nafi's rejection and put on a smile. "Yes, come on in, I have a room prepared for you."
Nafi followed her into the home, her nose immediately smelling the unmistakable scent of a lived-in home and cooking pastry and her eyes were finally freed from the assaulting purple. They turned right and Toriel opened the first door they came to. "This will be your room for the time being, please make yourself comfortable."
Nafi cautiously entered the room, as Toriel sniffed the air and ran off yelling, "My pie!"
She checked over the room, under everything, in everything, on everything, and just to be safe, did it again three times. Only after this did she dare to take off her cape. She pulled out another ration and finally slid onto the bed after finishing. Gripping an arrow as a weapon, she faced the door with her back against the wall, and drifted off.
Nafi was asleep one second and the next she was awake as Toriel moved into the room.
She gripped the arrow tighter, but otherwise stayed still. Toriel did nothing but put a plate on the floor.
Toriel looked at the occupant on the bed, taking in the arrow and protective position and felt anger at whoever made this child need to sleep in such a way. She left the room quickly.
Nafi sat up and looked at the pie. Her stomach growled it's want and she scrambled out of bed, privately glad that she decided to take a small bottle of her poison antidote. Checking the pie for poisons, she took a bit on her finger and dripped the antidote on it. She could still taste the bitter antidote so it wasn't poisoned. Then, she proceeded to stuff the entire pie slice in her mouth, eating it as fast as possible and uncaring that it was still hot. It was really delicious.
Once finished, she snuck out of the room, using her HUD to find Toriel quickly. She was in an adjacent room. Nafi grabbed her cape and snuck in the opposite direction, following the scent of pie.
Through the entryway and through the living room to the kitchen she went, when her eyes looked upon the majesty that was the rest of the pie.
"Oh, my, diamonds. That is one big pie."
Immediately she started to raid the cabinets for containers to put the pie in. It took seven of the biggest containers she could find, but she now had the entire pie in the cape.
Then she heard a noise. It wasn't a loud noise, but it was there. HUD up and scanning, she caught Toriel heading back to her room. Had she been watching?
Creeping back through the house, she came up to Toriel's room. Hearing more movement in her room and remembering the fireballs, Nafi decided to take a look at the third door in the hallway, the one marked 'under renovation'.
It was locked, but that didn't matter when she was able to just force the knob to turn. It was… under renovation. There was supplies strewn everywhere, but what she did notice was the fact that there were pictures everywhere of other humans. Taking a moment to count, she concluded there was six other humans the goat had taken care of. On her own at least. There was one picture she found that had two other goats taking care of a seventh child. In the far back was a blurred picture, but what it was about was anyone's guess.
What really caught her attention was their faces. In every picture everyone... everyone was happy.
Nafi put everything back, closing the door behind her. She peered into Toriel's room and stared at the sleeping form, contemplating.
"You did nothing but help. You could have killed me many times, yet you didn't. You lost so much, you don't deserve to lose what you have left. By my hand or anyone else's on the surface." She closed her eyes and sighed deeply, trying hard not to think about the lives ended by the culture and her own hands, moving out of the room.
"No one did."
Nafi walked back towards the living room. There were books to read.
When Toriel left her room a few hours later, she found Nafi reading her books with another slice of the pie half eaten and what was left in the containers next to it. From the looks of it, Nafi had made significant headway into the shelf and the pie. Toriel smiled even as Nafi gave her zero attention over the book.
Toriel walked towards the kitchen, "I'll make another pie."
Nafi was very confused. Toriel had a distressing amount of chances to kill her over the past few days, and never took a single one. She didn't even seem to notice them! That's not to mention the lack of undead, even the dark areas. Sure, spiders were down here, but they were the pre-Change small kind. No zombies, no creepers, and no endermen and endermen could get everywhere. Toriel said that there were also skeletons down here, but not like the ones on the surface. Her paranoia was acting up considerably, and the books and pie wouldn't keep her here much longer.
Toriel on the other hand didn't know what to feel. What little she could get out of Nafi about the surface did not paint a pretty picture. What she did know was that Nafi was not to be trusted around other monsters until she stopped going for a weapon every time her soul appeared. That and she was very good at fixing things like the door she broke that day she first arrived.
Finally, the day arrived that Toriel was dreading dawned. The day when Nafi wanted to leave the Ruins.
It started as any normal day, but that normalcy was broken during her time with her pun partner.
"And he said 'these are in-crab-able crabs!'"
The voice on the other side of the door started howling with laughter.
Toriel spotted Nafi walking down the hall towards her. Clearing her throat to get his attention, she said "Excuse me for a moment, I have something to attend to."
She called to Nafi, "Do you need anything?"
Nafi did nothing more than glance in the direction of the door, before she got right to the point, "I would like to leave now."
Toriel sighed and said, "I was afraid of that."
Nafi straightened up, "I will go through you." She squashed the flash of guilt as she said that.
Toriel nodded, ignoring the worried questions through the door.
Nafi pulled out her sword and held it tightly with still hands.
Toriel conjured fireballs in each hand.
Nafi's soul appeared.
There was a moment of silence. Then both of them attacked at the same time, Nafi with her sword ready and Toriel chucking fireballs. Nafi batted a fireball away with her sword and sliced at Toriel who dodged it.
Nafi continued to press her attack, slicing over and over again in a desperate attempt to end this quickly, with Toriel barely dodging every blow. Toriel, in an effort to get Nafi away, was raining fireballs down upon her. Nafi jumped back when one got too close for comfort and started dodging, now on the back foot.
Toriel kept up the fireball blitz for a good minute, before she had to stop from exhaustion. Nafi watched with cold eyes as Toriel fell to a knee and barely held herself up.
"So, this is it," Toriel laughed to herself, "This is how I die." Nafi had no outward reactions other than heavy breathing from exertion.
"I tried to protect you. Understand you and help you. I see now I am not the one who can. You protect yourself, I cannot understand you, and the help you need I cannot give." Toriel looked up at Nafi. "I hope I at least gave you comfort."
Toriel hung her head as Nafi walked towards her. She looked upon Toriel with sorrow and well-hidden shame. She didn't want to do this, but she saw no other choice.
When she reached Toriel, she said, "You did. For what it's worth, I wish it never came to this. Thank you, and I'm sorry." Nafi raised her sword, even in this emotional situation her hand was steady and her eyes were clear of the tears that threatened to come. "You're forgiven," Toriel responded. Single tear made its way down Nafi's cheek and she swung her sword down with a shout.
Then the door exploded and something hit Nafi in the temple. She hit the ground hard, barely able to do more than reach for her sword before she lost her fight with the black creeping at the edge of her vision.
In the seconds before she blacked out, she thought, "Well that's one way of getting past that door."
