"Ha-LOOOOOOOO!" Tarn screeched in that loud, Burrowing Owl voice of his at the strange creature below. "You down there! Identify yourself!"
The being immediately turned its head up upon the call.
"Yes!? What!? Someone there!?" she responded. "Who is it!?"
Tarn looked to his student for him to say something.
"M-me?"
He nodded, and Phillip agreed, albeit very nervous about the situation.
"Um...W-we happened upon this mountain, and we've heard the legends! A-are you a monster?"
"Yes...Yes, I am. But I won't hurt you! I promise! What of you? I cannot very well see you through the Barrier, but it looks like two small figures hovering just above it like birds. Is that, by any chance, you?"
"What do we say!?" Phillip whispered to the elder tracker. He gave another nod of confirmation, then took his turn to speak.
"It is. We're looking for a friend of ours. Can we trust you?"
"You can!"
"Should we?" Phillip questioned yet again.
"I don't see why not; this monster doesn't exactly seem like a mangy rabid murderer, does she, now?"
"...No, I suppose not."
"Very well, then!" Tarn continued to the monster below. "'Ave you seen an owl pass down through this hole? A Barn Owl, to be exact?"
"Are those the ones with the big, white heart-shaped faces?"
"That's the one! Seen any? Particularly one with a tawny pelt and big, clever-looking, eyes? Sky blue, might I add?"
A tawny pelt and witty, bright blue eyes. Except for the owl part, the description sounded all too familiar.
"No. Not an owl. But...Of late, a human of such a description has come down here, in case that gives you any hints about anything!"
A human...? With a tawny pelt? And eyes like hers? I thought there weren't any around here for miles on end...It's almost as if...
No...No, that's impossible, Tarn...
"But no owl?"
"No owl; I am sorry I cannot offer any more useful information."
"...This human you speak of. What were they like? I'm curious?"
"Oh, she was a very bright young SOUL. Of independent nature; a bit on the pugnacious side, but good-natured through and through. She even knows how to escape a battle using nothing more than her words and her quick feet! She impressed me quite so...but she's not around anymore. She had to leave the Ruins you fly over now. The other side of the cave is where she will be able to escape. I do hope she's alright; the Underground is full of danger. But I have some sort of odd faith that she is still alive and well."
Tarn processed her description of the mysterious human for a moment; she sounded very much like Ginger; quick-minded, eager to face the battlefield, yet just and good deep within. It was no wonder she and Kludd were such a good match.
"But it's a human," Phillip reminded, reading the look on the Burrowing Owl's face. "It can't be."
Tarn gave the Sooty a peculiar look; he wasn't quite convinced yet, so he decided to dig a little deeper.
"Ma'am!" he continued, flying just a bit lower. "You said something about a Barrier! Is that the cause of the periodic blurs we're seein' up 'ere?"
"Oh, yes; it's just about at the halfway mark! I do not recommend you descend any lower than you are now! Anything can pass into the Barrier from the outside, but nothing can come out! Only those with powerful enough SOULs can cross it from the inside! You'll likely get stuck down here!"
"This Barrier...What is it made of?"
"It is entirely composed of magic, formed by the seven human mages that trapped us down here in the first place many centuries ago. The only thing that can destroy it is a power equivalent to seven human SOULs..."
Her voice seemed to trail off.
"When something passes through the Barrier...What 'appens to, say a human? Does the magic react with them in any way that might...change them?"
"Not that I know of."
"I don't know much about magic, except for a few things that stick out in the legends I've read. Legends an' 'istory books from my home turf so say that there once roamed haggish creatures that plagued the land with their dark magic; natchmagen, we call it! And said natchmager could transform one being into another! This was one of the Hagsfiends' most feared attributes! Can yours do this!?"
"Transform things? I...believe it can to a certain extent, but I have yet to see this happen for myself. I have heard nothing of the Barrier being capable of such things...But yet again, the properties it withholds are shrouded in mystery; they have been ever since it's formation."
So there was a possibility.
"...Pray tell," Tarn continued. "This human that came down here...What was her name?"
"Oh, she had an interesting name, but very fitting for someone like her. Ginger, it was."
The two owls looked at each other, not sure what to believe. This new possibility that Tarn had come up with had completely taken off.
"...We'll be on our way now, madam."
"Um...What's your name?" Phillip called down. The blur faded again, and he could see her face more clearly once more; her eyes were full of worry and intrigue; not at all the eyes of a savage beast that he and Tarn had originally fathomed.
"My name is Toriel; I pass through here every day to see if anyone has fallen down, and it is a good thing I do; a terrible plant-like creature was trying to do her in when I stumbled upon the scene and acted in her defense."
"That is all. Good day to you."
Tarn lifted himself up out of the hole, and the young Sooty Owl followed suit.
"...Did we hear all of that correctly, Tarn, sir?"
"No doubt. It doesn't have to be told to me twice. From what I'm theorizing, Ginger's been put under some sort of spell by that cursed Barrier. Either that Toriel thing down there's oblivious to the effects it had on her or she's not fessin' up."
"Which of the two do you believe more?"
He sighed before giving his protégé an answer.
"...I'm going to have to say I'm leanin' more towards the former. She seemed clear and willing to give answers, wouldn't you say? She even warned us about the trap the Barrier forms, so that's a plus. Even with the whole monster thing, I don't see any reason yet not to trust her."
"Ginger's been placed under a spell. As in it...made her a human?"
"That goat didn't mention anything about her bein' panicky; that's a tad odd, if you ask me. I'd certainly be in a mess of a mental state if I found arms in place of my wings and ugly flats as my feet instead of talons."
He flexed the claws on his foot, displaying the short, yet sharp claws on his sandy-scaled feet. They weren't quite as dark and hooked as those of a Barn Owl, and his talons not as thick and powerful, but they could still pack a nasty blow.
"There's not the possibility that it's a coincidence, is it?"
"Phillip...What do YOU think the odds are? Especially considering that there's magic involved? Maybe natchmagen?"
"...Close to zero."
"Come on, boy," he finished, picking his flight up even more as they exited the hole and flew out of the cavern. "This is something the High Tyto needs to know about and fast."
The two owls emerged and began a straight path to the arrangement in the treetops the eagles and Pure Ones had made use of. All Phillip hoped that if his owl-turned-human instructor was indeed undergoing the terrible spell AND a perilous trek, she would know how to hold her own.
Glauxspeed, Ginger, he wished he could say to her. Glauxspeed...
...
The path ahead was just wooden bridge, and there was more winding around beneath. Ginger wondered if her path and the one below connected at some point.
Guess I'll find out at some point... she said to herself.
So she began trekking ahead; Kidd might have some trouble finding a way around this bridge path, seeing that the sides of it were just open air. She hoped he could make his way around it somehow, wherever the detour might be...She wished she knew where one was; Ginger was beginning to feel uneasy again...Was it the height of the bridge? Heights normally didn't bother her. In fact, she loved looking down at the ground from high above to see things one couldn't from on the surface. Maybe it had something to do with her imminent lack of wings to keep her up in the case the bridge somehow collapsed. But the wood it was made out of seemed pretty sturdy, so it couldn't be anything related to acrophobia. Then why did she suddenly feel so-
The human's train of thought was cut off by the sound of magic, and her eyes were pulled down to something that had formulated from thin air right in front of her.
It was a small, glowing blue flat...platform of some sort, she guessed, that had magically appeared there. She heard another one form behind her, and then yet a third to her right...What in the name of Glaux was...
Her eyes widened...She recognized that haunting blue glow.
Several more formed around her, and then, in a split second, spears came up out of them; if she'd been standing on one of them she would have been a human kabob.
And then came the all-too familiar noise of metal boots clanging against the hard wood beneath her.
Ginger didn't even have to see Undyne to know that she was right down there on the lower bridge. And once she comprehended what was happening, she bolted.
She ran right up the curving bridge, the captain sending another wave of spear tiles at her to try and skewer her from beneath. Ginger refused to let her gruesome intentions come into full play; as quickly as her feet threatened to carry her, Ginger had to keep herself from going too fast, or else she would find herself running right onto one of the spear tiles right when it decided to launch upward. The mere brief glimmering image she pictured of her human self impaled and bloodied on the spear protruding from the wooden path was enough to make her mind even sharper and quicker to outpace the tiles as they formed.
Not gonna let that happen!
The bridge divided into several different branches ahead, and looking up the path, she found the straight one leading to a dead end, so she skidded against the sharp turn and made her way south. Another dead end came into view; she turned left, then right again, just barely dodging one of the spears coming up out of the corner. Another set came up along the path directly ahead of her, and she pushed off toward the east. One of the branches in the path turned south again, and Ginger opted to keep heading that way until she'd lost her.
But it didn't look like the fearsome Undyne was going to be giving up herself anytime soon.
The human saw that the tiles were forming quicker, and the spears were shooting up in less time. The captain was upping her game, so she would have to up her speed.
Ginger saw a break in the path ahead; the other part of the bridge was connected just at the corner, and she was almost afraid she would fall into the darkness if she wasn't careful with her next turn. Another tile formed right where she had to put her foot down to clear the jump. She HAD to get there before the spear spring up.
She pushed off the break and sent herself onto the other side just as the tip shot up, the knife-like edge of the spear grazing the sole of her shoe. The human followed the path as it continued west, zigzagging around the ever quickening spears shooting up at her. How much quicker could they possibly get!? And when was this crazy monster going to give up the chase already!?
"Is this always how you attack!?" Ginger found herself yelling in her own frustration and panic, not realizing she was saying it and not just thinking it. "Hiding in the shadows and tossing up your fancy magic weapons!? Why don't you come out and face me!? Or are you just some COWARD HIDING BEHIND A HELMET!?"
For a moment, the spears seemed to stop, and not realizing what had just been said, she took the opportunity to follow the bridge south, then east again, making three fourths of a circle before finding a particularly large bridge patch; if this broad, spread out ground was grass and dirt instead of wooden logs, it would technically classify as an island. Ginger slowed as she approached the point at which the bridge narrowed again; the darkness made it hard to see where it ended, so she squinted...
And immediately came to a screeching halt.
If she had taken one step further, she would have fallen off of the bridge and into the inky blackness. This was a dead end, so she turned back to find another way across.
And when she did, her heart felt as though it had turned to stone.
There, standing no less than ten yards away from her, was Undyne. Her giant armored form was completely blocking off the rest of the bridge. From inside the monster's helmet, Ginger caught a glimpse of her right eye; it glowed a piercing yellow in the darkness, and its pupil was slit like a cat's. It shone with an untamed hatred that was more intense than anything of the sort the human had ever seen.
Wait...Did I say those things about her being a coward...out loud?!
If she had, however, she wasn't about to let herself go down without a fight. Ginger regained her composure and flashed her evil eye at the monster.
"So...you took my advice," she taunted, managing an eerie calm in her tone, and she proceeded to fling her hood off her head, knowing that Undyne already well knew who she was. "...What's hiding under YOUR mask?"
The monster didn't answer.
"...Pray tell, captain," the young human continued, trying her best to hide the shakiness of her voice. "What exactly DID happen the last time a human fell down here?"
Her catlike eye shone even brighter, the passionate anger resonating off of it growing ever stronger, and this time, the monster cast down two of her blue-glowing spears from above. They went through the bridge wood, but failed to harm the human.
"...You missed," Ginger remarked, not in a mocking fashion, but it true curiousity...What was the point of-
And that was when she felt the bridge begin to waver. The monster had cut off the dead end she was on from the rest of the bridge. It was only holding on by a few splinters.
It was going to fall, and it was going to take Ginger with it.
"...Too intimidated to fight he, huh?"
One more spear flew down, and it finally separated the wood. Ginger grasped the edge of the bridge piece as it began to fall, hoping to use it as a shield somehow upon the impact with the ground.
"If this is the way you want to do it, I'll bet you I'll be back!"
As she fell into the depths of the unknown, she began to reflect on all of the things she had said to the creature.
And for a fleeting moment, she hoped that the crash landing would kill her.
She had essentially dug her own grave by saying what she had to the six-and-a-half foot beast that was the Captain of the Royal Guard.
And she knew now that at some point, Undyne was going to throw her into it and bury her casket under her barrage of spears.
...
...What was this?
She had fallen down. She was back in the Ruins...but how? And what had changed about it? Something had; something was definitely different from before, and it was something big, but somehow, she couldn't quite put her finger on it...
Was this a dream?...a vision, even, perhaps? She felt so different; so light. Had she died? Was this what always happened when one Loaded?
"It sounds like it came from over here..."
Who was that? She'd never heard that voice in her life, but...she felt like she should trust it? She rose her weary head and looked up; the silhouette that stood not far from her was a mottled white and green blur, but whoever it was, it didn't look much bigger than her. In fact, it didn't SOUND much older than her.
"Oh!" the being exclaimed. "You've fallen down, haven't you...? Are you okay?"
"I...don't know..."
Something wasn't right. She hurt so much...But wasn't she already dead? How could she still be in so much pain? What was going on...?
"Here, get up..."
Whoever it was lifted her onto her feet and began to lead her...somewhere, keeping her propped up in his soft arms; it felt like he was just about her size.
"...What's your name?"
"...Chara."
Wait...But this wasn't right...That wasn't even her voice coming out of her mouth, was it? It sounded younger than she remembered; weaker. Who was this Chara she was seeing through the eyes of?
"Chara, huh?...That's a nice name..."
All of a sudden, everything began to fade to white.
"My name is..."
But he was gone before he could finish.
...
"...What...What was..."
Ginger's head felt like it'd just been assaulted by a score of rocks. If she tried to lift it, she might vomit, it was so bad...couldn't she just lie here for a while longer...?
Finally, the pain began to dissipate, and she finally opened her weary eyes; all she could see was yellow.
Just like when she first fell into the Ruins.
She regained the strength to sit up; she found herself sitting in a small patch of flowers, not unlike the one that had broken her fall when she had been swallowed by the Barrier and turned human. It was strange seeing the flowers in a place like this; they didn't look like they belonged here in Waterfall.
She had a weird dream, she knew she had. Why couldn't she remember it? She'd JUST woken up from it, hadn't she? Why had she so suddenly forgotten it?
Ginger finally stood up, still unsteady from her light head...Where exactly was she? Wherever she was, she knew she had to get back to familiar territory before anything else crazy happened. The path she was on lead east, and it lead through cool, shallow water that barely even came up to her shins, and it flowed gently.
As she began to walk, she saw a giant pile of junk along the path. Upon taking a better look at it, it turned out to consist mostly of torn cloth, old boxes, broken human furniture and all sorts of other old, unwanted, or worn objects. Rubbish. Trash...
...Was this the Garbage Dump that Papyrus had spoke of?
She'd have to come back to this place, but before she could do that, she had to find a passage back to where she came from. There had to be a proper exit opening leading in and out if this dump somewhere. She hoped she could find a path leading up to such a place before Undyne decided to come here looking for her.
Ginger saw another Save Point glimmering in the darkness. She hastily brushed her hand through it; now she would REALLY have to Save as much as she could.
*Waterfall-Trash Zone
*File Saved
Yep. This is the place.
The human looked the right of the Save Point, and she saw that the falls sloped. Ginger curiously peered down the cascade to see where it ended.
It didn't. It was just a black, seemingly bottomless pit, and the sight of it made her back away nervously. No way she would want to fall down there...Maybe Papyrus knew where it lead. She'd have to ask him the next time they met.
She went on; a few particular items stuck out of the north heading path. A big cooler that looked to be in good condition, a dated piece of human technology that was a little rusted, and...a DVD case? She recognized it from when Papyrus had shown off his own, but unlike the ones the skeleton had displayed, this was nothing Mettaton-related. Water had gotten into the case and destroyed the title of the DVD, but the picture was clear; it displayed a somewhat toony illustration of a young female human riding on a broomstick through the sky alongside a small flock of seagulls. The small black cat in her bag didn't appear very pleased with how high above the ground they were.
The DVD plastic hadn't been opened yet, but it looked like somebody had tried and failed to do so; the stubborn clear wrapping was covered in long indentations that looked like claws or nails had tried to tear through. But it had refused to break, so the monster-or maybe even human that had thrown it out-trying to open it must have given up.
A monster, probably; the creases looked like whatever had formed them was sharper than human fingernails; more like claws.
And not far from the abandoned DVD box was a familiar-looking training dummy.
"...Hey there," she said to it, staring into its black button eyes. The memory of Toriel's little training session in the Ruins came back to her. "How's it been?"
It didn't say anything.
"...Not much of a talker, are you?"
"..."
"Well...See ya later."
She turned to walk away, seeing an exit ahead. Maybe from there she could find a way back. The place could really do with some maps; maybe she could find someone with one to help point out which direction to head in.
"...Oh, we'll see about that, now, won't we?"
The phantom voice came from somewhere behind her. Ginger turned her head back around; there was nothing there but that dummy.
Which proceeded to turn its head and flash her a deathly glare!
"GACK!"
The dummy swam through the shallow water and re-emerged right in front of her, hovering in midair.
"Bet you're askin' yourself a lot o' questions, huh!?" he snapped at her. "I'm a ghost. And I live inside this dummy. My cousin used to live inside a dummy too."
"U-until...?"
"Until YOU came along!" he screamed. Ginger was so shocked by this sudden occurrence, she couldn't even grasp what was going on at the moment. All she knew was that a possessed training dummy was yelling at her, and he didn't seem very pleased.
"When you talked to him, he thought he was in for a nice chat...But the things you SAID...! They were horrible. Shocking! UNBELIEVABLE! You spooked my cousin right out of his dummy! How'd you like it if someone scared your SOUL right out of YOUR body!?"
"I wouldn't-"
"Well, TOO BAD! YOU'RE ABOUT TO FIND OUT WHAT IT'S LIKE!"
The deranged punching bad let out an array of swirling, tangled, almost cotton ball-shaped bullets at her from a lineup of befittingly dummy-shaped launchers, and she dodged them in the nick of time.
"Come on, man, I-I didn't know about your cousin!" she tried to reason with it. "I thought it was just some regular old dummy sitting around!"
"Well YOU THOUGHT WRONG! Now get a load of THIS!"
Now two rays of cotton bullets came at her, one from in front and one from behind. When she dodged the back attack, they hit the one summoning them instead.
"OW! WATCH WHERE YOU'RE AIMIN' THOSE ATTACKS, YOU DUMMIES!"
"You okay? Shouldn't you be more caref-"
"I DON'T NEED YOUR ADVICE! I NEED YOUR SOUL!"
He continued to unveil his plan as he sent out more arrays of cotton balls, and smaller, dummy shaped missile firers appeared to launch them from different sides of her.
"I'll teach you for treatin' my cousin like a piece o' trash, you piece o' trash! I'll take your SOUL and use it to cross the Barrier myself! And then I'll sit in the window of a fancy store, and everything I ever wanted will FINALLY BE MINE!"
"That's your plan to avenge your cousin?" Ginger questioned.
"Huh...?"
The bullets ceased for a moment.
"Yeah, I guess that'll avenge my cousin! Er..." He glanced off to the side. "...What was his name again? Whatever. Whatever! WHATEVER! It doesn't matter as long as I make sure you PAY for what you did to him! And PAY YOU WILL!"
Ginger just barely noticed the surprise attack coming from behind in time, and she dove out of the way just in time for the giant series of cotton balls fired by the dummy gunners to miss her and assault the angry dummy instead.
"GYACK! YOU KNOW WHAT! THAT'S IT! YOU GUYS ARE FIRED! I'll get someone for this job that DOESN'T screw up! DUMMY BOTS! DO YOUR STUFF!"
The new launchers he summoned had a more mechanical appearance, and the bullets they fired weren't cotton balls.
They were ACTUAL MISSILES.
And they actively CHASED after the panicking human until they ran out of power and faded away.
"Hey, what is-Stop it! STOP IT, YOU STUPID DUMMY! THIS IS BACWARDS!"
Ginger felt a lot of things; confused, threatened, shocked. Everything was fine, and then Undyne came along, and NOW she was being attacked by some sentient punching bag.
She was beginning to get mad herself. It was supposed to be the other sprinking way around!
One of the rockets managed to strike her in the arm, and she held it, shocked by the sudden burst of pain, as she doubled over.
"Ha ha. Ha ha! HA HA! That'll teach ya! Care for some more, ya little rat!?"
The mad dummy actually backed away some when Ginger finally rose her head.
She looked even angrier than HIM.
"Oh, so you think this a contest, huh!?"
He looked at his barely visible reflection in the water, made the angriest glare he could muster, then looked up at the human with the same expression.
But hers was different. It was genuine rage.
And it was accompanied by a ferocious-sounding GROWL.
Ginger tightened her gloved fist, then sent the strongest punch she'd ever dealt right into the dummy's chest, and the worn creature fell apart...
And then promptly pulled itself back together.
"Futile. Futile! FUTILE!" it hollered. "You can't hurt me! I'm incorporeal!"
"Well, then don't mind if I beat you up even more!"
"COME AT ME! SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO, WEAK-SAUCE!"
"With PLEASURE," she snarled.
And she sent her own series of attacks at the dummy. A hook across the cheek. An uppercut to the chin. Three quick, light, consecutive punches to the chest, and then finally a good strong kick right in the gut! She beamed maniacally when her last attack made the dummy fall apart again, but just like before, he pulled himself back into his original form. If she had used this move on a truly living enemy, she would have very likely made them spill their stomach contents out onto the floor.
"Punch all you want! It won't do ANYTHING!"
He sent another series of missiles at the human, all of which she managed to dodge; all it took was some clever circling. And they hit their maker yet again.
"OH, FORGET IT! DUMMY BOTS! GET OUT OF MY SIGHT! I DON'T NEED YOU! Who needs friends when you have KNIVES!?"
And a knife he did indeed have, and he flung it right at the human, who promptly got out of the path of its trajectory. She looked back and watched it land somewhere in a box and disappear among the human garbage inside of it. She turned her attention back to the dummy.
"I'm...out of knives." he realized. "...Fine. Whatever! IT DOESN'T MATTER! YOU CAN'T HURT ME AND I CAN'T HURT YOU! I'll just keep you here and you'll be stuck fighting me until you give up and die or forever! Whichever comes first! That's the PERFECT REVENGE! MUHUHUHUHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
And then, all of a sudden, something began to fall onto the dummy. Ginger knew that her punches didn't exactly cause him pain, but it appeared as though the magic bullets conjured by the monsters-even those he made himself-did. The tear-shaped bullets fell down onto him and made him twitch.
"OW!...What the heck!? What is this!? ACID RAIN!? OH, FORGET IT! I'M OUTTA HERE! THIS ISN'T WORTH MY TIME!"
And the mad dummy finally floated away. And from above, Ginger saw just who made the bullets.
"Napstablook!" she exclaimed.
"...hey...why'd he leave..."
"Uh...You didn't do that on purpose?"
"...no...I just saw how much fun you two were having, and I...wanted to be a part of it...oh...oh, no...I ruined everything, didn't I...?"
"No, no, Napstablook, that wasn't...actually...Now that I look back on it, it WAS kinda fun beating that guy to a pulp."
"...oh...him...yeah...he's one of my cousins...did I hear him say something about me?"
"Wait, YOU'RE the cousin who lived in the dummy?"
"...yeah...but you didn't know I was there...I was just checking it out...I wondered what it might be like...living inside a dummy like my cousin...but then you came along, and...I decided it wasn't my thing...no offense; the stuff you said wasn't all that bad, anyway...and besides...you weren't really talking to me..."
"So, uh...No hard feelings about me beating up your cousin?"
"...No...you might find this hard to believe, but...he actually likes being beat up...you seemed like you were having a good time too..."
"Sorry you felt kinda left out."
"...no, it's fine...oh, no...I'm getting in your way again, aren't I...ohhhhhh..."
"Napstablook, it's okay. You're-"
But the ghost had already faded away. Ginger sighed; she was fond of the soft-spoken little ghost, she really was, but he was sort of odd...Then again, he seemed lonely. Maybe it was his solitude that made him the way he was.
The path ahead came up out of the water and lead out of the Trash Zone, and she followed it, finding another Save Point just ahead.
*Waterfall-Quiet Area
*File Saved
There was a sign off to her right up ahead, and Ginger read it.
"North: Blook Acres
East: Hotland
?: Temmie Village
Temmie Village? What was that...or more curiously...WHERE was that? South? West? Even the directions sign didn't seem to know. Maybe she could hand around there to kill some more time...and to further try and throw Undyne off her tail, if she could manage it. Papyrus didn't seem to be doing a very good job of stalling her...or was he? She seemed awfully set on her murderous goal, so she imagined that the skeleton could only sway her so much.
The path across from the sign lead further eastward; maybe she'd do some exploring and hope for the best, but she'd have to be careful not to head into Hotland straight away, however far east it was. The human caught sight of a box across from a notch in the path, and she took a look into the obstruction of the smooth dirt wall.
It wasn't just a cranny; it lead into another den. And from what she read on the sign over top of the open entryway, it looked like a shop of some sort. Ginger nodded and smiled to herself; once she was done navigating the halls, she decided it would be about time she got another chance to put the gold she'd accumulated to good use.
The plaques continued further down, and she went to continue reading the monsters' tragic story.
"Hurt, beaten, and fearful for our lives, we surrendered to the humans. Seven of
their greatest magicians sealed us underground with a magic spell. Anything can
enter through the seal, but only beings with a powerful SOUL can leave."
Ginger had read from one of the previous plaques that her SOUL, being that of a human, was just about as powerful as the SOULs of every single monster in the Underground combined. That number was at LEAST a good one or two hundred so far, and seeing how many places there were under the mountain that she had yet to traverse, so comparatively speaking, her SOUL should be plenty strong enough, right?
"There is only one way to reverse this spell. If a power equivalent to seven human
SOULs attacks the Barrier...It will be destroyed."
The human passed through some more shallow water as she went to the next one.
"But this cursed place has no entrances or exits. There is no way a human could
come here. We will remain trapped down here forever."
Ginger found herself following the path to a seemingly dead end, but upon catching sight of glowing blue grass jutting out in a neat line from the side of the flat dirt, she decided to see if it lead somewhere. Her foot kicked a mushroom in the middle of her walkway, and once it did...
The tiny fungus squeaked, and instantly, more of the blue grass lit up, revealing more path...In fact, it lead to another mushroom sitting in a bigger grassy patch. Was this a puzzle? Did it lead somewhere? Somewhere secret?
Ginger continued following the path, and two more mushroom patches revealed the way to go. Ginger was curious as to what the big secret was that the path had to be kept decently hidden from the regular passerby.
The sound of rustling grass filled her ears and disturbed the calm, and she developed a feeling of being watched.
"...Hello?" she said plainly, as not to sound alarmed. She casually crossed her arms as she continued down the mushroom path, double-checking to make sure she still had her Tough Glove on in case her suspicions were correct. She did, so she made a tight fist with it again.
"See, anybody see that?" she asked coolly, just in case there was indeed somebody watching. "That's what you're gonna get if you tangle with me, so don't try it."
It was strangely silent. There was no tranquil water flow, no chilly breeze, nothing. Just the sound of her own feet shifting through the grass.
"...Sans...? Is that you...?"
She approached one more mushroom as she quietly called out, and she gently tapped it with the tip of her foot. It made a squeaking sound like all the others did.
And right after the squeak, a loud, sudden voice screamed out from right behind her.
"hOIIIIII!"
A/N: I'm looking forward to the next chapter. I finally get to write out the Temmies! :D
Thanks for checking in! See ya next time!