Human! Please enjoy this spaghetti. (Little do you know, this spaghetti is a trap designed to entice you! You'll be so busy eating it, you won't realize that you aren't progressing! Thoroughly japed again by The Great Papyrus!)
"Signed; Nyeh-heh-heh, Papyrus," I finished reading out loud, crumpling up and tossing the letter over my shoulder with a sigh. Thank God he warned me, or who knows how long I would've been stuck here trying to make a dent in the inedible plate of spaghetti frozen to the damn table. Why, I don't know what I would've done if I stopped here to heat up the pasty pasta in the BROKEN-ASS microwave, which, by the way, ONLY had settings reading "SPAGHETTI," sitting on the OLD, SPLINTERY table that he LEFT IN THE MIDDLE OF A SNOWY WASTELAND.
And why spaghetti? Now, a fine platter of filet mignon grilled to absolute juicy perfection with a side of white rice, that's a dish a sensible person would've left.
I forced myself to keep moving when I realized the longer I stayed, the more effective his "trap" technically was, and finished up counting the rest of my gold. After I triumphed over the incredibly challenging Junior Jumble Word Search, I managed to wrench Sans away from his puns long enough for him to explain to me how the currency worked in the Underground. He had no idea whether it was real gold or not (I figured as much,) but he did remember that the value of the coins scaled as they grew in size, in values of one, two, five, ten, and twenty. After buying the nice cream, I had about...sixty-five left over. So, if I had enough money for like, four ice cream cones, I was virtually set for life. After that, Sans did that thing he loves to do and walk away in the wrong direction, promising to meet me up ahead.
Turning a sharp corner, I treaded past a small sign reading; "Warning: Dog Marriage."
...A small sign reading; yeah, it really did say that. I honestly had to read it at least twice before I was sure my brain had processed that correctly. The actual living hell did that mean? Of all the warnings I'd received so far, this seemed somehow both the most ridiculous and the most worthless, and that was counting Papyrus' spaghetti warning from a few seconds ago. That is, unless the sign was a joke put by the couple themselves because the marriage is terrible, which in that case, it's hilarious. Because domestic disputes are...hilarious.
Basically I'm saying the sign was stupid.
"Arf! Arf!"
I instinctively reached for the Almighty Stick when I heard the barks, fearing Doggo had left his post to settle the score between us. Fortunately, as I tore my eyes of the "warning" and spun around to face the noise, I wasn't met with a furious Doggo. I should've known it wasn't him the second the sound entered my ears, because he'd at least been intelligent enough to know how to talk, a pretty neat trick for a dog.
I'd say this dog looked like he could speak about as fluently as a rock, but considering my experience in the Ruins, that statement was being way too generous.
The mutt returned a stare blanker than a piece of paper fresh off the press, pretty much the exact opposite of Doggo's steely glare. In fact, "the exact opposite of Doggo" described this new dog perfectly, aside from the fact they both stood on their hind legs and were built vaguely like humans. His tongue flopped out of his mouth like a fish on a dry deck, he was panting heavily even though it was negative three thousand degrees out, and he wore a dull suit of armor with stains the color of mud on every conceivable speck of it. It almost made the massive sword and shield he held seem not threatening at all.
Of course, a sharp and pointy stick wielded by something with that clueless expression was even more threatening than someone who at least looked like they knew how to use it.
"Easy boy..." I said calmly, taking a few cautious steps backwards.
In response, the dog banged his oversized kitchen utensils together and let loose a loud, "BARK!" Then he started to advance on me.
Welp, diplomacy has failed, then. Dumb mutt will regret it in a second. I grabbed the Almighty Stick and pointed it at his chest, challenging him to draw closer. His pointy stick against mine, even though one of ours (if you could guess who's) was a little bit overpowered.
I guess we'll never know for sure, because the very instant I held the stick out to him, the dog froze in place and his eyes locked onto it like a slightly-below-average-intelligence wolf to its prey. It only took me a moment to notice, and only a split second after that to start taking advantage of it. I moved my arm in different directions, smirking as his whole body moved to keep up with it. Eventually he dropped his gear to the ground and got on all fours, panting in double-time. I had seriously caught a break this time.
"The one thing no dog is strong or smart enough to resist...a game of fetch," I chuckled to myself. Taking a small step back to line up the shot, I tossed the stick a fair distance over the dog's head. He barked excitedly and bounded after it without a second thought, assuming his brain was actually capable of the first thought.
As I watched every-other-man's-best-friend-but-mine chug through the snow after the stick, I debated turning back to the path and making my way forward. But something stopped me, besides the fact I'd have to leave the Almighty Stick behind, which was already reason enough to sit my ass down and wait. My gaze fell on the dog's discarded shield lying face-up, and more importantly, the design sculpted onto it. A diamond in the center, two wing-like shapes on either side of it, and underneath that were a set of three triangles forming a...
...a what?...
I narrowed my eyes. "That symbol...where the hell have I seen that before?"
...A smiley face!
I remembered it now. It was the exact same design that I'd seen on one of the last pairs of doors I'd past through on my way out of the Ruins. The same one that Toriel had guarded with her life when we fought.
Great, now that was one mystery was solved, but what the hell did it actually mean? Or maybe it didn't mean anything, and it was just a fancy symbol to...you know...look nice?
"Woah!" Before I could give it another thought, the dog charged head-first into my legs with the force of a pissed-off rhino, holding the stick between his jaws. It was enough to knock me off balance and nearly sent me tumbling into the snow. "Hey, get off! Stop! Get your head out of my crotch!" I grabbed him just below the ears and tried to wrestle him off me, but there was no end to his unrelentingly friendly assault. He was persistently obnoxious, built like a brick, and bigger than my whole body, not to mention wearing a suit of metal armor. Couple that with his level of intelligence and it was basically the equivalent of fighting off an actual rhino, and one more clingy than a crazed paparazzi. "God dammit, how do people actually tame these things?! Down, boy, DOWN!"
Apparently, you tame them by screaming at the top of your lungs, because the moment that horrendous sound crawled out of my mouth the dog backed off, whimpering like a...uh...well, a sad dog. I was glad to have him off of me, as well as a brief moment to reevaluate what my shit-hole of a life has become. Problem was, that little skirmish was only about half the battle.
"Awesome, great, fantastic, now drop the damn stick!" I commanded. Go figure, he complied almost immediately, and dropped my beloved partner directly into my waiting arms.
In my dreams.
In reality, the mutt stood his ground firmly, and from this moment on, I can say with utmost certainty that I finally understood where the term "puppy dog eyes" came from. The look he gave me was warm and full enough to melt the cold, icy, black hole of a heart that resides within the rib cage of politicians everywhere like an ice cube. Thankfully, I was not, in fact, a politician.
"Beat it, dude. I have better things to do than freeze my ass off playing fetch." I grabbed the stick and yanked as hard as physically possible, but the damn mutt's chompers were clamped tight around it like a frigging bear trap. It let out a low, rumbling growl as we played tug-of-war for a good thirty seconds. My hands were burning so hot I'm surprised the thing didn't catch on fire. "Alright, alright, you win!" I wailed, ready to throw in the towel. "I give up! I'll throw the stick again, just LET GO!"
Of course the furball understood that much, finally agreeing to back off long enough for me to throw the stick, only for him to chase after it and for the cycle to begin all over again. I dreaded how much time I'd have to waste here mindlessly throwing the stick until my knight in shining armor finally got bored and left me alone.
Throw, wait, take, repeat. We went on long enough to fall into a sort of rhythm, working like pendulums in a clock. I guess I could see how people enjoyed doing this with their pets. It was almost relaxing, if not mind-numbingly boring and completely pointless.
If the wagging tail was any indication, my partner in crime seem to be enjoying it just fine. Hell, he seemed like he was having the time of his life. Although the Almighty Stick would probably be wailing in agony from all the puncture wounds by now.
Just as I thought I'd be stuck there for all eternity, the dog chased after the stick one last time before dropping it by my feet, finally content. I found myself reaching out to pet him absentmindedly, as if our game of fetch actually had lured me into some kind of trance. Its fur was surprisingly soft, not nearly as gruff and patchy as I expected it to be. The dog unsurprisingly welcomed my affection with open arms, rubbing it's head along my hand and getting excited all over again.
Why are you still wasting your time with him?
"Uh...whatever, good dog, I guess," I muttered, snapping myself back to reality despite even more whimpers of protest. I hastily backed away from the dog and wiped any lingering dog slobber off the Almighty Stick in the snow. The entire time I did so, he was giving me those puppy dog eyes again. I did my best to ignore them.
Vaguely content with the cleanliness of the stick, I stood up and turned to walk away, much to pooch's dismay. But when I turned to put his whimpers and pleas to a stop, I found he had already trotted off. The only reminder it'd ever been there were its footprints and the imprints its sword and shield had left in the snow. I admit I stared at the empty void of space it had left for another moment or two before hurrying on, although I couldn't come up with even a half-assed reason why.
Thankfully, I didn't have to waste too much time forging one, because progress was quickly halted by my age old enemy...
"...Spikes. Why is it always frigging spikes?" A row of them spread out before me, blocking the path forward. Couldn't quite jump them (not without gutting myself, anyways), couldn't get around them, and there was no sign of any lever or switch to press. "Seriously, there's other methods of containing people besides spikes!" I complained, kicking the ground in frustration. "How about a nice brick wall, or a fence, or...an enraged clown posse, or...something?"
I cut my own self-pity session short when my gaze caught something on the ground. When I'd kicked it earlier, a few patches of snow had gone flying and tumbling over one another, leaving the ground relatively uncovered. But something didn't seem quite normal. There were...markings in the dirt.
Leaning down, I dragged my hand along the remaining clumps of snow, wincing at the biting cold. Once I felt like I'd uncovered enough of the image, I stood up and took a closer look at it. Lines were drawn about in the dirt, leading to a big red X.
"More markings. Maybe a map?" I wondered aloud, because once in my head just wasn't enough. At closer inspection, it looked like a simple sketch of the immediate area. If I was lucky, that X on the map would be where I disable the spikes, or a hidden path. I mean, I didn't have any other basis to go off of. Even in the worst case scenario I was going digging for buried treasure.
...Did I say worst case? I meant best case, a very, very good case.
I followed the map for a brief jog in the direction I'd come from, past a couple snow covered boulders, around a bushy evergreen tree...there! That patch of ground with almost no snow covering it, that was right where the X had been. I stomped on the space, and ground moved down with the force of my foot. A few muffled clicks and whirs rose from underneath my feet, and the spikes sank back down into the ground where they belonged.
Still would've preferred buried treasure, but I suppose that worked as well.
I made my way back over to the now retracted spikes, making extra careful to spit on each and every one of them as I passed. How many more traps and puzzles would I have to deal with until I was out of this hell-hole? Seriously, most of them could've been designed by six-year-olds (I'm looking at you Junior Jumble), so they acted more as nuisances than obstacles. Don't even get me started on the guy behind them, Papyrus. That idiotic bag of bones...
Lets just say he wouldn't fancy bumping into me in an alleyway. Or a crowded street in broad daylight. Or anywhere on the planet.
I crossed a couple of planks of wood posing as a bridge, creaking from my weight alone. At least if they gave away and I fell through the good thirty feet of open air below me, I had a pile of soft, cushiony, prickly and incredibly uncomfortable pine trees to break my fall, and maybe my back too while they were at it. Thankfully, the rickety old boards held my weight long enough for me to cross no problem. Right into oncoming danger.
The instant my feet settled back onto solid ground, I spotted a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. Since it was my luck we were talking about, the motion was coming from the only direction I could possibly go in. Gritting my teeth, I turned towards the potential danger...
...And had a god damn heart attack when an axe came swinging down in front of my face.
"HOLY SHIT!" I stumbled backwards just in time to avoid getting my head chopped in half like a watermelon, and just enough to end up lying on my back with my head hanging over the cliff, only inches away from slipping off the icy edge. "Gee, and I was just starting to get bored. Thank god everyone wants me dead around here!" I yelled, pocketing my panic enough to climb back to my feet, and grab each of my weapons, which thankfully didn't go toppling over the edge.
Finally stable, I tried to sum up the situation at a glance. There were two almost identical hooded attackers draped in jet black robes you'd expect to see in some kind of cult, each holding literal battleaxes in their...paws. Snouts poked out from underneath their shadowy gaze, further proof they were canine. One was blocking the my way forward, weapon at the ready, and the other, who had shamelessly tried to decapitate me a moment ago, was already moving in front of the bridge. My only method of escaping.
I was trapped.
"So, you are the source of that weird smell," the one who attacked me hissed, baring his teeth at me in a sinister snarl.
The other nodded in agreement, saying in a woman's voice, "Identify yoursmelf!"
Does literally everyone make terrible puns around here? "I don't know about this, guys," I began, dodging the question entirely. I figured talking my way out was the best solution. I'd try fighting, but my weapons were virtually a pair of chopsticks compared to their torture devices, and...well...those axes were really scary. "Three is kind of a crowd, don'tcha think? How 'bout you come at me one at a time instead, it'll be more fun that way."
At first, the pair shared no reaction. For a second I actually thought my dumbass idea got through to them.
"I think my wife and I would rather just cut to the chase..." the closer attacker barked, peeling back their hood. Sure enough, it was another pooch, and at first glance looked far more threatening than the last. "...and eliminate."
As if on cue, the other dog threw back their hood, this one appearing both identical (which seriously got me thinking there was a case of incest going on in this relationship, by the way,) and yet far more...feminine, I guess? "Eliminate YOU!" She bellowed.
Warning: dog marriage. So that's what it meant. I was going to be pulverized into some stupid doggy couple's chew toy. Fan-freaking-tastic.
The two started to shift closer to me, careful not to give any openings for me to dart around them. The cut of land we were on was so small that just trying to get past them would end with me tumbling over the cliff.
Little did they know, I wouldn't go down without a fight. And I already knew their weakness. It worked on the mutt, it worked on Doggo...kinda, and I was confident it would work here too. It better, anyways, or else I could look forward to one of those battleaxes getting shoved up my ass. Which, if my calculations were correct, would really blow.
Putting on my widest grin and using my patented salesman voice, I held up the Almighty Stick and said, "Are you sure you two wouldn't rather play a nice, friendly, non-violent game of fetch?"
Now that instantly grabbed their full attention. Even though they were both still a few yards away, I could tell their eyes were widening in excitement. "Mmm, I-I think we'd better not," the male dog stuttered, twitching nervously.
The wife didn't even bother to hide her enthusiasm towards the idea. "Oh, come on puppy, every dog loves to play fetch!" she insisted, cupping her arm around her husband's and dropping the axe.
Checkmate, I thought. If there's anything I learned from books and movies, when the wife wanted something done in a semi-stable relationship, it happened. Period.
"I-I don't know puppy...what will the rest of the royal guard say?"
Royal guard? Interesting. Even though he was still coming up with excuses, the sweat dripping down his forehead was proof enough he couldn't resist the temptation much longer. Like moths to a flame or humans to any and all controversy, these guys were drawn and overwhelmed by the power of the stick.
"Going once..." I teased, holding the stick out over the ledge by the tip. I let it drop just a little bit farther between my fingers. "Going twice..." Please don't make me drop it. Please don't make me drop it.
"Alright already, you win!" cried the male dog.
"Just throw the stick!" cried the female dog.
"If you insist." I aimed my throw up over their heads, careful not to send the stick hurtling off the cliff, and threw it as hard as I could. Although I wasn't exactly ecstatic about wasting my time playing another game of fetch, it was worth not dying horribly at the hands of a disgustingly affectionate couple (seriously, even when fighting over the stick they still slipped in a stomach-churning smooch now and again). Besides, watching the married couple butt heads over who got to run the stick back to me made it more than worth the effort. Yes, even with the lovey-dovey crap mixed in.
My eyes treaded over the discarded axes more than once for long periods of time, but every time, I opted out of grabbing them. Even if I had wanted to turn on the dogs, I was pretty sure I wasn't strong enough to wield those gigantic blades without chopping my own foot off. Besides, how I was I supposed to avoid murdering any poor sap with weapons that deadly? In fact, I'd come to figure forgetting Doggo's swords from earlier was a lucky break for me, if I was going to prove to Flowey I could play by my own rules. I couldn't wait to rub my Almighty Stick in that little shit's face when I got out of here with a clean record.
We repeated the process until my arm started feeling like lead, and I told them I had to stop. I worried that the moment we stopped they'd go back to their attempted murder, but they seemed much cheerier than before. My heart skipped a beat when they bent over to retrieve their battleaxes, although our little game of fetch seemed to completely wipe their sole objective to kill me from their minds, because they didn't make any aggresive moves.
"I guess weird smells can bring good things..." said Dogamy, who had mentioned his and his wife's name during our game.
"Like friendly fun fetch!" finished Dogaressa, nuzzling her husband's snout.
Oh, barf. "Glad I could help show you two a good time," I said out of the corner of my mouth, using the snow to wipe dog slobber off the stick for about the...what was it, dozenth time now? "While you're at it, could you guys put in a good word for me with the other monsters up ahead so they don't...kill me, wait, GUYS!?"
I glanced up to find the two were already way too far away to hear me, and moving fast in the opposite direction. Those bastards were so enamored with each other they had totally forgotten about me, and started to leave while I was distracted!
But hey, it was totally fine after all, because they remembered to throw me a couple warm goodbyes over they're football-sized shoulders, even though they practically had to scream them for me to hear. "Thanks, weird smell!" called Dogamy.
"It sure was fun to 'stick' around!" finished Dogaressa.
Seriously, don't make me barf, I said internally, although on the outside I yelled, "Yeah, see ya." Assholes!
I gave the couple a few minutes to wobble on ahead before following alone. Who knew, maybe they'd remember on their own to stop and tell all the monsters along the way to ignore the human wandering around like a little kid lost in a clothing store.
Yeah, and maybe they'll roll out the red carpet for me with a huge cake waiting at the other end. And I've probably seen the last of The Mediocre Papyrus' traps, too. That'll be the dog-damn day.