"This is not working out as I thought it would" observed Undyne.
She was sitting at the table with Papyrus and Mettaton. Alphys was here too. She was half-hidden by a cardboard screen and just stared past them wordlessly, sweating bullets, her eyes unfocused. She'd been like this for twenty good minutes. Twenty minutes of utter paralysed silence, and it was beginning to look like they were heading for another twenty minutes like this, maybe more.
"What's wrong with her ?" whispered Undyne to her friends, unwilling to talk too loudly and risk breaking something in Alphys' mind, whatever was going on in there.
"It's as I feared" finally said the robot. "She was a good game master online, but now that we're all physically here she's just old socially awkward Alphys again."
"Online ?" asked Undyne. "You mean you never played in person ?"
"No" said Papyrus. "We had a lot of fun together playing online in an undernet chatroom, before we all went to the surface. A few days ago she proposed to resume the game and demanded that you play with us. For some reason she insisted that it would be a good occasion to finally play all together in the same room."
"I'M SORRY EVERYONE, I, I RU… RUIN.. R R R…" It was Alphys, and she was shaking so hard now that a few dice rolled out of the table.
"Hey, hey, calm down Alphys, it's ok !" said Undyne, and she rushed in to comfort her friend. The scientist fell into her arms buried her face in her chest. Undyne felt herself blushing like crazy and hoped that nobody noticed. Mettaton was just smiling at her, his face unreadable, and Papyrus was picking his nose absent-mindedly with a bony finger.
"I'm sorry I ruined game ni-i-i-ight" sobbed Alphys. She was blowing her nose in Undyne's shirt now, who suddenly felt significantly less moved.
"My pretties, I think I have a solution" finally said Mettaton.
"Whu.. whu.." stammered Alphys, her vision blurry with tears.
"I think I know someone who could be the GM."
Papyrus looked at him. "You do ?"
"Yep. He's been aching to for some time, too. Ever since I started telling him about our online sessions."
"Is it the human ?" asked Undyne.
"No, I asked but they said they weren't into tabletop gaming." The robot shrugged. "Also, now that they're living with Toriel, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't let them approach a place like THE INSIDE OF A VOLCANO."
They all shook their heads.
"So, what do you say, Alphys ? Is that ok with you ?"
Alphys snorted one last time and wiped her eyes clean. "I.. I don't know… Who is it ? Wouldn't it be better if YOU were the GM ?"
But Papyrus intervened. "Alphys ! What are you saying ? Mettaton, not a player ? How can I play Impact the mighty paladin if his friend Lucida the fabulous bard isn't here ? He's essential ! It's bad enough that Sans stopped playing because he was banned from making puns and got bored..."
Undyne looked surprised. "Wait, Mettaton plays a musician ?"
They both looked at her. "Well he's more like a performer, but yeah, why ?"
"Nothing, I just... I thought he'd do something different than what he actually is in real life."
"You can do anything you want in roleplaying games !"
"Including what you're already doing in life !"
"Ok, ok, I get the point !"
She fell silent for a moment, then turned to Alphys. "You should say yes." She declared confidently. "I'd love to have you on my team. We'll have fun."
Alphys smiled and finally nodded at Mettaton. "Ok then. Do we wait until next week ?"
The robot did a happy spin. "No need ! I can text him and he'll be here in an hour or two."
"Oh well then. That's enough time to rewrite Undyne's sheet. With a PENCIL" said Alphys with a sharp glance at Undyne "and then watch an episode or two of Lodoss. To get in the mood."
