It hadn't been long, I don't think, before I woke up. At first the cool spray of the water and the humidity felt good on my skin, but as I woke from my dream I realized I was freezing, it didn't help that I had fallen into the stream and didn't remove my wet clothing before dozing off. But still, I was thankful to be quenched and full.
Even if just thinking about eating more snails made me want to throw up.
I gathered my strength and went forward, my eyes had long since adjusted to the false light of the caverns. I looked around at the narrow path that led through water, it was the only way through that I could see. I didn't know how to swim, but remembering earlier, it was only about knee-deep so I should be fine. Gathering myself, I stepped forward.
"No, I don't think so, if we want to be remembered, we should... I don't know, chisel our history on the walls." I heard come from an echo flower, I pursed my lips, feeling like I caught the tail end of a conversation as I continued.
"Do you think we could leave our history in an echo flower?" One a little down the way said, I nodded silently as I reversed the conversation, "Preserving their history... looks like if they're doing it though, they haven't started yet." I noted as I continued to wade to dry land.
The next room was as black as pitch, the crystal stars weren't glowing in this room, instead a small ambient light shone through crystal formations on the ground. Using them to guide my way, I tried desperately to not trip over the low walls of the room.
In the next room...
...ugh.
I fell face first into some soft weeds, and upon looking up the room lit up and I saw it, my first monster, a little weird cat thing with amazing hair and a smile, I just blinked and we stared each other in the eye for a long while. Slowly, surely, I stood and looked at the monster, I reached out to touch it, it seemed harmless enough, just staring at me, then it spoke.
"hOI, I'm TeMmIE!" It said loud enough to echo off the walls of the cave.
Okay, so Temmie maybe isn't the most visually horrific monster in the world, try telling that to a teenager who had never seen one. I uh, may have screamed, really loud, and proceeded to run and jump over a massive gap, and just kept running.
By the time I had settled down, I realized I wasn't in the caves anymore, the area had opened up massively, and I was suddenly freezing. "You have to be joking!" I said as I looked out on the area, it just went further down, the caves opened into a massive dome, crystal stars still lighting up the sky over a massive, snowy forest.
"I'm going to die." I re-affirmed as I shook my head.
"Warmth, I need warmth before anything."
I walked over to the tree and grabbed at some loose bark, I was a scholar, not a survivalist, I had camped out before but not in these conditions, the wood were wet with snow and ice and I couldn't get it going no matter how hard I tried.
"I guess... a fire isn't happening." I said bitterly as I looked forward, despite the snow there was a noticeable path cleared out, and a signpost. Desperate for shelter, I ran up to it and counted my good fortune that the monsters spoke our language, "Home - this way" "Waterfall and Hotlands - that way".
Not the most helpful signposts, or the most creative names, but I disregarded that, I was either going to a place the monsters called home, or I was going to freeze to death.
Hey, do you figure a death sentence is better if it's quick or slow? Still trying to figure that one out when I initially asked myself... oh, sorry, getting distracted.
I walked down the mountains, following that path and being careful not to slip, huddling into my robes to try to keep warm and wishing that I had fur. The cold was sapping my strength, I was growing hungry and thirsty again, and I could feel myself slowing down.
Eventually I had fully descended from my starting location, I was at the lowest point in the Underground that I could see, and lost in the thick, snowy forest. I was starting to succumb and took a breath wrong, the cold stinging my lungs made me start coughing.
"Hey, did you hear that?" A deep, gruff voice rang out.
My blood ran cold, colder than it already was, I hadn't seen a flower since I left Waterfall, there's no way that wasn't a real monster.
"I did, should we go check it out?" Another voice called in a very odd accent.
I turned to run only to snag my foot on a tree root and begin to fall.
Hey, have you ever heard the theory on the Rock of Inevitability? Well, it's one I made up myself, it basically says if it's inconvenient for you to be incapacitated, there will be a rock waiting wherever you trip, doesn't help that a few of the rocks in the underground are actually monsters.
...If you can't tell where I'm taking this, I tripped and hit my head on a rock, time slowed down as I fell towards it and I started to say a silent prayer to die of the cold before the monsters took me back home to do whatever they were planning, my dazed, head-injured thoughts conjured up images of – well, let's keep this story PG, shall we?.
How much later was it? Not a clue, time stopped meaning anything to me, it was simply my internal clock telling me when to sleep and wake that kept me with any sense of minutes passing at all. I woke up expecting it to be in the next life, or in a cell, or some kind of torture device. Instead, it was a well-crafted bed that was way too large for a human to be intended to sleep in.
My head throbbed as I sat up, feeling bandages wrapped around where I must have hit that rock of inevitability© .
"Someone... helped me?" I questioned openly, I was still in my clothing, tatty as it looked now, so they obviously had enough sense of personal space to not give me a change of clothes, at least I thought such, there was a brown robe sitting at the edge of the bed, alongside... a mask?
I wasn't sure what to think, I wasn't only not dead but... looked after? I discarded my old clothing and tried on the new robe, the sleeves were so long that I'd have to make an effort to poke my hands out, and the robe part was so long that I'd be likely to trip over it, not to mention how massive the hood was. It took me a minute to realize that the robe was that way deliberately, it and the mask were gifts to help hide the fact I was human. Whoever found me was okay with my race, and was actively taking measures to make sure that I wasn't going to be pointed out by anyone with a grudge by hiding my human traits.
A monster may have just saved my life. The thought of having a friend in these caverns, someone who wanted to look out for me despite not knowing me, it filled me with determination.
I looked around the mostly empty room before working up the courage to head outside, flopping the hood over my head and placing that mask over my face as was intended, it curved out strangely, looking sort of like a goat when it rested the way it was supposed to, though it was covered in the most gaudy shade of red and black colors I'd seen.
As I walked out I noticed it wasn't a small, empty house, but just a room in a seemingly rather large house, I tried to be as slow and quiet as possible, but apparently not enough so, as I suddenly heard heavy steps on the wood flooring. I froze cold as stone as I heard the steps coming towards me, especially when a heavy, large shadow started looming over me.
"Ohhhhhh no." I said meekly as I turned around.
The creature looming over me, no mistaking it, was a monster, he looked like a white-furred goat though he stood at least eight feet tall, and he had paws instead of hooves, giant horns that curved back, he also had a thick white beard and the fur on his head was grown into a hairstyle, and most noticeably, his canines poked out of his mouth, they were as big as my fingers.
I look back on that moment and laugh, "I'm going to die, he's going to tear my throat open and eat me." I thought to myself when I looked at him.
He opened his mouth and spoke, "Hello." He was so casual, but the boom of his voice ran through me and made me want to fall over. I wasn't sure if I wanted to run, or scream, or engage him in conversation.
"You're uh, scared, huh?" He said, raising a massive hand to scratch his head, I could tell from his disposition that he didn't seem mean, but at the same time, I was too focused on how his hand alone was large enough to pop my head like a grape to respond. "Guess I can understand that, how long has it been since a Human has seen a Boss Monster?"
My eyes widened at those words. From the Elder's stories, Boss Monsters were for all intents and purpose the leaders of the entire society, and so magically potent that they could wipe out an army. My fear started subsiding as my mind swarmed with theories about the creature standing before me, "Who... who are you?"
The great figure looming over me smiled gently, a warm smile, despite the teeth, that made my guard lower before I realized it.
"Ah, sorry, that's rude of me, I'm Gorel, I used to be King of the Monsters, though the title belongs to my son Asgore now."
"Dear diary: What... the... f-"
PG, please. O-KAY, Let's skip to paragraph 2
"So, to surmise all that's transpired, I got jumped by some freaky cat, nearly froze to death, hit my head on the most conveniently placed rock I've ever seen, and I'm now the guest in the house of the former King of this race, he hung up his crown before the war and his son stepped up in his place.
He's a nice man, I can hardly believe he's the creature the stories have told about, either he's an exception to the rules, or I've spent the better part of my life being raised on lies.
He's said that he'd be willing to give me a tour of the city, Home they call it (he mentions his son being bad with names, go figure), he said I should spend tonight getting used to acting like a Boss Monster who was living in seclusion at the far end of the cavern, and wearing the mask to hide scars from the war, apparently that's not unusual.
The fatherly aura he projects is weird, makes me feel like I'm back home... home... I need to get back to the surface.
Oh, he's inviting me to share dinner with him.
Did he just say snails?
Crap."
His kindness, his generosity, and the fact that I may have been able to go back to the surface, I was filled with determination... and snails.
End of Day 2.