Frisk stood bent over with their hands on their knees as they tried to catch their breath after running all the way down the long hallway. They were also getting hungrier.
Undyne and Monster Kid stood behind them. All three of them were in a small room that had a table with some cheese stuck to it. There was a crystal growing on the cheese. The only other things in the room were an echo flower and a mouse hole. When Frisk had caught their breath, they moved into the next room.
The first thing Frisk noticed about the room was Sans. He was standing near the entrance to the room. On his left was a telescope and on his right was a magic box. To the right of the magic box was a framed doorway leading somewhere. The path continued on past the doorway, and there was a bridge across the now-glowing water. The water had some water sausages in it still, and also some lily pads now. They couldn't see much of what was across the bridge yet, but they could see that the ground was black with glowing grass, and that there were some white glowing trees rising out of the ground off the path.
Frisk nervously moved towards Sans. Undyne and MK were behind them.
"i'm thinking about getting into the telescope business." Sans told them. "it's normally 50000G to use this premium telescope… but… since i know you, you can use it for free. howzaboutit?"
He gestured towards the telescope, and Frisk decided that it'd be smart to get on his good side, so they should do what he asks. They nodded and leant down to look into the telescope.
Suddenly, their vision was filled with red. A shriek tore at their throat and they threw themselves back from the telescope, clutching a claw to their eye. It was red in more than one way. With their other bloodshot eye, they glared daggers at Sans. The voice in their head was chanting "Blood, blood blood!" over and over. Once again they realised it wasn't just the voice in their head chanting; it was them as well.
Frisk closed their eyes, shut their mouth, lowered their hand and willed their body to go back to normal. After a while they felt their claws shrink and they opened their eyes to see Sans and Undyne talking while watching them.
"...more careful next time, Sans. You know that some of the humans have triggers." Undyne was saying.
"yeah, sorry. i just thought it'd be a funny prank, y'know?" Frisk could tell he was lying. He hadn't been trying to prank them – he had been testing them.
"Hey, are you okay, dude?" MK was standing next to them. He looked worried.
They realised they were still shuddering, and tried to stop it before answering. "Y-yeah… I think so. I am now, at least."
They thought about telling him to leave, since they were basically a ticking time bomb. But before they could, the phone Papyrus had given them rang. They pulled it out of their pocket and answered the call.
"HELLO? IS THIS THE NEW HUMAN?" Papyrus's voice came out of the speaker.
"Yeah, this is. Hey Papyrus. How'd you get this number?" Frisk replied.
"IT WAS EASY! I JUST DIALED EVERY NUMBER SEQUENTIALLY UNTIL I GOT YOURS!" Frisk snorted in amusement. "ANYWAY, I WAS JUST CALLING TO ASK HOW YOU'RE GOING WITH UNDYNE!"
"It's going well. I'm sorry I haven't called, I've been caught up in doing puzzles – and trying to avoid magic spears that're being thrown at me." Frisk shot a look at Undyne.
"TYPICAL UNDYNE." Papyrus replied. He was calming them down quite well, although he didn't know it.
"Also, Sans is here right now with a telescope. He offered me a look but forgot to tell me that it was covered in red stuff." This time, the look was for Sans.
"YEAH, SANS NEVER TELLS ANYBODY ANYTHING! BUT IT'S NO SURPRISE HE HAS A TELESCOPE. SANS LOVES OUTER SPACEY SCI-FI STUFF. ANYWAY, HAVE FUN!" Papyrus hung up.
Sans was approaching Frisk. They tensed up. "hey, sorry 'bout all that 'blood' stuff. to make up for it, do you three wanna go get ice cream? my treat."
Frisk considered reminding him they couldn't eat anything, but decided it was worth having to taste ash if it made him spend more money, so they nodded. MK also looked forward to the ice cream. Undyne, however, didn't seem to want any.
"Ugh, ice cream?! Sugary... COLD... Talk about GROSS. Now this chilly pink stuff that Alphys makes me... THAT rules! I'll also drink it if it's heated up." Frisk wondered what Undyne could be talking about, but decided to drop it as they headed into the framed doorway. Inside there was a bunny monster man with an ice cream stall, an ancient plaque that'd been covered with a list of ice cream flavours, and a non-magical box.
The bunny man's ears, which were previously drooping, quickly rose, and he smiled. "Oooh, customers! I mean… *ahem* Nice cream! The frozen treat that warms your heart! When you buy a nice cream, you'll get a punch card! If you have three cards, you can redeem them for another free ice cream!" He explained.
"right, we'll have three nice cream's, please." Sans asked, handing over 75G.
"All right, sir! Your punch cards are in the box!" The bunny man handed one ice cream each to all of us except Undyne. Frisk brought their tounge up to the ice cream and licked it, fully expecting it to turn into ash.
Surprisingly, it didn't. When Frisk realised this, they enthusiastically licked more. They hadn't realised exactly how hungry they were. After a while of licking, Frisk eventually finished the actually ice cream. All that was left was the cone. Before they could think about it, Frisk put the cone in their mouth and bit down on it. It turned to ash.
"Fuck." They said, spitting out the ash. They realised that MK might've heard them and corrected themselves. "Uh, I mean frick."
They then thought about what had happened. The logical conclusion was that their fangs were the things turning food to ash. They moved their hand up to their mouth and fiddled with their fangs. They also managed to accidentally cut themselves. However, no blood came out of their wound. Strange. They suddenly snapped out of their thoughts and realised that Sans was holding out the three punch cards to them.
"you look like you're pretty hungry, why not have another?" Frisk realised that he had definitely remembered they couldn't eat anything, and with that realisation came another.
He's still testing me. Frisk took the cards and headed back to the nice cream man. They held out the cards to him and he happily gave him a free ice cream. He seemed pretty pleased about how enthusiastic Frisk was to have another. They, in turn, were pretty enthusiastic about being able to eat again – sort of.
While Frisk enthusiastically ate the second ice cream, the four of them headed out of the ice cream cave. Sans stopped by his telescope while Undyne, Frisk and MK kept going. Undyne led the way down the bridge onto the black glowing grass. The three of them walked along the long, winding path amidst the white glowing water. Every once in a while there'd be an echo flower on the path. There were a couple of islands in the water as well, with some plants Frisk had seen and some they hadn't.
Eventually, they reached the end of the path. They headed past a plaque that told Frisk that the reason the humans started the war was because they feared a monster would take a human soul. In the room past the plaque, the grass wasn't glowing, but the water was back to normal. There was water all around the path.
As the three of them walked along the path, Frisk giving MK their ice cream cone, peachy-coloured tentacles rose out of the water around them. They walked further, and the tentacles retracted. Then, a giant onion with a face rose out of the water. It introduced itself as Onionsan.
They kept walking. As they were walking, the onion monster talked about how the other onions had moved to the aquarium in the city, and how there wasn't any space there for it, so it stayed in Waterfall. It also mentioned that the water level was lowering. It also said to Undyne how it was grateful that she had offered to help it move into the ocean if they got to the surface. At the end of the room, it bid them farewell.
Halfway through the next room, Frisk's soul was suddenly drawn into battle. The monster, Shyren, who had drawn it out was hiding in the corner. She didn't see the state of Frisk's soul, but Undyne did.
Frisk noticed that Shyren seemed to want to sing, but didn't know how. Her music attacks were weak. So they started humming a tune and Shyren followed it. She seemed much more comfortable singing along. Of course, this meant that the music attacks were faster and stronger, but Frisk didn't mind. They were glad to be helping out the shy monster.
They hummed some more. Monsters were drawn to the music. Suddenly, it was a concert! Sans was selling tickets made of toilet paper.
They hummed some more. The seats were sold out! Frisk felt like a rock star. The crowd tossed clothing. It was a storm of socks.
They hummed some more. But the constant attention… the tours… the groupies… it was all… Shyren thought about her future. Frisk and Shyren had come so far, but it was time. They both had their own adventures to embark on. They hum a farewell song, and Shyren left to pursue her dreams.
"That was nice of you." Undyne commented quietly. MK was spouting off about how cool Frisk was, which they definitely didn't mind. They glanced at Undyne, the fact that she was being quiet making them curious. She was looking at them warily again. Probably because of seeing their soul. Not much they could do about it, so they looked around the room instead. There was a hole into the abyss in the middle of the room, two waterfalls flowing from the ceiling, two exits (one north and the other east), and a sign that said "The northern room hides a great treasure."
Frisk moved into the northern room. It was small, and it only had a piano with symbols above it and a sign that said "A haunting song echoes down the corridor… Won't you play along? Only the first eight are fine."
"Yeah! YEAH! I made this puzzle! Really, it was just an excuse to put a piano here. I love FIGHTING THE IVORIES! Maybe I'll play you something sometime!" Undyne told Frisk enthusiastically. "I actually taught Shyren that tune of hers. She was a really talented pianist… for someone with no fingers."
After that they moved back down and headed east, reading more plaques about how humans can only take the soul of a species of monster called a "Boss Monster." They headed further down the path and entered a room with a statue that had rain falling on it. There was nothing to do in there, so they kept going.
The next room had another waterfall coming down from the ceiling, as well as a sign next to a bucket of umbrellas. The sign said "Take one." Undyne and Frisk both took an umbrella, but MK couldn't because he didn't have arms. So they both stood on either side of him to try and cover all of them completely.
The three of them moved onto the next room, where it was raining heavily and many waterfalls were coming down from the ceiling. There were quite a few puddles on the ground as well. While they were walking, MK was babbling about how Undyne was super cool and how she never lost. Undyne looked quite happy.
They took a turn and entered another room where it wasn't raining as heavily. There were a couple of water sausages growing in the black water off the path. A while down the path, there was an echo flower on an island. MK looked at it before reminiscing about when the king of the underground had helped with a flower project at school, and how he thought it'd be cool if Undyne came to school and beat up the teachers, before adding that she was too cool to beat up an innocent person.
They exited the raining area and came out into a massive cavern with glowing stones all over the ceiling. There was also a huge city/castle in the distance. Frisk stared at it in awe, and the others stopped to look as well.
"You like it? That's the capital. It's where the royal family lives, and where all the humans are celebrating right now." Undyne informed Frisk. "It's actually pretty busy over there, lots of problems with overpopulation. They're thinking about moving people to live in Snowdin, Waterfall and Hotland." She shuddered. "I hate hotland."
Eventually they stopped staring and moved on. They reached the end of the massive cavern, and entered another room. It was raining again in the room, and there was a bucket of umbrellas there as well. Frisk and Undyne both put their umbrellas away, and all three of them moved forward. In front of them was a high ledge. Frisk effortlessly jumped up onto it, but Undyne and MK stayed behind. Undyne was saying something to the kid about taking the other path, before she jumped up with Frisk. MK headed back after saying he'd see them later.
Undyne gestured for Frisk to go first. They moved forward into a dark room. The room got brighter as they moved towards some more plaques. These ones told of how the humans attacked the monsters without mercy. It made Frisk feel bad. When they turned back from reading, Undyne was gone. They decided to go forward onto the walkway that was ahead. They saw that there was a second walkway beneath the first one, and wondered what it was for.
Still wondering, they headed further along the platform. It was another one of the shadowy rooms. Just after they realised that, glowing circles appeared in front of them, and then behind them. After a second, magic spears erupted from the circles. When the spears disappeared, Frisk noticed Undyne (who had her helmet back on) standing on the lower walkway. Before they could ask her what was she was doing, more circles appeared on the floor. Frisk decided that it'd be a good idea to get going.