Hi, peeps. I noticed there are some continuity errors in my first 3 chapters. Mostly they involve me switching back and forth between present and past tense. I'll be going back to fix them in a couple days. Away we go!
Frisk takes a deep breath, steps forward, and pushes open the door into the Underground. The wind whistles, blowing chilly through her thin, striped shirt to nip at her skin. A hallway leads out into darkness, where a single yellow flower rests. Flowey. I'm ready for you this time. Frisk thinks, and steps out boldly into view. The flower's face twists into a wry smirk as it sees her, and begins to speak.
"Clever. Verrry clever. You think you're really smart, don't you?" he says with derision. "In this world, it's kill or be killed. So you were able to play by your own rules. You spared the life of a single person."
He chuckles with a macabre grin as his smile becomes a mirthless mask. "Hee hee hee… I bet you feel really great. You didn't kill anybody this time."
His face morphs back to his usual cheerful façade as he continues like a thought had just occurred to him. "But what will you do if you meet a relentless killer? You'll die and you'll die and you'll die. Until you tire of trying. What will you do then?"
His grin turns vicious as it did when he first attacked her. "Will you kill out of frustration? Or will you give up entirely on this world…and let me inherit the power to control it? I am the prince of this world's future. Don't worry, my little monarch, my plan isn't regicide. This is so much more interesting." He cackles psychotically for a moment before shriveling into the ground, leaving Frisk alone in the dark. Passing over the brightly lit patch of sunlight, Frisk moves on through the final archway of the Ruins, and into the rest of this new world. Something tells her she's only taken the first step on a long, long journey.
There's a clear, straight path through a forest, and Frisk briskly walks along it, shivering slightly in the cold. Hearing a footstep behind her, she pauses, cocking her head to listen for more…nothing. She decides it must have been her imagination, and continues, when she hears a branch crack and whirls, again finding nothing. Cautiously, she continues until reaching a bridge, where she stops, feeling an oppressive feeling on the back of her neck. Heavy, slow footsteps approach like a drum relentlessly pounding a march. Thud. Thud. Thud.
A low, gruff voice sounds.
"Human. Don't you know how to greet a new pal? Turn around and shake my hand."
A flutter of fear tries to surface, but Frisk forces it down, turning around to face the stranger behind her. He reaches out his left hand, and she takes it, only to hear a flatulent sound ring out through the forest as the tension breaks.
"Heheh…the old whoopee cushion in the hand trick," he says brightly, grinning. "It's ALWAYS funny."
His hand feels bony, without skin or flesh to give it body. His voice is completely different from the monstrous growl of only moments ago. It's almost lazy, almost as though he created his own accent just to do less work when talking. His words seem almost rounded, like his brain cut corners when it was making them.
He continues talking. "Anyways, you're a human, right? That's hilarious"
Frisk doesn't exactly see how.
"I'm Sans. Sans the skeleton," he introduces himself.
That's a really, really bad pun, thinks Frisk.
The skeleton is still chattering away. "I'm actually supposed to be on watch for humans right now. But…y'know, I don't really care about capturing anybody. Now my brother Papyrus, he's a human-hunting fanatic." He pauses, then continues. "Hey, actually, I think that's him over there. I have an idea. Go through this gate thingy. Yeah, go right through. My bro made the bars too wide to stop anyone."
Sans follows Frisk over to a clearing occupied by a small shack and an oddly shaped lamp. Sans points to it and says "Quick, behind that conveniently shaped lamp." Frisk stands motionless for a motion, stunned by the absurdity of the notion, but eventually gives up and does as he asks. She hears the footsteps of another person, accompanied by the rattling of bones, and assumes Papyrus has arrived. Judging from where he's standing, he should be able to see her fine, but he ignores her completely, instead looking at Sans.
"Sup, bro?" the smaller skeleton asks in greeting.
His brother responds in a clipped, honed accent, every word seemingly sharpened and polished to absolute perfection. He also yells every single word at the top of his…ribcage. That's weird, Frisk thinks. They can talk without lungs. It must be some kind of magic. Her thoughts are disrupted by the taller skeleton continuing to speak.
"YOU KNOW WHAT 'SUP,' BROTHER! IT'S BEEN EIGHT DAYS AND YOU STILL HAVEN'T…RECALIBRATED. YOUR. PUZZLES. YOU JUST HANG OUT AROUND YOUR STATION. WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING?!"
"Staring at this lamp. It's really cool. Do you wanna look?" Sans replies, totally deadpan.
"NO! I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THAT! WHAT IF A HUMAN COMES THROUGH HERE!?" Papyrus yells back, stomping his foot in frustration. "I WANT TO BE READY! I WILL BE THE ONE! I MUST BE THE ONE! I WILL BE THE ONE TO CAPTURE A HUMAN. THEN I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL GET ALL THE THINGS I UTTERLY DESERVE. RESPECT… RECOGNITION… I WILL FINALLY BE ABLE TO JOIN THE ROYAL GUARD! PEOPLE WILL ASK, TO, BE MY, 'FRIEND?' I WILL BATHE IN A SHOWER OF KISSES EVERY MORNING."
"Hmm. Maybe this lamp will help you," Sans suggests.
"SANS! YOU ARE NOT HELPING! YOU LAZYBONES! ALL YOU DO IS SIT AND BOONDOGGLE! YOU GET LAZIER AND LAZIER EVERY DAY!"
"Hey, take it easy. I've gotten a ton of work done today. A skele-ton," he says, winking, as a drum sounds out of nowhere.
Frisk wonders momentarily where in the world he could have put a drum in these woods.
"SANS!" Papyrus exclaims with exasperation.
"Come on. You're smiling," Sans prods.
"I AM AND I HATE IT! WHY DOES SOMEONE AS GREAT AS ME HAVE TO WORK SO HARD JUST TO GET SOME RECOGNITION," his brother mourns, sighing.
"Wow, sound like you're really working yourself…down to the bone," jokes Sans once more. The drum sounds again, and again Frisk wonders how in the world he managed to hide it.
"URGH. I WILL ATTEND TO MY PUZZLES. AS FOR YOUR WORK, PUT A LITTLE MORE…BACKBONE INTO IT," Papyrus quips back, before laughing uproariously and walking away.
"Ok, you can come out now," Sans assures Frisk. She walks out from behind the lamp, still wondering what the point was of hiding in the first place. She moves to continue down the path, but is stopped by Sans' voice calling out to her. "Hey, sorry to bother ya, but I was wondering if you could do me a favor. I was thinking…my brother's been kind of down lately. He's never seen a human before, and seeing you might just make his day. Don't worry, he's not dangerous. Even if he tries to be."
Frisk nods.
"Thanks a million. I'll be up ahead," the skeleton thanks her, before walking the exact opposite of where he said he was going to go. Frisk watches him leave, pondering his behavior. Weird. There's something about that guy…
Continuing on down the path, she feels her determination flare and push back the cold momentarily, then nearly trips over a box to the side of the path. Scanning a sign to one side, she decides to leave her stick in it to check if the box works the way the sign says, then pushes on through the snow. She comes across Papyrus chatting with Sans in the middle of the path, and stops in the hopes of being noticed without getting too close.
Papyrus' volume seems to have decreased to a more reasonable volume now that he isn't yelling at Sans. "So, as I was saying about Undyne…
He trails off, before turning to look at the human, turns back around as if to clear his eyes, then looks back at Frisk and exclaims. "SANS! OH MY GOD! IS THAT…A HUMAN?!"
Sans turns to look past Frisk at a large rock in the path. "Actually, I think that's a rock."
"Oh," Papyrus says, disappointedly turning to face his brother again.
"Hey, what's that in front of the rock?" Sans asks with mock confusion.
"OH MY GOD!" yells Papyrus, "(IS…IS THAT A HUMAN?)"
"(Yes)" announces Sans simply.
"OH MY GOD!" repeats Papyrus for a third time. "SANS! I FINALLY DID IT! UNDYNE WILL…I'M GONNA…I'LL BE SO…POPULAR! POPULAR! POPULAR!"
He tries to get control of himself, but can barely contain his enthusiasm as he continues. "AHEM. HUMAN! YOU SHALL NOT PASS THIS AREA! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL STOP YOU! I WILL THEN CAPTURE YOU! YOU WILL BE DELIVERED TO THE CAPITAL! THEN! THEN…I'M NOT SURE WHAT'S NEXT. IN ANY CASE, CONTINUE ONLY IF YOU DARE!"
Cackling happily, he walks away yet again.
Sans remains behind. "Well, that went well. Don't sweat it, kid. I'll keep an eyesocket out for ya."
Frisk continues down the path, taking a moment to pet an odd talking dog when he pops out of another snow-covered shack. She allows his ghostly blue sword to pass through her body and slowly reaches out a hand to give him a pat, then he runs away. Talking to Sans in the next clearing, she finds out that blue weapons won't hurt her unless she moves, then walks around a frozen lake into a square area. Papyrus stands complaining to Sans about being lazy, then turns to her and explains his puzzle.
"THIS IS THE INVISIBLE ELECTRICITY MAZE! WHEN YOU TOUCH THE WALLS OF THIS CRAFTY MAZE, THIS ORB (He holds out a blue glowing ball that she senses is completely composed of magic.) WILL ADMINISTER A HEALTHY ZAP! SOUND LIKE FUN? BECAUSE THE AMOUNT OF FUN YOU WILL PROBABLY HAVE IS ACTUALLY RATHER SMALL I THINK OK, YOU CAN GO AHEAD NOW."
Frisk wonders for a moment why he's still holding the shock orb, then moves forward. Lightning flashes from the orb and through Papyrus skeleton, and his eye sockets go wide. "SANS! WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
"I think the human has to hold the orb," says Sans calmly
Papyrus walks through the maze, leaving footprints in the snow, and sets the orb on Frisk's head.
"HOLD THIS, PLEASE?" he asks, then walks back through the maze before telling Frisk to try again. She easily follows his footsteps along the safe path, much to Papyrus' chagrin.
"INCREDIBLE! YOU SLIPPERY SNAIL! YOU SOLVED IT SO EASILY…TOO EASILY! HOWEVER, THE NEXT PUZZLE WILL NOT BE EASY! IT IS DESIGNED BY MY BROTHER, SANS. YOU WILL SURELY BE CONFOUNDED. I KNOW I AM!"
Cackling, Papyrus makes yet another swift exit. Frisk follows, taking a moment to kick a ball of snow around a bit. In the next area, she hears fluttering paper, and after a quick, if meaningless explanation from Papyrus, picks it up and scans it. It's a children's word search. She puts it carefully on the ground again, then walks towards Papyrus and Sans. After a quick argument about whether crosswords or jumbles are harder (In which she sympathetically sides with Papyrus), Sans thanks her and they both exit yet again.
Frisk feels another brief flare of her determination, banishing the slight signs of hypothermia and frostbite afflicting her, and continues past a table with a plate of frozen spaghetti, pausing only for a moment to read a note left by Papyrus. More of his puzzles. How does he expect anyone to eat spaghetti that's frozen to the table? Frisk wonders as she advances. In the next area, she runs into a dog in armor near a switch hidden under the snow. Giving the dog a pat, and dodging its excited leaps, she presses the switch and continues onto an isolated plateau, crossing a small footbridge. On the other side, she's stopped by the sound of a pair of footsteps perfectly synchronized, almost military. They pause to each side of her, and she hears the two creatures sniffing about.
"What's that smell? (Where's that smell?) If you're a smell…(…Identify yoursmellf!)" they ask, finishing each other's sentences perfectly. They run around the plateau sniffing everywhere but Frisk, then come back to exactly where they started and muse to themselves. "Hmm…Here's that weird smell. It makes me want to eliminate. Eliminate YOU!" they finish with a vicious growl. The darkroom appears, and Frisk is greeted by the sight of a pair of large dogs in black jumpsuits. They touch noses as they wield huge battleaxes in her direction. Their eyes are wide and nearly sightless, but their keen sense of smell apparently makes up for it. Frisk rolls around in the dirt to try to mask her scent, ducking under the powerful swipes of the battleaxes. Jumping in close to the dogs, she waves her hand past their noses, trying to convince them of her little trick. They seem less interested in fighting, at least momentarily, and she pets them both as they lower their guard. Immediately convinced of her goodwill, they're quite surprised. Apparently, they thought she was a puppy after that last sniff, and they can't stop talking about it as they walk away after thanking her. In the next clearing, Frisk comes upon a strange pattern of switches on the ground, with a sign nearby. Another "Papyrus Special," clearly. The puzzle is so obvious she solves it without even reading the sign. As she continues, Papyrus intercepts her to ask a question.
"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU EVADED MY TRAP! MY ONLY QUESTION IS…DID YOU LEAVE ANY FOR ME?"
Frisk nods, then keeps walking. When she arrives at the next puzzle, Papyrus stands off to one side, deep in thought. When she moves to solve it, he interrupts her to explain that the puzzle is broken, and he'll be trying to fix it soon. She looks it over carefully, thinking to herself This isn't hard. It's just different. I'll walk here…then here…and lastly… Stepping on the final switch, the way forward opens.
Papyrus is flabbergasted, as usual. "WOW! YOU SOLVED IT! AND WITHOUT MY HELP, TOO! INCREDIBLE! I'M IMPRESSED! YOU MUST CARE ABOUT PUZZLES LIKE I DO. WELL, I'M SURE YOU'LL LIKE THE NEXT PUZZLE, THEN! IT MIGHT EVEN BE TOO EASY FOR YOU!"
He runs out to prepare the next puzzle, followed more slowly by Frisk, who's feeling a little tired by now. Sans waits by the exit, and compliments Frisk on solving the puzzle without help. She appreciates it, but it wasn't actually that hard. Hearing Papyrus call out to her, she stops halfway across the next footbridge.
"HEY! IT'S THE HUMAN! YOU'RE GONNA LOVE THIS PUZZLE! IT WAS MADE BY THE GREAT DR. ALPHYS! YOU SEE THESE TILES? ONCE I THROW THIS SWITCH, THEY WILL BEGIN TO CHANGE COLOR."
Frisk stops listening after she hears "change color." She's not going to be able to see them, so there' s no point listening. Even so, she's confident that her determination will carry her through without a scratch. She fleetingly hears him mention something about the puzzle being completely random, then a switch clicks and there's a grinding noise as the tiles start shifting. Once they stop, she walks straight through them without any difficulty. Apparently, Papyrus was mistaken about it being random.
In the next area, she finds a dog making…something out of snow. It seems unwilling to give up, and she finds herself inspired by it, her cold and tired body coming alive with determination once again. In the next clearing, there's an ice-covered crevasse with another of Papyrus' switch puzzles laid out on it. She skates across the ice smoothly, striking each switch in turn and then sailing off through a thicket of trees on the other side. Brushing against branches, she covers herself in snow by the time she comes out the other side of the thicket.
Walking through a clearing full of little puffs of snow, she hears a dog yip twice and the sound of ice and snow cracking off of metal, then the darkroom appears, along with what appears to be a giant, humanoid dog in full battle armor, carrying a spear. She beckons it, and it walks over to her to be pet. It goes to sleep under her affectionate hands, then wakes up full of energy. She throws a snowball for it to fetch, but it splatters on the ground. The dog seems to care little, picking up all the snow and bringing it back, before going back to sleep. Continuing to pet, the dog finally rolls over, flopping back into the snow. It seems satisfied, and the darkroom vanishes. The dog hops out of its armor long enough for Frisk to realize the armor is completely mechanical, licks her, then hops back in and walks away.
Coming to a long bridge, Frisk looks listens carefully to its sounds before crossing. It seems sturdy enough, but before she's finished crossing, Papyrus voice cuts through the icy air. "HUMAN! THIS IS YOUR FINAL AND MOST DANGEROUS CHALLENGE! BEHOLD! THE GAUNTLET OF DEADLY TERROR!"
Out of the air around the bridge, Frisk hears the clanking of chains, the creaking of wooden beams, the crackling of flames, and…one small dog. Leaving no time for consideration, Papyrus continues his monologue. "WHEN I SAY THE WORD, IT WILL FULLY ACTIVATE! CANNONS WILL FIRE! SPIKES WILL SWING! BLADES WILL SLICE! EVERY PART WILL SWING VIOLENTLY UP AND DOWN, SO ONLY THE TINIEST CHANCE OF VICTORY WILL REMAIN! ARE YOU READY? BECAUSE! I! AM! ABOUT! TO DO IT!" he ends his speech nearly screaming with excitement. Several moments pass, and Papyrus turns around, smile fading slightly. Sans pipes up. "Well? What's the holdup?"
"HOLDUP? WHAT HOLDUP? I'M…I'M ABOUT TO ACTIVATE IT NOW!" he announces, turning around.
Several more moments pass before Sans interjects again. "That, uh, doesn't look very activated."
"WELL…THIS CHALLENGE…IT SEEMS…MAYBE…TOO EASY TO DEFEAT THE HUMAN WITH. YEAH! WE CAN'T USE THIS ONE! I AM A SKELETON WITH STANDARDS! MY PUZZLES ARE VERY FAIR, AND MY TRAPS ARE EXPERTLY COOKED, BUT THIS METHOD IS TOO DIRECT. NO CLASS AT ALL! AWAY IT GOES!"
Frisk hears the objects retract, chains clanking and wood straining for a second time. Papyrus declares his decisive victory, then retreats.
When Frisk follows, she's greeted by the first sounds of real civilization she's heard since falling down in the Ruins. The chattering of monsters in a shop and what seems to be a town square give the whole place a homely feel. Her determination fills her, then she enters a building and is greeted by a friendly, long eared monster who offers her a night's stay in the in for what she seems to think is a low price. Frisk agrees to pay it, then heads upstairs. She closes her eyes for the first time since leaving Toriel's home, and her exhaustion, borne by determination for so long, begins to slip away.
Welp. I was completely wrong about the length of these chapters. This one is at 3200 words and counting, but this seems like a good place to stop. As usual, your reviews are helpful if you feel like leaving them.