She was not, in fact, back quickly.

I clicked off the cellphone, cutting off the incoherent barking that had been coming from it ever since the other line had been, apparently, stolen by a dog. Evidently, whatever she was doing was going to take a long time. Time that I didn't really have. It was time to take matters into my own hands.

I stood up from my relaxed position against the pillar, brushing off crumbs from a granola bar as I did. With any luck I'd find my way out of here before I ran out of those, or I'd have to start foraging for cave mushrooms or somesuch. But with how brightly lit this whole place… somehow was, that seemed a tenuous prospect.

Moving forward to the next room, I was irritated to find that the cellphone had begun ringing again. I wasn't keen on being spammed with calls from some aggravating dog, and I considered just turning it off entirely. With a long-suffering sigh, I answered the call.

"Hello?" Came the voice on the other side of the line. "This is Toriel. You have not left the room, have you? There are a few puzzles ahead that I have yet to explain. It would be dangerous to try to solve them yourself. Be good, alright?"

I stared at the cellphone for several moments after the line went dead, with a look of befuddlement and dawning horror. Yes, of course, it was possible that she managed to retrieve the phone from the dog in the minute or so since the last call, and just happened to decide to call the instant I stepped through that doorway, and coincidentally decided to, then and only then, ask that question.

Yes, such an event was not outside the realms of possibility.

In the realms of plausibility, however, this cellphone clearly had some kind of tracking device in it. But why would she be so blatant about it? Nothing about her behavior made sense. It'd be easy to blame some kind of insanity for it, but even madmen have some deranged logic behind their actions.

As for the puzzles she mentioned… Was she just overstating the danger, or was this the start of the genuinely vicious traps at last? Perhaps those first few were even meant to lull intruders into a false sense of security, or conversely were some kind of warning shot.

Either way, little would be gained by standing around and pondering aimlessly, even if that is my favorite activity. I'd just have to be careful moving forward. It's not like I was exactly planning on traipsing through the caves with wild abandon to begin with.

As I strode into the next room, I noticed another one of those strange frog-creatures standing in in the corner to my left beside another doorway, staring forwards like a royal guard beside a palace gate. I cautiously approached, my hand stretching across my chest to rest on the handle of my knife in its sheathe. It didn't seem aggressive like the last one, it just stood there, ribbiting. I stared it down for a long moment. If it had wanted to ambush me, it surely would have attacked as soon as I strode through the entrance to this room.

I turned away for a moment to observe the rest of the room. It was a short corridor, with a second passageway to the far right of me. More piles of leaves, I noticed, very orderly ones that indicated someone deliberately raking them into position. Cover for traps, maybe? Unlikely to be pit traps, as they aren't placed where someone would naturally walk. I strode over to one to examine it, long stick in hand. It was no ten-foot pole, but it'd-

It was at this moment that the frog creature chose to strike.

I felt its bulk impact my small body as it took a mighty leap straight for my back. Besides the blunt force impact, its very touch seemed to… burn. I lashed out wildly, smashing the back of my head into the underside of its mouth and twisting my body around, driving it off for a moment. That moment was all I needed to draw my knife in my hand and slash through it, and it dissolved into dust just like the last one.

I kneeled there on the ground, trying to catch my breath. The places where it had touched me still stung, like they had been splashed with acid. The vicious bastard, he must have been waiting for me to lower my guard before striking.

I was an idiot. I was so distracted being paranoid about traps, I'd forgotten to be paranoid about everything else around me. If that creature had been smarter, or stronger, I'd be dead right now. No more dropping my guard like that down here, no more playing it passively. Everything around here is a potential threat, it's high time I started acting like it. This isn't where I die.

I got back to my feet, sheathing my knife again. Looking down again, I noticed leaves beneath my feet. Evidently, there wasn't anything at all hidden in the pile of leaves I had gone over to inspect, that was now all over the room. A red herring, I supposed. Now that the frog creature was dust, I supposed that I might as well figure out what was through that passageway it seemed to be guarding.

Candy. A bowl, full of what appeared to be hard candy in individual wrappers, atop a short pillar surrounded by a square of leaves. Whatever I expected to see in that room, it certainly wasn't that. A sign was on the front of the pillar that read "take one". An obvious trap, of course. But what kind of trap?

Pulling my trusty stick out of the strap on my pack, I carefully crept forward and began to disturb the nearest line of leaves, backing away towards the passageway afterward. Nothing. No tripwire, no telltale clicks of machinery triggered by the square being disturbed. The passage here bore no seams that would indicate some kind of sealing mechanism, the vines behind the pillar were too loose to obscure dart traps. Even the water canals to either side seemingly contained no hidden mechanisms.

Perhaps I was misreading this room. Maybe it's not a trap at all, but a… shrine? Some sort of place of worship, where the goat creature comes to leave offerings to some god or nature spirit or somesuch. A peculiar sort of offering, indeed, but it certainly beats human sacrifice.

Or maybe the trap was just that the candy was poisoned. That's also a possibility, but not something that would likely be a real hazard to me. I strode gingerly towards the bowl, plucking a single candy wrapper from it and unwrapping it. The candy within was very dark; coal black, almost. Licorice, maybe? I chipped away at it with my teeth, breaking off a few shards.

Hmm… It certainly didn't taste like poison. Pity. Nor like licorice, more's the pity. I couldn't quite place the flavor at all, actually. I popped the rest of it into my mouth and crunched it to pieces in one mighty chomp. Moments later, I started to feel… something. A peculiar tingling sensation, and then… nothing. Quite unlike the delightful churning in the gut and prickling all over that poisons tend to make me feel.

But it was what I didn't feel that caught my attention. Pulling my shirt higher up on my back, I confirmed my suspicions: the wounds that the frog creature gave me were gone, without a trace. Curious, indeed. Perhaps I was right about this being a shrine of some sort, imbuing the candies with some strange mystical energy. Or was it the candy itself that was magical? Maybe the goat made it, she did seem to have some sort of healing abilities.

My gaze drifted downward, to the sign reading "take one". Then back up, to the bowl full of magical healing candies. Back down to the sign. A glance behind, gazing back at the corridor I came from.

I quickly shrugged off my pack, and opened the main compartment, tipping the bowl over to empty its content into my backpack in a flood. In a moment it was empty, and I dropped the bowl and ran like hell.

I continued on in high spirits, before stumbling upon some odd lines on the ground. Looking closer, I realized they were hairline cracks. The ground around them was darkened, and an experimental finger found it yielding. Ah, finally, a proper booby trap; A pit trap, to be specific. Primitive, but effective. A classic, in other words. Odd that it was uncovered, considering all the piles of leaves around here. But perhaps they'd be too eye catching, where many people might pay these little cracks in the floor no mind.

Removing the pack from my back, I tossed it onto the other side of the cracked area. It would only encumber me for this next part. I took several backward steps, and began to stretch my leg muscles. It was time for some dashing escapades.

The moment I was done warming up, I pushed myself into a sprint. Just before reaching the crack, I launched up and over the darkened area, landing in a roll on the other side beside where my backpack landed. As I got to my feet, brushing off my knees, I pondered how exactly the goat got past this part. The image of a goat lady leaping across trap majestically popped into my mind uninvited. I snickered, and shook my head in disbelief; there's surely some trick to it that I didn't see.

Speak of the devil: the cellphone began to ring once again. This time to ask me… whether I preferred cinnamon or butterscotch. What the hell was butterscotch? Some kind of alcohol? Cinnamon was good. It's used to make cider, and I did enjoy a good orange cider. I don't mind chewing on a stick of it, either. Also, what the hell kind of question was that?

She hung up after I gave my answer, and I was able to take all of two steps before the phone rang again, this time with her asking me if I disliked butterscotch. Lady, I don't bloody know, I've never stinking heard of it! Finally, she seemed to take the hint, and hung up again, this time without a follow up call three seconds later.

Striding into the room proper, there was a line of spikes, and another sign, reading: "Three out of four grey rocks recommend you push them". I turned away from the sign, and sure enough there was a rock. Grey? Well, arguable. More of an off white, really, but that's splitting hairs. A little way to the side of it was a pad in the floor. A pressure plate, maybe. The sign would seem to indicate that I should push the rock onto it, but… the "three out of four" line gave me pause.

Before I could ponder that any further, another peculiar creature began to float towards me. The creature… defied easy explanation. The others I had encountered so far were all vaguely reminiscent of things I had context for, twisted semblances of frogs, goats, flowers… but this? It was something else. It floated in on wings that looked far too small and slow to support it, a body shaped like an upside-down sack. Two impossibly thin arms extended from the sides, with a pair of antennae poking out from the back of its… head, for lack of a better word.

I just stood there, baffled, for a long moment, as it flew slowly toward me. When the goat told me Here Be Monsters, I was prepared for the horrific, the grotesque and terrifying. This? This was just… bizarre. What could have created such a creature? And why?

They should have sent a scientist. Someone who could study them, learn how they work, examine their habitat and write whole thesises… theses… thesi, whatever on them. Instead, there's just me, fumbling in the dark. One more reason to keep going, as if I needed one: if I could bring word of this place, this would be a gold mine for researchers of all sorts.

The creature finally stopped, a moderate distance away from me, and began to speak. "I'm sorry…" it spoke. As it did so, enormous pale white moths, the same color as it, seemed to appear out of the Aether, and surrounded me, in a constantly expanding and contracting circle. Without hesitation, I ran for the largest gap in their circle, aiming to escape the trap before it could do whatever it intended with it. I brushed against one of them as I dashed through; as I suspected, the mere touch made my skin sting like they were made of acid.

Another senselessly hostile creature was hardly surprising, but the fact alone that it could talk gave me pause. The fact that it was apologizing as it attacked? That… well.

At that moment, though, it changed nothing. It was attacking me, and I could ponder these mysteries after defending myself.

As before, my knife passed right through with barely any resistance, as though I were cutting fog. These truly are insubstantial creatures, aren't they? Barely there at all, turning to dust the moment they die… they don't even seem real at all. I might think them phantoms, if not for the wounds they leave. Unless those are also…?

…Must have been more tired than I thought, if I was starting to doubt my own sanity like that. When was the last time I slept? Not fitful, shallow sleep like the brief blunt force trauma induced nap I took after my fall, real, sound, restful sleep. I couldn't recall (had I ever?). I'd have no luck getting any sleep down here. I struggled with that at the best of times, and these were hardly the best of times.

I shook away the useless thoughts from my head, and looked back at the spikes. The sign was puzzling, but unless I wanted to try my luck with the spikes… Actually, I could probably leap over them, with a bit of a run up. But that's assuming they wouldn't extend upward suddenly to catch me in the air. And the puzzles so far have been absurdly simple, so I might as well try my luck with the rock.

So, I did. And sure enough, the spikes retracted. What an incredible puzzle. This goat lady doesn't have much imagination, does she? It's convenient, sure, but also a little insulting. I guess I shouldn't be complaining… but screw that, complaining is my favorite activity. Well, second favorite.

As I walked forward through the opening, the next trap came into view, as if in answer to my silent complaint. Again, those telltale cracks that suggested unstable ground, but this time it wasn't a mere few rows that could easily be leapt across. No, this was a vast corridor full of them, stretching to the right and around the wall blocking my way forward.

This was a problem.

But… there had to be a trick to it. The goat wouldn't design an impassable trap, if only because she would have to come this way. Either that, or there were some hidden passageways she used to get around, but that amounted to the same thing.

Before I could ponder this, I heard another of the frog creatures coming towards me from the previous room. A disturbing sound; I had thought I had cleared that area out of these creatures. Did more get behind me somehow, or was there simply more of them somewhere, hiding? Well, either way, this one was in for an unpleasant surprise.

I stood at the edge of the trap, standing diagonally so that there was a straight line between it and the frog-thing, with me at the center. I feigned a panicked, trapped look, dodging a couple peculiar tiny white cubes with wings that flew towards me as it hopped along the ground in approach. After a few moments, I finally saw its legs begin to tense, and, just as it was about to leap towards me, I flung myself to the side. Lacking the ability to control itself mid-air, it helplessly soared directly into the wall, crashing into it and flopping heavily down onto the pit trap below.

As I picked myself up off the ground, I heard the dull thud of it impacting the wall. "Yeah!" I shouted in triumph. "Enjoy the climb back up, bitch!" I dusted off my legs, and turned around to see…

The frog creature standing on the cracked floor, dazed but otherwise unharmed.

Huh.

I was starting to get a picture of how this trap worked. Now this, this was a real classic. Straight out of Indiana Jones, but with pit traps instead of pressure plates. Not bad, goat lady. But this frog-thing just handed me the key to solving it.

As it stood there, dazed, I charged forward, and crashed into the creature shoulder first, sending it sliding across the floor. The floor held firm, not giving an inch under its weight, all the way to the opposite wall. I stepped carefully along the path it slid, dropping small pebbles as I went to mark the path. You never know when you might need to backtrack, and there might not be a convenient monster to shove around next time. Speaking of which…

I reached out to the frog-thing again, grabbing it by the head and tossing it to the left. This time, it only slid a short way before the ground gave out, and it plummeted beneath. It seemed that the creature's usefulness had run out, and I'd have to do this the old-fashioned way. Or at least, that's what I thought.

Moments later, I was proven wrong when the frog-thing came leaping out of the pit directly towards me. I stood baffled for a moment, but came to my senses quickly enough to sidestep the leap, and catch the creature by its outstretched front legs. Using the momentum of the leap, I spun the creature around me like a dancing partner, before rolling it along the ground like a bowling ball.

This time, it once again hit the opposite wall, looking much worse for wear than when we started. I looked down at the hole it leapt out of, and noticed a distinct lack of spikes. How peculiar, this would be the perfect place to use them. And the goat certainly doesn't seem hesitant to use them elsewhere. Convenient, but baffling. That seemed to be the name of the game around here.

It was a simple matter to continue using this strategy to mark out the rest of the safe path through. I put the frog-thing out of its misery once I reached the other side, and continued on. That was most certainly not the intended solution to that puzzle, and probably constitutes wanton cruelty. In other words, it was quite a cheering interlude. There was a pep in my step, for the first time in quite a while.

Even being assaulted by a gelatin creature shooting exploding crystals couldn't flout me out of my humor. It's a shame they all turn to dust when they die, I was very curious what some of them would taste like.

Although… upon further inspection of the dust pile the gelatin creature left behind, I discovered what appeared to be… small golden coins? 3 of them. It bore the symbol I had seen several times so far, on the archways, and on the goat's robes, with the top and bottom halves split between the two sides. That symbol… A pair of wings besides a circle (maybe the sun or moon?) and those three triangles, one upside down. If I squinted, the triangles looked like a very cartoonish depiction of a face, but that probably wasn't intentional.

I bit down on one, and felt it give a little under my teeth. I was no assayer, but it seemed to be genuine gold, maybe even solid gold. I twirled the coins around my fingers thoughtfully. The coins weren't very large, to be sure; maybe the size of a nickel. Was it an isolated incident, this creature's remains containing those coins? If not… Well, I wasn't going to get my hopes up just yet.

The room past it seemed to be another set of rocks and pressure plates, 3 of each this time. Would this be an actually challenging puzzle, or just another insultingly straightforward one? One way to find out. I began pushing the rocks into place.

And then one began to speak.

I instantly recoiled back from the rock… thing. Of course. This was the fourth rock the sign had mentioned. I had foolishly tried to push it, despite the warning, now… Franticly, I picked myself up off the ground, and broke into a sprint. With a desperate leap, I flew across the gap to the right of the bridge, landing with a roll on the other side and charging out of the room.

I staggered against the wall, trying to catch my breath. Everything was a potential threat here, it seemed, even the damnable rocks. Even the ground beneath me couldn't be trusted. What a nightmare. I could only hope an exit to this stygius abyss wouldn't be too much farther. But of course, hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

Raising my head off the wall, I noticed a table ahead. I wobbled my way over to it, and hoisted myself up on top of it, resting my weary legs for a moment. To one side of where I sat, there was what appeared to be a wedge of cheese. Cheddar, I think, or some other kind of orange cheese…

…It reminded me of my oldest brother. He was always putting piles and piles of it on whenever he made quesadillas, which he did quite often. Him and his deep, booming voice, his love of books and all sorts of tabletop RPGs… and that bag of jelly beans and hard candy that he carried with him, that never seemed to run out.

"I will get back to him." I thought with conviction. "To all of them. To the wide, open world that is waiting for me. I won't be trapped in this damned cavern, locked away beneath the earth. And this isn't where I die. No matter what I face. No matter what it takes. I will get back."

I looked to a small hole at the base of the opposite wall. A mousehole, by the looks of it. Or maybe a rathole. Some form of rodent, anyways.

"When I leave here, will the rodent scurry out of its hole, and take it for itself?" I mused, idly. "Or will it hide away, afraid to leave its comfortable and safe hole for fear of the danger of the outside world, and starve? Either way, the cheese is right there, and all the rodent need do is reach out and take it, and damn the consequences."

I dismounted the table, an air of surety in my movements. As sure as the rodent would get the cheese, if it had but the courage, I would make it through this, so long as I still had the strength to keep going. And if I could count on nothing else in the world (And I can't), I could count on that.

I continued on.