✱ Chapter 4
The sudden rush of water didn't seem like a problem earlier, the issue was that the tilt changed past the Hotland into a more downward direction, gravity taking its effect in speeding up the makeshift boat the two sat on and bringing them deeper into the earth. Without her pole, Sariel had made repeated attempts, albeit desperate ones, to struggle and reach out at various rock and stalactite formations on the cave wall passing by to help stop them. Every time however, the momentum made it totally impossible and she merely scraped her hands against the rough surface of the hard earth.
Flowey looked to Sariel for direction but she seemed aimless and terrified, "We'll be fine right?" right?
Her teeth were chattering and she was shaking, she looked around at the cave walls passing by them ever faster. "I don't know, I've never been out this far, we passed Hotland a while back and I'm pretty sure we're dead c-cause at some point this has to open out to the Waterfall."
Nice, we're done for.
"Congratulations for working that out!" he yell over at her, Sariel turned to face him with a squint,
"What is wrong with you? You got any good ideas?!" she shouted back at him now. She scrambled not knowing exactly what to do, for a moment looking at her hurt hands. She moved to be closer with Flowey on the other side of the boat, likely to not lose her footing, as the tilt became greater and the speed seemed to reach a temporary apex.
Flowey shook and nearly tilted over, but Sariel knelt down and reached for him gently, placing him back up right.
This can't go on forever… we're going to fall if I don't do something.
Flowey craned himself back and forth, examining their fast passing surroundings. Sariel ducked down now to the floor of the gondola and clung to its edges. She stared up at Flowey with a resigned expression that spoke her only plan it seemed in this situation: Give up like a loser and wait for death.
For all the trouble meeting her had caused him, Flowey didn't think well of watching her squirm. In fact, quite the opposite, it made him reconsider his earlier behaviour seeing the danger the two were in now. If anything he knew he would likely be fine but his new friend wouldn't be, and it was his fault. He couldn't let that happen.
As he lost himself to his thoughts in the moment he realized that his gaze had been transfixed to the Boss Monster before him. She looked back at him, into the inky black of his eyes and for a moment the two were locked in a strange sight with an expression on her face as though she were pleading with him to make this stop but she hadn't said a word.
How lifeless these eyes must seem to her. If only she really knew.
Finally she broke the silence at long last,
"I take it you have no suggestions then?" she shouted at him over the sounds of rushing water, the area they were moving into was a rapid of some sort with multiple streams from the layers of the Underground above pooling water and streams downward explaining the sudden inrush that made their journey so dangerous.
"Oh-", He averted his gaze from her for a moment,
"I think I have an idea!" he shouted back.
With an exasperated hiss he emerged from the pot and discarded what little soil remained for himself. Though he was no longer a monster, that magic of his still remained at least somewhat, and he'd have to concentrate his focus on this strenuous task.
He can hear the approaching of crashing water further down.
"Hang on!"
With clenched teeth, the former prince summons forth those serpentine roots, thorny appendages stretching and snaking outwards from the little flower. Barbed brambles meet the cave wall on either side, and they barely scrape into them, slowing the boat's motion as he dragged them back from the pace the rapids had sent them in.
"Urgh!" he exclaimed greatly, followed by his own exasperated grunts as his floral 'limbs' dragged against the uneven sharp stone walls of the cave. Not unlike his friend who moments earlier likewise hurt herself attempting the same thing.
The boat eventually slowed enough but it didn't stop their problems, the inrush of water from behind and above them started to sink the boat before the two could really communicate out a plan of action. Without a better idea of what to do with the wood gondola all but useless, Sariel jumped up and held onto Flowey much to his dismay (HE wasn't expecting this!). Having taken on too much water the gondola disappeared beneath the crashing waves into the mouth of a large ravine ahead.
Flowey started to slip downward, he tilted his head down at Sariel and shouted, "Get off! Get on to some rocks or something, you're too heavy!" he grunted one final time, and held his breath. Sariel compiled the moment she seemed to find safe footing beside the rapids and hopped off of the flower.
She reached out to one of his vines and grabbed it with all her might, grabbing the face of the cave wall with her free hand.
"I got you, let go!" she called out at Flowey, he exhaled and dropped all his vines as they skirted back into him. The one Sariel had grabbed remained and twisted its thorny edges into her arm digging slightly into her fur.
"Yowwwch!" she yelled, doing a flip backward and landing on her back, shaking anxiously at the tendrils which infused themselves into her. Flowey now coiled around her arm, held still and caught his breath then dislodged his thorns from her.
She crawled backward and sat upright against the cave wall, she was a mess and dripping wet, her cloak covered in mud.
"Sorry, sorry!" he climbed out of her cloak's sleeve and instead coiled himself above her clothes, then up and over to her shoulder.
"I didn't mean to do that… just a force of habit I needed to make sure you didn't drop me!" He pressed his face to Sariel's cheek in an embrace that he didn't realize he was doing until he was doing it.
"It's okay… It's okay! I understand." She said, he then backed off of her slightly. She was clearly cold, sopping wet, her hair fur drooped annoyingly over her face and she shook uncontrollably. She flicked her paws out sending water flying off of them, and then pressed them up against her forehead to mat her hair out of her eyes.
"We're alive and that's all that matters, you saved my life." she turned slightly to face the Flower, unable to do so complete with the awkward angle he was at.
Flowey froze up, unable to say anything more, he thought about what had just happened. He didn't think he was deserving of this grateful behaviour from Sariel but he couldn't disagree with her.
Wheezing, Flowey manages to push himself into something closer to a "standing" position on her shoulder, a smile drawn across his face.
"You saved our lives," She smiled warmly back at him, "That was something! That magic of yours, plant magic, it's amazing!"
Flowey shook his head, "It's nothing, it's the least I can do. You are my friend after all."
She nodded in agreement, having gotten her bearings somewhat and she was starting to shake less, "and you're mine buddy."
I have a real friend.
He wanted to tear up.
Sariel stands to her feet and wobbles slightly, though not heavy, she lists to one side in a slight gait due to his presence on her, weak slightly from being thrown off the boat. With her hand she tries to start a fire to get a better sight of their current surroundings but it's simply too wet to light completely.
"Do you have any idea where we are? I've never been down this far." Flowey thought about the dangerous trek they just made, worried perhaps that there was no way back up.
Sariel outstretched her hands and felt around at the muddy clay like walls before her, attempting to feel any sort of opening she could.
Pressing her hands against the immediate cave wall she seemed to have felt something, a metal surface of some kind and a door.
"This! I know this! It's the centre of the core!" she exclaimed.
"One of the service hatches to get in, just a moment," she rapidly tapped her hands against the door feeling for a handle of some sort, finding one she took in a deep breath and held it. The handle must have been rusted, as Sariel began to twist it the handle crunched and shot various flakes of corroded metal out indiscriminately at the two.
Flowey closed his eyes for a few moments at the feeling of it, before opening them again to see a lit walkway beyond the door frame now that it was open. Flowey sighs, drooping slightly. Not only is he exhausted, but he'd lost the flowerpot holding him to the falls in an entirely industrial area like this, there's also very little he can do about ensuring he doesn't wilt soon. But the time for worrying about that should be later they had to focus on the here and now, he thought.
As Sariel passed through into the structure, and onto the walkway she walked slowly across. The walkway swayed slightly, not as bad as the elevator from earlier but it was held up by very little support.
She stuck out one of her muddy paws and again attempted a flame, this time with some success although not a great big shape, but enough to give the two some limited sight and warmth.
The area was a large mechanical mesh, not unlike the mechanical marvel it is far above (well, at least it once had been). This area was far more industrial, clearly the inner workings weren't meant for the public's eyes as it seemed to have very little in the way of aesthetically pleasing or safe surfaces. The entire area was a mish-mash of pipes and tubes which ran up to the top of the core as well as all the way down below… to where? Who knows. The walkway the two were on was only one of many, there were several in a descending and ascending pattern each leading from one side of the core to the other in a what seemed like mixed up, twisted, nightmare maze. When the walkways came close to a wall, said wall was plastered with a number of signs giving various warnings. In the centre of the core lay a great big indescribably geometric shape to which a separate set of pipes, wires, tubes, and walkways connected to and everything came out from.
Sariel turned back and looked at the door they entered from, beside it was a large stenciled number, 013, likely designating the floor.
The Boss Monster then stuck her head over the railing and looked up at the next floor which read 012, she was working out where they were.
So obviously 001 must be the top floor?
Flowey, for all his earlier bravery felt somewhat useless in this moment, having to rely on his new friend for locomotion anywhere through this mess, starting to feel sapped of energy.
Sariel walked slowly toward the centre and away from any of the immediate walkways.
"This place sure does look different without power…" He did his best to "sit" by the fire in an attempt to at least warm up, his gangling roots sprawled out around her arm only using a few to hold on while the rest lay limply down.
"Sure does, sorry to be slow I'm trying to figure out which one of these walkways will get us out of here. We're on floor 13 which means we have 12 floors to go up." she sighed, "I'm already so tired out from what we went through I really wouldn't mind throwing in the towel and just stop here for a while."
"Nonsense!" Flowey uttered back, "you must keep going, if we're at the centre of the core and on the 13th floor, that means we're just below New Home! We're so close. This palace has at least a hundred floors, and besides, this place doesn't seem safe." Sariel nodded in agreement and walked a bit faster now from the centre out to one of the branching walkways, crossing the threshold and was now on her way to the otherside of the core.
"Thank you for the encouragement Flowey."
She turned briefly to him, he laughed slightly in astonishment of how quickly the two had calmed down and started getting along simply from their predicament. "It's nothing, really. The least I can do."
More like, all I can do right now.
Finally reaching the otherside, the walkway met up with an open small spacious office like room, with windows that contained thick glass panes, computer console of some sort and various papers strewn about the floor. Opposite the entrance to the office was a large sealed industrial door like the one they entered from labeled Maintenance Hatch.
Flowey used a tendril to prod at Sariel who was eyeing up the console, she turned her head and he used the root to direct her to the door. After a moment he realized he was pointing at it and Sariel ran across the room to it. She nearly slammed against the door and tried her best to open it, twisting the equally rusted hinge lock off of the door but it didn't open despite her best attempts at it.
"Maybe it's rusted shut?" Flowey suggested, uncertain of what to make of the door, he wanted to attempt using his tendrils himself but he hadn't the energy, even less so now that Sariel's flame was put out.
"Hmm, no something else is going on." she replied, pointing at a sign beside the door on the wall, it depicted a small Electric symbol on it and a Lock symbol.
Sariel turned back to the computers and the console and approached them very slowly as she had when they first entered the room.
The console was a stark white and beige, clearly older technology of some kind but something about it was seemingly very advanced still. The computer monitor was black but its power button glowed with a red light indicating it was powered. Flowey stuck the end of a tendril into the switch, hoping for it to turn on but it failed to do so.
"Something's not right about this." he said, but Sariel didn't reply, he looked at her noticing that she was looking over the panels of the console still, and nothing else, "Why are you looking at that? There's no power, it's useless. We have to find the on switch."
"That's the thing, I think this panel has the on switch on it, some of these switches don't look like simple buttons for a computer but a couple of them are breaker type switches." She attempted to bring her hand over her mouth while in contemplation but the sudden feeling of the mud made her pull it away as she flinched. Flowey couldn't help but giggle at this.
"They're all labeled but the problem is…" she leaned down to the console, putting both her hands on it and scanning the buttons and switches carefully, "I'm not sure what to make of this, they're all labeled in weird symbols. I know for a fact I've seen these before but I can't read them." She pointed out a few symbols for Flowey to draw his attention to, as he narrowed his gaze to a set she had pointed at to his surprise he was familiar with these. It's a language. He had seen it many times before.
"You can't read this?" he scoffed at her somewhat in that remark, Sariel stood up right, "No… Can you?"
"Yes I can, it's easy! That one must be the power, see it says on!" He happily exclaimed, Sariel looked at the panel and then traded a squint back at the flower, "Which?"
He rolled his eyes at her.
"The red switch, there! it's on Flag Arrow Arrow, set it to Flag Black Square. That means 'ON!' Duhh!" He laughed at her, and she shook her head, taking the light mocking from him if only to let him have some fun with her in return.
She placed her hand on it and pushed, it budged but didn't immediately turn over. Sariel then grabbed it with both hands, shaking Flowey somewhat and getting him caught between her arms. She gritted her teeth hard and concentrated. Finally, a loud crack came and the switch flicked to the 'on' position, the two nearly getting thrown by the thing suddenly giving way.
The door behind them opened inward, the computer monitor lit up and some of the walkways beyond began to drag themselves around by the supports. The Core was activated once more.
"Success!" Sariel exclaimed, "You have to teach me how to read that-" She got cut off by a loud klaxon siren above them going off, Red lights came on all around the core and the walkways. Golden petals slightly frazzled, Flowey at least looks to be somewhat more alert now. Eesh! That sound! that alarm was so loud, he briefly wondered if it could be heard on the surface.
Flowey was quick to stick his head into the cloak (not that it would provide much protection) and Sariel covered her ears with both hands and made her way to the door as quickly as possible. Crossing into the next room at a quick pace she was now running down a tight corridor that led to a ladder that seemed to go up to the first floor but also down into an endless darkness below.
Away from the immediate loud siren's screams, Sariel grabbed onto the ladder and started climbing upward slowly, she clung to each bar in a disjointed way. Flowey slid out of the cloak and clung now to the back of it, casting his gaze down as Sariel carried them upward he wondered.
Who knew how many floors down there were?
He watched passively as Sariel started to pick up pace slowly and managed to carry the two passed about five floors, seemingly trying her best to focus on reaching the top, one of the bars she reached out to slid before her and she nearly lost her grasp. Quick on her feet she didn't move on to it with her other hand. She looked at her paw fur, it was clammy and more, she was starting to sweat badly. While she stopped to catch her breath, Flowey began to notice the rising temperature. It wasn't just her… it's hot in here.
"Sorry I need a moment, I'm too tired and my palms are sweaty." Sariel wrapped her arm in a lock around the ladder's edges
Flowey cast his gaze once again down into the darkness far below them and could see a faint glow. He knew this meant only one thing.
"No… it's not you, it's the core! It's turned on again." He shouted, crawling his way over to her arm once more, he stuck his face into hers and pointed down. Sariel observed the glow below them and for a moment the two watched it grow in intensity and then they could see what it was: rising lava.
Sariel shot her head upwards at the remaining floors, taking a brief moment to wipe her pams on her already dirty ruined cloak, and continued upwards in a faster pace than before by rapidly shifting their arms through the bars while not entirely gripping them.
This is so dangerous! What is she doing?
"Hey buddy! I want you to wrap yourself around my horns, think you can do that?" she shouted at the flower clung to her shoulder, he was still frozen in terror at what he had witnessed coming after them down below, "S-sure I can do that! Why?"
"In case I'm not fast enough! give you a chance to go up on your own!"
This thought utterly terrified Flowey, he shook his head,
"No no no no! Don't say that! We'll be fine, you're almost up at the top now!"
Coming up on the 3rd floor, the lava couldn't have been more than 3 floors below now, it was moving at a faster rate than they had time to climb. Flowey clenched his teeth as Sariel made it passed the 2nd floor now and as she reached the ladder bar to the third her arm slipped out awkwardly as she shifted her weight. She attempted to catch herself with her other hand but the ladder was just slightly beyond her finger tips.
With only her legs locked into the ladder she began to fall backwards, Flowey tilted upwards and briefly rested on her hair and forehead while she fell and could see the utter surprise in her eyes but a resignation to her fate.
"No!" he cried out, Flowey spouted a vine at the top and shot up above, still connected to Sariel's horns; he gripped her and shifted her back upright. It took her a moment to realize what he was doing, he was holding her upright to keep her from falling backward completely. It was obvious she was still in shock at her mistake, and stared completely walleyed.
"Grab the stupid bars you idiot!" Flowey shouted down at her, "I can't hold you much longer! Ngh!"
Sariel quickly shook her head and returned to reality with his words, she gripped at the bars now and Flowey let the vine go slumping backward totally devoid of energy.
Sariel climbed the final portion of the ladder and reached the top which ended in a hatch that was already open. At the top she took a moment to see the lava begin to slow and pool around the second floor. Still, not taking her chances she climbed through the hatch and keeled over exhausted once through it. Flowey slid off of her and thudded against the floor, she turned for a moment concerned about him but looked away as she finally caught her breath and started to cough violently for a few moments.
Flowey tilted his head up to observe his friend.
Still coughing violently she crawled a ways back to the hatch and closed it tight, summoning a bit of energy to turn the locking wheel shut.
Not that it would make a huge difference if the lava came up but better than nothing I guess…
"We're at the top of the core, we're almost back home. Flowey, are you okay?" she crawled over to him.
Weak, and totally lethargic he huffed, "Yes I'm okay, just get me to some dirt buddy I'll be fine."
Sariel scooped him up into her arms and got on one knee, taking a moment to summon the energy to leave.