Staring up at the yawning chasm I opened my eyes to like a heathen gazing up at the gaping maw that dropped him into Limbo, I wondered how it was that I was still alive. The flowers beneath me looked soft, yes, but I had to have fallen... I don't even know how far. A long way, certainly. I should be dead, yet my eyes opened once again. The how of it escaped me, but I thanked my lucky stars.
Then feeling returned to my body, and I wasn't so grateful anymore.
Pain spread through my body as I struggled to pull myself to my feet. Putting my weight on my right arm proved to be a mistake, and it collapsed under the strain, sending me to the ground again with renewed agony. That one was definitely broken. At least it wasn't my left.
I ignored the pain with practiced ease and tried again to drag myself to my feet, more successfully this time. My legs protested under the strain, but held. The acrid scent of iron was in the air, and my shirt felt very damp. I knew enough about first aid to see that I needed to find help, and fast.
I took stock of my surroundings. Dark and featureless cave walls surrounded me, a single beam of golden sun from the gaping pit above me the only source of light, illuminating a small patch of grass and yellow flowers growing implausibly beneath it. Life finds a way, I suppose. Just like I always have, and always will.
I took stock of what I had with me. It didn't take long. A well-worn backpack, with a few traveling supplies, like a water bottle and granola bars. A trusty stick from my collection, mercifully intact even after the fall. A straight-edge survival knife securely stored in a sheath attached to the right side of my belt. A few lengths of rope, because rope is always handy. Etcetera, etcetera. The basic essentials for any moderate-length wilderness trip.
Finally, I found what I was looking for: a long roll of sterile gauze in my pack. I cut a length of it off the roll and cautiously peeled my shirt away from the wounds, wincing at the renewed pain. The bleeding had stopped by the time I awoke, but all the moving I'd have to do would be bound to reopen it, and leaving dirty clothing in a wound is just asking for an infection. Lacking any better options, I washed the wounds off with one of my water bottles, although I was loath to use up potentially precious water so quickly. After that, it was a simple matter to secure the makeshift bandage around my wounds and smooth out my clothing once again. It was time to get a move on at last, and find help.
Bracing myself on my trusty stick and the nearest wall, I began to limp forward down the only passageway I could see. Towards the end, I saw-
Pillars! An archway! Some kind of symbol above me!
...Civilization? Yes, surely there must be people down here. I knew my chances of finding my way out of such a deep cave were slim, but maybe help was closer than I thought. What were the odds that the random cavern I fell nearly to my death in just happened to house a whole unknown civilization?
Steeling myself, I left the support of the wall and plunged through the archway.
The passage was dark, and I couldn't even see the ground beneath me, but a single beam of sunlight shone down through a crack in the cave roof. And in that beam of light was a small patch of grass and... a creature.
It appeared at first to simply be an odd-looking plant, with a pattern on its center giving it the appearance of a smiling face on its visage. But then I looked closer. The details began to pop out, as I noticed just how bulbous and fleshy the eyes were, darting alertly this way and that independent of the rest of the body, the teeth appearing hard and pearly white like no mere pattern of discoloration could. A flash of red. Was that a tongue?
This was no plant.
I walked forward cautiously, my trusty stick held warily in front of me. As I approached, the creature's eyes snapped to me, and it began to speak.
"Howdy!" the creature spoke, in a cheery voice. It was a voice that did not imply any genuine cheerfulness, but rather a great deal of practice put into sounding cheerful, to those experienced in that sort of thing. "I'm Flowey! Flowey the Flower!"
"...Nice to meet you, Flowey," I replied, hesitantly. Was this one of the citizens of whatever strange civilization lived down here? You'd think if there were going to be plant creatures populating an underground nation, they'd be some kind of fungus, not... some kind of inverted daisy. Maybe they fled down here, to escape The Scourge of the Lepus!
And yes, I know fungi aren't exactly plants, shut up you damn pedant.
"Hmmm..." Flowey hummed "You're new to the UNDERGROUND, aren'tcha?"
I hesitated for a moment. I was far from new to exploring caves, being a rather adventurous sort, and living near a fair few mountains. But something about the way the plant creature had said gave me a feeling that he was giving the word at least one capital letter, like some kind of proper noun. Was that the name of the subterranean nation I had stumbled upon? Not the most imaginative of names, but about what I would expect from a place that names an animate flower "Flowey".
"Golly, you must be so confused." said the flower creature in question, taking my silence for confirmation. "Someone ought to teach you how things work around here! I guess little old me will have to do."
How things work? Was the flower creature some kind of tour guide? Surely that sort of thing could wait until I'm not actively bleeding to death.
"Ready?" asked Flowey.
"No, not really, I'm-" I began.
"Here we go!" Flowey continued heedlessly. A strange series of sounds ensued, and I looked down to see a strange red object shaped like a heart emerge from my chest. That is, heart-shaped in the common use of the term, that strange cross between a triangle and a pair of ovals that looks nothing like an actual human heart, or any other kind I'd seen.
"See that heart?" the flower asked rhetorically. "That's your SOUL, the very culmination of your being!"
I poked it experimentally, finding it to be surprisingly solid, with a texture somewhat like... nothing, really. Not that it had no texture, but rather that there was no frame of reference for it, as though I had never felt anything whose texture was similar. The culmination of my existence? What does that even mean? My existence certainly hadn't culminated yet, I was still young, and I still had so much left to do.
"Your SOUL starts off weak, but can grow strong if you gain a lot of LV." the plant creature continued.
LV?
...Left Ventricle? but why would pumping more blood into your aorta make your soul stronger?
"What's LV stand for? Why, LOVE of course!" exclaimed Flowey, cheerily. "Don't worry, I'll share some with you!"
Oh. That probably made more sense. In a metaphorical sort of way. Wait a minute... something about that last sentence seemed suspect.
"Down here, LOVE is shared through..." Flowey began "Little white..."
Uh oh. Stranger Danger, Stranger Danger!
"'Friendliness pellets,'" the flower creature finished, as several of what were presumably the pellets in question began to hover above his head.
Oh, thank goodness. it's just weird, magically hovering, perpetually spinning objects. That's comforting.
"Are you ready?" Flowey asked, without actually giving me time to answer, once again. "Move around! Get as many as you can!" As he spoke, the pellets began to fly towards me.
The pellets tore bloody holes in my chest, and agony ripped through me like a carving knife cutting through the meat and sinew of a crippled elk, driving me to my knees.
As I desperately clutched at my wounds, I saw yet more pellets appear to surround me. Flowey's cheery smile was gone, replaced with one far more grotesque and monstrous.
"You idiot," it said.
"Yeah, well... fuck you too," I retorted. "Not terrible last words," I thought, as my eyes began to go dark. "Although, of course, this isn't the end. I'm gonna... survive this somehow. I always do, somehow, I always find a way. This isn't where I die. This would be a terribly unfitting ending."
As I lay there bleeding out, a ring of "friendliness pellets" closing in around me, I heard the creature expound something about how "it's kill or be killed". What utter nonsense. I'm some random kid that fell down here, and made not a single aggressive action towards it. If I was an imminent threat to life and limb, then killing me would be reasonable, and invoking "kill or be killed" would make sense, but I was just some random kid. Unless this was the sort of place where people would just suddenly try to murder you out of nowhere, and trusting anyone for even a moment will get you killed, but-
My eyes shot open suddenly, as a flash of intense heat passed by. I saw the flower creature, now uprooted, flying off to the side into the dark, some kind of blast of fire leaving singed stone and smoldering grass in its wake. The heat soon faded to a warm and soothing breeze, like sitting beside a roaring campfire in the late January chill, the hairs on your back gently lowering as the cozy glow chased away cold in your body.
Looking down and patting down my chest, I realized that not only had my injuries vanished, even my clothes had been restored. "That's good," I thought to myself absently. "I really liked that shirt."
As I clambered to my feet, a peculiar creature came into view, although after the flower… thing, it seemed almost mundane. What parts of its body could be seen were coated in white fur, and with two long droopy ears and a pair of small horns on its head, it was reminiscent of some kind of goat (with those ears… Nubian, perhaps?), but rather than hooves it had a pair of odd, three-toed feet. The rest of it was clothed in a mostly black robe, bearing a symbol nearly identical to the one on the arch I had seen earlier.
Or, I thought it was black, at first. As she walked closer to the beam of sunshine at the center, it became clear that her clothing was actually a deep purple that had simply been darkened by the gloom of the tunnel.
"What a terrible creature," it (or perhaps she, judging by the voice) began, "torturing such a poor, innocent youth... Ah, do not be afraid, my child. I am Toriel, caretaker of the RUINS. I pass through this place every day to see if anyone has fallen down."
That name… did she say it was Turiel? The Rock of God? Whoever named her must have been very fond of the Book of Enoch, although naming your child after a fallen watcher seems like a very poor omen. Then again, she is watching for fallen people, so it's fitting in a sideways sort of fashion. Not to mention the whole "bound in the valleys of the Earth" thing.
...Although that was for becoming enamored with human women. And subsequently having intercourse with them. A distressing thought. Ah well, as long as she wasn't going to become enamored with me, I'll probably be fine.
"You are the first human to come here in a long time." she continued, to my lack of surprise. Breaking ones back jumping down a big hole in the ground is not most people's idea of a fun time. "Come!" she exclaimed cheerfully, a genuinely cheerful voice, as far as I could tell, "I will guide you through the catacombs."
Well, I was no longer bleeding to death, so this actually did seem like a reasonable time for it. She must have been the real tour guide of this place; which, given she described it as "ruins" and "catacombs", must be a heritage site or somesuch, and the flower creature was pretending to be one to ambush newcomers. For some reason.
"This way." She called, as she led me to the other end of the tunnel, where another set of pillars could be seen.
Stepping through the archway, I was assailed by a sudden brightness, and I shielded my eyes and shied away. As my eyes adjusted to the light once more, I looked around for the source of the illumination, but found nothing. No candles or torches or floodlights, or even any floating orbs of light or false stars. Just inexplicable light blanketing the room.
The very, very purple room. A rather light purple, the kind that's my mother's favorite color, but even my mother wasn't fond enough of it to color every wall and nearly every part of the floor in it. Perhaps that was simply the natural shade of whatever stone they used to build this place, but that seemed unlikely.
Ahead, two oddly shaped staircases loomed, mirrored to each other, a great pile of orange leaves between them. A promising sign, to be sure; unless they somehow had trees growing down here, it seemed to imply there was a passage to the surface nearby. The thought of it was invigorating.
As I stepped up the stairs, I noticed writing above the next doorway. It was a bit too high for me to make out, and the goat creature guiding me didn't bother to explain it to me as she walked through, so I paid it no mind.
Through the doorway, I found her standing in the middle of the room, her back to the far wall where a large imposing double door could be seen, colored purple, naturally. To one side of her, a set of what appeared to be six large, smooth rocks was protruding from the ground. They seemed too smooth to be naturally formed, so perhaps they were seats of some kind? No, they were a bit too low to the ground for that. As I pondered their purpose, she began to speak.
"Welcome to your new home, innocent one." she proclaimed.
"...What? What the hell was that supposed to mean?" I thought to myself, befuddled (as opposed to thinking it to someone else, of course). "I thought I was just being toured around a heritage site, but the goat seems to think I was here to buy a house or something."
Heedless of my confusion, she continued "Allow me to educate you on the operation of the RUINS." At this, she walked over to the peculiar stones I noticed earlier, and as she stepped onto them, they retreated into a recess in the floor. So, they were buttons of some kind, then. Once she had stepped on four of the six, she stepped over to the far wall to pull a yellow lever, and the large doors slid apart.
"The RUINS are full of puzzles," she explained, "ancient fusions between diversions and doorkeys. One must solve them to move from room to room. Please adjust yourself to the sight of them."
"Oh... kay, but why?" I pondered. "What purpose do they serve? Is it just to keep wild animals out? Or is it just for your own amusement? She did say it had been a while since anyone came through, I guess the isolation could lead to certain eccentricities developing. I can only hope this is the worst of them." It wasn't as if I disliked puzzles, at the very least, quite the opposite.
Shrugging off this place's curious design, I walked after her through the doorway, where the goat woman stopped beside a sign with (of course) purple text. Bloody hell, use another color! This is starting to become gaudy. Ignorant or uncaring of my disgust for her interior decorator (or do very large caves count as exteriors?) she continued to expound. "To make progress here, you will need to trigger several switches," She explained. "Do not worry, I have labelled the ones that you need to flip."
"Yeah, she's walking me through the security system and everything!" I thought baffledly. "it's like she's a real estate agent or something. Not that I'd mind having an underground lair, but it might be a bit out of my price range, which consists of..." I checked my pockets, "...39 bucks, 13 cents."
As the goat woman strolls off to the side, I peer over at the sign with the aggravatingly colored text she was standing next to.
"Press [Z] to read signs!"
...what?
Moving on from... that, there was also a sign on the wall, which read "Stay on the path". Which I would have done, if there hadn't been a sign on the wall that I had to leave the path to read. You might as well put up a sign saying "No reading signs" or somesuch nonsense.
I stepped onto the bridge and surveyed the rest of the room to search for the switches the goat creature had mentioned. What I found was… lackluster. Oh, there were switches, alright. Three of them, and two were clearly labeled. Even if that third switch flooded the room in deadly acid, there's still far too high a chance for any crook trying to rob the place to guess his way in. These puzzles really must just have been for stopping animals or something, but then why have the fake lever?
It's not even really a puzzle, since there isn't much in the way of clues, so it fails as both a diversion and doorkey. I was starting to suspect the isolation really had driven her nuts, which boded ill for the prospect of getting out of here anytime soon. My best bet was still playing along, though, so I continued on and flipped the levers like she wanted me to.
Those spikes don't look that dangerous, spikes rarely are without a proper pit trap to drop you onto them at high speed, but they looked sharp enough to scratch me bloody if I wasn't careful, and who knows what they could be coated in. I'd hate to get topside only to keel over and die because the spikes were covered in some nasty poison or somesuch. That would be a terribly unfitting end.
"Splendid!" she said. "I am proud of you, little one. Let us move to the next room."
…Or maybe she did actually think this was a cunning puzzle. That last switch wasn't even flippable, it was totally immobile! Did she actually think that was a difficult puzzle, or was she just being condescending?
"As a human living in the UNDERGROUND," She began as I followed her, "monsters may attack you."
Yeah, I gathered. From the way a monster attacked me the minute arrived. Although it being because I'm a human is news to me. Are monsters racist down here? Actually, monsters in fiction tend to be racist; you rarely see them attacking each other, after all, so they must be in some way discriminatory. Then again, from what that flower creature said, they might just be assholes in general.
"You will need to be prepared for this situation," she continued. "However, worry not! The process is simple."
My hand casually stretched across my chest to rest upon the hilt of my knife, as I thought back to my earlier encounter. Oh yes, I'd be prepared. Simple is not the word I'd use for it, but then I'm sure if you can throw fire at people and heal wounds that does make it a tad less complex. That almost struck me as cheating, but I'd never been one to shy away from a bit of cheating.
"When you encounter a monster, you will enter a FIGHT" the goat creature said.
Again with the dramatic tone. I could HEAR the capital letters in that one. "What's the difference between a fight and a FIGHT, anyways?" I wondered.
"While you are in a FIGHT, strike up a friendly conversation." She said, as if in answer.
"Ah. That's what."
"…What?"
"Stall for time. I will come to resolve the conflict," the goat creature continued.
"Oh, okay." I thought, relieved. "So she isn't trying to tell me to talk the enemies to death like some kind of madwoman, she's just telling me to stall until she gets there. Fair enough." Personally, I was more one for bold action instead of waiting around to be saved, but I could easily see why she wouldn't exactly want to encourage that sort of thing in some random kid. Still, it rankled a bit. That sort of thinking, that you can rely on others to solve your problems for you... Even if it works at first, it just weakens you for the future, when it inevitably stops working. Better that you learn to rely on yourself instead.
"Practice talking to the dummy," she finished, before walking over to the doorway ahead and staring at me expectantly.
"Alright, nevermind," I backpedaled, "we're right back into madwoman territory."
I stood in front of the dummy awkwardly, not sure what to do. "Practice talking" she said, which was just maddeningly unhelpful. It's like telling someone to "say something", most people are going to choke and struggle to find anything to say at all. What was I even supposed to say? She mentioned that this was to "stall for time". What does that even mean? If someone was attacking me with intent to kill, what could I say that would get them to stop, or even hesitate? I'm no wordsmith, and-
As I stood there, lost in thought, the dummy apparently had enough of this and floated away.
…As one does.
"…" said the goat creature.
"…" she continued.
"The next room awaits" she finished, and leaves without another word.
Given that she seemed more confused about the situation than even I was, I took it that dummies flying off into the air was not a normal occurrence here. She certainly seemed eager to ignore it and move on, so I took that as a good sign it wasn't going to suddenly drop down onto me at any moment.
"There is another puzzle in this room…" she said, as I stepped through the doorway, wrenching my suspicious gaze away from the ceiling at last. "I wonder if you can solve it?"
If was anything like the last few puzzles…
As I followed her, I dragged my gaze down and noticed the odd pattern on the floor. It reminded me of the pattern underneath the buttons earlier, perhaps this was a clue? Those vines look oddly regular, as well. Fake, maybe, or trimmed at the very least. Same distance from the wall, but not equidistant to each other and the wall. Anything and everything could be a clue. Perhaps-
As I thought on this, I was suddenly startled by a peculiar sound, the same one I had heard earlier during my encounter with the flower creature. Sure enough, that strange pseudo-heart thing began to emerge from my chest once again. Whirling around, knife at the ready in an instant, I saw what appeared to be some kind of frog… thing, hopping towards me aggressively. Much like the heart, it didn't really look very much like an actual frog, but rather was the sort of thing that you'd see if you had asked me to draw one. A caricature, broad strokes, getting across the concept of a frog more so than the reality. In one of my crayon drawings, it would have been hardly noticeable, but here in stark reality it was… unnerving.
But I was made of sterner stuff. I was never one to shy away from the things that disturb me, quite the opposite. Always the first to charge forward and stomp the cockroaches that chose to infiltrate my household, even when the idea of even getting close to one frightened and disgusted me more than anything else.
With only the briefest of hesitation, I surged towards it, striking a clean blow across its right eye, aiming to blind the damned thing. Instead, I was treated to seeing the creature shudder violently, disintegrating before my eyes. I hardly even felt the impact of the blow. Like I was slashing the fog. If it weren't for the pile of dust at my feet, I might have begun to wonder if it was ever there at all.
Flowers that can create hovering missiles, goat creatures that can generate flames and heal wounds, and now insubstantial frogs made of dust, ripped from the pages of one of my coloring books… I don't know what to expect next. It's a terrifying, and exhilarating, feeling, to be thrown headfirst into the unknown like this.
Shaking myself out of my musings, I turned around to see Toriel standing a few paces away, looking at me. She must have noticed the frog creature as well, and come over to blast it away like she did with that flower creature. Thankfully, this one was far less dangerous. Or it seemed as such; perhaps, if I had taken the initiative to attack the flower creature first, it would have gone down as easily. Perhaps all these… "monsters" she called them, are as insubstantial as that one was.
One can only hope. But of course, hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.
Reaching across my chest to re-sheathe my knife, I flashed her a confident smile and a thumbs up, like I would after smashing a bug that had been terrorizing my mother. She continued on without a word. Hard to say if that was as reassuring as I intended it to be, but she didn't look worried to begin with; I don't think her smile wavered for a moment. That's... surprising, I would have expected her to be the smothering sort. I'd hate to have someone needlessly worried about me like that. But it seems like she has a bit more faith in me than that. A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. Maybe I should return the favor.
Another sign a little bit further proclaimed "The western room is the eastern room's blueprint". Good to know. Not that I hadn't already suspected something of the sort, but more importantly this told me that to the left of the sign is west and to the right is east. That'd help me get my bearings in the future. My internal compass was excellent, but taking a tumble down a massive hole will discombobulate the best of us.
Shortly after, we stepped onto a bridge over a pool of what looked to be water, covered in spikes. Er, the bridge, not the water. Now this is a bit more menacing. Or it would be, if I hadn't already figured out where the safe way through was. The sign was, perhaps, a tad on the nose, and gives the game away to anyone paying attention, but maybe she only has these up when she's showing people around, and she plans on taking them down when the tour is over.
"This is the puzzle, but…" she faltered for a moment as she spoke, but quickly rallied. "Here, take my hand for moment."
I stared at her hand, bemused. Did she intend to walk me through the spikes? I'm sure I've already figured out the pattern, and the idea of relying on her guidance rankled more than a little, nevermind that I still wasn't sure how trustworthy the goat creature really was. But… I did intend to start trusting her a little more, didn't I? Might as well start now.
I took her hand, and we walked across the bridge, the spikes receding in front of us as we did.
"Puzzles seem a little too dangerous for now" she continued, once we had reached the other side. Whatever you say, goat-lady. Danger is my middle name. And my first is "Avoiding".
"You have done excellently thus far, my child," said the goat-lady, with a smile. I wasn't sure what she was referring to, at first. Certainly not the puzzles, the only remotely difficult or dangerous one so far was the one where I had literal hand-holding carrying me through.
Then I realized: she must be referring to my earlier encounter with the pseudo-frog. Confronted with a bizarre and unknown hostile creature, I had only a brief moment of hesitation before I had my opponent sized up, a potential weak point identified, and a single clean stroke delivered. It was a masterful elimination, if I do say so myself. And I do.
"Thank you. I've worked hard to become so," I replied. It's nice to have my skills appreciated for once.
"However," She began, the smile fading from her face and a pensive look replacing it. "I have a difficult request to ask of you."
"…"
"I would like you to walk to the end of the room by yourself." She continued. "…Forgive me for this." And without another word, she sped across the floor with the urgency of someone who'd just set the timer on an IED.
I stood there, frozen at the door, for a long moment. To say I was worried would be an understatement. What the hell had she meant by that last remark? The corridor she sped down seemed like an utterly innocuous room, and that's what worried me. What was in this room that she was so apologetic about? For all I know, I could be walking into certain doom. But why would she hold my hand through the puzzles earlier if she intended to throw me to the wolves anyways? Lulling me into a false sense of security? But then why had she intentionally gotten my guard up again with those suspicious comments? Perhaps it wasn't about that, maybe she had to get me here specifically for some reason, some kind of sacrifice, perhaps? Maybe-
I was panicking, I realized. All the maybes and perhapses in the world wouldn't help, not when there was only one way out of here, and that was forward. I shook myself out of my daze, and began to carefully stalk forward. With every step, my head whipped around, examining every inch of the room, ever speck of dirt on the floor, every tile on the wall and ceiling, double and triple checking all. One foot Infront of the other, I crept across the corridor, searching for the slightest irregularity, the slightest bit of suspicious movement. Another step. (Nothing.) Another step. (Nothing.) Another step. (Nothing at all.) Another step.
Finally, at last, I reached something different, a break in the otherwise mostly featureless corridor. A large pillar, the goat creature poorly trying to hide behind it (why was she hiding?). I warily approached, knife drawn, readying myself for anything she could throw at it. Ready to demand answers. To my surprise, she abandoned her hiding place as I approached and stood out in the open. Perhaps she realized she'd been spotted.
"Greetings my child," she said, as I stood there, waiting for her to explain herself. "Do not worry, I did not leave you."
"Pardon me?" I thought, completely blindsided. Whatever reasons I had thought up in my long journey across the room, this... was not one of them. "Is this some kind of really poor attempt at gaslighting?"
"I was merely behind this pillar the whole time. Thank you for trusting me." she continued, heedless to the fact that, 1, I hadn't trusted her in the slightest, and 2, she had entirely buggered off, as hiding behind a pillar on the opposite end of a long corridor definitely counts as leaving me.
"Yep," I thought to myself. "It looks like I was right about her going nuts from the isolation."
"However," The goat-creature explained, "there was an important reason for this exercise."
"Oh boy," I said wryly, "This oughta be good. Alright, lay it on me, Turiel, I'm dying to know."
"...To test your independence," She continued. "I must attend to some business, and you must stay alone for a while."
I just stood there for a long moment, utterly floored. This damned goat-lady had gotten me so worked up for... absolutely nothing. She had just wanted to see if I could cross a room without her. Then... I began to laugh. A chuckle, at first, blossoming into full blown guffaws. It was the strangest, most bafflingly incoherent nonsense I had ever heard; what else could I do but laugh?
"You're an ass, Turiel. An absolute cantaloupe." I told her, once I managed to catch my breath. "Don't ever do that to me again."
She just chuckled at this, sheepishly. Or is that goatishly? No, that would be daft. So, she was worried about me, was she? That was an… uncomfortable feeling.
"Please remain here," she implored me, her eyes drifting to one side, breaking eye contact. "It's dangerous to explore by yourself."
"Well now, that doesn't quite make sense," I thought, rather befuddled. "She just said she was testing my independence, and now she's telling me that I need to obediently stay here to wait for her return and not go off on my own? Bit of a mixed signal there, innit? And what was up with that shifty look at the end there?"
She stood there nervously for a long moment, before perking up suddenly and reaching into her pockets. "I have an idea." She said as she rooted around in them. "I will give you a CELL PHONE." She pulled her hand out of her pockets and proffered a small, well-worn device. It was black and rectangular, with what appeared to be an antenna at the top. "If you have a need for anything, just call. Be good, alright?" she finished, and walked off without another word.
Well, this was a tad odd. I considered following after her, to see what she was up to, but with those long legs of hers I'd struggle to keep up, and shadowing her without being detected would likely be impossible. I thought about going off on my own… but I figured I might as well rest my feet here, and wait for her to return. For all I know, beyond here is where the really devilish traps are. I like a good puzzle more than the next man, but not if it means putting my life at risk.
I sat down with my back to the pillar, and began to relax, for the first time since the fall. The sooner she returned, the sooner I could get out of this crazy place, and back home.
Hopefully she'd get back quickly.