KNOCK ON WOOD - Old Home (Ch.6)

The hall was even more crowded than it had been before. For possibly the first time, Frisk was glad for their small size, since without it they wouldn’t have been able to squeeze through everyone. Even then it wasn’t easy. The roaches--Migosps, they’d heard they were called--walked on their belly as often as they did upright, and Moldsmals oozed everywhere there was the slightest gap. It was a lot like doing a maze, really, where the other maze-goers were made of slime.

“Is everyone alright?”

“Man, I hope it wasn’t my house that got wrecked this time…”

“Get over yourself, man.”

“Jonesy? Jonesy, where are you?!”

The same large Loox as before cleared their throat loudly, climbing up to stand on top of a market counter. “Roll call! Roll call!” he shouted, tapping his knuckles against a clipboard. “Everyone, I know things are bad, but we got to do things right. Leaders, do a headcount to make sure everyone is okay; I’m handling the Loox, Larv is doing Migosp, Jeller the Moldsmal--”

“And who put you in charge, Vis?!” a group of Migosp yelled.

Vis, the giant Loox, rolled his eye. Since a Loox is 90% eye, this nearly caused him to overbalance and fall off the table. “Larv, can we not do this now? I didn’t see you stepping up here--”

“I was gonna! You can’t prove I wasn’t!”

“Well you didn’t, so can we please just do a head count?”

“Moldsmals don̶̦̐’̴̝̐ẗ̶̳́ ̷̻̋ẽ̵̙v̵̗̒e̸̘̔n have heads!” a blue slime mold called out.

Vis groaned. “Look--”

“Jonesy! Oh goodness, where are you?!”

Frisk tried to see what was going on. They were too short for getting on their tiptoes to do anything, so they got down on the floor instead. In the forest of legs, a tiny fairy-creature was flitting about with a terrified energy. They frowned.

The fairy broke free from the crowd and flew right up to Vis’s eye, shouting. “Can you see Jonesy? My Jonesy is missing!”

Vis blinked, sending her end-over-end from the gust his eyelid kick up. “Uh… Well.”

“Well, Vis, what are you gonna do about that?” Larv demanded.

“I am doing something about it!” the Loox snapped, “But you won’t cooperate! Mrs. Fler, I’ll keep my eye out for him, but we need to--”

“But he could be out there all by himself, we need to--!” she interrupted, and from there it sort of devolved as the crowd started shouting over each other.

It was entirely too much for Frisk, who fought their way back out of the sea of monsters to get away from the noise. They made their way back to the spider bake sale, now empty, and sat down behind the counter to catch their breath.

“Chaotic, isn’t it?”

Frisk jumped at the voice. Wait, wasn’t that--

Flowey sprang up from between the bricks and winked. “Howdy again! I don’t blame you for getting out of there. I don’t like crowds much either.”

“Y-you s-s--” Frisk bit their tongue, grimacing. They held up one finger, and Flowey, blinking, quieted down. Frisk brought up their Pip-boy and flipped through the different channels. There had to be something… aha. There was a note-taking app labeled ‘Journal.’ That should do…

A tiny keyboard unfolded from under the screen, and Flowey waited patiently until they finished to lean over and read.

“‘You saw what was happening?’” he read out loud. He grinned. “Yup! I didn’t mean to spy, but, well. It’s not every day you see a human down here.”

Frisk thought about that. They supposed that made sense. They knew that if a monster had showed up in Bellome, they would’ve been curious. In fact, following them around sounded like something Kris would do.

Something else occurred to them. “Do you know where that missing kid is?” they wrote out.

Flowey read the message blank-faced. “Missing kid?” he asked. “Like, a monster kid?”

“Their name is Jonesy.”

The flower stared at them. Unlike before, now Frisk couldn’t tell what was going on in his head at all. He looked to the side, humming in thought, and just as the silence was beginning to grow uncomfortable he turned back, smiling widely once more.

“Oh, Jonesy! Yeah, the Whimsun kid, I know him, sure. I don’t know where he is, but I bet I can guess!”

Frisk’s eyebrows rose, questioning.

“Yeah, well, there’s only a limited number of places he could be, and if he’s not in here in the hall of tents, then he might be in a different room!” He made a worried face. “Golly, Whimsun are already pretty skittish, and after that tremor the poor kid must be terrified. I hope someone finds him soon…”

…

Frisk’s eyes hardened, and they stood. With one hand on their stick, they pointed thumb at their own chest.

Flowey blinked, then perked up. “Oh, oh! You’re going to look for him? Wow!”

Without another word, Frisk charged to the end of the hall, running the entire way.

Flowey watched them, encouraging smile fading away as they left. He saw them reach the pillar and keep going, and then he finally allowed himself a smirk.

“Well, I can’t say it won’t be interesting...”

----------------------------------------

Sidequest: Whim’s Son

Jonesy the Whimsun has gone missing! Find him so his mother can stop worrying.

-----------------------------------------

More purple. Mooooooore purple. Frisk was getting sick of purple, which was a shame since it was their favorite color. Still, at least this room had other colors to break up all the purple. Green vines climbing up the wall and red leaves laying in piles everywhere…

…where did the leaves come from, they wondered? Frisk looked around, as if that would make a tree spontaneously appear. The only plants were the vines… well, and Flowey, but neither--oh, and those odd vegetable monsters--but none of them had leaves like these. Flowey didn’t have leaves at all!

They almost looked like… maple leaves? Frisk thought that’s what they were. They were so red they could have been peeled right off the Canadian flag, as well. Really dry, too. Crisp.

Frisk looked around to make sure no one was watching, then crouched down to crunch leaves between their fingers. Something gold glinted underneath them, but when Frisk tried to find it it vanished.

Playfully crinkling through the leaves fills you with determination.

“Hey, over here!”

Flowey was calling them from a doorway to the left. Frisk followed, but the room inside was a dead end. Pools of water lay on either side of a podium, just short enough that Frisk could reach it without standing on their tip-toes. The bowl sitting atop it was filled to the brim with colorful candy.

Take one, the sign said. Frisk took one.

They started to unwrap it, but Flowey sprang up in their face and pulled the candy away. “Hey, now, let’s not be too hasty! Don’t you want to save it? You’re not even hurt right now!”

“...?” Frisk tilted their head, confused, and Flowey smiled.

“You mean you didn’t know? Well, I guess I get to teach you something after all!” The flower monster pulled away, a pair of vines snagging the candy. “Monster food is special! When you eat it, it turns directly into energy for your body, and any wounds you’ve taken get taken care of right away.”

Frisk raised an eye skeptically.

“You don’t believe me? Well, that’s fine~.” He laughed. “Just remember it in case you’re ever hurt.” He drew himself back down to the ground. “Oh, and another thing. This one’s mine now.” Flowey stuck out his tongue and winked, and then he and the candy were gone down a crack in the floor.

Frisk huffed, taking a second piece for themselves--

How disgusting.

They shuddered, though they weren’t sure why.

The next room was odd and annoying. A board had been placed across the middle of the hallway, for no apparent reason. However, the reason became clear when they attempted to step around it, and the floor broke underneath them, and they fell again for the second time in what couldn’t have been more than a day.

I hope this doesn’t become a trend, Frisk thought after a pile of leaves broke their fall.

A set of stairs led up from the new room back to the first, where Flowey waited for them.

He smirked. “Wow! The puzzle was already solved for you and you still failed! I’m impressed.”

Frisk pouted.

“Don’t worry about it,” he assured them. “They should have put a sign up, but since everyone--except you, I guess--knows what this room’s deal is, I guess no one bothered.”

The room shook as another tremor swept through. Frisk watched as the bit of flooring they’d fallen through disintegrated completely, all the crumbling bits falling away until the makeshift bridge was all that was left.

“Anyway,” Flowey said, “You shouldn’t have to worry about puzzles anymore, turned off or not, since the next room is… broken.”

Frisk stepped through the door, wondering what that meant.

This room had no ceiling. It and most of the north wall had been completely destroyed.

A line of spike plates like the ones they’d seen before blocked off the second half of the room, and there was a long indented section of floor leading to a button that had a rock sitting in it. Frisk could figure out from a glance what this room’s puzzle would have been, but that hardly mattered because the thing that had caved in the wall was a massive section of Vault 66.

The silver metal looked awfully out of place next to the purple bricks. One end of a Vault hallway stuck into the room, a door to the inside so bent out of shape that it couldn’t close properly, which was just as well since without power there would be no way to open it otherwise. Aside from that and a few dents along the exterior, the length of hall was in remarkably good shape and still in one piece.

“Crazy, isn’t it?” Flowey asked. “It just fell out of nowhere one day a couple weeks ago! There’s stuff like this all over the Underground.” He burrowed, popping back up next to the hallway door. “It’s wrecked a lot of stuff, but! On the bright side! It made for a really neat tunnel to the real Ruins. Before this, there was only one real place to get to and from the main city.”

He stretched up, peering inside, while Frisk stood frozen, staring.

The Vault… fell? Would that explain why the stairs had just ended like that? It made sense, they guessed. And if pieces of the vault fell down, that would explain why construction stopped last year…

Frisk’s brow furrowed. Something felt off about this. But then, everything had felt wrong since they fell into the Ruins, so maybe it was actually fine?

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Flowey asked. “Jonas is waiting, isn’t he?”

Frisk frowned, concerned. They pointed at the vault tunnel, asking an unspoken question. Are you sure?

“Sure, he’s in the city! Probably!” Flowey said casually. “Hey, I’ll meet you on the other side.”

And then he was gone, and Frisk was alone again.

They stared at the tunnel cautiously. Did they really have to go in there?

How, even? The doorway was about a foot off the ground, and not fully open… Frisk tried to climb in, but couldn’t find a proper foothold.

“F-Flowey?” They called out, hoping he’d return and give them a hand, or a vine, but he didn’t answer.

From the room’s actual intended exit, a rock slid in. It was a different color than the one that had been minding the vegetable stall, looking more like sandstone, but it shuffled across the ground, scraping itself over the brickwork in a way that set Frisk’s teeth on edge.

“Hey, buster,” it snapped irritably. “Get outta my way, I’m going too fast to slow down!”

It slid towards them at a slug’s pace. As they watched, it jumped forward about a foot before slowing, then another foot and again. Frisk thought they could hear it panting, but it was a rock so they might have been mistaken.

“I said move it! I’m not stopping for no one! Ow.” A smaller, apparently non-living pebble went tumbling away as the rock ran into it. “I mean, take that, tiny pebble!”

Frisk stepped aside as it approached, a calculating look on their face. When it stopped in front of the tunnel, they stepped on top of it and climbed inside the Vault.

“Hey! Whaddaya think you’re doing?! Get back out here! I’ll show you what happens when you go around stepping on people like that!”

The rock called after them as they walked, but Frisk ignored them. They had a Whimsun to find.

…

The hall was longer than they expected. They weren’t sure what they were expecting, but this wasn’t it.

It wasn’t nearly as long as the hall of tents, not by a long shot--they could see the end of it, for one--but it was still a long walk. Panels and pipes had fallen off the walls of the vault as it fell, and Frisk took care to keep an eye out so they didn’t trip. Surprisingly, the lights were on, but only a few. Just enough to light the way, but even those flickered in and out at random. A high-pitched tone lingered on the edge of hearing.

They passed a doorway that didn’t lead anywhere, whatever room it was supposed to go to having broken away. Now the door only led to a brick wall. They passed it by without a second look.

The lights hummed eerily as they passed underneath, and loudly at that. It almost drowned out the sound their stick made as they walked when it hit the metal floor.

Two more doors. One of them likewise opened onto a wall, but the last before the end let out into what looked like a bathroom. A white porcelain tub, surprisingly intact, and a not-so-fortunate sink. The floor here was wet, because the broken sink was slowly flooding the room. Weirdly, there was no toilet, but maybe it had gotten crushed when the hallway fell? No door either… No way out this way.

The hall ended with a sudden right turn, and immediately after the Vault section ended in a sunburst of shorn metal. Frisk has to climb out carefully to avoid cutting themselves on the edges.

The ground here was still purple, but it seemed to be actual soil and rock instead of the endless bricks. Frisk looked up once they were on steady ground and took in these “real” Ruins, as Flowey had called them.

----------------------

Location discovered: Old Home

----------------------

Frisk was small, and furthermore they were a child. They were, in fact, a small child. They were used to everything around them being built for people several sizes larger than them. They couldn’t see over the counter of their kitchen and they often had to climb onto the couch in order to sit on it. But the space they found themselves in now took it to a whole new level.

The average door towered over them. Their dad might have had to jump in order to touch the top of the frame, yet for some reason the doorknob was still in the same place. Windows weren’t higher up, just taller. It was like every building had been stretched upwards.

Well, not all of them. A few looked normally-sized, and a few were even smaller; Frisk observed, befuddled, one particular row of houses that even they’d have to crouch to enter, lining an alley between two of the plus-size ones. But the small buildings were much less common.

The Vault tunnel had let them out into the middle of a wide road. Abandoned flower patches ringed in stone marked the middle of the street, with old stone benches on either side. Whatever had been planted here was long gone, nothing but dried wood chips and dead grass remaining.

Frisk looked around, waiting. Flowey was nowhere to be seen, and they just knew that they’d get lost if they tried to look for Jonesy on their own. He said he’d be waiting for them; did they take too long?

Not wanting to sit still and do nothing, Frisk decided to scope out their surroundings a bit more. This street was just houses and apartment buildings. Some of them looked in decent repair, while others didn’t look like anyone had been there in a long time. One of the very largest houses was completely boarded up… but it was so large, and Frisk was so small, they could probably squeeze under the boards if they wanted to. And it didn’t look like there was even a door underneath them anymore.

The vault hallway had utterly demolished the buildings where it fell, blocking off the rest of the street behind them, but the buildings it had crushed had collapsed into bricks, which piled up enough that Frisk could probably use them to climb over the tunnel if they wanted to. That would be pretty dangerous though.

The street itself kept going for several buildings before abruptly splitting three ways, but Frisk wasn’t interested in going that way without a guide. The alleyways between it all looked like they would twist and turn pretty badly, but the one with all the tiny houses looked straightforward, and Frisk was a little curious about them; besides, if Whimsuns were really small, maybe that would be where he was hiding.

And Frisk really wanted to see the oversized dollhouses, so that’s where they decided on.

---------------

Location discovered: Tiny Street

---------------

Seeing them up close was almost surreal. The little houses got smaller as they went; the very first one in the row was big enough that Frisk felt like a grown-up standing next to it. The next one they’d have had to crouch in order to get inside. A few more down the line and they could peak into the second-floor window.

A few of them still had lights on, but no one was home. Frisk managed to open the door to one of these lit homes, and it was a mess inside, like someone had been in a huge hurry to leave.

“H-Hello?” Frisk called, too quietly. They cleared their throat and tried again, but it was barely any louder. Why was talking so difficult? They never had a problem with it before.

How could they get someone’s attention if they couldn’t make themselves shout? If Jonesy was in one of these tiny houses they couldn’t enter, they needed some way to get him out. They could tap the building with their stick, but they didn’t want to scare anyone. They wished Flowey would show up like he said he would.

Maybe some music? It hadn’t worked before, but maybe it would now. Frisk turned on their radio and started tuning.

You fiddled with the radio, but nothing happened.

Frisk grumbled. They almost thought they could hear something in the static, but no music. What else could they do?

Did Toriel come out this way? Maybe they could find her, they thought they remembered her going to do something--yes, she’d gone to deal with a collapse. There was a lot of collapsed stuff around here, so she was probably helping with that.

…But how were they supposed to find her?

-------------------------------------

Elsewhere

Timber creaked and bricks scraped as the tower rose off the ground. Bits of stone cracked and began to fall, but blue fire ran up the tower’s length, the mystic flames securing any loose masonry.

Toriel heaved with a grunt of exertion, and the ground shook as the tower hit the ground. She released her magic’s hold on it, and the building groaned as it settled into its new location.

Wiping her hands off on her dress, she turned to the family of Froggits that had been trapped underneath. “Is everyone alright?” she asked gently.

“Ribbit.” (I think so. Thank you, your majesty.)

Toriel made a face at the title, but dismissed her feelings and looked around. To her immense relief, the dust floating around seemed to be no more than brick dust and stone. None of it was that unsettling shade of gray that she’d seen far too much of in recent weeks.

It all started so suddenly. For millennia the caverns of Ebott had been utterly unchanging, the mountain almost as untouched by time as Toriel herself was. The magma chamber had been completely stable as long as she’d known about it, and even erosion seemed to be no danger. Waterfall, Hotland, Snowdin, Mudfield, and the Tunnels--buildings came and went but the caves stayed the same. Once every few centuries a star would fall from the ceiling, and it would be a story passed down for generations for how noteworthy it was.

Now? Now something collapsed every day, it seemed like. It had been two months since that damnable metal structure had fallen--honestly, what were the humans even trying to do?--and now earthquakes?

Toriel feared that the volcano might be finally waking up, but part of her doubted it. Fire was her element. She had spent a considerable chunk of her life dedicated to mastering the flame, and she liked to think that would afford her some warning if an eruption were going to happen. Right? If she could sense when her muffins were burning from across the house, surely an event as big as that wouldn’t be able to sneak up on her…

Toriel shook her head, frustrated. There wasn’t anything she could do about it regardless, so best to focus on what she can do: helping the citizens.

Another chunk of wall was lifted with some effort, and a herd of Moldsmals oozed out from the cracks she created, wobbling their thanks. She waved them off and kept going.

This thankfully hadn’t been the worst incident. No deaths so far, for one, and only two buildings wrecked. A shame they were both inhabited. Maybe this would convince the rest of the holdouts to move to the Hallway. There was still room, if  not there than in the surrounding areas. It wasn’t a comfortable state of affairs, but it was preferable to being under the next wall to fall over.

And what a terrible time for it all. Why did the human have to fall now, of all times?

The last of the slimes made it out, and Toriel set the wall down. With a stretch and a series of pops from her back, she sat down on the nearest piece of rubble. She was really wishing she’d thought to pack some pants when this whole thing started. All the heavy lifting was hard enough on her old bones without factoring in the robes getting in the way. There just hadn’t been time to go back and get some.

Toriel sighed heavily. “When I left the castle, I rather expected my days as a queen would be over.” She looked back towards the direction of the refugee camp. “Well,” she said, cheering up slightly, “I suppose I’m in this for the long hall.” She laughed to herself, slapping her knee. “Ooh, that was a good one.”

“Ugh…” Someone scoffed, disgusted, and Toriel jumped. She’d thought she was alone.

“Hello?” she called.

A yellow flower sprouted out of the ground in front of her, causing her to startle once more. It smiled cheerfully at her, and she blinked, thinking. She couldn’t recall ever seeing a monster of this variety before.

“Howd--Hiya!” It said happily. It bounced in place, face utterly vacant of thought as it swayed side to side. “I was looking for you!”

“Of course, dear,” she replied, mostly out of habit. “What did you need?”

“Huh?”

“You must have been looking for me for a reason, yes?” Toriel asked, patiently.

“Oh, yeah!”

“...”

The flower continued bouncing, and Toriel groaned internally. Normally she didn’t mind the more oddball monsters of the Underground, but she was having a trying week. Still, she mustered up the energy needed to say, “And for what reason did you come to find me, little one?”

The flower blinked, remembering something. “Oh! Oh yeah! The human wandered into the city!”

Toriel didn’t remember standing up, but before she knew it she had crossed the street in three long strides. “What?! But it’s dangerous here! More so than normally! Why would they--no, that can wait. Where are they?” She turned to place the flower again, but, having said its piece, it had gone, a crack in the road the only sign it had ever been there. Toriel huffed and made her way back to the entry hall. As unfortunate as it was, the metal tunnel provided a much faster way of getting around, and it was most likely where the child had gone.

“There had better be a good explanation for that child being allowed to wander away from the camp,” she grumbled.

------------------------------

Tiny Street

The alley the miniature housing division was built in turned out to be a dead end; a brick wall that had once included an arched gate to the next road was now boarded up. The wall was crumbling, and the middle part of the arch had collapsed. The very end of the line of houses was, naturally, the smallest one yet, and by quite a margin at that. In order to fit between its neighbor and the wall, it had been built at half the scale. It also had three stories, making it tall and thin. The door had broken off out of its frame at some point, probably since wood that thin wasn’t terribly sturdy.

Even including the peaked roof and attic space, Frisk had to look down to see it, and crouch to see into the third-floor window.

Frisk backed up and put a hand to their chin in thought. They didn’t know much about Whimsuns, but they knew that they were small and nervous. The mother, Mrs…. Flutter? Whatever her name was, she had been small enough that she only came up to Frisk’s knee--they estimated, they were never close enough to know for sure--so Jonesy was definitely smaller than that.

Wow, get a load of Sherlock over here…

Frisk huffed, feeling suddenly annoyed. Jonesy wouldn’t have gone far, would he? They didn’t know anything about him. They might be back in the Ruins for all they knew, not in the city at all…

They shook their head. They’d go look for help in a sec, but first they had an idea.

If Jonesy was in the city, he probably didn’t go far from the tunnel; Frisk liked to wander off a lot too, but they knew to never go further than they could walk back on their own. Usually. Sometimes. Anyway, if he had been nearby when the quake happened, he might have freaked out and made for one of these little houses for safety. But if he was really small like Frisk thought, then the bigger ones might have felt too scary, or maybe even still too big to get the doors open--

They blinked. Actually, were any of them locked? A couple of the ones they’d inspected had been hard to open but Frisk had thought that was just because they hadn’t been touched in a while. Maybe tiny locks weren’t strong enough to stop big kids.

Pfft.

--And this house here at the end was tiny, cozy, and had the security of being right next to a sturdy wall that had already weathered the passage of time and any previous quakes there might have been.

Frisk got down on their hands and knees, trying to peek through the windows, but it was too dark inside. They reached out to move the door aside, then thought better of it and lightly tapped a finger against the wall.

Frisk strained their ears; the sound was so faint they weren’t sure they’d actually heard it, but they could almost believe they’d heard a tiny whimper.

“J-Jonesy?” they whispered. “Are you th… there? Your mom is worried.”

Their voice was still frustratingly quiet, and for a moment they worried it was too inaudible. But after a moment…

Charisma Check: 5. Passed.

Through the window, Frisk could just barely make out a tiny sofa’s back facing them. A little face with faintly glowing eyes peeked over the back of the couch to see them. The eyes widened when they saw them, but after some hesitation the young Whimsun fluttered up into full view. It was hard to tell at that size, but Frisk thought it looked like he’d been crying.

“...” He said something, but Frisk couldn’t hear it.

“Are you J-Jonesy?”

He nodded.

“I can help you back to your mom. If you’ll come with me?”

He stared at them, fearful, but then made his way to the doorway. Jonesy shoved the broken door aside and floated out towards them. Frisk smiled, sitting up from their prone position and holding out their hand. Jonesy settled down on it.

They stood, trying not to unbalance their passenger, and once they were up they transferred him to their shoulder. “My name’s Frisk.”

He was so light they could barely notice his weight on their shoulder, but they could still feel him shifting. A soft voice right next to their ear said, “thank you…”

Nodding, Frisk turned to make their way back to the tunnel.

----------

Before, they’d had to be careful to avoid the torn metal. Now they found trying to get back up without getting cut to be a challenge.

Maybe if I… Frisk, on their tiptoes, grabbed at the doorway, but the wall was too thick for their hands to get a good enough grip on to support their weight. “Hm.”

“Hiya!”

Frisk jumped, and a tiny shriek sounded in their ear. “Flowey?”

“Hey, you said my name!” the flower said. “Progress! And you found our friend! Cool!”

He stretched, the ground shifting underneath him as he rose to get in Jonesy’s face. The little fairy whined, shying away from him. Frisk put a hand over Flowey’s face and pushed him back down. “W-W-Where were--”

He turned away from them, bouncing cheerily in place, and Frisk frowned. Why was he acting like that?

Pondering that would have to wait, due to what happened next.

“My child, what were you thinking?” Toriel arrived, robe billowing from the speed of her approach, and before Frisk could react she had scooped them up and began inspecting them for injury. “Home is dangerous! Half of these structures were falling apart even before the recent instability, and you were out here alone with nothing but a dim flower as your guide!--” Frisk saw Flowey’s cheery smile flicker, but Toriel didn’t notice. “--Are you injured? All these sharp edges and falling rocks, it would be far too easy to get hurt. I know children want to explore, but you need to know where the boundaries are, who--”

Jonesy burst into tears, and Toriel froze at the sound.

Her eyes refocused, zeroing in on the little fairy. Expression softening, she gently changed her hold on them into something more like a cradle, freeing her other arm to hold out for the Whimsun. “I am terribly, dear one, I did not mean to frighten you. Were you exploring as well?” She noticed Frisk typing on their wrist. “My child, what are you--?”

They held the Pip-boy out, and after a second Toriel realized there were words on the screen.

“Jonesy was lost and his mom was worried, so I went to find him,” Frisk wrote.

Toriel blinked slowly, and then all remaining tension fled her face. “Oh, child.” She shook her head in wonder. “That was very brave of you, but I wish you had taken an adult with you. The flower does not count,” she said when Frisk opened their mouth. She frowned and looked around. “He seems to have vanished again. Good grief.”

She sat Frisk and Jonesy down inside the tunnel mouth, then stepped inside herself. “Well, now that both our disasters have been resolved, let us return to the others, hm?” She held out her hand, and Frisk took it, allowing her to lead them. “And if you wish to be helpful, I am sure we can find you something to do.”

The tunnel was still long and dark and creepy, Frisk thought, but it wasn’t nearly as bad with company.

--------------------------------

Sidequest: Whim’s Son

Complete! +100 Exp

…

…

Not ExP though, that’s different. Should probably think of a different name.

Hm. What do you think?

✋︎☠︎☝︎☜︎☠︎🕆︎✋︎❄︎✡︎📬︎ ☟︎☜︎☹︎🏱︎☜︎☼︎ 🏱︎⚐︎✋︎☠︎❄︎💧︎📬︎ ✌︎☟︎📪︎ 🏱︎☜︎☼︎☟︎✌︎🏱︎💧︎ 🏱︎✌︎👍︎✋︎☞︎✋︎💧︎❄︎ 🏱︎⚐︎✋︎☠︎❄︎💧︎✍︎

I can work with that. Ahem.

Sidequest: Whim’s Son

Complete! +100 Pacifist Points (PP)

--------------------------------