PotatoxSeriousSans

[SeriousSans]

"I do like to draw sometimes..." Alia replied with a smile. She was happy to hear the skeleton brothers liked her drawing, and made an effort to feel more optimistic as she followed Papyrus and Sans to the next puzzle. She was sure the conversation the two had just had would be enough for Papyrus to choose a less scary puzzle this time. It certainly seemed like Papyrus was trying to be more encouraging already, so it seemed that he had taken whatever Sans had said to him to heart.

She was very glad Toriel had suggested Sans as a guide; after all, he wasn't just showing her around the Underground, he was genuinely looking out for her as well. She would have to thank her when she visited later today or the next day. Probably later today, though, since she didn't want to impose on anyone, even if she figured Sans and Papyrus probably wouldn't mind her staying over.

Alia was glad to see Papyrus seemed so happy as he began explaining the puzzle. And it seemed this puzzle was indeed much better suited for her. It sounded fun, and this time there was no shocking addition to make her nervous, so Alia felt excited to try it. "Okay!" Smiling, she headed to the entrance, walking inside and looking around at the different paths.

As always, Chara floated beside her, and they looked around as well. Alia headed over to one of the first doors, carefully trying to open it. It opened, and she smiled. "Good job," Chara said with a smile. Alia grinned back at them, then looked around again. This next section seemed more complicated, as it branched off in various directions. Alia tried the nearest door; it was locked. So she set off down one of the other paths. Reaching a fork in the path, she glanced at Chara.

"Hmm... Maybe this way?" Chara suggested, floating down the right path slightly. Alia followed them, trying the door at the end. It was unlocked.

Alia grinned. "Thank you!" she whispered, continuing forward. The two continued through the maze, with Alia trying various doors, sometimes locked and sometimes unlocked, and letting Chara choose every time they reached a fork in the path. Somehow, Chara always ended up picking the path with the unlocked door. Even when they just picked randomly without putting any thought into it. The two were giggling more with each time this happened.

Eventually, they reached an exit door. Alia glanced over at Chara, wondering if they got it right on the first try. Chara looked curious and excited. "Try it!"

So Alia tried opening the door...

...And cheered as it opened.

"Yay!" Alia said happily, grinning at the skeleton brothers.

"Great job!" Chara said, looking very happy to see Alia had enjoyed the puzzle. Alia smiled gratefully at them.

.........

Sans was glad to see the puzzle Papyrus had chosen this time was not scary at all, and that Alia seemed to be excited to try it. This, he was sure, would go much smoother. Smiling encouragingly as Alia headed over to the maze and started trying to solve it, he then turned to Papyrus. "great choice, bro! i can tell she likes this one."

(If you want them to have a conversation while Alia and Chara are in the maze, they can, otherwise we can just continue)

[PossessedPotato]

Unfortunately, besides this current puzzle he had created only a few days ago through sheer hard work, Papyrus didn’t have too many puzzles that didn’t have a added element of some kind of danger as he hadn’t realized that...well, another human had been bound to fall down here so soon after Mira had. The skeleton was used to creating puzzles that bordered on dangerous but was determined to make less pain inducing ones in the future for Alias sake!

Watching intently as he really did want to see Alia manage to find the unlocked door in his winding maze and find the exit in turn, Papyrus was taking Sans advice to heart and was trying to take a more positive spin on how he looked at these former ‘traps’, it still feeling a bit ‘odd’ to him that he could just use puzzles for fun and not as a means to hinder or capture anybody.

“She is a smart cookie this one. I know she will be able to do it~”, Waiting at the end of the maze, still fully unaware that Alia in fact had a ghostly friend that was leading her along in figuring out his wonderful puzzle, Papyrus beamed as Sans said he had made a great choice in choosing this puzzle for Alia, “You were right that the less dangerous ones were the best choice~! She truly seems happy to not have to worry about any japes or trickery this time!”.

The sound of the last wooden door creaking open alerting the tall skeleton to Alia truly solving the puzzle on her own, Papyrus had to hold himself back from happily hugging Alia as he had done before seeing as he remembered how much she disliked being handled. What was the next best option to congratulate the young child on a victory well earned than?

“I’m very proud of you, Alia! I bet no one else could have ever solved it that quickly~!”, Grinning happily as he held out a boney hand to Alia in congrats, Papyrus was tempted to alter some things in the future to make his door puzzle more difficult if a twelve year old human could find the unlocked door as quickly as Alia had, “I bet your going to keep me on my toes from now on~ Of course, The Great Papyrus isn’t going to be bested this easily!”.

[SeriousSans]

Sans nodded in agreement as Papyrus spoke, smiling since it was clear that Papyrus was treating the puzzle more as just a way to have fun now. "yep." Sans was relieved that Papyrus had made some harmless puzzles since they were no longer trying to capture humans. Hopefully he would continue to do so now. After all, he didn't want Mira or Alia to be uncomfortable or scared because of any dangerous puzzles. Maybe he should ask Papyrus to remove any remaining dangerous elements to any puzzles that might still have them, just in case either of the two ended up going off exploring at some point and came across them... Truthfully, Sans had thought Papyrus already had removed them, but after the last puzzle, he now wasn't so sure.

Seeing Alia exit the maze, Sans grinned. "nice work, kid!" It was good to see she seemed very happy now, a strong contrast from how she looked after the previous puzzle. This one had definitely been a good choice.

.........

Alia's smile grew as the skeleton brothers congratulated her on solving the puzzle, though she seemed confused at first when Papyrus held out his hand. She wasn't entirely sure what the gesture meant... Though she soon recalled human children on the surface giving each other 'high fives' sometimes, and figured that was probably the most likely explanation. She reached out and lightly high fived Papyrus, smiling. She grinned at Chara slightly when Papyrus claimed he didn't think anyone else could have solved it so quickly. Obviously, Chara could have, somehow, with their inexplicable natural guessing ability when it came to mazes. Though unfortunately, she couldn't point that out yet...

She wouldn't give up! There had to be something she could do, right? So that Chara could finally talk with the monsters again.

She returned her focus to Papyrus as he spoke up again, feeling a bit confused about how Papyrus apparently thought he was being bested. She thought the goal was for her to solve the puzzles. She didn't want him to feel defeated or anything! Though he was grinning, so maybe he wasn't actually upset about it? It was all rather confusing, but since he seemed happy enough, she decided not to worry about it for now.

"Thank you both! That was a very fun puzzle, Papyrus," Alia said cheerfully. She hoped that the rest of the puzzles he decided to show her would be just as harmless and fun. Though, for now, she recalled her earlier idea of looking for a library to try to figure out what to do to help Chara... "Hey, just out of curiosity, is there a library around here?"

"oh, yeah, there's one in snowdin town," Sans replied.

Alia smiled. "Great! Can you show me where it is sometime?"

"sure, kid," Sans said, looking slightly curious as to why she wanted to visit a library so much, but not asking.

"Thanks!" Alia smiled. Chara looked at her curiously as well, but also said nothing, probably because she couldn't have answered them right now anyway.

[PossessedPotato]

Papyrus beaming as Alia actually accepted his high five despite seeming to be a bit confused on what it met, it appeared that both him and the human were a bit awkward in certain areas but it was nothing that a bit of friendship and understanding couldn’t solve. With how Sans had mentioned that it seemed Alia had had a rough life on the surface Papyrus was doing his best not to question the little oddities here and there he saw in her, him instead being quite curious on her desire to go to the library.

“Human! I must inform you that I will have to recalibrate my puzzles to be better suited for one as small as you. I do not wish to frighten you with traps or trickery so it may take some time, but until then how about you follow me and my brother back to town?”.

Papyrus being a bit internally disappointed that he couldn’t show off more puzzles to Alia just yet, he knew that it just met eventually that he and the child could maybe work on them together, a humans experience and a monsters touch bound to make the best puzzles the Underground had ever seen!

All in all, Papyrus was most happy that Sans seemed to be getting his mind off of Mira for a while, him hating to see his sibling stewing in his own guilt over something that he surely couldn’t have prevented. He understood that Sans and Mira were becoming quite close to each other and hated the idea of either of them worrying about each other, him understanding how Souls could connected and pain could be shared through bonds.

After all, Papyrus was no dummy and was quite intelligent despite his strange mannerisms. He excelled in areas that Sans did not, just as Sans covered his weak points, the brothers truly being two sides of the same coin.

“Sans! I can show Alia here to town if you wish to follow along! I understand you might have other things to do though so I will not force you!”, Papyrus turning to his brother as he understood if Sans may have wanted to check on Mira or even nap, today wasn’t a day Pap was going to bug his bro about much anything he usually did.

[SeriousSans]

Alia was glad to see Papyrus seemed happy when she accepted his high five, and was quite relieved she'd managed to figure it out without too much difficulty. She wouldn't have wanted to potentially upset Papyrus by having to ask why he'd been holding out his hand. She smiled and nodded when Papyrus explained he needed to recalibrate the puzzles so they wouldn't scare her. It was good to know he was taking Sans' words seriously and was trying to avoid scaring her again. Besides, while the last puzzle had been fun, she really wanted to go to the library sooner rather than later so she could start looking for information for her quest to reunite Chara with the monsters.

"Sure!" Alia agreed when Papyrus offered for him and Sans to show her to the town. She was quite excited to see what a monster town was like; would it be kind of like a human town? Or completely different? Though she was also a bit nervous about going somewhere where there would be a lot of new monsters at once. Alia was very shy, not used to anyone talking to her. She would feel much better if she only met one or two new people at a time, but would that be possible in a town? She certainly hoped so. If nothing else, she figured Sans would step in if things got crowded.

She was so glad he was one of her guides. Chara was amazing, and definitely her favorite, but though it was clear they would if they could, they couldn't stop a crowd from surrounding her. No one would be able to hear them if they tried. Sans seemed almost as protective, though, and he actually could stop people from surrounding her.

........

Sans smiled as he saw Alia seemed excited to visit the town- presumably because of the library especially- and was glad that he hadn't even had to ask Papyrus to remove the dangerous parts of the other puzzles. It was nice to see Papyrus taking what he said so seriously. Sans knew that prior to Mira's arrival, he hadn't really seemed to be very serious, and always acted lazy. It made him happy that Papyrus actually seemed to have noticed the change and wasn't treating him as much like the lazybones he usually did.

When Papyrus offered to show Alia around the town, Sans turned to Alia said, "how about i walk with you two to the library? i have somewhere to go while you're there, but if you don't mind spending awhile reading..."

Alia nodded, smiling. "Of course!" She seemed relieved he would be tagging along as far as the library, and Sans figured she was likely worried about being crowded by monsters while she was in the town. Sans was sure Papyrus would try to help if they did, but Sans could just teleport her out if things got to be too much. Besides, he was her guide, he couldn't just abandon her. But if she wanted to read a lot, that would probably be a good time to check on Mira.

Fortunately, it seemed like Alia did indeed plan on reading a bunch of books, which he supposed wasn't surprising at all. After all, ending up in a new, unknown place... Of course she'd want to learn about it. Sans just hoped Papyrus had left a few books on monsters for her to look through, he'd definitely brought a lot to the lab for Mira. Well, if Mira had finished reading a few by the time he went to check on her, he could always bring them back for Alia to read afterwards.

[PossessedPotato]

Maybe it was the fact that ever since Mira had fallen down, her being a potential key to getting monsters out of the Underground, they had caused Papyrus to be a little more careful on not treating Sans like he was some lazy monster who barely tried at anything, the tall skeleton up until a point before the human had fallen almost seeming to take out his own frustrations on his brother seeing as Sans never really bothered to get upset back at him.

It was mostly a mixture of pent up annoyance at the surface world being so close and yet so far and his naturally high strung energy that had caused Papyrus to be a bit childish as always before things had taken a change down here for the better. There was just something about seeing his usually lazy bro actually taking interest in things he had never before ever since the strange human had fallen that seemed to make Pap a bit softer hearted towards Sans....

And now there was Alia, the child seeming to have forged a connection with his bro nearly as quickly as he had with Mira. To Papyrus, Sans seemed like a natural human charmer, him only being able to wish he himself knew how to get along with humans seemingly right off the bat.

“Ah! Good idea, Sans!~ I’m sure young Alia here will be happy to have not one but two great monsters looking after her!”, His eye lights bright and happy as ever as he for once didn’t simply call himself great but included Sans as well, the skeleton avoided mentioning why he assumed Sans wanted to tag along, him having enough sense to know that Alia was clearly a shy human child who didn’t want the attention of many of Snowdins curious residents.

Beginning to lead the pair...er, technically trio off into the direction of the sleepy village, Papyrus hadn’t feel this elated in quite a while nor had he felt this much hope well...ever, really. First there had been Mira and now there was Alia, the potential for their uniqueness in being human making him sure that the more scientifically minded Sans and Alphys would think of something after all this time to finally allow everyone to go free.

[SeriousSans]

Sans was somewhat surprised when Papyrus included him in his comment about 'great monsters,' the description typically reserved for Papyrus alone. Papyrus seemed quite happy as he did so as well, and Sans wondered if he was acting this way because Sans was finally not acting lazy. Sans did feel kind of bad for being so lazy before, everything had just felt so... Hopeless. They were caught in an endless loop of resets, where everything could disappear in the blink of an eye. There wasn't much reason to put in a lot of effort if it was all going to be for nothing anyway.

But now... Even though Flowey was still around, Sans didn't feel so hopeless. Especially since the murderous flower seemed to be willing to listen to Alia for some reason. Maybe she'd even be able to convince him to stop resetting for good. Even if not, Sans had decided he was going to put in effort again, to protect these two humans, and he was going to take that job seriously.

Sans continued walking towards Snowdin Town, following a bit behind Papyrus, with Alia sticking close behind him. Fortunately, there didn't seem to be too many monsters wandering around at the moment, so they were able to reach the library without any crowds bothering them. As they entered the library, Sans turned to Alia. "you gonna be alright here for a couple hours, kid?"

Alia nodded, smiling. "Yeah."

Sans smiled back, "okay, i'll be back later, then. have fun reading."

"See you later!" Alia waved, heading over to the nearest bookshelf and starting to look at the various titles of the books.

Sans headed back out of the library, then took a shortcut to Alphys' lab, knocking on the door. Hopefully Mira was feeling better now...

............

Alia followed the skeleton brothers to the library happily, eager to find a way to help Chara. It would be nice to learn some more about the Underground as well, since she'd likely be here for a very long time. She was amazed by the town, looking around in awe as she continued following. She was glad they didn't end up surrounded by monsters, as she'd somewhat worried might happen.

At the library, she began eagerly searching for books that might help her figure out what to do almost immediately, pausing only to reassure Sans she would be fine. Chara floated along beside her, seeming rather curious about what exactly she was looking for as she scanned over the titles of the books on the shelves.

[PossessedPotato]

Back in the lab, Mira was doing about as good as she was earlier ever since she had been given medication to help her with the aches and pains that having a quarter of your Soul removed entailed, her flipping through the books that she had been given and learning a lot more than she ever thought she would know about monsters and how they lived.

Once there had been a time when Mira was utterly terrified to even think of letting a monster near her, but ever since she had fallen down here and met the kindly Sans...well, her outlook on things had changed quite a bit. She had been quite rude to the skeleton when they first met with pulling a knife on him and such, but Mira had quickly learned that Sans met no harm, her friendship with the monster growing by the days.

Alphys looking after Mira and making sure than the girl didn’t move off the table unless absolutely needed, it was a dangerous game to make sure that the girl didn’t expand any more energy than was needed. It was easy, too easy, to overload a Soul when it was as out of proportion as hers, the thought of Sans having to come back to a even more injured human not being something the anxious scientist wished to deal with or could handle.

Even so though, the lizard scientist was reluctant to explain to Sans that there was no real way she could actually heal Mira to her previous stats, Soul power, especially humans, being a unstable element that only a expert healer could ever hope to fix. Healers bring quite rare as was, their hopes for finding anyone experienced with humans down here was...unfortunately, zero to one.

The sound of a knock on the door alerting Alphys who had been distracted by a manga she was ‘studying’, her pressing the button on the panel next to the door slid it open with a heavy whoosh, the expected sight of Sans bringing a smile to her face.

“Seems you have been up to a new adventure~”, Laughing a bit as she already knew about Sans little mishap due to the observation cameras she still had hidden in Snowdin forest, the sight of a young human exiting the Ruins hadn’t been lost on Alphys and she motioned for the skeleton to enter the lab, “I only h-have a few cameras up still for observation purposes, but it was kind of fun watching...uh, you guys meet...of course, having two humans down here at once if highly unusual though”.


.....................


Meanwhile, at the library with Papyrus and Alia, there luckily didn’t seem to be much of a problem with the few monsters within who did take notice that a mysterious new human had entered the building, the curious looks from the naturally introverted creatures being more of sheer curiosity than any type of hostility they may have had.

After all, many of the monsters alive had known the human Frisk who had fallen down a few years back as well as the recent one named Mira, so of course they weren’t going to heckle young Alia over being a newbie.

For this, Papyrus was relieved. He really didn’t want Alia to become spooked by the presence of monsters that she wasn’t used to yet, him taking Sans advice from earlier to heart and just letting her be while she got used to what was likely going to be her new home for quite a while now.

Unfortunately, Alia was going to be just as stuck down here as Mira was unless she somehow figured out how Frisk had managed to get back to the surface. Sure, there were plenty of books on monster magic in the library, but there were previous few that likely could tell Alia or Chara about getting past the barrier without several human Souls.

“Human! What are you searching for? Perhaps I can help?”, Papyrus being more than willing to help Alia out as he actually did frequent the library quite often, the skeleton couldn’t and yet could imagine that one as young as Alia would be interested in anything concerning the barrier or how to get home, “There are quite a few books about life down here if you wish to acclimate yourself more~”.

[SeriousSans]

Sans was somewhat surprised to hear Alphys knew about his 'adventure' finding another fallen human, though when he heard about the observation cameras, he supposed he shouldn't be. She was right, of course, that it was quite unusual for another human to have fallen so soon after Mira did. Sans probably wouldn't have believed it himself if he hadn't been there. Of course, he didn't actually know how close together the fallen humans he hadn't known about had fallen, but Alphys seemed to think this was unusual, and he figured she knew better than he did about it.

It would definitely be interesting to have two humans down here at once though. Sans figured the two would get along well, since they were both very friendly once you got to know them. Maybe it would help them both adjust to the Underground a bit better, too.

Nonetheless, he wanted to focus on making sure Mira was feeling better, so he simply chuckled and nodded to Alphys, before turning towards her. "hey, how are you feeling?"

Sans hoped she was feeling better. Staying still for extended periods of time didn't seem to be something Mira liked, so he hoped by now she was almost completely recovered. Sans glanced over at Alphys as well, hoping one or both of them would announce some good news.

Sans figured Alphys would want to hear more about the newest fallen human, but he hoped she'd be willing to wait until he knew how Mira's recovery was going.

...........

Alia was glad that the monsters in the library were leaving her alone for the most part, it seemed they were quite introverted and didn't want to start up any conversations. Alia smiled and waved slightly at them when she caught them looking at her curiously, but didn't start any conversations either, being rather focused on trying to find some books that would allow her to help Chara.

When Papyrus spoke up, offering to help, Alia wasn't quite sure what to say. How could she explain what she was really looking for, when he didn't know Chara was even there? She doubted it would be a good idea to actually attempt to explain everything, besides, Papyrus probably wouldn't know of a book that would help offhand, anyway. Still, Papyrus really wanted to help, and Alia didn't want to disappoint him by insisting on looking on her own.

Fortunately, Papyrus made a suggestion of helping her find books that would help her learn more about the Underground, which was something else she was interested in, so she could agree to that. "That would help a lot, thank you Papyrus!" Alia said cheerfully, glad that she didn't have to disappoint Papyrus by refusing to explain what she was actually looking for.

Still, she continued looking, and selected a few books on magic as well, figuring that might be a good place to start. After all, magic was capable of a lot of cool stuff. If there was anything that could allow Chara to interact with the monsters again, magic would probably have something to do with it. Chara seemed to have noticed the pattern in books Alia was picking, and pointed out a few other books on magic. Alia grinned, feeling excitement at the idea of helping her friend who had already helped her so much.

.........

Chara was somewhat curious why Alia was picking out books on magic. They knew asking would be pointless, though, with Papyrus nearby. Alia would not be able to explain until they were alone, otherwise people would think she was talking to herself. So, they simply helped out like usual, finding a few other books on magic.

Once Alia had found a few more books, she sat down, opening one and starting to read it. Chara floated beside her, reading over her shoulder.

[PossessedPotato]

Mira being quite excited to see that Sans had returned from wherever he had gone off to for a while, the girl had been caught up in reading the books about monsters and magic that had been left for her while she had no choice but to stay in her spot for the most part. Alphys only having to tell her once or twice that she shouldn’t be tempted to go off and explore anymore by herself when they struck up a conversation together after a while, Mira had hesitated telling the scientist anything about the mysterious door she had came across.

Sans hadn’t seemed like he wanted her to say much about it earlier, but maybe it was simply a case of Mira getting the wrong communication from her friend? Either way, the human said very little on the odd, malformed skeleton monster that had been the one to attempt to steal her Soul in the endless void she had been lured towards.

“I’m feeling a lot better~! I-I mean, apart from having to sit down all the time I think Alphys and her medicine really worked!”, Mira beaming happily as Sans greeted her, the sweet natured girl was clearly thinking that the fact that the scientists drug concoction had numbed her pain that she must have been healing rather than the truth that her Soul was only worsening over time the longer it remained shattered, “I bet we can go home in no time and I can make Sans that lasagna he really wanted to try~”.

Unfortunately, if Sans was hoping for good news there was little to be found apart from young Alia being the newest addition to the small human population in the Underground. Alphys clearly trying to force a smile in front of Mira as she turned to Sans, she motioned for the skeleton to meet her in the next room over where Mira wouldn’t be able to hear.

“S-so, I’ve been keeping a eye on Mira’s vitals ever since you left...”, The smile she had in front of Mira’s immediately dissipating as she was trying to give the hard truth to Sans straight, Alphys sighed as she pulled out a clipboard with a graph of the humans Soul strength and the increasing strain the leftover pieces were having trying to support her system, “I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but as the Royal scientist I have to be honest...I’m not really sure how she is going to make it through the next few days, Sans. There’s only so many things I can give her to numb her condition, a-and eventually it’s going to catch up to her”.

...................

It was true that Papyrus had no idea that Chara was floating around Alia ever since she had fallen into the Underground, the oddly mannered skeleton truly thinking that this child was just a ordinary human who happened to have fallen down just as Mira and so many others before them had. He was in the dark as much as Sans and everyone else was, that applying even more so as to why Alia wanted to go to the library.

A child trying to find books on monster magic and the like? If that was what Alias was into she was smart far beyond her years, Papyrus knowing the perfect books on helping Alia to study the Underground if that was what she was into. It really didn’t take the skeleton too long to find three books or so that perfectly encapsulated how monsters had ended up Underground, the culture of various monster species, and a comic that he had just thought looked awesome due to the monsters on the front that he eventually returned with gleefully.

“Think these might help, human?”, Unaware if the ghost child hovering over Alias shoulder as he practically walked right through them, Papyrus eyed the book Alia had found curiously as it seemed to be quite a reader for one so young, “As you know by now, I’m great at many things! And my eagle eye sockets tell me that your interested in monster magic, aren’t you? That is quite a subject for a human to be studying!”.