UnderEdge : An Undertale AU

Chapter 2 : The puzzles

I entered some big room with flowers and double stairs that had probably looked good before. But now, the stone walls were all cracked, some of the stairs were broken, and even though the flowers in the center weren't all totally dead, they were in an awful state, which was still impressive since this room had probably existed for a few centuries. But the most interesting object was in front of me. It looked like a big yellow star. When I approached it, all my wounds suddenly hurt a lot less, and I felt filled with hope. Even though I had faced a literal demon, this was a very exciting adventure, more impressive than anything I had ever done before. I closed my eyes, and for a moment, it felt like I had reached a turning point.

Eager to progress, I crossed the doorway, and arrived in a smaller room. This one contained 6 switches on the floor, and a lever on a wall, next to a closed door. A puzzle. It was exactly like those you'd see in an adventure book, or a movie. In fact, all of this would make a good story : a young woman, lost in some temple filled with deadly...

...

Could this puzzle be deadly ?  

What if, at the first switch I walked on, giant axes would come out of the ceiling to cut me in half, or maybe it would be arrows hidden in the walls, or even an hidden giant bear trap hidden in the grou-

Only then did I notice the stone plate right next to the door. 

"Oh. Of course."

As any true puzzle, it would have a text with a deep, secret, hidden meaning that would allow me to find its. But my hope fell apart when I saw that not only was the text so erased it was almost unreadable, it also had large scratches on it. Whatever did that had claws powerful enough to break stone. Suddenly, a light sound resonated behind me. I turned back and saw that there was small red leaves on some of the switches. I was sure they weren't there before. Normally, I wouldn't have trust this, but since I had been saved earlier, I came to this conclusion : someone, or something was observing me, and helping me without wanting to be seen. I carefully approached one of the marked switches, and carefully I stepped on it.

*click*

Nothing happened. Relieved, I pushed the two others, and then tried to pull the lever. The door immediately opened. I was so happy to know I had at least one ally down here. I continued going through puzzles with this pattern. The next one was easy. Although there were no hints, some arrows pointing to two of the three available levers were still visible, and once I activated them, the spikes blocking the exit retracted in the ground. Then, I passed in front of an unsettling half-ripped off dummy while avoiding to look at it.

When I arrived in another room, I saw something standing in a corner of it. It was something that looked like a big frog with spikes on the back and claws. We looked at each other, then it suddenly started hissing, opened a mouth filled with teeth and spat out a big ball of stinky brown liquid that I avoided. Panicking, I tried hitting it with the branch I was holding, but hitting it to the head seemed to not perturb it at all. He then jumped on me and, being much heavier than I expected, made me fall on the ground. That's when I noticed a weird, red and angry-looking face on its belly. In a last attempt, I grabbed it, and sent the monster flying on a wall. It then fled and left me panting and shocked, but after some time, I got back up and continued to walk. 

Once again, I made my way through multiple puzzles. I had to trust a path of leaves to walk through a giant maze of spikes, then I later found a small room with an empty bowl in it and the note "Please take one". It probably used to contain some food. The corridors were looking old, but there were different footprints and signs of recent life here and there. The frog from earlier had probably warned everyone about my presence. I then fell through a trapped ground, and landed on some kind of jelly that tried to attack me, but thankfully I managed to crawl back up. What I had to do after this was following another trail of leaves through a fractured ground to pass safely. Later, I strongly argued with a stubborn rock that refused to go on the needed switch, but since it couldn't do much, I simply lifted it up to where I wanted it to be and quickly crossed the opened path before he slid away from the switch.

I arrived in a tight pathway with another star. After touching it, I heard some noise coming from ahead and, afraid, I slid into a small crack in the wall. The monsters, something that looked like a  humanoid beetle, a jumping mix of an eggplant and a carrot and a small cyclops that looked like one of the main characters from that movie I loved when I was a kid, walked past me without noticing a thing. I then proceeded to follow the empty space behind the crack, and I arrived in front of a wall with a hole just big enough to put my eye against it. When I looked through it, I saw a crowd of monsters. They were all listening to one in the middle that I wasn't able to see, although it wasn't hard to hear it, since it screamed like if it was being amputated.

"YOU IDIOTS ! NONE OF YOU WORTHLESS GOOD FOR NOTHING BAGS OF TRASH HAD THE IDEA TO CHECK THE ENTRANCE TO SEE IF A HUMAN HAD ENTERED ! HOW HAVE THEY EVEN PASSED THE MID ROAD PUZZLE ? OR THE FUCKIN' BLUEPRINT ONE ? I TOLD YOU TO MAKE THEM HARDER ! LOOK AT YOU, YOU LITTLE SHAKING IDIOTIC BABIES ! THANKFULLY FOR YOU, I WAS SMART ENOUGH TO CONCEIVE AN EMERGENCY PLAN IN CASE ONE MORE OF THEM WOULD COME HERE ! NOW LISTEN CAREFULLY..."

The monsters got closer from the center, and I was only able to hear some vague whispering. I tried to put my ear on the hole, and pushed more against the frail wall, which broke under the weight. I collapsed on the ground (again) in front of the dozens of monsters present. When I looked up, I only saw something white floating in front of me, then an orange hand reached out to me and...

Napstablook attacks !