They began walking through the Ruins, Bryson was visibly struggling to avoid sneezing from all the dust. Oddly enough, they didn’t encounter a single monster. Jake supposed it made sense considering how decrepit this place was. Maybe monsters died out? Or maybe they left this place. Eventually, they ran into a tall goat-lady. 

“Oh! Hello, children. I am Toriel, caretaker of the Ruins. I check if humans fall down every day. It’s quite incredible that so many of you have fallen down so recently. Though…” she looked at Justin, “You look rather familiar… are you by any chance related to a young boy who fell down here five years ago?” 

Justin perked up, no longer on guard. “Yeah? Where is he? We came here to find him!” he asked. 

Toriel looked rather sad. “I’m afraid I do not know. He fell into a hole, and when I came back with rope, he was gone. What is your relationship with him exactly?” 

“Oh,” Justin looked shocked. “That must’ve been my uncle Clover! Do you know where he is?” 

Toriel looked shocked. “Oh, my… I am afraid I do not. He fell down a hole on his first day here. I went to find some rope to pull him out, but when I returned he was gone. Maybe he wandered off, maybe the fall killed him. I do not know.” 

“Oh… sorry, Justin,” said bryson. “So, Ms. Toriel, how do we get out of here, because we need to tell Justin's mom and give her closure. I have boxing classes in a couple days, and Izzy’s brother has a concert in a week and we aren’t missing it.” 

“Oh, I am sorry children, but there is no way out of the underground. We are all trapped in here by a magic barrier that can only be crossed by a human and monster soul combined together. The only way to break it is with the power of seven human souls.” 

“That seems stupid. What if a human got trapped on the other side of the barrier? What would the humans do then?” Izzy, once again said a fairly obvious fact. 

Toriel smirked. “I do not believe they cared. In their eyes, they simply wanted to get rid of us. They most likely would not care what happened in the future.” 

“Yeah, that sounds like mages.” Jake said. “Most of them seem to have god complexes, and don’t have any care for the consequences of their actions. I apologize on my people's behalf, even I find them to be jerks.” 

“You are a mage?” asked Toriel. She seemed kinda nervous, which was reasonable given their history with monsters. I decided to respond with: 

“Well, I was born into a family of soul tappers. Didn’t really have a choice in the matter. If I did, I wouldn't be one. Trust me.” I said, trying to diffuse the situation. “Anyways, is there anything else we should know?” 

Toriel looked relieved. “Very well then. There are a few more things. One, there is another human who fell here a few hours ago. They are asleep in my home right now. There is also the fact that I should probably explain how things work down here. I suppose you could call it… a tu-TORIEL!” That joke got a laugh out of Jake and Bryson, and a boo from Justin. They walked through the Ruins until they arrived in front of a destroyed dummy. “Oh, I forgot that they… did that.” 

“Forgot that who did what?” asked a very confused Bryson, “what does that have to do with the destroyed dummy?” 

Toriel inhaled for a second. “The other human. I used this dummy to teach them how to FIGHT with MERCY. However, rather than talking to the dummy like I asked them to, they simply attacked it.” As they kept walking, Toriel looked around confused and slightly scared. “There was not this much dust when I came through here…” 

“What’s it matter?” asked Izzy. “It's just some dust. Just clean it up if it's a big deal.” Toriel looked terrified.

“Because, when a monster dies, they turn to dust.” Everyone was visibly caught off guard by that one. 

“Wait, so… this means that..” said Jake, slightly scared. “Something has been killing monsters, and a lot by the looks of things.” 

“Yes. I suppose so.” said Toriel. “Very well then. I shall explain how FIGHT’s work in the underground so you may defend yourselves." With that, the world flickered from normal to monochrome until it settled on the latter. They couldn’t move as four orange buttons appeared before each of them. “Now, I will be your opponent for this. Each of you, choose what you will do.” Jake selected ACT->Check

*Toriel: 

Guardian of the ruins. 

“Good work. Now, Justin, was it? Try ACTing in another way” said Toriel. 

Justin: Act->Talk

*Justin tried to start a conversation, but couldn’t think of anything. 

“Very well then. Let us keep going shall we? Now, one of you try and attack me.” said Toriel. 

“OH! Good time to try your soul weapons!” followed up Jack as he explained how it worked. 

Bryson: FIGHT

Suddenly, Bryson could move again as he summoned his weapons: a pair of bright orange gauntlets. He ran up to Toriel and gave her a light punch. “Oh!” said Toriel, “impressive. Now it is your turn, Izzy.” 

Izzy: FIGHT

The same thing happened to Izzy as she summoned her weapon, a sapphire blue guitar. “Woah!” said Izzy, who decided to strum the guitar. This resulted in a music note floating somewhat slowly from the guitar. “What the..” she strummed it again and the note flew extremely fast at Toriel. “AWESOME!” 

“Not bad children. Now it is my turn to attack.” said Toriel. Suddenly, the four were surrounded by a box and they could move as a heart appeared on each of them, all different colors. “Those hearts are your souls. Only if they are hit in a FIGHT, will you take damage. Understand? Now, I will attack you. Do your best to dodge.” Toriel launched a handful of fireballs at the four of them. They all dodged and weaved. Granted, Justin got hit, but the attack only did 1 damage out of 20 HP so it was fine. Suddenly, it was Jake's turn again. “Good work child. Now, choose MERCY.” 

Jake: MERCY->Spare->Toriel 

The world returned to normal. “Good work children. Now, here is a map to my home. I will wait there to protect the other child. You all should be able to defend yourselves.” With that, she handed them a map and ran off. As Jake and his friends sat confused by her reasoning for a moment before realization hit them that she left. 

“What the WHAT!?” said Izzy. “Did she really just leave us? Also how is she so fast?!” Everyone else was asking the same question. Though only Bryson was asking the question of her speed. 

“Well… let's move it,” said jake. They kept walking, strangely they didn’t encounter a single monster. Luckily this included whatever killed all the others. But still… It was creepy. Some THING was able to wipe out this entire place. Jake thought he saw a weird golden light for a second, but it disappeared in a blink of an eye. “What in the…” 

“You good bro?” said Bryson, concerned. “Did you see something?” 

“No… I didn't. Let's… let’s keep moving.” They all kept walking. And walking. And walking. Jake could swear sometimes they went through the same room multiple times. And not just in the room with the rotation puzzle. Eventually, Justin decided to ask the obvious question. 

“Hey, so… I get that we have magic now, and that's cool and all. But what’re we gonna do when we find whoever's been killin’ all these monsters. I mean, other than Bryson and MAYBE Jake, we don’t have any real combat experience.” good to see Justin's fake accent was finally back. He was probably so stressed from this he forgot to use it earlier. 

Jake rolled his eyes to this. “Summon your weapon for me.” Justin did. It was a golden six-shooter. “See. you have some experience with your weapon type. Izzy may struggle, but that's normal for casting based people starting out. By the way, Izzy, from what I know, don’t try to rapid-fire. It screws up your accuracy.” 

Isabelle nodded. “Noted. Anything else we should know?” asked a curious izzy. 

“Well…” started Jake, “Bryson, you should be able to move WAY faster with your gauntlets, but you do have a cooldown for it. And Justin, you should be able to see a number called “LV”. It stands for Level of ViolencE. It basically tells you someone's ability to hurt others. The higher it is for your target the more damage you’ll do.” 

Justin smiled at this. “SWEET. It’s like Ghostrider.” a pretty fair comparison honestly. They’d keep talking, but they arrived at their destination, Toriel’s house.