Chapter 4: Puzzles and Pasta part 1
The wind shifted subtlety as Twilight walked away from the big-boned skeleton, not a word was uttered from her. "Thanks for the advice, but I think I can handle solving puzzles without my magic. I'll only use it to get out of danger."
Sans forced himself not to laugh. "I guess you're right, heh, try not to die, pal."
OoO
It felt like hours gone by before Twilight saw another life form, it just so happened to be that life form was a blue rabbit selling ice cream.
"Oh! A customer, finally, wouldn't you agree it's the perfect weather for some Nice cream?" The rabbit hollered.
Twilight curiously approached the blue rabbit. "Nice cream?" She asked. "I'll take one."
"Wonderful! Nice cream is only 15G here in Snowdin Forest, a cheap price if I do say so myself."
"15 what?"
"15 Gold. Whenever you encounter monsters, most of the time, they'll drop this shiny yellow stuff called gold. Haven't you ever thought to pick some up?"
"...no."
"So you're broke is what I'm hearing."
"Kind of yeah."
His face sagged dramatically.
'Guess I better leave then,' To the right of Twilight was a stiff bridge, while crossing over it, she could still hear the steady pattern of heads bangs and loud groans coming from the Nice cream man.
The next area contained a wide slab of frozen dirt with a single, large snow ball right dab in the middle. Twilight levitated the snowball and shot it through the hole. A red color flag popping up.
Though another snowball substituted in its place, Twilight walked past it.
"Hey again," At this point, hearing Sans' voice was no surprise to Twilight, like all their other encounters, she stopped to listen to what Sans had to say. "I've been thinking about becoming a vendor too, I would ask you to buy some fried snow right about now, but I heard you had no money."
Sans took a look at Twilight's face. "It's fine, it's fine, I don't have any fried snow to give out."
*SANSSSS!
"I hear my brother calling, gotta fly."
OoO
Sans made his way down past the snowball game and onto a makeshift road. "...?" Pausing, he took a look at the rows upon rows of evergreen trees packed together. "I know you're there, pony, come out."
One of the evergreen trees shook violently, the shaking suddenly stopped and an Ice cap strutted out.
Sans chuckled. "My mistake," Though a session of snow-crunching filled in the silence, Sans didn't bother. 'It must be that Ice cap,' Instead of fading, the crunching grew louder. 'No, this time, it's the pony.'
"It's you again," Sans said.
"Haha, yep, just dropping by."
Twilight grew comfortable around Sans' presence, she didn't feel scared anymore, she wanted to be near him.
"I think we've reached my brother by now."
"Sans! There you are!" Papyrus yelled, Sans was amused by how worn-out the ground beneath his boot was due to his constant tapping. "And is that the pony with you?! Nyeh...it doesn't matter, Sans did you bring your puzzle?"
"My puzzle's right over there," Sans pointed to a piece of paper laying on the ground. "It's specially designed so a pony can never get past it."
"Woowie, that's great!"
Twilight stared at the piece of paper she levitated. 'Monster Kidz Word Search.' "Easy!" She threw the word search back on the ground and resumed walking.
"-Sans! That didn't work at all!"
"Whoops. I knew I should've used today's crossword, but I didn't."
"Crossword?! I can't believe you just said that, in my opinion, Junior jumble is easily the hardest."
"Really, dude? That easy-peasy word scramble, that stuff's for baby bones."
"Un. Be. Lieve. A. Ble. Pony, solve this quarrel!"
"Neither. They're both pretty easy."
"Easy?! Nyeh, I knew I shouldn't of asked such a cocky pony like you. I guess I'll go recalibrate the puzzles then." Sans watched as both Twilight and Papyrus strolled off and soon, he followed.
OoO
Eventually, the cluster of evergreen trees let up in an isolated location. It was unusually bare except for two coordinately placed tables and a note, Twilight held the note, quickly skimming its contents. "Pony...please enjoy this spaghetti, blah, blah, blah it's a trap, blah, Nyeh-heh-heh, Papyrus."
'Oh Papyrus.' She put the note down then passed over the spaghetti-plate and spaghetti-microwave. It didn't take long for Twilight to reach another note, beyond the note was a field of hardened snow clumps.
She read the note. "...a marriage?"
"Oh my, it's that pony again!"
An Ice cap, Snowdrake, and some other monster approached Twilight, and as promised, Ice cap's hat was even more stunning than the last time. "So, how about my hat?" Ice cap asked.
"It's pretty basic," Jerry said, everyone shuddered.
"Hey, Jerry, look over there." The second Jerry turned his odd, little head around, everyone made a run for it.
"They just ditched me, ugh, some friends," Jerry's soulless, pitch-black eyes dipped inside Twilight's soul. "But you won't leave me, right?"
Twilight's hooves pressed hard against the delicate blanket of snow, her turn was sharper than a knife then she galloped. She'd gotten so far in such a short time, all Jerry could see was a blur of lavender.
'Looks like I lost him, good, and I was able to pick up some of this gold while Ice cap and Snowdrake ran away.' She wavered the gold in front of her. 'I wonder what I can do with this?'
She obliviously stepped over a short line of spikes, (supposedly meant to be a puzzle) and passed another stiff bridge.
"What's that smell?!"
"(Identify yoursmellf!)"
Two dark figures prowled beside Twilight, sniffing intensely. "(This smell...it-)" One of them began saying.
"-makes me want to destroy!" The other finished.
Without their menacing hoods on, it got pretty tough for Twilight to be frightened by two fuzzy, white dogi. They only got scary when they pointed their huge battle axes at her.
"H-hey! I'm just trying to make my way across, I d-don't want to fight you!" Twilight exclaimed.
"(Yeah right!)"
Down to their round snouts and floppy ears the dogi were near identical, except, Dogamy had what looked like marker-drawn eyebrows and a malevolent cowlick. "Prepare for trouble!" Dogamy growled.
Dogaressa's eyelashes, on the other hand, were greatly empathized. She growled a similar note to that of Dogamy. "(And make it double!)"
Twilight couldn't even catch a breath before the dogi hammered their axes down beside her, trying to back away, she slipped on something and landed face first in the snow.
"(...what? Do you smell this smell I'm smelling?)"
"I do!"
"(Oh, you said that same thing to me during our marriage!)"
"Puppy, I know. About that smell you were talking about, I think it's a lost puppy."
"(I think it is!)"
They nuzzled noses for the sake of it.
'If these dogs are anything like the last then, this should work!' Twilight reached for the top of the dogi's fuzzy heads and pet them affectionately.
"(...! A dog that pets a dog...amazing!)"
"What will this world think of next?! Thank you strange puppy!"
They nuzzled again just because.
"It smells like the weird puppy is lonely, do you want to nuzzle with us?"
"No, I have to get going, next time, ok?"
"(Well. More for us!)"
XxxxXxx
"So these are the hard puzzle Sans was talking about?" Two ominous blue X's and a flat, gray switch all laid in triangle formation to each other, at the end was a set of spikes. Twilight solved the puzzle accordingly and made her way past the spikes.
"WOW!" Papyrus yelled, rushing towards the pony. "You solved that in literally three seconds! How is that even possible?! Not speaking of, did you eat that spaghetti I prepared?"
"Umm..."
"Woowie, my pasta must of been so good you're speechless at the mere thought! I'll have to make more then!" Papyrus left then shortly came back. "-don't just stand here, come along."
Twilight followed Papyrus until they reached a stopping point, there was another puzzle of similar caliber to the last one ahead, but this was infinitely more challenging. Papyrus walked to the sidelines. "I don't know how to say this pony, but my brother and I made this puzzle for you, but you were taking so long I decided to improve the puzzle by rearranging it to look like my face, then the snow froze to the ground and now the soultion's diff—"
"Solved it!"
"My, my, you're some kind of puzzle wizard, pony, you're almost 1/10 better than me! Now I'm even more determined to make the most hardest puzzle in the universe!"
"Go for it!" Twilight chirped.
"Nice."
She'd grown accustomed to meeting Sans after every puzzle, this time was no different. "Well, I always love a good puzzle, they're my favorite pastime beside reading."
"Looks like you'll fit just right in the Undergound, this place is filled with puzzles, in fact, there's another one right ahead you can solve."
Twilight and Sans walked over to yet another puzzle that Papyrus was working on with a rectangular machine. "Bro, what are you doing?" Sans asked.
"I'm making this puzzle harder for the pony!"
"You sure you know how this thing works, it's Alphys' machine after all."
"Of course I do, Sans! Now, pony, I'm sure you're wondering what this particular puzzle is all about, you see those tiles?"
Twilight nodded, keeping a close eye on the grayscale tiles.
"Well, after I throw this switch here, they'll change to different colors and each color has its own separate function! Red tiles are impassable, you can't step on them! Yellow tiles are electric, they'll electrocute you! Green tiles are alarm tiles, if you step on one, you'll have to..."
"xxx"
"xxx"
"-and pink tiles do absolutely nothing, hey, pony, you were listening, weren't you?!"
"I can make a transcript of everything you just said!"
"Good, when I pull this switch it'll make a puzzle never before seen in puzzle-history, not even I will know the solution. Nyeh heh heh! Get ready!"
The tiles blinked between color to color, first slowly, then the blinking got faster and faster until it stopped altogether.
'This is the puzzle?!'