Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Clover has already been hiking up the Mt. Ebott for quite some time, and his legs where almost begging him to stop for an hour or two and and let them rest, which Clover considers for a moment, stopping to think.

'God, my legs are killing me, and this burning in the chest isn't helping! Why did it even begin to burn in the first place? Normally those injections have no reaction, was there something else in those syringes? Still I need to continue, those kid's lives could be in danger right now for all I know, I can't just sit around just because of some chest and leg pain.' With those thoughts Clover continued up the mountain with even more determination then before.

After twenty more minutes of hiking Clover was now standing in front of a hole, at first hesitating for a moment, he reminds himself of why he came here, and then jumps down into the hole.

After a minute of falling, clover has finally reached the ground. To his surprise he finds that there was no damage from the fall, most likely because of the a garden of large yellow flowers that cushioned the fall.

'weird, even if those flowers are big, and large in number, there should've been at least some damage from the fall... Still it's good news, since I can't see any corpse's here, it means that there is still hope that those kids are still alive.'

Clover stands up, and proceeded to to the next room 'Strange... What is this place? And who built it?'

His train of thought is then suddenly interrupted when in the next room he sees giant frog 'what the hell? Why is this frog so BIG!' Clover takes more fight ready stance, with a hand placed on his revolver 'Well, I should prepare to fight, since it doesn't seem to friendly.'

Before the situation can escalate any further, an mysterious goat lady appears, giving frog the most threatening death glare that Clover has ever seen. And he has seen a lot of those.

Frog visibly scared proceeded to hop away, to avoid angering goat lady any further.

Mysterious goat lady then turns her gaze towards clover, which makes him tense up a bit. But Clover proceeds to relax a bit when she makes softer more worrying expression.

"Ah! Hello. Are you alright? You must be wondering what is going on... I am Toriel, caretaker of the RUINS. I pass down through here every day to see if anyone has fallen down here. It does not happen often,  You are the first to come here in a long time. There's no need to be afraid, litl... well you are not very little, you are far older than most people who fall down here."

"Wait, so you have met kids that fallen down here before? By chance could you tell me what happened to them? The last kid that fallen down here was a ten year old girl, with a tutu."

"Ah, yes, I've met them, they were a nice kid, I've taught them how underground works for a short while that they were here, it was nice time."

"Do you know what happened to them and other kids? I've come down here looking for them, so any information would be valuable.'

Toriel's expression visibly darkens and become quite somber after hearing those words.

"... I would like to tell you about what happened to them, but I believe that this is not best place to discuss this, since this requires quite long explanation. How about you come to my home at the end of the ruins, and I will tell everything that I know with a cup of tea, and in meanwhile explain everything that you need to know about the underground?"

Clover sensing that something bad happened decides to not making any further questions, to not cause further distress to Toriel "...okay"

"Great. Then follow me." Toriel then went to another room, and Clover followed closely behind.

They enter a small circular room, there are six large buttons on the floor to the right of the entrance.

"For beginning let's begin with something simple. The RUINS are full of puzzles. Ancient fusions between diversions and doorkeys. They must be solved in order to move from room to room. Allow me to demonstrate."

Toriel moved to the buttons and pressed buttons that are on the sides, while avoiding ones that are in the middle. After Toriel pressed all four buttons, the door to the next room opened. 

"We are free to-" Toriel stops, noticing Clover pained expression as he holds his chest." Are you alright my child?"

Clover didn't respond immediately, which worried Toriel even more, after 15 seconds clover responded.

"Yes, I'm alright, just a bit tired that's all."

Toriel was clearly unconvinced, but decided against trying to get more information, and instead decided to go through puzzles quicker .

"Alright then, let's go through next puzzles quickly so that you can rest." She said as they were going into the next room.

They were now in the long rectangular hallway with two streams of water, bridge's above them, and three levers.

"Before we proceed, I would ask if you can complete this puzzle on your own. Normally I would just explain you what to do, but if you are not feeling well, I can complete it for you." Toriel said with worried look on her face.

"Yeah, I can, been through worse, so what's that I need to do here?" Clover said with a slight nod.

"All you need to do is pull down the right levers, I've labelled which ones." As Toriel looked around, and sure enough, two out of three levers have arrows and words around them... Perhaps too many.

Clover came close to the first lever and pulled it down, after that he heard some mechanical noise, indicating that's something has changed.

"Splendid! I am proud of you my child!" Toriel said a bit too enthusiastically " now please press the next switch, and the path to the next room should open."

Clover then moved to the next labelled lever, but after pulling it down nothing changed, and he heard no noise that would indicate it.

 "...It should have opened by now...I am sure I labelled the correct lever..." Toriel said, sounding confused. "Ah don't worry my child! Try flipping the other one.

As Clover tried to flip the other lever, he suddenly began to feel ground beneath his legs crumble. He couldn't react fast enough to grab onto anything as he was falling. The last thing he saw before falling into the pit, was Toriel's panicked and worried expression.

As Clover landed he could hear Toriel " My child! Are you alright!?" Toriel was nearly shouting, Clearly panicked. "... I'm afraid I cannot reach you... I must leave for a moment to find something to pull you out of there, so please don't leave, since many monster are unfriendly towards humans. But fret not my child! I will protect you! So please stay here..."

After standing up, Clover decides against better judgement to go looking for an exit himself, instead of waiting for Toriel.

Clover only manages to get to the next room before collapsing on the floor holding his chest. 'FUCK..! Why does it hurt so much!? It just keeps getting worse and worse!' Clover tries and fails to make pain go away, it only getting worse ever since he was injected with syringe before leaving his home. ' it was never this bad before! So why now of all time!?'

*COUGH

After coughing into his hands, clover feels some warm liquid on them, after taking a look he realises that it's his blood "oh... OH FUCK!' 'This is not good! This is VERY not good!' 

Soon blood on his hands became least of his worries as he began feeling something else, after looking down his body he realised that his skin began to freeze and crack and his flesh melt ' FUCK, THIS IS VERY VERY FUCKING BAD!'

Clover tried to call for help but found that he instead of his voice, all he was hearing was gurgling as he choked on his own blood. Soon he began losing his consciousness, feeling as his bones began to break and reform, his melted flesh also changing very slowly and his skin now falling off. The last thing he saw was a strange yellow flower, which seemed confused, but also seemed to have the best time of his life.

Chapter Text

A relatively small lizard like monster can be seen walking trough the dark ruins, she seems absorbed in her thoughts about where to find inspiration to draw something with her overly large pencil. Quite a sketchy character.

'hmmm... This place hasn't changed one bit since the last time I've been here.' Penilla thinks to herself ' why did I even came here? Doubt I will find anything of interest...' with these thoughts Penilla continues to walk.

' Maybe that bridge was repaired? That sure would be nice, it's been so long since we had access to that part of ruins, that I'm beginning to forget what it looked like.' Penilla continues to think to herself, trying to find some inspiration and to distract herself from unease that she currently feels.

Her thoughts are interrupted when in the distance she makes out a vaguely humanoid figure, made of pitch black ink like substance.

' Who is that? I've never met them before, how did they even get here? Whatever maybe I can get some inspiration from them.' she thinks to herself as she approaches figure, only to stop when it begins to look at her... At least she thinks it looks at her?

It's already been quite some time since Clover has fallen deeper into the ruins, he doesn't know how much time passed since he fell here, but is sure that it was at least half a week.

'fuck... It hurts so much... Well on the bright side the pain begins to go away...' Clover thoughts are interrupted when he spots a small yellow lizard like monster, with tip of it's head and tail shaped like opposite ends of a pencil.

"What the...?" ' Man these monster sure as hell are weird-' Clover can't even finish this sentence in his head, as he begins to feel the need to throw up.

*BLEGH

Clover proceeds to throw up his blood, which now had a golden tint to it.

"Are you alright!?" Penilla suddenly called out, worried after seeing Clover In pain after throwing up "Oh Angel, this doesn't look good!"

"Please calm down. The last thing I need right now is an overly panicked lizard here." Clover said in the most deadpan voice he could make at the moment, which seemed to calm Penilla down just a little bit. "Well now that you are here, can you say what day is it?"

'what day is it?' Penilla tries to collect herself enough to remember what day is it. "If I remember correctly today should be 3 March-"

"WHAT!?" Clover screamed out upon hearing the date, which made Penilla jump. "I'VE BEEN STUCK HERE FOR TWO WHOLE WEEKS!?" Clover then noticed terrified Penilla." Uh sorry for that, I've just didn't expect to be stuck here for so long..." Clover said with more relaxed voice trying to calm Penilla down a bit.

"T-thats alright." Penilla said a bit shakily. "I myself don't know how I would react if I've been stuck who knows where for two whole weeks." Penilla said reassuringly. "Also, it's not very often that we see new faces here In the dark ruins, so I've been wanting to ask what's your name, and what kind of a monster you are, since I've never seen anyone like you. I'm Penilla by the way, nice to meet you."

"Well for the first question, my name is Clover, as for a second one..." Clover paused, thinking what to say, but decided to just everything as is. " I'm gonna be blunt with you I'm not a monster."

"What?" Penilla said a bit shocked." Then what are you?"

"Human, at least -" Clover is interrupted by a loud "WHAT!?" from Penilla.

"Is there something wrong with what I said?"

"No, I mean yeah, but no at the same time?" Penilla then took a deep breath to compose herself a bit. "It just that you are a lot different from what I've been told about humans. I've always imagined you more... Solid..."

"Well you are not very wrong about us being solid, my situation is not very normal." Clover said thinking of how to explain what the hell happened to him. "Well this happened to me after I fell down here, at first everything was fine, then I sorta melted...?"

"So you're saying that you just melted? Is that normal thing for humans...? Penilla asked curiously while thinking to herself. 'man humans are weird'

"Nope, it's not normal, I don't know why this happened to me, or how the hell am I still alive." Clover then paused for a second. "Honestly I'm surprised by the fact that I'm still alive more than the fact that this happened in the first place."

"What do you mean?" Penilla said confused.

"Well first reason would be dehydration, I should've died from it at least weak ago, since I didn't drink any after falling down here." Clover paused for a bit to let Penilla process information before continuing. "Second reason, I already lost over four liters of blood, and I should've died after losing two." Clover then stops seeing how confused Penilla is. "Is there something you didn't understand?"

"Yeah, I have a question." Penilla asked confused about the "blood' is.

"Okay, shoot it." Clover responded thinking about what might've confused her.

"You said that you've lost a lot of "blood", I'm just a little bit confused on what that is, since we monster generally don't have anything like that. Well what it's like and how it looks? How it feels?" Penilla gave her question.

"Well, Penilla you remember that liquid that I threw up when you found me?" Clover said giving a slight nod in direction of a puddle of his blood.

"Yeah? Was that blood?" Penilla said now beginning to understand what it is a bit more.

"Yep, that's blood." Clover responded with a nod. "However normally it's more of a pure red colour, and doesn't have a golden tint. I guess it has something to do with why I am like this right now."

"Okay, and by the way you talked about losing it, I assume it's very important?" Penilla asked, a little bit worried.

"Well yeah, it kinda keeps us alive, so if we lose too much of it we will die." Clover explained it's importance to Penilla the best way he could.

"And you said that you lost twice the amount of blood that is needed to kill you?" Penilla asked even more worried.

"Yeah?" As soon as Clover answered he noticed that Penilla began to panic. "Are you alright?'

"Am I alright!? The better question is if you are alright! Oh god please tell me that there is a way to fix this!" Penilla said panicking before thinking of something. "That's right! Maybe we can put it back inside and everything should be fine right!?"

"Penilla calm down! As I've already said I've already lost a lot of it and still somehow alive, which means that I'm alright!" Clover said with reassuring voice trying to calm her down. " Look if someone loses enough blood to die, they are dead within hours. And I'm still alive, and more or less fine, which means I won't die due to blood loss!" Clover said finally managing to calm Penilla down.

"S-sorry, it's just that I've just met you and thinking that you might die and I can't do anything had me worried." Penilla said trying her best to apologize for worrying him.

"That's fine. Honestly I'm kinda glad, because that show that you actually care, sorry if that sounds mean." Clover said before breathing in and out.

"Okay, then I got another question for you. Do you need explanation of how things work here?" Penilla asked Clover since he didn't have a chance to learn much.

"Yeah. I know already about puzzles, but still think I need to learn more of how everything is here." Clover answered, and prepared to listen to her explanation.

"Okay, so you know about puzzles, that's good. Well then I guess I need to teach you about BATTLE." As Penilla said that silent 'the what?' went through Clover's head.

World around Clover and Penilla began to darken, only outlines of surrounding area remaining.

Penilla draws near!

"What the!?" Clover nearly shouted when this happened.

"Please calm down, it's alright, that's what supposed to happen so there is no need to panic." Said Penilla calming clover down.

"So this is "BATTLE"? Huh, it's so weird." Clover said fascinated by what was happening.

"Ok clover, do you see four buttons before you?" Penilla asked waiting for Clover to respond. After he gave her confirming nod she proceeded with her explanation. "Okay there should be "FIGHT", "ACT", "ITEM" and "MERCY" button's, so let me first explain how fights down here work. Monsters normally take turns, using and item, attacking, acting, and sparing are all considered turns, after you used your turn your opponent is free to use theirs. You got that?" Penilla asked Clover.

"Yeah, but got a question, why do you take turns in the first place? Wouldn't it be easier to be free to do whatever you want? Clover asked Penilla.

"Well yeah, but this is kind of tradition that we have, and almost no one is willing to break it under any circumstances." Penilla explained to Clover. "Okay now please use ACT menu and use CHECK, it will show you some general information which can help to diffuse the situation." Penilla explained to Clover.

Clover pressed ACT button and then CHECK:

PENILLA --

HP : 45/45

ATK : 3

DEF : 2

 A sketchy character.

"Okay, it showed your stats, and called you sketchy" Clover said to Penilla.

"Really!? Ah whatever, okay then I will CHECK you"

Penilla pressed ACT button and then CHECK:

CLOVER --

HP : 40/200

ATK : 6

DEF : 5

 Adjusting. Learning. Healing.

"Ok so what did it say about me?" Clover asked Penilla curious.

"I don't know, it's just said "adjusting" "learning" and "healing", that's kinda unusual. But on that note you probably need to heal, since you have only 40/200 hp-" as soon as she said that Clover let out confused "what!?", making Penilla jump a little. "Is there something wrong?"

"Well, yeah, my is my hp so high?" Clover said like it was obvious that something was wrong.

"What do you mean? Isn't that normal?" Penilla asked, now confused herself.

"No, adult humans only have 100 hp in general, and only few have slightly more than that. My hp when I fell down here 80 only for example." Clover explained this to Penilla clearing her confusion.

"Wait you said that only adults have 100 hp and more right?" Penilla asked Clover.

"Yeah" Clover immediately answered.

"Okay, may I ask you how old are you? Of course if that's okay with you." Penilla asked Clover suspecting something she didn't like.

"I'm 15, in two weeks will be my 16th birthday. What's with that?" Clover asked Penilla.

"What!? You are a kid! What the hell are you doing here!? Aren't you supposed to be home and go to school!? You shouldn't be here!" Penilla was now both panicked and angry. 

"Well someone gotta get the kids that fell down here out of here, or at least learn what happened to them!" Clover said that like it was his responsibility.

"What are your parents doing, shouldn't they stop you from doing things like this!? It's the job of adults to help with something like this! Not yours!" Penilla said that angry knowing that Clover's parents allowed this happen to him.

"Look Penilla, if i won't do it nobody will, especially not my parents. If I can do it, then it's my responsibility." Clover answered like it was the most obvious of things.

"What? Clover that isn't right, you're still a kid, you have a whole life ahead of you, you shouldn't be the one to risk it." As Penilla said that Clover was visibly uncomfortable, like what she just said wasn't right.

"Okay Penilla, let's end this here, and instead continue where we left off. Okay?" Clover said with a tired voice, unwilling to continue this conversation.

Penilla understood that she can't continue this answered. "Okay, but if you need help, please call me, I'm always willing to help, you shouldn't be going through everything alone."

Upon hearing those words Clover relaxed as a wave of relief washed over him.

"Okay so where we left of? Ah right! ACTING. Using it you can not only CHECK general information about monster, but also try to have conversation with them to calm them down. Penilla explained to Clover. "After your turn has passed, monster most likely will send their magic at you, normally to us it harmless but I don't know how it will affect you, so try to avoid it." 

After Penilla's explanation she launched her magic in form of pencils at Clover, he managed to avoid almost all of it,  but at the end he got grazed by one of the attacks which dealt 1 damage.

"Sorry about that, okay but it's nice to know what effect it has on you, so remember to avoid white magic in the future okay?" Penilla requested 

"Okay, but the way you say it implies that there are other magic types, right?" Clover asked Penilla 

"Yep, you are correct, there is also green magic that will heal you, here let me show you." After saying that Penilla launched green drawing at Clover which restored 10 hp. "So, do you feel better?" Penilla asked Clover 

"Yeah, much better, thanks for that, so is there any other magic?" Clover gave another question to Penilla.

"Yeah, there is also blue and orange magic. When you see blue magic you need to completely stop moving to avoid damage, so if you see blue magic think of ice and freeze like it. And if you see orange magic you will need to move through it to avoid damage, so think of it as running through flame fast enough to not get burned. I would like to show it to you, but I can't use it, sorry." Penilla explained to Clover.

"Okay, still thanks, now that we are done with magic what's next?" Clover asked Penilla.

"Next should probably be MERCY, press it and inside there should be two buttons, first one is SPARE, and other is RUN. Second one will allow you to escape the battle, while the first one will allow you to spare your opponent if their name is yellow, if it's not use acting to make it yellow, got that? If you did SPARE me." Clover nodded.

Clover pressed MERCY button and then SPARE:

you won

You earned:

EXP : 0

G : 2

"Okay, so now that we are done with this I have something to aks you, so please listen because it's very important." After Penilla said that Clover tensed up a bit before nodding. "Okay, what I want to ask you is to never use FIGHT unless it's absolutely necessary, okay?" Clover slowly nodded. "I know that sometimes you may be tempted to fight back against monsters that attack, but I want you to avoid doing so,monsters generally don't want to hurt others, but may still do it on accident or because they don't know that they can hurt you, and since you are a human you can easily kill us without meaning to. So please if try to use FIGHT as little as possible, okay?" Clover paused for a moment before giving her a nod. After seeing it Penilla sighed relief.

After that Clover looked down his hands and noticed something. 'what the?' He now had more  solid form and parts of his body are covered in scales similar to that of Penilla, but instead of bright yellow colouring like her's, his scales where jet black. His hands where affected by change the most, now they had claws and where fully covered in scales, now resembling less human hands and more that of a lizard.

"Hey Penilla?" 

"What?" Penilla asked

"Did you do something to me?" Clover asked her in return.

"What do you mean?" Penilla was now confused.

"I'm talking about why my hands are covered in scales, and now have claws?" Clover said, trying to get some answers from her.

Penilla now noticed this, and was just as confused as Clover. "No I didn't do this. To be honest with you I've never heard of monster changing someone's traits, much less doing that to a human." She answered to him hoping to find some answers herself.

"Okay so if you didn't do this, and you don't know what caused this, then it must have something to do with what caused my body to become like this in the first place." Clover answered and tried of thinking about something else.

"Okay then... Oh right, Clover I have a favour to ask of you." Penilla said to Clover 

"Okay, shoot it" Clover said interested in what it may be.

"Well you see I've come here in the first place to find some inspiration for my drawings, and then I stumbled into you. So can you help me with this? I just wanna do a couple of sketches that's all."Penilla said hoping that he would agree.

"Okay, friends are meant for this after all, right?" Clover said encouraging her.

"Thanks!" After that Penilla started making sketches in different styles trying to find the one that fits clover the most.

In the distance a singular golden flower like monster can be seen.

"Ugh, man, I wanted to see this little shit suffer more, it was one of the most entertaining things to happen to me in a while." Flower begins to look through the memories of Clover melting and unsuccessfully try to reform, him losing his consciousness over and over again, and coughing and vomiting out his blood, and rarely even organs. Those memories bring out an impossibly large smile on the flowers face.

"Well whatever, still him taking on the traits of monsters is interesting. I should probably watch from the sidelines and see what he will do, and in the meantime try to find a way to take my powers back from that little shit." Flower said grumpily upon remembering that he has lost his power to rewind time.

Chapter Text

Two hours later, Clover can still be seen near Penilla who tirelessly makes new sketches, not wanting to let her newfound inspiration go since she found art style that she thinks perfectly fits Clover. That style being, an overly detailed black and white, with elements of horror to it. If you ask Clover what he thinks is the style that suits him most, he would say old cowboy movie posters.

"Aaaand, done!" As Penilla finished her sketch, she shows it to Clover. "Here, what do you think about this?"

Clover looks at an uncannily realistic sketch of him, with additional sets of eyes and mouths scattered all around his melted body. "It's... Horrible. In a good way I mean." Clover says, as shivers crawl down his spine. "I still don't get why you think this style suits me the most."

"Well, I mean, with your current state only this style comes to mind." Penilla says as she thinks of something. "Well, if you don't like this I can give you some paper and pencils to draw with. What would you say about that?"

"Okay, it's been a while since I drew anything. That would be nice." Clover said thinking about when was the last time he drew anything. 'the last time that comes to mind was half a year ago, hope I haven't lost my skill yet.' Clover thought to himself before talking to Penilla again. "I mean I'm pretty confident in my skills, but it's been a while since I last drew anything, so I must warn ya, my skills are pretty dull right now."

"That's okay, well then how about a practice sketch first? You will draw sketch of me, and I will draw a sketch of you in the meantime." After Clover nods in agreement, a small smile creeps up her face. "If you need help feel free to ask."

Fifteen minutes later, Clover adds finishing touches to his sketch of Penilla.

As Penilla looks at Clover, she notices confusing and hesitation on his face. "Hey Clover, need help with the sketch? It's okay to ask for help."

Clover doesn't immediately respond, thinking about what he should say. "No, I'm actually done with it already."

"Really? Can I take a look at it?" Penilla asks waiting for Clover's answer. As he nods she comes closer and takes a look at the sketch. Before her is fairly detailed sketch of her with fairly clean lines. "Huh. You really sold yourself short when you said you're skills are dull, that's some amazing sketch you have here, if you practice I'm sure you will be as good as me. I don't even know why you were so hesitant with showing me this, I thought that there would be a lot of mistakes, but no there are barely any mistakes that are not nitpicks."

"Well that's the reason why I was so hesitant, it's not supposed to be like this." Clover answered to Penilla, trying to explain why he feels this way.

"What do you mean?" Penilla asked now confused once again.

"Well, I did say that I'm pretty good at drawing, but I was never this good at it, and considering that I didn't draw in the past half of year, there should be dozens of awful mistakes." Clover paused for a moment. "But there's none."

"Do you think it might have something to do with your "transformation"?" Penilla asked, connecting the dots.

"Yep, you are right on the money. I think together with these scales and claws that I gained from interacting with you, I also received a bit of your talent at drawing." After Clover said that he paused for a moment to look at his clawed hands, now sharper and with harder scales, then when he first received them. "Now that I think about it. Penilla I got a question for you."

"Okay, what is it? What do you want to know?" Penilla says curious about what Clover thinks about.

"Well, seeing that I inherited your talent at drawing, I think there also might be a chance that I also inherited your magic, so I want to test this theory out." Clover said feeling something new. "So I want to ask you for help, since i don't know anything about how magic works."

"Huh, that sounds kinda ridiculous, but you transforming, and inheriting my traits and skill is also very ridiculous. "Penilla paused for a moment. "I guess it worth to give a shot."

"Thanks!" Clover excitedly nodes, accidentally getting some of spraying some of him on one of Penilla's old sketches. "Oops, sorry about that." Clover said as he shrunk a bit.

Penilla heavily exhaled. "That's okay, just be careful next, ok?"

Clover ashamed, shyly nodded. "Again sorry. Just got bit too excited."

"Okay, apology accepted." Penilla said, as she thought about where to begin. "Alright, then I should probably start with a question. Clover, do you know what MP is?"

"Nah, never heard about it." Clover shrugged.

"You want to say no-one thought you about it in school?" Penilla asked, slightly pissed and worried.

"I dunno, never been to school." Clover said as he shrugged once again.

Penilla now was both pissed and annoyed. "So you want to say that your parents never bothered to bring you to school, or at least give you proper education, that's right? All she needed was Clover nod, after seeing it she took in a deep breath, and then sighed out. "Honestly? I'm not even surprised at this point considering how bad of parents you have. How did you even learn anything?" Penilla asked

"Well, almost everything that I know is from occasional TV programs that played when no-one was at home, and practically all skills that I have are self-taught." Clover casually explained.

"If I somehow i ever meet them, I promise you, I will beat the ever living crap out of them." Penilla said with a very tired and angry voice.

"Okay, let's forget about it, and return to the explanation Okay?" Clover said trying to change the subject.

"Okay, so MP stands short for Magic Particles, they also split into two categories, first being natural particles, and second being biological particles that come from beings like monsters." Penilla paused for a moment to see if Clover has any questions, after seeing and hearing none she continues. "First let's talk about biological particles. Biological particles as the name suggests come from the living beings, primarily monsters, unlike natural particles they are created from the energy inside our souls, which creates our body, and allows us to create magic. Although process of MP creation never stops, this doesn't mean that we can cast infinite amount of spells, since the amount of MP that is produced varies from monster to monster, and our bodies can only hold a certain amount of it, to prevent excessive amounts of MP gathering inside our bodies, they are passively release those particles at the same rate that they are created, those particles that were released slowly turn into the natural particles." Penilla takes a short break before continuing. "But in case we use spells, our souls increase the production speed of MP, until it's amount inside the body is restored to normal. Our bodies also regulate the amount of MP we can use on a single attack, so that we don't tire ourselves out too early if we are in dangerous enough situation to use a lot of MP. The spells that use the allowed maximum amount of MP are called "special attacks", and they are a great way to measure someone's limit." Penilla pause's seeing that Clover has a question.

"I have a question. So if monster somehow removes or doesn't have this limit, then they can use abnormally strong attacks right?" Clover asks Penilla.

"Yes, there are actually a couple of cases where monsters where born without this limit, although they are extremely strong, they also tire themselves out very quickly, and are exceedingly rare." Penilla said, taking a short break." Ok i now will explain the natural particles. Natural particles are mostly inactive, and cannot be interacted with, unlike biological particles that shortly after being released can be interacted or even absorbed, they are rejected by bodies, making them useless for spell casting, but they are everywhere in this world in an incredible amounts so if harnessed they can theoretically allow an near infinite amount of possible spells, but the only beings who came close to actually harnessing a fraction of it where mages, that locked us inside this mountain." Penilla explains, before pausing seeing that Clover has a question. "Clover do you have a question?" Clover nods "okay what is it?"

"Yeah, I just want to ask who are these mages?" Clover said tilting his head to the side.

"Well mages are essentially a boss variant of human." Penilla explained thinking Clover will understand. He didn't.

"Wha?" Clover was severely confused.

"Okay, I guess I will need to explain what a boss monster is then." Penilla sighed before continuing. "Boss monster are a incredibly rare variant of a monster, they have higher stats, have larger pool of MP than most monsters and also are immortal." Penilla explained and then smirked at Clover because his eyes where now finally visibly widened to be comically large. "Similarly mages are a rare variant of a human, in fact they are even rarer than the boss monsters. Mages unlike boss monsters are not immortal, but also unlike most normal humans, their souls can actually produce MP. Thanks to their physical bodies, they can hold much more MP then monsters, and their souls release incredible amounts of MP allowing them to cast more powerful spells then any normal monster and even most boss monsters." Penilla takes another short break. "So if you yourself are not a mage, it's unlikely that you will be able to cast spells."

Clover thinks for a moment. "So, how do I know if I'm mage or not?" Clover asks Penilla hoping for an answer.

"I don't know, I guess if you feel your MP you are a mage?" Penilla said and chuckled nervously.

After hearing that, Clover thinks for a moment. "So how does MP feel in the first place?" Clover asks for a more useful answer this time.

"Well, MP feels like a mist that goes out of your soul, and trough your body." Penilla explains to Clover.

Now knowing how it supposed to feel, Clover dampens other feelings for a moment, and sure enough, he can feel the mist. "Okay, I can feel it, it's weak but it's there." Clover shares his discovery with Penilla.

"Oh, that's great news, I guess one of you ancestors was a mage. Now that you can feel MP, you can try to push it out of your body, and make it take a form that you want it to." Penilla explained the process to Clover. "If your theory about inheriting my magic is correct, you should be able to create magical pencil out of it."

Clover follows Penilla's instructions, but fails, so he tries again. Thirty minutes, then hour then two. Then after three hours Clover finally manages to push out MP out of his body. It comes out in a form of a pellet, which he then shapes into a pencil similar to Penilla. "Well, I guess I was correct, but man did it take a while." Clover complained to Penilla, now tired and consequently more drippy.

"Don't worry about it, you actually learned it quite fast. Most monsters need days if not weeks to actually learn to create a pellet." Penilla explains to Clover trying to bring up his mood.

"Thanks for trying to cheer me up, but the biggest problem right now is the amount of MP I have..." Then an idea came to Clover. '...What if I... If I manage to do this then MP pool wouldn't be problem, I guess it's worth giving it a shot.' clover though to himself before concentrating once again.

"Eeeh, Clover? What are you trying to do?" Penilla asked Clover confused and slightly worried.

"I just had an idea. If it works then my MP pool won't be a problem anymore, if it doesn't who knows." Clover said to Penilla who was even more worried because of the last part.

"Are you sure this is good idea? Maybe you should stop?" Penilla hoped that Clover would stop whatever that he is doing, so that he won't hurt himself.

"Don't worry, I won't die from this, 'at least I think I wont' so just wait a bit." As Clover said that he began to concentrate even more.

Penilla reluctantly decided to not intervene unless Clover is at risk of getting hurt, and instead just keep watching to see what happens.

Half an hour later, Clover made another pencil, then another, then another, in a moment there where now 20 more pencils then before, but soon after they disappeared, because Clover was far too exhausted to maintain them. Clover was now panting, and began to lose his form a bit.

"What did you do just now!?" Penilla nearly shouted from unexpected results. "Are you alright!?"

"Yeah yeah, I'm completely fine, just a bit tired that's all. Penilla remember natural particles? Well I tried absorbing them, and I guess since my body less rigid and more flexible, it doesn't reject them, and instead converts." Clover explained calming Penilla down a bit "As it turns out my body is much better at keeping MP than my soul at producing it." Clover said sarcastically trying to calm Penilla down completely. 

Clover's attempt to calm Penilla down didn't work to say the least, she was pissed. "Clover! Do you realise how dangerous what you just did!? You could've easily killed yourself like this! People who attempted something stupid like this remain in the past for a reason! Next time you want to do something stupid like first talk to me." Penilla was both worried and pissed because of Clover's reckless behaviour, but eventually calmed down.

Clover loudly gulped, both from how mad Penilla is, and realising how close he was to killing himself. "Sorry, I didn't realise how dangerous this is. But you don't need to worry since it turned out fine, and I found a way around my MP limit, so now I should be able to use more and better magic." Clover said reassuringly both to calm Penilla down, and to save his ass.

"Okay I guess, just let me CHECK how are you ok?"

"Okay."

World around Clover and Penilla began to darken, only outlines of surrounding area remaining.

Penilla draws near!

Clover skipped his turn.

Penilla pressed ACT button and then CHECK:

CLOVER --

HP : 115/250

ATK : 9

DEF : 7

 Adapting. 

"so what does it say?" Clover asked curious if there is something new.

"Well, you healed 75 HP since the last time I CHECKED, also your max HP grew by 50, your ATK grew by 3, your DEF grew by 2, and your description changed to "adapting" that's all." Penilla answered, wondering why did it change again.

"Okay it's good that my stats grew higher again, I guess." Clover said before ending the BATTLE.

Clover pressed MERCY button and then SPARE:

you won

You earned:

EXP : 0

G : 0

"Hey Penilla..." Clover said grabbing Penilla's attention. "I'm thankful for your help and everything else, but I think it's time for me to leave dark ruins, so can you help me find the way out of here?" Clover said with a quite somber voice.

Upon hearing those words Penilla became quite lost in thoughts, before answering. "Yeah... Okay then let's go, i will show you the way out here, but after you leave, please remember that if you need any help you can always call me, ok?." 

Clover nodded in response. "Ok." After this brief conversation Clover attempts to stand up (authors note: yes clover all this time was not standing, in fact he didn't even legs.) with new legs forming. Once he is almost fully stood up he begins to fall, before catching himself by the wall. After that he straightens out, and makes a few steps, learning how to walk again.

"Are you alright?" Penilla asked upon seeing Clover nearly fall.

"Yeah, just gotta get used to having legs again, and this new height. I'm pretty sure I'm at least twenty centimetres taller than before." Clover answered calming Penilla down.

Once Clover got used to walking again, him and Penilla walk into the next room, where they see a new flying monster. After seeing him immediate annoyance can be seen on Penilla's face, as the flying monster closes the distance.

'oh great, it's Flier again' crosses trough Penilla's mins.

"Uh, hey Penilla. So what about that thing that i-" Flier can't even finish the sentence as Penilla interrupts him.

"Look Flier. Me drawing you this sketch won't bring you back the half life that you wasted, so stop pestering me, you are no longer a teenager." Penilla mercilessly says to his face.

"I... I'm sorry, I just want to feel young again." Flier says heartbroken.

Seeing that Clover decides to help Flier the best he can. " Look- Flier right?. Look, it doesn't matter that you wasted half your life, what matters that you still have half of your life to live, so go and make the most of it." Clover says, not wanting to see the mess that Flier is.

Surprisingly, Clover's words actually worked at motivating Flier. "Yeah, you're right! Thanks, I really needed to hear those words. Hear have 5G, you're words are far important to me then this." Flier said handing money to Clover.

"No problem pardner." Clover said, trying to imitate cowboy accent the best he can with his current body. "Next time you have a problem like this, try instead to talk with people about it. Ok?" Clover said smiling.

Flier responded with a nod, before flying away.

"Huh, didn't expect that you would actually help him." Penilla said slightly surprised at Clover's way with words.

"Well just gotta do what's right, that's all." Clover responded with a grin. "Okay then let's keep going."

After that Clover and Penilla go through next couple of rooms without problem, and solve a puzzle in second one of them. After that they go through the long corridor, before confronting a hooded figure.

"Hello... I'm happy to finally meet you face to face. How long has it been? I was wondering if you'd ever come back..." The hooded figure monologue's like they know Clover which catches him off guard.

'what the!? How the hell do they know me, and what do they want!?' Clover thinks to himself, as he begins to tense up.

"No... too forward. Who am I kidding? I'll never be able to meet you in this state. I just hope you know... I had no choice. It must be this way." Upon realising that the hooded figure doesn't actually know him, and just prepares to talk with someone Clover relaxes.

"...uuuh, hey Dalv. Do you monologue to yourself again?" Penilla asks with concern for hooded figure, that Clover now knows is named Dalv.

"H-huh? Who...? Oh... Penilla, sorry, you are right, I'm just monologuing to myself again, sorry." After that Dalv spots another figure besides Penilla, this one being very similar to the human ,that attacked him in the snowdin, but this figure is much taller, and seemingly... Melting? This figure has dark claws, not to different from the ones Penilla has. But the most noticeable and uncanny part, is it's piercing white eyes, with pure black iris, with a slight golden glow in the center of it's pupil. Seeing this figure sends shivers down Dalvs spine. "I... I think I should go..." Just as Dalv says that he immediately leaves, nearly running away, not wanting to be looked at by the mysterious figure. 'Was that a ghost? Am I being haunted? Does Penilla know about that figure?.' and more similar questions run rampant trough Dalv's mind, as he still hears ragged breathing, and loud heart beat of the figure in his mind.

"What was that about?" Clover asks confused at Dalv's reaction upon meeting him.

"Well, Dalv always was a little bit antisocial, but I guess you reminded him of the past." Penilla explained to Clover.

Clover wanted to ask more, but seeing how uncomfortable Penilla was with the topic, he decided against it. "Okay, so where should we go next?" Clover asks Penilla as they are in front two paths.

"Well you can go into the room that is Infront of us if you want to get some "lemonade ", but I wouldn't recommend it, it tastes horrible." Penilla explained. "Or we can go through the corn maze immediately, and continue our little "journey"." Penilla added sarcastically.

"Okay then, I will go get that lemonade, there's no way it's worse than anything that I drank before." As Clover says that he goes inside the room with a broken lemonade stand. He takes the last cup of it and leaves a 5G tip. Clover tries to smell the lemonade. 'damn, smells horrible. It's like someone made lemon somehow even more sour.'

After getting lemonade, Clover and Penilla go through the corn maze. As they go through it Clover finds a corn candy and stashes it away for later. As they are about to leave, the suddenly get thrown into the BATTLE.

Sweet Corn hops up excitedly

"and who is that?" Clover asks Penilla.

"Aw, that's Sweet corn, she is the cutest and most wholesome little monster in the dark ruins. Just give her a hug, and you will be able to spare her." Penilla says, while experiencing cuteness near overload. 

Clover listens to Penilla and gives Sweet corn a hug.

Sweet corn is weirded out by Clover's hug but still enjoys it. "That was weird, but full of love!" Sweet corn say's encouragingly.

Penilla then hugs sweet corn next. Sweet corn loves it, while Penilla is overwhelmed with cuteness.

Sweet corn is too busy hugging Penilla to attack clover.

Clover pressed MERCY button and then SPARE:

you won

You earned:

EXP : 0

G : 2

Sweet corn excitedly hops away to spread love.

Clover and Penilla continue forward, now with better mood. Clover pulls down the lever and backtracks to the beginning of the maze, where they continue forward. In the next room the go to pull the next lever to lower the spike only to see Dalv across the bridge.

"Who was that? What do they want from me? W-why do they look like that." Dalv keeps talking to himself remembering the uncanny tall figure next to the Penilla, only to turn around when he hears a low rumbling voice call him out.

"Is there something wrong, Dalv?" The same melting figure once again stares at Dalv, he is now frozen with fear.

Once Dalv finally regains control over his body he immediately runs away. 'W-why does it keep following me!? What does it want! Is it here to punish me!? H-how does it know my name!? Why won't it leave m-me alone! I-is it even real!?' these and many more other questions go through Dalv's mind as he finally reaches his home.

Seeing Dalv's reaction Clover and Penilla look at eachother, deciding not to talk about what just happen.

Penilla decides to stay in the previous room for a bit to get a bit of rest, while Clover goes to explore the next room.

Suddenly he is drawn into a yet another BATTLE.

Rorrim encounters you!

Clover see's a large mirror monster before him, he decides to CHECK him.

Clover pressed ACT button and then CHECK:

RORRIM --

HP : 35/35

ATK : 4

DEF : 1

Rorrim's expression is blank.

Rorrim throws mirrors at Clover, Clover dodged all of them.

Clover looks at himself trough Rorrim. "Huh, I look even worse than I thought." Clover says as his expression darkens slightly.

Rorrim seems displeased and distraught after hearing Clover's comment.

Rorrim throws mirror shards at Clover, Clover dodged them all.

Clover thinks of something. 'what if I...' Clover begins to concentrate. A cowboy outfit similar to the one he had forms out of black mass. Clover looks into the Rorrim once again, he seems pleased,  but notices something is wrong. "Still... Something ain't quite right."

Rorrim also seems pleased.

Rorrim throws mirrors at Clover, Clover dodges them all.

Clover once again looks into Rorrim, he adjusts his hat and makes the best smile he can.

Rorrim is very pleased. "Smiles are never out of style." Rorrim finally speaks.

Rorrim skips his turn.

Clover pressed MERCY button and then SPARE:

you won

You earned:

EXP : 0

G : 3

"sorry about me BATTLING you" Rorrim sincerely apologised. "You seemed like you needed some help with your look."

"There's no need to apologise since you did that and successfully did help." Clover responds.

"So I see that you already met Rorrim." Penilla says as she walks out of previous room.

"Yeah, are you good to continue?" Clover asks Penilla. She responds with a nod.

Both Clover and Penilla go trough the unnaturally quiet  bridge, the only sound coming from occasional splashes of the black mass that falls off of Clover.

Once again they are dragged into the BATTLE.

Decibat makes his presence known.

"So who's this bat?" Clover asks Penilla, agitating Decibat further.

"Quieter!" Penilla whispers. "That's Decibat, and he REALLY doesn't like noises, if you want to get trough him you need to be as quiet as possible." Penilla explains to which Clover nods.

"Don't move.Don't make a sound.Hush hushh!"Decibat whispers to Clover and Penilla.

Decibat launches blue sound waves, both Clover and Penilla freeze in place, and don't receive damage.

Both of them silently watch, Decibat seems to appreciate that. Decibat looks slightly more at ease. 

Decibat quietly whispers. "Move in silence.Hushh hushh!" 

Decibat sends out orange sound waves.

Clover and Penilla make small movements to not make any noise. The movements are small enough to avoid damage.

Both of them continue to watch Decibat in silence. He seems to appreciate that. Decibat gives them a nod of approval

"More quiet please..." Decibat quietly whispers.

Decibat sends out multiple large sound waves of blue and orange colours. Penilla Dodge's all of them, but Clover moves trough the last blue one, after getting hit he manages to catch himself, to not make any sound.

Both of them continue to watch in silence. He seems to appreciate it. Decibat is enjoying the silence. 

"You hhear that? No? Good..." Decibat whispers pleased.

Decibat sends out multiple small sound waves that bounce of the walls and switch their colour.

Clover manages to not get hit, but Penilla is sent flying by one of the last waves. Clover manages to catch her, and to not make a sound.

Both of them continue to watch Decibat in silence. He seems to appreciate that. Decibat is being lulled to sleep.

Decibat silently creates multiple stalagmites above Penilla and Clover.

Clover and Penilla manage to dodge all of them, but multiple times get nearly hit.

Both of them watch Decibat in silence. He appreciated that. Decibat is ready to return to sleep.

"Sweet silence..." Decibat quietly whispers.

Clover pressed MERCY button and then SPARE:

you won

You earned:

EXP : 0

G : 8

after the battle Decibat decides to speak. " I declare you an honorary sentinels of silence. I trust you to keep peace and order hhear.  I shall go conquer new lands in the name of quiet. This is a very hhigh honor so keep it hhush hhush." After saying that Decibat flies away.

Clover and Penilla go to the next room until Clover stops.

Penilla looks at Clover confused.

"Hey! Whoever you are come here and show your face! You are not as sneaky as you think!" Clover yells out, causing Penilla to jump.

Suddenly a yellow flower jumps out of the ground. "Yeah sorry for that. Howdy I'm Flowey, Flowey the-" Flowey notices how Clover stares at him. "I there something wrong?." He asks, acting confused.

"You..." Clover begins to look through his memories. "I remember you!" Clover says looking quite angry.

"Oh really?" Flowey asks, small grin crawling up his face. "Are you sure you are not misremembering me for someone else?."

"I don't think I forget anyone with grin that's so hideous." Clover answers.

Impossibly large grin appears on Flowey's face." Eh, shame, we could've been friends!" Flowey says mockingly. "Whatever, but know that when I will find a way to take SAVES back from you, you will suffer like never before." Flowey says with an even larger grin.

"What are you talking about? What SAVES?" Clover asks confused.

Flowey looks angry. "You little shit, you better not mess-" Flowey pause's seeing confusion on Clover's face, confirming his words to be true. "Wait you seriously don't know?" He asks now confused.

Clover shakes his head in response.

Flowey begins to lose his shit. "You... You FUCKING IMBECILE! YOU WANT TO SAY THAT YOU BROKE IT!? I SWEAR TO GOD THAT I WILL FIND A WAY TO MAKE YOU WISH THAT YOU WERE NEVER BORN!" Flowey continues to throw out insults as he disappears.

Somewhere on the Mt. Ebott.

An agent dressed in civilian uniform can be seen talking on the phone.

"... Boss, I'm saying you that this search is pointless, even if we find the kid he will most likely  be dead. Mt. Ebott is infamous for its danger, and at its size I doubt he is still alive." Agent tries to convince his boss to stop the search.

"Are you seriously proposing to have up on search for subject 373 after only two weeks? That kid is the most promising tes subject we ever found! If you won't find him or his body in the next two weeks you are fired. Also if you propose anything this stupid ever again, I will make sure that you will be our new test subject. Did you hear that?"

"Loud and clear, Boss" agent says, clearly annoyed.

"Good, now go back to searching, and tell your men that they will be now searching for 14 hours, instead of 8! I'm out." Declined phone call can be heard.

"This idiot will lead me to the early grave..." Agent sighs out. "Alright guys! Back to searching!"

Chapter Text

Before we begin this chapter, here's some info on how Clover is doing.

Current traits: Scale and claws and improves artistic skills (Penilla). Flier gave no traits. Improved regeneration and mood (Sweet corn). Improved vision (Rorrim). Improved hearing and control over sleep (Decibat).

Note, traits that Clover got from monsters (other than Penilla) are not visible, because they didn't interact for long enough, their interaction didn't have to much of impact, etc. so so far only visible monster trait that Clover has comes from Penilla. Also Clover can't imitate Fliers, and Sweet corns magic, because he never seen them use it.

As for Clover's current skills: very basic shapeshifting which he uses for the time being to make closes for himself (until he gets some actual clothing). Basic Mimicry, he can imitate people's look, attacks, voices etc. this ability is a result of him having shapeshifting, but due to him still having to little control over his body, it has a lot of problems, so if he tries to use it to fool someone it will only work in a very dark environment, at the great distance. And last skill is natural MP absorption/conversion, he is very bad at it at the moment, so he can't do it on a large scale without getting quickly exhausted, more practice needed.

Okay, I think that's enough for now, so let's get back to the story, shall we?

A couple of minutes have passed since Flowey left, and yet Clover still looked pretty angry.

Penilla noticed that, and after doing some thinking decided to speak up. "So Clover... How did you came to know Flowey? It looks like you're interaction with him wasn't the greatest." Penilla asked nervously.

Clover was silent for a moment before letting out a sigh. "Well... I've met him right after falling down here... He was in the middle of the room that you found me in." Clover took a deep breath before continuing. "He was a third monster that I've encountered. When I entered the room, I couldn't even walk anymore, and my body already began to melt. But upon seeing this Flowey instead of trying to help, decided that this was the most hilarious thing in the world." Clover said sighing out with an annoyed grimace on his face. "Shortly after he decided to join in on the fun. First he cut my eyes with some petals, then he used his vine? Well I at least think those where vines, but I couldn't see them due to me being blinded. Anyways, he used them to rip out my arms, after that he pierced my arms." Clover took in another deep breath before continuing to recount his encounter with Flowey. "After that he just watched, and laughed enjoying every second of it. Occasionally he would send out another one of his petals, or vines to cut and pierce, just to see my reaction. After a while I stopped reacting, after which I guess he got bored and left, since I couldn't hear his chuckles, and didn't feel anymore of his attacks." After finishing recounting his story, Clover took another sigh before looking at distressed Penilla.

"That's... Horrible. How can someone do something like that..." Penilla said, processing what she heard, and struggling to find right words.

"There are always going to be horrible people, no matter where and when." Clover responded.

"If I ever see that weed again, I will uproot him!" Penilla responded with angry and determined voice.

"Don't even try." Clover cuts in. "I didn't see much of what he can do, but from what I've seen, he is much more dangerous than you are." Clover responded, warning Penilla. "It would be for the best if you avoid him, and don't give him satisfaction of seeing you suffer."

Penilla paused for a moment. "Yeah... Sorry it's just... It's just that I want to do something so that he doesn't just get away with this scot free." Penilla explained to Clover.

"Don't worry about that. Sooner or later he will get what he deserves." Clover says reassuring Penilla. "Lest just continue for now, okay?" Clover asked Penilla.

"Yeah, that probably would be for the best." Penilla agreed.

Both Clover and Penilla began to walk across a small bridge, before suddenly being thrown into yet another BATTLE.

World around Clover and Penilla began to darken, only outlines of surrounding area remaining.

Crispy Scroll is looking for someone to talk to.

They are confronted by a large floating scroll, with ribbons that act as it's arms.

Clover lets out an tired sigh. "And who is that guy?" Clover begins to think about how annoying this is. 'why won't they just leave me alone? It feels like there's always someone just around the corner...'

"... That's cri-" Penilla can't even begin to explain as she suddenly is interrupted by a loud voice.

"Hey! Penilla, can you make that anime sketch that i asked you about? Also who is that guy?" Crispy Scroll said enthusiastically.

"Not now! We are busy!" Penilla said very annoyed and angry.

"Well, if one of us will make you this sketch, will you calm down?" Clover asked Crispy Scroll.

"Yes! Absolutely!" Crispy Scroll yelled out.

After hearing him say that, Clover sits down and takes a piece of paper from Penilla, and creates a pencil with magic. "So... What do you wanna me to draw?" Clover asks wanting to know his job.

Thirty minutes later:

(Authors note: Clover spares him off screen. He earned 2 G)

"And done." Clover says as he adds finishing touches to a drawing. Before him is a drawing of a Crispy Scroll floating and posing on top of the mountain.

"This drawing... It's... It's beautiful! It fills me with inspiration! It's over 9000!-" Crispy Scroll's joyous shouting is interrupted by a loud cough.

"Geez, calm down vegeta wanna be." Clover said trying to make Crispy Scroll shut up.

"What did you..." Crispy Scroll stops immediately as realisation hits him. "You! You watch anime!?" Crispy Scroll yells with even more enthusiasm, causing Penilla and Clover to become even more annoyed.

Clover now deeply regretted making a DBZ reference. "... Yes, from time to time I watched anime..." Clover says with even more annoyed voice.

Upon realising that he found someone who also watched anime Crispy Scroll is filled with even more enthusiasm. "Ooooh, so what is your favourite anime? What is you favourite move? What is your favourite character? What is-" 

"Dude! Calm down! I would like to talk about this, but right now I have a mission! When I'm done with I will talk about anime with you, but right now I'm busy. So the sooner you let us go, the sooner I will be able to return ok!?" Clover nearly shouted to make sure that Crispy Scroll understand that he is busy.

Crispy Scroll shrunk a bit at Clover unexpectedly and suddenly raising his voice. "... Okay, sorry about that. It's just that it's rare for me to find someone with shared interests..." Crispy Scroll said with somber voice.

"Well, sorry for yelling, but I really need to go. So let's talk about anime next time ok?" Clover said. After Crispy Scroll gave a small nod (with his entire body), Clover answered. "Ok then we'll go now. See you later." Clover said as both him and Penilla gone to the next room.

Clover and Penilla look at the look down at the puzzle similar to the one they encountered at the beginning. Penilla looked towards Clover. "Okay Clover you do the puzzle, I'm not very good a those" Penilla said.

Clover nodded I response. After a minute Clover finished with the puzzle allowing the to go to the next room.

Clover and Penilla find themselves in a cavern like dark room. Clover eyes adapt quickly, while Penilla's take some time, so Clover guides her trough. As both of them walk Clover spots a sign.

First one reads. "I seem to recall what I once saw so often..."

Second one reads. "What I remembered... It seems is now forgotten..."

Third one reads. "So then nevermind I guess."

'Weird, who wrote those signs?' Clover thinks to himself as he walks. He stops for a moment to pick up a feather. He sticks the feather into his "hat" only for it to turn black, and partially melted similarly to his clothing. 'well, I gotta find a ways to stop things like that from happening.' Clover thought to himself.

Penilla noticed it happening, but decided not to speak up.

Both of them get out of that room and onto another bridge. As they walk they spot Decibat sleeping there, they decide not to disturb him, but a thought goes through Clover's mind. 'well well well, when you are not trying to kill us you are actually kinda cute.' Clover resists with his whole being to not make this comment.

As Penilla and Clover reach the next room, Penilla decides to speak up. "Well, looks like we will be parting ways here. Through the corridor upstairs you will be able to get to Dalv's home, and inside of it exit from the dark ruins. I'm sure if you talk with him, he will allow you to go trough." Penilla said, thinking what to add. "Well if you need me, I'm going into the room below, and open gates there, so if you need anything I'm there, ok?"

"Okay, it was nice going through here with you. I will do my best to keep contact with you. Thanks again for everything." Clover said as he was walking towards entrance. 

Dalv was standing in the corridor between two streams of water, he was thinking about something when a familiar tall figure walks in, making him back away a bit, but Dalv force's himself to stop, and to confront the figure that was seemingly hunting him down. "You're... still following me?" Dalv said with a shaky voice. "I don't understand... You... you look so like them. Is this some sort of haunting? Or have you come to finish the job? Retreating here wasn't enough so you hunted me down... Right?"

Clover was now very confused, about what Dalv was talking about. "What?" Was only thing Clover could say.

Dalv takes a deep breath, before letting it out. "And I already accepted my reality. The cruelty...  Whatever I did to you that day was not my intention, I was only..." Dalv paused for a moment before continuing. "I... I don't want to fight anybody, but you've invaded my home.The exit is blocked and you can't stay here. I will not allow it. Only one thing to do..."

World around Clover and Dalv began to darken, only outlines of surrounding area remaining

Dalv musters his fighting spirit.

'just great... I guess I will need to find a peaceful way out of this.' Clover thinks to himself.

Clover pressed ACT button and then CHECK:

DALV --

HP : 240/240

ATK : 6

DEF : 4

Wants to be left alone.

"I don't suppose you can leave the way you entered, could you? That would be easier for both of us." Dalv says before launching lightning strikes at Clover. ' I really hoped that it wouldn't come to this, but they left me no choice...' Dalv thinks to himself.

Clover manages to dodge all of the light strikes. "Look, I also don't want to fight, so let's talk this out?" Clover asked, but Dalv doesn't hear or notices it.

"Where did you come from anyway? There aren't any accessible entrances..." Dalv asked before attacking once again.

Clover Dodge's first attack, but doesn't seem second one coming due to it being different, and gets hit. This seems to disturb Dalv. Clover dodge there rest of the lightning strikes without a problem. Clover silently extends his hand, Dalv doesn't notice.

"All I know is that somehow... you found me. Sorry to make things difficult but I'm not cowering away this time." Dalv said mustering his confidence before sending out lightning balls. 'Why don't they attack me?' Dalv begins to question.

Clover dodge's all of them, blocking the last one with a magic mirror. This makes Dalv confused. Clover once again extends his hand, Dalv doesn't notice.

'How did they summon that magic mirror...? Did they somehow took it away from Rorrim?' Dalv questions once again. "The other monsters... Did you pester them as well? " Dalv breathes in and out before continuing."Not that I care much to keep up with their activity..." Dalv said with saddened voice.

 Two continuous lightning strikes appear in front and behind Clover. They move forward and back, Clover carefully follows them without getting hit. "Look, Dalv, I don't know what happened, but I'm not who you think I am." Clover attempts to explain, but Dalv seems to not hear it.

"This region of the Ruins is my home. And my home has rules. The residents understand that." Dalv explains. 'Why won't they attack me...? Did I mistake them for someone else? Did I misjudged their intentions?' Dalv continues to question himself, before creating six lightning balls around Clover.

Clover carefully follows movements of the balls, getting close to being zapped multiple times. Clover silently extends his hand once again, trying to appear as non threatening as possible. Dalv doesn't notice, but still hesitates.

"But it seems as if you never got the memo." Dalv said before opening his cape. "That, or you're purposely ignoring my wishes." Dalv says with a hesitation in his voice.

Clover dodges all lightning bolts that are thrown at him, deflecting few of them with a magical pencil. Clover silently stands, giving Dalv some time and space to think.

W-What's with that somber face?" Dalv asked Clover." Don't you understand? Don't you remember me? I know you aren't a phantom but..." Dalv takes a moment to get a better look at Clover."Could it be that... No, it isn't possible." Dalv finally realises."You... You look so calm. Different." Dalv thinks for a moment."But is it a front?"

In response to Dalv's question Clover shakes his head.

"No... You aren't trying to hurt me..." Dalv says regretting his attack."You... You aren't who I believed you to be, are you?"

Clover once again shakes his head.

"...How could I be so foolish? I apologize. I truly do. This got out of hand..." Dalv lets out breath before continuing. "I... I don't know how I can make things right now..." Dalv questions.

In response Clover silently extends his hand once again.

"You want me... to... shake your hand? Even after I wrongfully attacked you? But that is... a sign of friendship...  You're a human, right?" Dalv questions, unsure if Clover is a human or a strange monster.

Clover nods." Yes I'm a human... At least I think I still am." Clover responds to confirm Dalv's question.

Dalv suppresses the urge to question Clover's answer, deciding to ask him later, asking different question instead. "Is it the same where you come from?" Dalv says before continuing after seeing Clover's nod. "I'm not sure... I didn't ever expect to meet another human. Don't get me wrong! I'd love to have a friend! ...I mean, I think. I don't really remember what that entails..." Dalv says with saddened voice. "I guess I'll give it a shot if you will." Dalv adds with more cheerful voice.

Clover pressed MERCY button and then SPARE:

you won

You earned:

EXP : 0

G : 15

...

...

...

"What do friends do actually?" Dalv finally breaks the silence.

Clover only responds with bringing his shoulders up.

"Uh... Do you want to, um, see my house? Or something? I have to go there anyway so I guess stop  by if you have time. " Dalv asks Clover, who responds with a nod.

Clover follows Dalv inside his house.

"I have to um... fix something in the other room." Dalv says nervously. Sit down, get comfortable, take your shoes off." Dalv paused for a moment to think." Actually please leave them on, the floors are a bit dirty. I haven't swept since this morning." Dalv said before going into the next room.

Clover inspects a room that he is in right now, he sees a round table with a chair next to a fridge, on the opposite end of the room he sees another table with art supplies on top, and a nicer chair next to it. Next to the exit he sees  a drawer, and empty pot, and large closet. Clover decides to wait for Dalv to return, so he goes and sits on chair next to a round table. After sitting down Clover begins to feel tired, then suddenly he can't keep himself upright m then

*BHAM

His face is now on the table and he is fast asleep.

Dalv returns, only to see Clover with his head on the table, which worried Dalv. "Are you okay..?" Dalv asks, his question soon answered with a quiet snoring. 'Oh... I should probably bring a blanket?' Dalv thinks to himself, before going back to his room to take a blanket.