Chapter Text
A low hum echoed in the back of the boy's mind—dull, like the thump of a heartbeat against the earth. He stirred slightly, head pounding, and tried to open his eyes.
Everything was blurry.
Shapes wobbled in the haze, like melted shadows.
"...So you're finally up."
The boy blinked, his vision slowly sharpening into form. Above him stood the girl from before—the one with the guitar and the bat.
She had her arms crossed and one ear flicked in irritation. Her wiffle bat was now slung lazily over her shoulder.
"You're lucky I didn't swing twice," she said dryly, "I thought you were that weird Jerry guy."
The boy sat up slowly, rubbing his forehead. "Ow..."
"Here." She leaned down, offering a hand, eyes scanning him. "Sorry for hitting you in the face."
The boy hesitated, then took her hand. It was rough but steady, the kind of grip that said she was used to climbing trees or dragging herself out of thorny situations.
Once he was on his feet, she gave him a once-over and then promptly turned away, brushing a bit of dirt off her flannel sleeve. "You didn't look like a Jerry, but hey—hard to tell when you're creeping behind trees."
"Oh and here's your flower pot." The girl handed over the pot with slight cracks on the rim, though Asriel voice from the flower in the pot seemed annoyed.
"I am not an accessory," Asriel grumbled, glaring at her, though no one could see it.
The girl linked, then gave a small snort. "You talk way too much for a flower. You should have heard it. It was none stop yapping.
"For the last time I am not a flower!" he snapped.
The boy gently held the pot, checking it for damage. Asriel grumbled something about "tree-guitar psychos," but settled down quickly when he realized the boy was okay.
The girl flopped back onto the mossy boulder, picking up her guitar again. She strummed a few lazy chords, more rhythm than melody, then paused to look up at the boy. "So. You're a human aren't you."
The boy nodded slowly, brushing dirt off his sweater. "Yeah."
The girl squinted at him, like she was trying to read something printed on his forehead. "Huh. Thought you'd be taller."
"Sorry?"
"Don't apologize," she said, casually plucking at her guitar again. "You've got the right vibe. Confused. Scrappy. Weird flower companion. Classic human stuff. I think."
"That's not what I—"
Asriel scoffed. "Hey! I'm not a weird flower companion!"
She strummed a sharp chord and shrugged. "Could've fooled me." Asriel's voice grumbled from the flower.
The boy titled his head. "You're a reindeer, just like Noelle."
The girl froze mid-strum. Her fingers paused on the strings, just barely touching the frets. The soft echo of the last note hung in the air for a moment too long.
Her expression didn't change much—still unreadable, still leaning into that too-cool-to-care slouch—but one of her ears gave the faintest twitch.
"So you've met my sister," she said flatly.
The boy nodded. "Yeah. She and Berdly are given me puzzles."
The girl snorted, her tone halfway between amusement and exasperation. "Of course they did. I bet he called it something like 'Leaf-brained Logic Challenge Deluxe' or whatever."
"Tree-lateral Locking Logic," the boy corrected gently.
Asriel muttered, "Still a stupid name."
The girl let out a dry laugh. "He's lucky Noelle hasn't decked him yet."
"Well anyway I'm Dess, short for December." Dess walked back, and out stretched her hand.
The boy looked at her hand for a second, then reached out and shook it.
There was brief silence before Dess broke it. "So aren't you gonn—"
"Oh right! This is Asriel." The boy pointed to the flower in hand.
"Hey don't point to the flower like that's m— Ugh why do I even bother." Asriel gave up on trying to explain that he isn't the flower.
Dess gave a confused look before replying. "Asriel.... I feel like I heard that name before...Also not what I meant but ok."
"Well anyway Dess, me and Asriel better get going." The boy turned around before he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Wait let me come with you!" Dess quickly stated, her facade cracking a little.
"Why?"
Dess face quickly went back to looking like she didn't care. "W-well. I want to see how you rock human."
"Hum.... Let me talk about this with my friend." The turns around and gets close to the flower.
He crouched low, shielding his conversation from Dess as much as possible—not that she wasn't obviously leaning in to eavesdrop.
"So?" he whispered. "Should we bring her?"
Asriel groaned quietly. "Ugh... she did hit you in the face."
"True."
"She also almost dropped me. On purpose."
"Also true."
"But..." Asriel looked back toward Dess, who was now plucking the same three guitar strings over and over with very fake indifference. "She might actually be useful. You saw how fast she clocked you—imagine what she could do to someone else."
The boy nodded slowly.
"And let's be honest," Asriel added. "She's weird. You're weird. I'm weird. We're basically a perfect disaster waiting to happen."
"I'll take that as a yes."
He stood back up.
Dess tried to act like she hadn't been watching the whole exchange. "So...?"
The boy gave a small shrug. "Okay. You can come."
Dess blinked. "Wait—seriously?"
"Yeah," he said.
She grinned, trying to suppress how excited she clearly was.
She slung her guitar onto her back again, then strode ahead, boots crunching on the dirt path. "Let's get moving then, Lostboy and the Not-A-Flower."
"That's not my name—" Asriel started.
But the boy just smiled and followed after her.
Their mismatched trio moved through the forest. They approach another area and meet with Noelle and Berdly with a very unprepared puzzle.
Noelle was crouched behind a wooden panel, frantically scribbling something down on a notepad. Her hair was frizzed with stress. Berdly, on the other hand, stood in front of a very unfinished looking structure—two support poles holding up nothing, half a lever dangling by a single screw, and several scattered planks lying in a sad pile of "potential."
Berdly noticed them first.
"Aha! You've arrived just in time to witness the greatness of—uh—um..." His wings flapped with visible panic. "The next puzzle! Which is... still in the fine-tuning phase of development."
"Berdly," Noelle muttered, not looking up from her notes, "it's not fine-tuning if we forgot half the puzzle pieces at the last stop."
"I prefer to call it intentional minimalism!"
Dess stopped next to the boy and squinted at the sad frame of wood and disappointment. "Wow," she deadpanned. "It's like a modern art sculpture of failure."
Berdly turned red. "E-excuse me! This is a conceptual test to see if the human can deduce intent through implication!"
Noelle looks up from her notes to see Dess. "Oh hey Dess."
"Hey."
Noelle sighed. "But you're right. We lost the blueprints. And the logic grid. And the backup clues. And the lever got eaten by a squirrel."
There was, indeed, a squirrel chewing on something metallic in a nearby tree.
The boy blinked. "...So, there's no puzzle?"
"Not true!" Berdly huffed. "There is a puzzle—it's just... invisible. To those without genius."
"Right," Asriel's voice said flatly. "So nothing."
Dess leaned closer to the boy, whispering behind her hand. "This is better than I thought. I didn't think anything could make Berdly look dumber than his puzzle names."
The boy grinned.
Noelle stood up, brushing off her skirt. "We'll figure it out. Maybe. Eventually. Probably. Do you want to just... go past this one?"
Berdly gasped. "No! Wait! I can salvage this!"
Then he immediately tripped over a support beam.
The boy, Dess, and Asriel watched in silence as he flailed in the dirt, kicking up a puff of dust and pride.
"I think we should go...." The three started to walk away.
"Yeah.... Bye Dess!" Noelle quickly comes to her senses and goes to help Berdly.
"Bye!"
The three walks into the next room and finds what looks to be a gaming setup.
A stark contrast to the nature around them, the next "room" looked like someone had ripped a corner out of a teenager's bedroom and dropped it right into the forest. Strings of colored lights dangled haphazardly between tree trunks, powered by a generator humming faintly in the background. A beanbag chair sat slightly deflated near a small fold-out table stacked with old game cartridges, snack wrappers, and a retro TV.
The boy blinked.
Asriel blinked.
Dess tilted her head and whispered, "This must be Berdly's idea."
"How did they get a TV in the forest?" The boy walks over to the TV and tries to turn it on.
Asriel's voice crackled in. "Honestly what were you expecting."
Shrugging, the boy walked behind the TV and towards where I was supposedly connected to.
The boy leaned down and took the plug out, only to see a hole, with a mouse. "There's not even an outlet here. It's just a hole with a mouse."
Dess turned towards them before seeing a note on the TV. "Must be from Berdly."
She read aloud:
"To the human and their band of misfits—
Welcome to your next intellectual trial!
This Puzzle Room™ tests how much are you a gamer. Maybe if you beat my high score on Dragon Blazers I will come to respect you, which will not happen! BERDLY.
(Genius Puzzle Architect, Level 7 Thinker, Cool Guy)"
As Dess finished reading, she slowly lowered the note with the kind of expression usually reserved for milk that's gone bad.
"...This is the dumbest thing I've ever read," she declared.
Asriel groaned. "How do we even beat a high score on a TV that isn't plugged in?"
Dess glanced over at the generator and frowned. "It's not even running. That hum is just a broken fan taped to the side."
The boy blinked. "So should we just move on?"
"Yeah." Asriel said from the pot in the boy's hand.
Dess folded the note into a tiny square, then stuffed it behind a half-eaten bag of chips like she was trying to erase it from reality. "Yeah. If Berdly calls that a puzzle, I'm calling that a cry for help."
The boy gave one last glance at the sagging beanbag chair and flickering fairy lights. "It's kinda sad," he said quietly.
"Don't pity it," Asriel mumbled. "That's exactly what it wants."
With that, the trio turned their backs on the faux-gamer shrine and continued down the forest path.
The three find another high area, they decided to go down to where they find spikes blocking their path.
The boy looked confused. "I guess we got to find a way to get rid of them."
Dess eyes widen. "Oh right I know oh to fix this. Don't follow me!" Dess run back up towards the right. After a few moments, the spikes head into the ground, Dess walking back down.
"Great job Dess! What did you do?" The boy asked.
Dess put her arms over her shoulder. "Oh don't worry about it, it's super hard and difficult to understand anyways."
"Oh ok." They began to walk through where the spikes were, before Asriel's voice whispered in. "All she did was flip a lever."
The boy chuckled, slightly confusing Dess. As the three walk over a small bridge, they saw what seems to be Noelle next to a very very simple block moving puzzle.
Noelle stood with her hands on her hips, staring down at the block puzzle like it had personally insulted her intelligence.
The puzzle itself was almost laughably simple: one block, one pressure plate, and a straight path in between. The block wasn't even heavy—it looked like it could be pushed with a sneeze and a moderately stern glare.
When she heard footsteps, Noelle turned toward the trio, face slightly pink.
"Oh! Hey, guys," she said quickly, standing a little too straight. "Didn't expect to see you so soon."
"You okay there, Noelle?" the boy asked, tilting his head.
"Y-yeah!" she answered just a little too fast. "I'm just... analyzing the structural integrity of the puzzle. You know. For science."
"Uh-huh," Dess said, unimpressed. "Looks like you're trying to remember how arms work."
"I just— I mean— There just has to be a trick to it! I mean I doubt Berdly intellect sometimes but there's no way he made something so simple without a trick, right?"
Asriel's dry voice echoed out of the pot. "Noelle... it's literally just a block. And a plate."
Noelle looked at the puzzle again, then back at them. Her determination flickered like a candle in the wind. "...It could be a trap."
Dess stepped forward, brushing past her with an eye-roll. "The only trap here is overthinking." She gave the block a gentle nudge with the side of her boot. It slid across the ground with all the resistance of a lazy Tuesday and came to rest squarely on the pressure plate.
Click.
The spikes ahead slipped into the ground.
Noelle, flustered but trying to smile, nodded toward the now-open path. "Oh..... We'll see you up ahead!" She ran by the three and into the next area.
"Why did she say it like we aren't gonna see her in a second?" Asriel's voice questioned.
The boy shrugged and followed after Noelle. As they did they saw Noelle and Berdly next to another block pushing puzzle but surprisingly a little difficult from they can see.
The next puzzle was a clear step up from the last.
This time, there were multiple blocks—three in total—and a grid of pressure plates, some cracked and others intact. A few walls had narrow gaps, and one section of floor looked suspiciously like it might collapse under too much weight.
Berdly stood proudly in front of the puzzle like a museum guide showing off his life's work. Noelle stood beside him, arms crossed and clearly skeptical.
"Ah, there you are!" Berdly announced, gesturing grandly. "Prepare your minds, for this challenge will test your wit, your patience, and your capacity to admit that I am smarter than you."
"...Can I leave?" Dess asked flatly.
"No!" Berdly snapped, then coughed. "I mean... of course not! This puzzle is crucial to your progression and, more importantly, your intellectual development!"
The boy stepped forward, examining the setup. "So, we just push the blocks onto the plates?"
"Fool!" Berdly flailed his wings. "Did you not see the cracked ones? Step wrong and boom, you fall through. And the pressure plates must be activated in a specific sequence, or else the door will stay shut forever!"
"Sounds fake," Asriel muttered.
"Sounds Berdly," Dess added.
Noelle gave a small sigh. "I tried to tell him not everything needs five layers of failure baked in."
The boy leaned down watching the puzzle before realizing how easy it was. "Oh!" The boy said, pointing. "It's just a misdirection puzzle. The cracked plates only break if you stand on them too long, and the block can't even reach them unless you deliberately mess up."
Berdly blinked. "W-what?! N-no! You're clearly mistaken—this was designed to challenge the minds of only the most elite puzzle-solvers!"
The boy stepped onto a stable tile, giving a cautious push to the first block. It slid cleanly across the floor and stopped just short of one of the cracked plates.
He smirked. "You tried to overcomplicate a baby puzzle."
"It's called layering!" Berdly squawked.
Dess leaned casually on a nearby rock. "It's called wasting our time."
The boy carefully nudged the second block, threading it between the cracked plates with ease. A second soft click echoed through the trees.
Only one block remained.
"Go on," Noelle said softly. "I believe in you."
Berdly's wings drooped. "I believe in you too... even though this is a test of my genius... and you're kind of stomping all over it."
"I'll take that as a compliment," the boy replied with a grin, pushing the last block onto its plate.
CLUNK!
The spikes slipped into the ground.
Noelle clapped politely. Dess gave a slow, sarcastic thumbs-up. Berdly turned away with a dramatic sigh and muttered something about "ungrateful players." Before heading into the next clearing, Noelle following behind.
Asriel's voice piped up. "One day, he's gonna make a puzzle with twelve levers, seven blocks, and a sudoku requirement."
"Then he's still gonna get shown up by this kid." Dess added, giving the boy a small nookie.
The boy smiled, stepping over the spikes with the others.
As the three walk into the next clearing they see Noelle and Berdly again, with another puzzle that seems to be multiple shades of gray.
"Ugh! Another puzzle back to back!?" Dess complained.
"Ugh! Another puzzle back to back!?" Dess groaned, dragging her feet like a child.
Berdly perked up immediately, arms flaring out like he'd just been waiting for the curtain to rise. "Aha! But this isn't just a puzzle made by me—it's a masterpiece made by the former royal scientist!"
Berdly put a wing on a switch. "You see these tiles? Once I throw this switch, they will begin to change color! Each color has a different function. Red tiles are impassable—you cannot walk on them. Yellow tiles are electric; they will electrocute you. Green tiles are alarm tiles—if you step on them, you will get attacked. Orange tiles are orange-scented; they will make you smell delicious. Blue tiles are water tiles. Swim through if you like, but if you smell like oranges, the piranhas will bite you. Also, if a blue tile is next to a yellow tile, the water will also zap you! Purple tiles are slippery—you will slide to the next tile. However, the slippery soap smells like lemons, which piranhas do not like. Purple and blue are okay! Finally, pink tiles... they don't do anything. Step on them all you like. How was that? Understand?"
The boy blinked. "...No."
Asriel groaned from the pot. "I stopped listening after you started."
Dess raised a hand. "Quick question—how high was the royal scientist when they design this?"
Berdly puffed his chest. "Well all that doesn't matter!" Berdly dramatically slammed the switch.
BZZZRT—CRACKLE—DING!
The tile grid before them flickered violently like a dying arcade machine, then the colors began to shuffle rapidly—so rapidly it was impossible to track. Then, with a pitiful sputter, the entire thing ground to a halt, leaving every tile... pink.
The silence was deafening.
"...How?" Noelle asked.
Berdly looked utterly devastated. "W-What?! No! This was meant to be my ultimate test of logic and reflex! My magnum opus of mental agility!"
Dess eyes widen. "Hahaha! How improbable even is that!?"
Asriel's voice echoed, slightly impressed. "That has to be a 1 in 134157632728846952689416995267844662298643534675468593245225927."
Dess was still laughing, leaning on the boy for support. "I can't—my brain is short-circuiting harder than that machine!"
Berdly flailed his wings. "This is a travesty! It's rigged! Sabotaged! There's no way every tile came up pink!"
Noelle smirked, arms crossed. "Maybe that really is the puzzle."
The boy stepped cautiously onto a pink tile. Nothing happened.
He stepped again. Still nothing.
He turned back to the group, shrugging. "They really don't do anything."
Dess marched straight through the entire field, arms stretched out like a plane. "Woo! I'm solving the puzzle! I'm such a genius!"
Asriel chuckled. "Watch out, Berdly, she's gaining on you."
Berdly drooped like a sad paper crane. "This was supposed to be my moment..."
Noelle patted him on the shoulder gently. "Hey, at least it didn't explode this time."
Berdly perked up a little. "...True. There were significantly fewer flames involved."
As the group walked past the now-completely-useless puzzle grid, the boy looked over his shoulder.
"Maybe version 4.7 will work better."
Berdly's eyes lit up. "Yes! Yes, that's it! I just need to recalibrate the pink tile probability modifier—"
"Don't encourage him," Dess hissed.
Too late. Berdly was already muttering calculations under his breath as he followed Noelle.
The three also went into the clearing seeing an eye, a clown, and a Mail dog.
"Oh hey! Migospel and astigmatism!" The boy ran over leaving behind Dess.
Dess tilted her head as the boy sprinted toward the group of odd figures. "Migospel? Astigmatism?"
As the boy ran close Astigmatism pushed him back. "Hey don't act all buddy with me human! We're still enemies."
The boy chuckled. "I just wanted to thank you for breaking through that gate for me and Asriel. "Honk! Honk! You're lucky! If it wasn't for that dog we wouldn't have been dragged into that gate."
Dess finally caught up, panting slightly. "Okay. What did I just walk into?"
The boy turned back. "Oh right Dess this is Astigmatism and Migospel. Me and Asriel met them in the ruins."
"Oh Leafdin's mayor's daughter." Astigmatism said.
The boy walks over to Mail dog, placing a hand over his head. "And this is Mail dog." Mail dog looks up to see Dess waving at it.
"Hey— WOAH!!" Mail dog runs at Dess grabbing a letter out its pouch and handing it to Dess.
"A letter?" Dess opened up the envelope to see a old letter. As she checks to see what the letters says, all the text seems to be blacked out, except for two, W, and D.
"Who it's from?" Asriel's voice cracked from flower. "I-I don't know." Dess said, a little nervous.
"How?" The boy walks over to the girl, tip toeing to see the letter. "Oh that's how. There's not even anything written, it's blank."
Dess looks down to the boy. "H-huh!? What do you mean!? I mean there's nothing written but it has these black bars and the letters W, D!"
The boy squinted at the paper. "Nope. I'm seeing nothing but a clean, empty page. Not even a water stain."
Asriel's voice chimed in again, more uneasy this time. "Yeah me neither."
Dess looks at the paper uneasy. "No! B-but?!" As Dess looks at the boy realized her facade is broken. "Yeah! You're right, there's written on it from I can see either." Dess crumbles the letter before throwing it behind her. "Let's go." She walks towards the next are trying to look cool again.
"Sure!" The boy follow after to a clearing with nothing but mud.
"Not more mud..." Dess said with a grunt. "Hey you could do this easily right?"
"Uhhh...." The boy looks at puzzle for a second before seeing a plate near the other side. "Yeah!"
The boy handed the flower pot to Dess. As he placed a foot inside the mud, he realizes how deep it is.
He slowly lowers himself into the mud as it reaches his waist. He starts moving towards the plate.
As he does he feels a something stop him from moving forward. "Oh please don't be a maze." As he turns the other way he feels something in front stop him again. "Yep a maze."
The boy moves through the mud by trial and error before he finally reaches the plate and presses it. As he does he feels the ground under him move up clearing a path towards next area.
They stepped into the next area, the clearing being mostly empty with leaves and few trees.
There was two options forward or right. The turn right down a little lower. As the boy and Dess walk onto the right path they saw some weird eyes inside the holes of the cliff.
"What are those?" The boy questioned. Dess came up beside. "Those are just some monsters that like to hide in there. Normal you don't see their eyes anymore due to all the light. I guess we're lucky." As they turn ahead, the three see a deer, with a sideways mouth, and trees for antlers.
The boy whispers to Dess. "You know them?" Dess gives a confused head shake. As they are turned to each other, the weird deer rushes at them starting a battle.
GYFTROT confronts you!
The boy instinctively raised his arms. "Uhhh, ACT!"
ACT
• Check
• Decorate
• Undecorate
• UndecorateX
• DecorateX
• Gift
He quickly pressed Check.
GYFTROT - ATK 16 / DEF 8
"Some teens 'decorated' it as a prank"
"Aw that's sad." The boy waits for his turn to finish, before realizing he hasn't told Dess what to do. "Oh right! I almost forgot Dess! This is your first battle with us."
"Oh uhh, yeah. What should I do exactly?" Dess question holding her wiffle bat.
The boy thinks for a second before remembering. "Let's see what you can do. Click the magic button."
Dess shrugged. "Well, alright. Here goes nothing."
MAGIC
A small menu popped up:
• Wiffle Bash: 40 MP
• Snowball: 25 MP
"Humm.... Looks like we don't have enough magic points, but it's not like it mattered anyway, we shouldn't be attacking anyone. But you should just press defend now." Dess listened and felt her arms go into a cross so ice formed on her arms for more protection. "Woah."
GYFTROT starts its turn by throwing a bunch of leaves at the boy, which he dodges.
"Alright!" The boy heads back to ACT.
ACT
• Check
• Decorate
• Undecorate
• UndecorateX
• DecorateX
• Gift
The boy clicks UndecorateX, as he does him and Dess goes to take off the 'decoration' the teens put on Gyftrot. Gyftrot looks noticeably happier, but their name still isn't yellow.
Gyftrot starts their turn again by make three presents one being blue and shuffled them. After they're done shuffling they shoot them at the boy, but the boy dodges by going through the blue one.
"Alright one last time." The boy heads back to ACT.
ACT
• Check
• Decorate
• Undecorate
• UndecorateX
• DecorateX
• Gift
The boy thinks before pressing Gift. The boy heads over to Gyftrot, and hugs them giving Gyftrot tears. Gyftrot's name turns yellow.
"Alright now press mercy Dess!" Dess looks down at the buttons and presses mercy.
YOU WON!
You earned 0 XP and 17 gold.
The world turns back to normal as Gyftrot runs away. "Nice job Dess!" The two turns around to see the flowerpot on the ground.
The boy goes to pick it up. "Oh, uh, thanks. Hey wait! How come you didn't help!" Des questioned.
"Well I'm only optional help so.... Let's just head to that cave." The three look forward to see a cave next to a cliff. As they walk near it Dess stops at the edge of the cliff, while the boy walks into cave.
Dess looks down from the cliff, seeing the forest and a house at the bottom. The boy noticing Dess' distracted state goes over to her. "You good?"
"Oh! U-uh.... Yeah.. Yeah... Hey let's go back on the main route, there's nothing in that cave except a door that won't open. And trust me I tried a lot to get it to open."
"Oh, ok, sure." The group head back up to where they were earlier, as Dess still takes some quick looks back still slightly distant.