"I am quite all right to be left on my own, ma'am." He could ask but it's not really any of his business.

"Thank you.

...though, I have a spare cell phone for occasions such as these, and it seems wise to give it to you now. Just in case."

"What is a cell phone?"

Wow, he really, really isn't from around here, in case anyone was wondering.

"A device for talking over distance. Like so -"

[Toriel explains the mobile phone. It's a very barebones model, by the standards of 2025 Earth, and can't do much aside from talking and storing numbers, which makes it fairly easy to explain.]

"...I'll be careful with it. Thank you."

"...you're welcome. Please, don't wander around much. I will return shortly."

And away she goes.

It's quiet.

He will use this time to pray and flip through the Acts.

When he's hitting diminishing returns on that, he'll... hm, ideally he'd wait on the Create Food till Toriel is back, he doesn't know what she eats. It doesn't seem important enough to blow a use of the Wand of Sending device on, he can just wait. He drinks some water, and makes a chess set. Picks at a sweat stain in his shirt with the spell while he's got it up and starts cataloguing openings and possible responses thereto.

There's what's presumably a monster hopping by in the distance, at some point, but it doesn't appear to be interested.

It's mostly quiet.

Meanwhile,

("The spy inside the city forum have never returned, Your Majesty. But their last message is troubling, to say the least. These humans, they say, think of each of us as of a horrid threat, bound to erupt at any moment. No, Your Majesty, I have no idea what sort of an eruption they have in mind. When it comes to a real fight, we're still as helpless as we always were.")

("Tori! Tori... Oh, Tori, he... he... died right as- right as he got back... Wounded, turned to dust, gone... These savages! Murderers! Murderers, all of them, taking everything from us, again and again! Humankind! You will regret this day in your final moments! ")

("Look, ma, you're sweet, but you just worry too too much! The people around here, the monsters, they're... I've known them for two years now! They're all of them nice! I've made friends with them all! What, are those behind that big door all that different? You told me you'll let me go in a month three months ago! And then two months ago! I'm a big girl, ma, you can't keep me forever! ")

("Monsters are not uncommon on the continent where Cheliax lies though I did not recognize the specific type. It's possible this is not even my planet, though my planet does have a monster-inhabited underground. At least some of it is not completely cut off, though, there are adventurers and raids going between.")

("Yes, people often pick fights with other people, and I would pray for their souls, but they should not attack armed people of unknown strength if they would prefer not to experience all the consequences of attacking armed people of unknown strength. I'm not planning to attack anyone who begins by negotiating.")

("Ma'am, I don't think we understand each other.")

("If you had meant to tell me that it was my legal responsibility as a human present in this area to receive unprovoked violence tamely and if necessary die in the process for some reason, and this in spite of the fact that you intervened violently with the - flower creature, it would not have been the strangest thing I ever heard, but - that did not seem to fully explain your attitude.")

("I believe you, ma'am. I'm prepared to also believe that monsters here are different in some extremely vital way from the ones I'm accustomed to, though I don't yet know what way that might be, and I can imagine spells I might prepare to better adhere to your protocol which wouldn't necessarily make me worse at defending myself with my mace if it came to that should they fail and I'm not unwilling to use those when I have them. I've just spent my career guarding the border around a portal to an infinite plane full of demons who if permitted to escape were bent on the subjugation, torture, murder, and consumption of any mortals they might happen across.")

...

(This young man's soul, powering Asgore Dreemurr's incursion into the Surface. A flash of light and - a million of humans like him, like her, like the other her, and not much unlike us - gone in an instant, turned to dust like we are. And another flash. And another. And another.)

(He wouldn't dare. Or maybe he would? Who knows! Who knows! )

(He wouldn't dare make it hurt, at least. He wouldn't. Certainly he wouldn't.)

(what if we just stopped fighting? like, what if just not. lo, lo, the mighty wisdom of a born ruler.)

...

...

...

...alright, enough of that. Quite.

There's things to get back to. Time to pull that lever, and-

"NO! Don't you touch that slab! Don't you do it!"

The dog backflips onto the pressure slab.