Well, no monster is imminently lunging toward him so this is arguably an improvement, albeit one that came about via a monster succeeding at doing just that.

He casts Light on his holy symbol, shines it around in the shadowy corners of the chamber, tries to guess the distance to the hole in the roof, and finally takes the corridor out.

There's a doorframe. Big and imposing. Behind it, a patch of green amid darkness.

Huh. Is there another roof hole? He steps closer to check.

Suddenly, a very large flower with a powder-white face pops up from under the green patch! To someone with Chelish levels of face-reading, he looks quite confused and less than sincere, but he's doing a passable job at 'friendliness' nevertheless.

"Howdy! I'm... me, Flowey the Flower. And aren't you interesting!"

It's definitely not Taldane or Infernal. Somehow, it's understandable anyway.

...that's not how Tongues works but maybe it's how the - no, truespeech works like Tongues, actually, as far as he knows? Huh.

If he tries to say "pardon me" does it come out in the new language too?

It does, though it's also understandable to Blai.

There's probably some global spell about language in the Underground.

There's probably lots of global spells about various things in the Underground.

Undertale is not the kind of game to pretend logistics don't exist, but more than that, it's definitely not the kind of game to actually delve into them.

"No worries! We're all friends here, hee hee hee."

"Say, how'd you even fall down here? The hole up there isn't wide enough for an old man."

Probably Blai is the one subject to Tongues. He isn't sure when or how that happened, which is concerning, but he can't detect at this time any other effects on him and doesn't have a supervisor to go to with the security issue. Except Iomedae, of course; quick sitrep prayer for Her.

"I don't think I fell. I was attacked by some kind of snake monster I didn't recognize and then I was there. I'm Select Blai Artigas."

"Were you now. How very interesting. Now what if you told me the truth instead? I hear lying isn't very nice."

"It's also against my religion. I acknowledge it's an unusual story and perhaps it sounds even moreso to you than to me."

There's unsuppressed rage on the flower's face, now, contorted into something quite unsightly.

"Mm. You know, even an IDIOT would know that there's no monsters up on the Surface. SO WHO DO YOU TAKE ME FOR, THEN?"

A dense ring of petal-like magical projectiles surrounds Blai. They track his motions perfectly and slowly, gradually contract.

"What is it, really? Tell me, or DIE."

"Qualm!" exclaims Blai.

Qualm

[...]

Saving Throw Will negates

You know, this might do something against someone that isn't a bunch of centuries-old plant matter animated entirely by literal liquid determination.

LOL.

You get hit for a bunch.

Huh, that didn't do much damage at all.

You get hit for way more, then, in quite a bit less than 6 seconds! And then, you-

OW! Ouch ow owchie!

And then the plant thing is hit by a miniature Fireball. Which doesn't explode or burn him, but does uproot and bounce him way off into the darkness.

And nearly simultaneously, Blai is instantly healed.

"What a terrible creature, torturing such a fine young man! Ah, do not be afraid, my child. I am Toriel, caretaker of the ruins."

What kind of an instruction is "do not be afraid".

"Hello," says Blai.

It's a very normal instruction for very normal people that might be scared by a sudden exchange of spells even when nothing is to be afraid of, silly!

"I pass through here every day to see if anyone has fallen down. You are the first human to come here in a long time."

"I will do my best to protect you during your time here. Come! I shall guide you through the catacombs."

Toriel is sincere, or much better at concealing emotions than Flowey was, or doesn't have natural humanlike emotional expression to begin with now that we've raised the topic anyway.

"Could you perhaps tell me where I am."

"We are in the Underground. Specifically, the upper reaches of The Ruins."

"What continent is this underneath?"

"Hmm. Truthfully, I do not remember. I believe we happen to lie under a nation currently called America, but- huh."

"Shouldn't you know which continent your home is at? That you don't implies a considerable failure of education, if you ask me."

"I didn't fall. I was attacked by some kind of snake monster and this somehow sent me there, through that hall." Point. "I don't know of a place called America. At the time I was attacked I was in Cheliax in the archduchy of Menador."

"Truthfully, I find it rather hard to believe you have encountered a monster outside of the Barrier, much less one that would send you, of all places, to this exact place. Still, we don't need to jump to conclusions, especially on something with little expedience or confidence. Perhaps you know something I don't, young one."

"I do not recognize any of these place names either. Not particularly surprising, perhaps, since we've been totally cut off from the Surface for quite some centuries."

"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."

"Monsters, common on the surface? Oh, that would be quite something." She reads frankly unbelieving in a grim and fatalistic way, even if she tries to only sound reasonably doubtful.

"Well, in any case, we oughtn't stand and talk here forever. I propose we make it to my house, young man, where I have chairs, books, tea, and many other conveniences."

"Very well."

They proceed further into the dungeon. Somehow, it's no longer as dark, and the surroundings are even less derelict and cavelike. They're also very purple for some reason.

"The Ruins are full of puzzles - ancient fusions between diversions and doorkeys. 

One must solve them to progress from room to room. Please, adjust yourself to the sight of them." - says Toriel, as she procceeds to step on a series of pressure plates, walking in a zigzag.

The door opens.

A sign by the side of the door says:

Only the fearless may proceed.

Brave ones, foolish ones - both walk not the middle road.

"Is the sign to be taken literally? And should I follow the same path you did?"

"Well, it is a hint for the puzzle, disguising a literal solution with a metaphor. The door have already opened and the puzzle solved, but I see no harm in taking the same path - if only for practice."

"I am not a paladin and accordingly not in the general case fearless, but I'm not sure I understand the hint at all so perhaps it's more complicated than that." At any rate he can zigzag like she did.

"The hint is that you should not step on the middle plates and touch the left and right ones, to walk 'not the middle road', disguised inside... an aphorism about life," explains Toriel as she goes through the next room, pulling levers marked beforehand with very conspicuous pointing arrows.

"Are these rooms traversed often by the people who live here?" He doesn't seem to think the levers obviously need pulling twice, if she's doing it first.

Yeah, they don't need to be pulled again.

"This particular section is something of the furthest point of the Underground, but yes. Some monsters do live here and those who do walk around as much as you would think."

They follow to the next room. It's rather small, a corner turn. There's a dummy inside.

"Speaking of that... As a human living underground, monsters may attack you. You need to be prepared for this situation."

"That is also the case where I'm from. I'm armed."

"Yes, I see that. Which makes me rather concerned, if anything. Someone could get hurt!"

"Someone could also get hurt if I do not defend myself against attack," Blai points out.

"Right. But, hopefully, you'd do well enough by stalling, waiting for my help, and simply talking it out.

They are all of them people, even if they pick a fight with you."

"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."

"Quite. They should not attack people. Because violence does not result in anything good.

I do not think merely praying for someone's soul will be enough as they crumble into dust, so, please, make a good-natured attempt at talking this dummy out of a fight."

"Ma'am, I don't think we understand each other." It could be the Tongues effect misfiring, except that she does seem to be really gesturing at some kind of practice dummy. It's not impossible it's been enchanted to speak, perhaps it's genuinely intended as a training dummy for deescalation techniques, but really the fundamental disconnect here is that she seems to think he should perhaps not even have a weapon in an environment where monsters are likely to attack him. If she were just like 'the law down here is that monsters can attack humans and humans just have to try to talk them out of it, sorry, I don't make the rules' that would be one thing? Maybe she doesn't believe in afterlives for monsters, which might call for some differential caution? But she isn't saying that...

She squints, sternly.

"...perhaps we do not. And that is quite worrying. Hmm."

But soon after, she's back to a mostly cheerful demeanor with an obvious undercurrent of worry.

"Well, I suppose practicing peaceful resolution of encounters can wait for a little while. In the meanwhile, please, consider that the line between a monster who no longer wants to fight and a monster whose family is driven to grief can be thin, for the more reckless of us. It's... not always easy to tell. So, try to be careful, would you."

She sighs, turns, and walks into the next room.

"Is there a convention of surrender in circulation locally that I should learn, in case someone attacks me and then no longer wants to fight?"

YES ACTUALLY THEIR NAMES BECOME YELLOW

No.

Don't like the yellow names? Why, could I perhaps interest you in pink ones?

Do you realize how much this world would change if Undertale's user interface was actually, no-joke, not for a joke diegetic?

It is possible to recalculate it for that. It is entirely possible.

But then it would no longer be the story of a person making their way through the peoples and the tragedy of the Underground.

It would instead be a story about colliding with interfaces and nature of reality. Do we really want that? I don't think we want that.

Well, if you did want it, you could have it. It's not out of scope of the present medium at all.

nah nah nah I pass let's not even go there this is going to be a straightforward thread without heaps of exasperating metafiction

Where were we? Right, the surrender signals.

Ahem.

"Unfortunately, no, though that would be a splendid idea. But I don't think it is very hard to tell when someone doesn't want to keep fighting. And if you make it clear to them that you are no longer attacking, they'll certainly stop too."

"These are in this hypothetical the same people who would be attacking me unprovoked in the first place?"

"Indeed."

"I might be asking for too much here, but... Well, hopefully you won't need it."

"Let's go to the next room, shall we?"

"If you like, ma'am. ...are you also attacked by monsters when you go out and about or is that generally a problem only humans face, here?"

They go through an another fairly straightforward (if involving a lot of spikes) puzzle in the next set of rooms.

"It certainly... happens, on some rare occasion, when someone is clearly much too excited or belligerent. But it will be different for you - as a human and not a monster; as someone with no reputation."

"Well, as you've seen, I am no novice at combat magic, but I have never actually... I have never burned a monster down."

(But I am a monster, not a human, now am I?)

(And what a shame, to weasel with words, here, in this matter.)

Toriel looks like she may have complicated feelings on the topic.

"Is there local law on how people may respond to violence or are you stating your own convictions only when you produce advice?"

"Here in the Ruins? Not so much, I would guess. The Royal Guard doesn't come here, and we rely on our own decency, but I haven't heard of a violent death around Ruins in decades regardless, so there's that."

"You could say these are just convictions of this silly old lady, then, though I would hope they are something a little bigger than that."

"I think it - reflects an interest in a Good end and I do not yet understand all the details of how it is meant to work in practice or if you have much experience with its practice with respect to humans. 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."

(There is, in fact, a law like that. Which is not at all relevant to anything that happened between the three of them today and is... probably the wrong thing to say.)

(Blai seems to be preoccupied with law. What if he decides to follow that one?)

"I am quite confused. Um. That is most definitely not what I meant to tell you, however."

EVEN THOUGH IT IS SORT OF TRUE

"I am simply trying to protect people. You, and everyone else, insofar as I can, even if that's not all that much, really."

The room is a very long, very straight purple corridor. Plenty of room to slowly walk on and talk (or to contemplate awkward silence).

"I do not see how it protects me to advise me to attempt amateur diplomacy instead of professional self-defense. Perhaps you could explain this."

She's rambly and has difficulty expressing herself.

"It does prevent chain reactions of retaliation against you, and does build a good reputation. But of course it is mostly for the benefit of others..."

"...and if someone... really is trying their best to murder you, which I wouldn't assume of any- of most monsters picking a fight, and you can't escape or otherwise come up with something, well. Maybe it is good to be armed, and resolute, and-..."

(And it isn't, but how do you tell him that? Should you?)

"...-well. Your life is no less precious than theirs, right? Though theirs is no less precious than yours, and I have some... experience with humans... and it suggests that swinging a sharp thing around in self-defense is generally not what you want to do..."

(If you agree with the previous notion, that is. And not all humans agree with that, now do they?)

"Um. Truth be told, I don't know how much you can... trust my experience. But I hope you can trust my intentions. I truly do not mean anything bad for you."

She's clearly sincere in that, if she is ever readable at all.

"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."

toriel have exhausted her ability to say things for the time being

awkward silence it is

clak. clak. clak goes the walk across the long corridor.

'bout halfway to the end, now?

Okay. Awkward silence can be.

clak. clak. clak.

And there's an exit door.

"If I may... would it be okay if I left you alone for just a little while? I will be back soon, I just-..."

"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.

"BAD DOG. NO, -"

A door locks, and an another door unlocks.

Oh dear...

Shortly after, Blai recieves a call on his phone:

Hello, this is Toriel!
I'm going back now, but a dog-related complication have presented itself.

So, and I am really sorry, but the short way back is locked now, and I'll have to take a detour for a little while... Are you doing fine?

"Yes, ma'am, I'm quite all right. I'm planning to cast Create Food soon, and it will make more than I can eat myself, what do you most like to eat? Or your neighbors and friends?"