Austice Inbox

[ribticklers]

INBOX network / text / voicemail / phone call / letter / action Sans does not have access to the network; he currently refuses to register. If he's given you his phone number (ask before assuming, since Sans is cagey), then you can contact him that way. art credit code credit

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October 25th 2022?

[spaghettimonster]

[So speaking of the network, Papyrus wraps up his first message to it by immediately turning to Sans with a question. You know, as you do when helping your brother who didn't want to risk injury, bloodloss, or weird blood magic to still feel included in the network's shenanigans.]

--Hey Sans, have you noticed anything 'off' about your memories?

[Because that's how memories work - it's easiest to notice gaps in one's own memories, rather than noticing strange conflicts in comparison with someone else's. After all, stories describing memories don't live up to the lived experience! And nobody else could be mucking around in anybody's skull to experience someone else's memories - there's just no good way to go comparing things.

That, or some practiced habit wants to avoid comparing stories of their own pasts. It's not like his brother was ever very forthcoming with those things in the first place.]

[ribticklers]

How would I know if I forgot I knew? [But really, Sans is searching what he remembers, testing for gaps. If he's missing memories, he'd rather--well, he'd rather not be missing memories, but he at least wants to know what they are. Of course, even if his response was kind of dumb, it's still a real problem.]

[spaghettimonster]

That's... Okay. That's true enough. [Papyrus scowls even as he concedes the point. Truly, that's the worst kind of wiseass answer from his brother - the kind that Papyrus can't just dismiss! Argh.] There's the obvious way... Where things just don't line up, with pieces missing. Like that book, or the tea cup.

[ribticklers]

Yeah, maybe we both forgot why we decided to take stuff from people. [Maybe Sans has Toriel's joke diary for a vital reason. ...Not that Sans can think of what that reason would be.] Maybe I had an emergency joke shortage.

[spaghettimonster]

As if that's ever stopped you from re-using jokes. [Over and over, for years. Sure, Papyrus made skeleton jokes - back when he first understood what being a skeleton was. But Sans has gone and gleefully kept telling them ever since!

And since Papyrus doesn't want to leave the door open for Sans to give examples, he instead rushes to add:]

And I really can't think of any reason I would take this... or any reason Undyne would lend it?? It's a memento from Asgore. [And obviously there aren't going to be more of those going forward.]

[ribticklers]

[Sans was indeed loading up some examples when he's derailed by Papyrus continuing the conversation. A memento from--] Who?

[spaghettimonster]

...Undyne? You know, my friend and ex-boss? [If this is Sans teasing him for having been so careful with titles to her face for a while there - like he still is with Queen Toriel - he's not playing along.] I'm not calling her captain anymore.

10/02 18:58

[cambium]

Delivery for Sans...

[ Lark finds Sans wherever he is and holds out an envelope, blank on both sides and sealed with a drop of red wax.

> accept it?
> refuse? ]

[ribticklers]

Didn't know anybody had my address.

[Sans will accept! Cautiously. What's inside?]

[cambium]

You were difficult to find.

[ Lark doesn't typically stick around after his delivery is done, so he hands over the letter and he'll be going now...

Sans undoes the wax seal and finds a slip of paper inside: ]

[ribticklers]

[Is there anything on the other side of this paper, or is Sans just left with a mysterious 13?]

[cambium]

[ It's just a mysterious 13! The other side of the paper might be a little wrinkly from the glue used to stick the little cut out pieces of paper on the larger sheet, but that's about it. ]

11/02

[violetlies]

[Kokichi ends up going out looking for Sans once he gets his letter. They've collaborated before, and without Shuichi around, Sans is probably the next best option for a similar-intellect peer. Plus, he has that whole 'friendly uncle' vibe. Even if he's a skeleton.]

Saaaaaans! Bestieeeee!

[Aha! Skeleton sighted!]

Sans! I got a letter! It's gotta be...some kind of cipher, right? Is this making any more sense to you than me?

[He holds out his letter.]

[ribticklers]

Hey, you too, huh? [Sans had been contemplating his 13, but that alone wasn't much to go on. Looking at Kokichi's, though...] Looks like our kidnappers had way more to say to you than they did to me.

[Sans will show Kokichi the letter he got.]

But hey, I love when I get to be useful by doing nothing. [Because yeah, it looks like a ciper, and here Sans is with a convenient number that might reference one specifically! Puzzles are too integrated into monster society for Sans not to be familiar with the basic ciphers.]

[violetlies]

[Kokichi peers over.] Huh. They gave you an unlucky number, and that's it? Weeeeiiiiirrrd. 'Least it's not 4. [That'd be way too on the nose. But he snorts, and then the gears in his head turn...]

That's...gotta be a hint, yeah? The only cipher I know of with 13 is Rot13. But even with that, mine makes no sense...

Well.

Unless they intend to get us to collaborate, maybe?

[ribticklers]

Four's only unlucky if we're in an anime. [Thanks for letting him get that reference, Alphys. Hope you're doing okay back at home.] If two of us got a letter, maybe more of us did. It's probably worth asking around.

[violetlies]

Pshhh. It's a regular Japanese thi--...well. I dunno if Japan exists back where you come from, but it's a bigger superstition than just cartoons...

[He takes out his cellphone]

Lemmie post on the network, maybe. See if we can fish anyone out.

[ribticklers]

[Sans shrugs. Japan might exist, but he cannot actually confirm that. Hard to tell from underneath a mountain.] Okay, it's only unlucky if we're in Japan. You traded blood for one of those? That's good, 'cause I didn't. [Not... That he has blood. (As far as he remembers.)]

12/24

[parhellia]

[ Hehehe... Ala tries to step as lightly as she can through the snow, but it still goes crunch crunch crunch underneath her boots, especially since her arms are numb and laden with snow. There was zero way she could beat Papyrus at this, and she would have a negative chance against Sans, but that doesn't stop her from trying to """sneak up""" on him and """surprise""" him with ]

Special technique: Blizzard Blitz!!

[ She throws her arms open high and wide, letting the armful of snow fly and fall over Sans like frozen confetti ]

Late Feb

[spaghettimonster]

[It's been a little over two weeks since the town filled with shifting auroras somehow full of people's memories, which was a whole thing full of odd insights, alarm, and hopefully-hallucinated zombie attacks. Fortunately, nothing else has blown up since then.

Oh, there was that whole dating party thing, but Papyrus didn't participate - not wanting to make everyone else look worse by comparison, and all! As a generous gesture to all involved. A courteous conduct!

And anyway, he's needed the time to properly come to grips with the differences of his memories and his brother's. The sight of those tiny skeletons, playing in puddles... Well. He already knew Sans isn't exactly the same brother who helped him come to grips with being a skeleton, being both more avoidant of fights yet more proactive in the face of mysteries... But it's another thing to see it.

Anyway, dodging dating and conversations alike has given him plenty of time for honing his skills and crafting up a storm, and he's left the door of the cottage wide open as he's in and out with the latest of his constructions: a book shelf with some decorative carvings, the better to stack various knickknacks and Lark deliveries on. Starting with that book of Toriel's, if it's lying around anywhere...]

[ribticklers]

[Sans has been having some memory trouble. Which isn't new here. Which isn't new in general, even if he only knows about all those other times through some scientific read-outs and an eye for things out of place. Overlapping memories, though, that's new. He likes to think of himself as pretty laid-back, but every time something happens here that gets the magic pumping through his soul, he's been finding himself kind of confused about things back home. Which is why he keeps going back to Toriel's journal. He doesn't open it, even if it's more tempting every time. He just stares at the cover like maybe Toriel would have written on the front if she was queen or not.

Of course he doesn't tell anyone. There's only one person it would even matter to, and saying "hey, I'm extra confused" wouldn't be helpful there anyway. But now...

Well, now Sans comes back to see Papyrus with a shelf and things to put on it. His eye is drawn to Tori's book, of course; put it in Sans's range of vision, and he almost always glances at it, like he's still kind of confused that it's in their (temporary) house, and today isn't any different. He keeps looking at it, though, which is a little weird.]

Hey. Working hard? [Of course Sans says that like it's a foreign concept, but he also sounds distracted.]

[spaghettimonster]

You have to ask? [It's a rhetorical question back, more than half a joke, followed with similarly faux offense:] I'm always working hard! At anything and everything I work at.

[Including figuring out what to work on, more and more often these days. Life in the Nest is... confusing, and distressing, and regularly terrifying, after all. People appearing anywhere, people disappearing anywhere, blood and corpses and dust, and no clear leadership for him to cozy up to...

These arts and crafts of interior decoration really are even more essential for his emotional stability than they were back underground. And back then it'd been important enough for him that even Sans had pitched in occasionally, with dump diving help like getting that box for his great pun of a sentry station, despite showing no such concern for his own living space...

Sans, whose repeated glances at the latest construction doesn't seem as much admiring of the craftsmonship as it is distracted.]

...In the middle of some big secret investigation? [That's another of the changes to life here - how proactive Sans has been about poking at mysteries. He still doesn't know if that's a difference from their respective pasts, or what... He still doesn't want to ask.]

[ribticklers]

Nah. [Sans says it as casually as ever, like the idea of it is as ridiculous as the idea of doing work in general. Big secret investigations, though... Those are his style, even if he won't admit it. He holds out his left hand and, obediently, Toriel's journal appears in it as if he'd actually pulled it off a shelf. If it's just Papyrus here, he doesn't really need to sneak around with that trick. With everyone knowing about his shortcuts, he's going to run out of secret tricks if he doesn't keep squirreling away the few he has left (as far as he remembers of his magic).

Sans looks at the book and not Papyrus as he keeps talking.]

...Tori wasn't the queen when the kid fell, yeah? That's what you remember. [Papyrus has said that before. But Sans has a different perspective on it now than he did when they were first going over their conflicting memories, so he wants to hear it again.]

[spaghettimonster]

[Papyrus... pauses, hesitates, then continues wiping the shelf down with the cloth, the better to take off any lingering bits of sawdust or splinters. Or to look like he's doing that, rather than openly stare at his brother for daring to broach the dreaded topic of memories out of nowhere. He can just glance sidelong at Sans, repeatedly, instead.]

Well... I mean, I guess she was the queen! Secretly. In the Ruins. And... had been the queen, before? Years and years before.

[Long before either of the skeletons was around, or most monsters' living memory. Her (re)claiming the throne ushered in a lot of confusion and astonishment, to his memory! But the older monsters remembered her, and started reminiscing, at least.]

But she wasn't queening when the human fell. [And that's the part he remembers so differently from Sans. That, and the Asgore question.]

[ribticklers]

Yeah. Before that it was Asgore. [Whose name Papyrus also mentioned. Okay. But Papyrus didn't describe him, so:] Real tall, horns and beard. Came up with hilarious names for stuff. [Okay, maybe bad at naming stuff, but Sans appreciated it. Or he thinks he appreciated it. Is this memory the right one? Sans can't ask directly; he has to do it like this.]