"Hope - is that just, the emotion of hope, I don't fully understand how you're speaking Tapap..."

"That's a good way of describing it, honestly. I've heard that humans have expressions like 'dying of a broken heart'. I don't know if that's something here or not, but where for humans it seems largely metaphorical, for monsters it's a real thing."

She takes a deep breath before continuing. "Losing hope is extremely dangerous. We have a general scale for 'hope' - which we shorten to 'HP' a lot of the time. My HP is 20, which is low. The other two skeletons I know have HPs of 680 and 1. The captain of the Royal Guard's HP is somewhere around 1500, I think. There's a big range. As a general rule, though, the higher the number, the stronger and healthier you are."

"Please let us know right away if there's anything we need to do to be psychologically supportive!" says Kato.

"I will! Thank you!

"Can I ask you some questions? RIght now I'm just wondering where we're going and how long will it take to get there? And what's gonna happen once we're there? I got the impression you might want to study me?"

"We're going to Shapto. Of course we want to know more about you, but we can make lots of progress on that just by asking questions, and you should feel free to ask us about anything you want to know, too. We'll land in about five more minutes and then we'll take a car to a house we've set aside for you, but we can reshuffle the living arrangements pretty much however you'd like, the procurers of the house haven't had a chance to be apprised of anything magic bone people need."

"An entire house? I ... thank you! That's ... far more than I was expecting. I don't think I have any special needs - food and water, shelter, clothes ... I like reading, but I don't know if whatever is letting me speak the same language as you will overlap with being able to read."

"Ooh, let's check," says Papenna. She turns her pocket everything around; it says this is a sentence in Tapap.

Hel reads it normally.

"Huh, I guess that answers that question! So, yeah, I like reading."

Absentmindedly she rubs at her right forearm through her sweater.

"We can get you lots of books," Kato assures her. "What kinds do you like most?"

"What's technology like where you're from?" Papenna asks as the helicopter descends.

"I've never had a big selection choice, so I'll read just about anything? But I like stories more than textbooks.

"As for technology ... Um, actually ... let me see if I can show you my cellphone." Hel quietly stares straight ahead for a moment before a blocky flip-phone appears in her hand. She flips it open and checks something before offering it to Papenna. "I hadn't even though to try checking my inventory before, glad to see I still can, even if I don't have service here. Anyway, this is my cellphone! It's an older version that can only do calls and messaging. Newer versions can connect to the Undernet and dimension boxes.

"I think my inventory counts more as magic than technology. It's a sort of ... dimensional pocket that I can access to hold things to pull out later. Most monsters use it like I do - in place of a backpack or bag, or instead of pockets or wallets. Dimension boxes are a technological version of the same idea.

"We don't really have vehicles like this, but cars and planes exist on the Surface. Our only method of transportation beyond walking is a ferry that connects the Underground. And some elevators and air vents in Hotland. Although I don't think anyone actually likes the vents? They're really annoying, actually.

"Our biggest feat of engineering is probably the Core. Which is a technomagical generator that uses geothermal and ambient magical energy to power the Underground. It doesn't supply everywhere - there are parts of Waterfall that don't have power, for example - but it covers probably 80%?

"Our media is largely television and radio, with the biggest star - really, our only star - being Mettaton, who's a robot with an artificial soul. He was created by our Royal Scientist, Alphys.

"I think that hits the biggest things ... "

She seems calmer as the helicopter settles on solid ground again.

"Wow, an inventory just like an RPG character, that sounds so convenient," says Papenna, unbuckling herself when the helicopter stops. She peers at the cellphone. "Looks like a precursor to a pocket everything, more or less. We have TV here too, and radio, though the sound quality on conventional radio is such that most people prefer digital options these days for their audio content."

Hel nods as she unbuckles as well. "We don't use radio much at all, honestly. The King doesn't do many broadcasts, and MTT - Mettaton - prefers visual media, so radio is fairly obsolete. I know some monsters still use it, but most get their media through the TV, which is a wired connection. "

She follows Papenna and Kato out of the helicopter.

They lead her to an elevator - the greys also squeeze in - and descend. "Do you think you'd be able to render a decent map of the Underground?" asks Kato.

"Probably. It's not very big."

"How many monsters are there living in it, about?"

"Five hundred thousand or so? Less than a million. "

"That is pretty small! Do you have a guess how many humans there are?"

"A lot more than us monsters! I'm pretty sure they're into the billions."

"Us too," says Kato. The elevator reaches the garage; they get into a car which has a purple chauffeur waiting already.

Hel slides into the car and buckles herself in.

"I can barely imagine a population that big."

"It probably won't come up that much exactly how many we are, since we're spread out all over the continent, but you might want to take the Internet a bit slow if you're used to a much smaller version."

"I'll keep that in mind! The Undernet is pretty small. It's basically a single social network that lets people keep in touch with one another and a few personal pages."

"Was it invented by monsters? I'm having a hard time imagining it making sense to invent in such a small population in a small confined space," says Papenna.

"Yeah, it was. I don't know who exactly invented it, and computers themselves were sort of reverse-engineered from what fell into the Underground from the surface, but the Undernet itself was made by monsters. My best guess is it was made by the spiders. There are two large colonies that are separated by most of the Underground, but are still closely related to one another. Before the Undernet, they had a lot of trouble communicating with each other.

"There are also a lot of monsters who can't communicate with words, and some who also can't communicate with Hands, so having another way to talk was useful. It also it gave some of the more reclusive monsters ways to connect to the larger Underground as well.

"Mostly monsters use the Undernet to post little thoughts or status updates throughout the day. Opinions on Mettaton's shows, complaints about opinions on Mettaton's shows, that sort of thing."

"Sounds like those shows are a big cultural touchstone, what do they tend to consist of?"