Underearth/Book 1/Chapter 26

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The outside of the elevator was relatively cooler than back down on the first level. A quick investigation from Frisk showed why, as this new level is much higher up, far from the magma below. Just outside the elevator as well was a small flame with two arms, two legs, and a face. As Frisk looked at it, the face of the flame looked at him.

"Heh. I'm Heats Flamesman. Remember my name!" the flame said.

"Uh, alright." Frisk responded, not really sure on what to say.

After the interaction with the flame Monster, Frisk flipped around and walked down the narrow passage, a precipice on either side of him. Not long after, Frisk ran into a slightly wider area that boasted two Monsters holding hotdogs, and what appeared to be another sentry station holding Sans behind it.

"Hey buddy, what's up?" Sans said to Frisk when he approached the stand.

"Not much. So, you've got another sentry station up here?" Frisk responded.

"Nah, this ain't a sentry station. It's a hotdog stand. Speaking of which, wanna buy a hotdog? It's only 30G."

"I would, but I've still got no money." Frisk said a bit disappointedly.

"Heh, you should get a job. I've heard being a sentry pays well." Sans said jokingly.

"Yeah, I'll think about it"

Frisk, wanting to get a move on to get back to the surface, turned to face the pathway opposing the one he'd come down. "Anyway, I'm gonna get going."

"See ya, then."

Frisk began walking down the pathway.

The pathway was long and mostly uneventful. Frisk looked around at the area while walking, noticing several strange red-glowing things off in the distance. As he progressed, his phone began going off from status updates. First one from Alphys was a picture captioned "dinner with the girlfriend ;)", the picture was of a catgirl figurine next to a bowl of instant noodles.

The next update was from a user by the name of "CoolSkeleton95". It was another picture captioned "ARE WE POSTING HOT 'PICS???' HERE IS ME AND MY COOL FRIEND.", the picture was of Papyrus flexing in front of a mirror wearing sunglasses. Giant muscular biceps were pasted onto his arms, which were also wearing sunglasses.

"LOL, CoolSkeleton95! ... that's a joke, right?" Alphys replied.

"THE ONLY JOKE HERE, IS HOW STRONG MY MUSCLES ARE."

*Ain't that the truth.*

Just up ahead was a branch in the path, heading left. Not much further and Frisk received another notification. "NAPSTABLOOK22 has sent you a friend request."

"Who?" Frisk racked his brain trying to figure out who this was but couldn't remember anybody who'd go by the handle "NAPSTABLOOK22", so he rejected it, and stashed the phone back into his pocket.

The area he had entered appeared to be a dead end, with an apron lying on the ground. The apron itself had a large heart embroidered onto the front of it, taking up most of the area, and a big, brown stain on the top of it. Frisk decided to leave it be and get back on the correct path.

Another little bit down the path and Frisk came upon a set of conveyor belts, one going outbound, the other inbound. Frisk phone began ringing as he approached.

"H... hi...! It's Dr. Alphys. This p-puzzle is kinda... um... timing-based. Y-you see those switches over there?" she was referring to three red dots that ran along the outbound conveyer. "Y-you'll have to press all three of them within 3 seconds. I'll t-try to help you with the rhythm!"

"No thanks, Alphys, I've got it." Frisk responded.

"A-are you sure?"

"Yes. You don't need to help me with puzzles. If I need help, I'll call you."

"O-oh, alright."

The phone-call then ended.

Frisk got onto the outbound conveyer and pressed all three buttons easily, de-activating a force-field covering the exit, allowing him to proceed.

The next puzzle was right after the previous, just barely down the pathway. As Frisk reached it, he got a notification of a new status update from Alphys.

"that's the last time i try to help with a puzzle lmao"

*Good, about time you gave up trying to help me.* Frisk thought.

Frisk then looked at the area, which consisted of multiple islands with steam-vents pointing in all four directions on each island with a large switch in the middle. Three conveyors looped around the left side of the area allowing for those that wanted to to backtrack without entering the islands, but the only way forward was through them.

Frisk looked at the puzzle for a while before making a move, touching the switch located next to the steam-vent on the section he was on. This caused some steam-vents to de-activate, but a few to activate. With his collected knowledge, he then spent the following minutes preforming the puzzle, eventually solving it, and landing on the other side. Once there, Frisk proceeded down the pathway.

The pathway here was just as long and uneventful as the start of the level. This of course means, by just as uneventful, that Alphys was constantly posting updates to her status.

"OMG? ppl think Mew Mew 2 is better than Mew Mew 1? LOLLLLL that's a joke right..." and "omg... DONT THEY GET IT RUINS Mew Mew's ENTIRE CHARACTER ARC" - "My Mew Mew 2 Review: Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2 Is Neither Kissy Nor Cutie. It's Trash. 0 stars"

*Funny how people here are just as opinionated as back on the surface.* Frisk thought to himself.

Further down the pathway, Frisk heard a deep, slightly muffled voice call out "Hey! You! Stop!" to him. Frisk turned to see what the commotion was. Behind him he saw the same two soldiers that were blocking a branch back before he entered Alphys's laboratory.

"We've, like, received an anonymous tip about a Human wearing a striped shirt." The one with what looked like armored bunny ears said. "They told us they were wandering around Mount Hot right now... I know, sounds scary, huh? Well, just stay chill. We'll bring you someplace safe, OK?"

Frisk stood still, as he wasn't wanting to go anywhere. "No thanks, I'll be fine." he told them.

"Hey, like, we've got a job to do, so if you could please co-operate with us, that'd be nice." the bunny-eared one protested, all while the other, who looked something like an armored lizard, just stared at Frisk.

"You're wearing a striped shirt." the lizard finally said, causing the bunny to look at him. They both remained quiet for something like a minute after until the bunny finally spoke again.

"Bro... Are you thinkin'... What I'm thinkin'?" The bunny asked the lizard, who just nodded. "Bummer. This is, like... Mega embarrassing. We, like, actually totally have to kill you and stuff." This last one was directed at Frisk. Next think he knew, they'd both drawn swords and readied to attack.

Frisk got ready to be attacked by them, and waited. These two Monsters were heavily armored in plate-mail, just like Undyne, meaning Frisk didn't have a weapon that could kill them. Then a thought came to his head. *If I could get a hold on one of their swords, I might just be able to kill them.* Frisk got ready to counter and maybe disarm one.

"Team attack!" They both said, nearly at the same time before lounging at Frisk, who backed up just out of their reach. When their swing had finished, both their arms were just hanging out in the open. Frisk too advantage of this and struck the back of the bunny's hand as well as the inside of their wrist at the same time. This caused his sword to fly out of his now half open hand and land on the ground not too far away. Frisk dived for the sword, grabbed it, then swung around and stabbed the bunny in the chainmail on his lower abdomen. The bunny gave a horrible shrike as Frisk pulled it out. The lizard stepped back, hesitating as the bunny dropped to his knees and Frisk cut off his head. The lizard looked on in horror.

"Robert..." the lizard then looked straight at Frisk. "you...!!!!" he then charged straight at Frisk, swinging twice, then jamming his sword straight into the ground, getting it stuck there. While trying to pull it out, Frisk took the opportunity to cut off the guard's left arm at the elbow. The guard recoiled from pain, stumbling backward and collapsing onto the ground. Frisk approached with the sword to cut off his head as well, but mid-swing, the guard brought up their other hand and caught the sword, pulling it out of Frisk's hands, then batting him away with the stub of his left arm. Frisk hadn’t flow far, fortunately, as the path was narrow and the drop was far into magma.

The guard regained his composure and picked up the sword of his fallen ally and approached Frisk with it, who too had regained composure. Frisk dodged the relentless swinging of the guard until one swing that left the guard wide open, allowing Frisk to shove him. Hadn't done much and wouldn't have done anything if the edge of the path wasn't right next to where the guard was. The guard saw how close to the edge he was and lost balance just enough for Frisk to shove him again over the edge. The guard screamed the entire trip into the lake of magma below, and everything fell silent.

Frisk sat back to catch his breath for a few minutes before going back and trying to pull the sword jammed into the ground, but to no avail. After trying for a minute or so, he just decided to once again press onward. Wasn't long before his phone went off again with another status update.

"oopswait how's the humnan doing"

*What have you been doing this entire time Alphys!?* Frisk thought to himself.

"Top 10 Shows That Make You Froget To Do Your Frickin Job"

Frisk kept the phone in his hand as he went forward, as he figured Alphys was going to call again. Just ahead after a bend in the pathway was a barely perceptible thick black curtain covering an entire section of the pathway, an opening in the curtain corresponded with the path.

*Must be Mettaton again...* Frisk thought as he entered into the area, resulting in a pitch-black view of everything. Frisk readied himself for yet another adventure with Mettaton