Underearth/Book 1/Chapter 10

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When Frisk entered the new area, he saw a field of ice with more of those 'X's on them. Frisk looked at the 'X' puzzle for a while before he tried to solve it. He'd gotten 3 of the 'X's to turn into 'O's before taking a wrong turn and sliding off the edge of the plateau. After a second of falling, he landed in some very deep snow, which broke his fall. He then sat up to take a look at where he'd fallen. Next to him was a large snow sculpture of Papyrus with massive muscles and a small pile of snow with the word 'Sans' written onto its front.

*Certainly sums up their personality.* Frisk thought as he got up out of the snow, brushed himself off, and looked around.

Where he'd landed was a rather small plateau far below where he'd fallen. On one side, there was a path that lead upward. Frisk went up it. The path twisted like a spiral ramp until he arrived in the same area with the 'X' puzzle in the ice field.

When Frisk reached the top, he approached the field of ice and once again tried to think of a way to solve this puzzle. After a few minutes of studying, he finally got it. He then went to attempt the puzzle again. After a few seconds on the ice, he finally managed to turn every 'X' into an 'O' and step on the button. When the button was pushed, there was a slight light blue tint to everything as ice formed into a bridge. Frisk slid along the ice-bridge, reaching the other side. There was another split in the path, one leading straight forward, the other leading to Frisk's right. After a few seconds of careful consideration, he took the right path.

The right path led him down a ramp-like path, at the bottom of which was Sans.

"What's up?" Sans said when he came into view.

"Just looking around."

"Strange, you always seem to just be interested in leaving, but now you're exploring."

Frisk ignored Sans's remark and continued forward. After a second, Frisk looked back to see that Sans was gone.

"Are you lost?" Frisk heard from behind him.

He turned around to see Sans standing right behind him.

"AAH!!!" Frisk screamed.

"Heh, didn't know I was so scary."

He stormed passed Sans onto a narrowing of the cliff's edge. In the rock wall on his right was a cave, which Frisk entered. The inside was dark, darker than outside in the cliff's shadow, at least. Some ways into the cave, Frisk saw a cool blue glow emanating from four groups of mushrooms. The glow revealed the rear of the cave, in the middle of which was a door with the symbol like the one on Toriel's robe. Frisk placed his hand on the door. He felt something when he touched it, though he couldn't explain what it was. After some time, he left, as there was nothing in there, and the door wouldn't budge.

Back out on the cliff, Sans was nowhere to be found, though right in the middle there stood some sort of deer-Monster. The Monster spotted Frisk and let out a roar before charging him. He jumped out of the way of the charging Monster and drew his knife. The Monster turned around and charged once again. Frisk brought his knife to right in front of him so the Monster would run right into it, and so it did. Moments after the Monster had rammed Frisk and by extension, the knife, it turned to dust. He then shook off the knife and stowed it back into his pocket, and ascended the ramp back onto the main path.

Down the earlier path were a whole bunch of snow poffs, little lightly packed piles of snow. Along with the great number of snow poffs, there was a tiny doghouse. The moment Frisk saw this, he was immediately paranoid. He continued through the plateau uneventfully until he reached the end. At a narrowing of the plateau, there was a snow poff that shifted when Frisk approached. He drew his knife. After a few seconds had passed, a small, white, furry head poked out of the snow poff.

*Is this one of those dogs that have been trying to kill me?* He thought.

The small dog let out a couple of little barks. Frisk then became a bit less paranoid. The little dog then rose from the snow poff to reveal its massive body, being three times the size of Frisk. He then re-readied his knife. The massive canine was clad in plate-mail, like one of the earlier dogs. Frisk stumbled backwards away from the massive creature as it approached. It brought up its spear and thrusted it towards Frisk, who leapt out of the way. The creature was slow due to its size, but Frisk didn't want to be in the way of any of those attacks. He saw an opening in the armor from the angle he was now at, so he charged with knife in hand while the Monster recovered from their attack and jammed it deep into the opening. The Monster let out a yelp of pain before flipping around and slapping Frisk away. He went flying towards the cliff edge, hit the ground some way away from it and coasted to a stop. The Monster pulled the knife out of the opening and threw it off the plateau. The Monster then readied its spear to charge Frisk, who was lying at the precipice. Frisk sat up and saw the dog getting ready to charge. The Monster then started running, spear in front of it, at Frisk. When the Monster got close, Frisk rolled out of the way.

"DIDN'T THINK THIS THROUGH, DID YOU?" Frisk yelled at the canine as it charged full speed off the cliff.

The dog howled as it fell for about eight seconds before everything went silent. Frisk took this moment to sit and breathe. Of all the canine Monsters he'd encountered, that was by far the most difficult. After a minute's rest, he got up and continued along the path that had been blocked by the dog before.

Some way further down the path, Frisk came upon a long rope bridge that connected two plateaus. Frisk noticed that the rope wasn't attached to bridge except at the cliff. As Frisk stepped onto the bridge, he also noticed how the bridge didn't stiffen up when he put his weight on it. About half way across the bridge, he heard Papyrus shouting.

"HUMAN! THIS IS YOUR FINAL AND MOST DANGEROUS CHALLENGE! BEHOLD! THE GAUNTLET OF DEADLY TERROR!"

As he said that, Sans's eyes began glowing a deep blue color. He then brought his arms up. As he did this, some rock on the cliff the skeletons were standing on pulled away, and massive sawblades came out and levitated up to the bridge's height. Massive orange tubes also ascended from the canyon below, spears came out from under the bridge, and a cannon elevated out of the ground between Sans and Papyrus. The orange tubes lit up, and fire came out of them. Papyrus then raised his arm.

"WHEN I SAY THE WORD, IT WILL FULLY ACTIVATE!!! CANNONS WILL FIRE! SPEARS WILL SWING! BLADES WILL SLICE! EACH PART WILL SWING VIOLENTLY EVERY WHICH WAY! ONLY THE TINIEST CHANCE OF VICTORY WILL REMAIN!!! ARE YOU READY!? BECAUSE! I! AM! ABOUT! TO DO IT!"

He held his arm in place.

"Well? What's the holdup?" Sans asked Papyrus.

"HOLDUP!? WHAT HOLDUP!? I'M... I'M ABOUT TO ACTIVATE IT NOW!"

They all looked on as nothing happened.

"That, uh, doesn't look very activated."

"WELL!!! THIS CHALLENGE!!! IT SEEMS... MAYBE... TOO EASY TO DEFEAT THE HUMAN WITH. YEAH! WE CAN'T USE THIS ONE!!! I AM A SKELETON WITH STANDARDS!!! MY PUZZLES ARE VERY FAIR AND MY TRAPS ARE EXPERTLY COOKED! BUT THIS METHOD IS TOO DIRECT! NO CLASS AT ALL! AWAY IT GOES!"

Papyrus gestured a sweeping away motion with his hand and Sans brought his arms down. As he did this, all the tools moved back to where they were before. Frisk and Papyrus let out a sigh of relief. He then looked over at Frisk.

"WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT!? THIS WAS ANOTHER DECISIVE VICTORY FOR PAPYRUS!!! NYEH!!! HEH!!! ... HEH???"

Papyrus then ran off.

After Papyrus had left, Frisk finished crossing the bridge.

"Hey kid." Sans called to Frisk. "I don't know what my brother's going to do now. If I were you, I would make sure I understand blue attacks."

"I'll keep that in mind." Frisk responded before walking further down the path towards Snowdin Town.