Papyrus lowered his cigarette as Garamond stepped out of his room wearing the disguise he'd given her.
"Not bad." He said, nodding in approval. "I mean, it won't fool anyone who looks too close, but the average monster'll just write you off as a fellow bone-head."
Glen was less assurred. While the mask Pap crafted certainly looked skeletal, painting her visible skin white did not in any way give her a bone-like appearance. The hair was particularly telling, but she couldn't bring herself to shave it off. As a result, she looked more like someone in costume than an actual skeleton.
"At least I'm ready for Halloween." She muttered as she looked at herself in the mirror.
"Halloween?"
"Long story." Sighing, she said, "Are you sure about this?"
"Trust me." He said, giving her a pat on the shoulder. "No one will suspect a thing."
She followed him out of the house, once again bemoaning her lack of experience with her Dreamer abilities. She knew some Dreamers were capable of shapeshifting, an ability that would have been incredibly useful, but she didn't dare attempt it without a more controlled environment. The effects on an unsuccessful shape-change were ... well, not pleasant.
Her disguise worked, however; people barely spared her and Papyrus a second glance as the Dreamer and skeleton walked to the edge of town. Glen was quite surprised at this; while her humanity escaped Magnificent, surely some of the monsters in town realized what she was. Rahnna certainly knew; were they keeping silent for some reason? If so, why bother with the disguise?
Her concerns about her disguise faded when Papyrus led her to the saccharine nightmare that was Flowey Village. Her visit was not very long, thankfully.
Papyrus waved at her as she quickly hurried away from the village of smiling yellow plantlife and returned to the path. "Howdy."
"Not funny." Glen said, glaring at him. "You could've warned me."
"And ruin the surprise?" He said in a tone of mock shock. "Never."
Glen rubbed her eyes, trying to get the image of a dozen smiling flower faces out of her head. Their sickeningly cheery grins would follow her into her dreams, she was sure of it.
"Did you have a word with Ragel?"
"Was Ragel was the yodelling blue flower?"
"Got it in one."
Glen stared at Papyrus for a moment longer before letting out a chuckle. "Okay, I admit it; you got me. Still, I was kinda hoping that I'd get some more information on Asriel for whenever I manage to get back to my own reality."
"Asriel?" Papyrus said, sounding surprised. "He's connected to the Floweys?"
"Well, as far as I know, there's only one in my dimension." Glen said. "Apparently he was killed and brought back by accident in the form of a flower ... Flowey."
Papyrus stared at Glen for a few moments before motioning her to follow. "C'mon; there's someone you should meet."
Waterfall was a peaceful place; the soothing sound of running water was audible everywhere, and the soft glow of the EchoShrooms was soothing to Glen's eyes. They moved at a leisurely pace through the peaceful caverns as Papyrus asked Glen questions about her home reality. She answered everything; it was hard not to. Papyrus was an old friend, and this Papyrus with his almost Sans-like easygoing nature was impossible not to like. He listened well for his part, only interrupting with the occasional question.
All conversation stopped as they entered massive chamber that seemed to stretch across the entire underground. Glowing crystals on the walls and ceiling gave the illusion of a night sky, but it was the view of New Home and the towering Castle Dreemurr in the distance that left Glen breathless.
"Wait for it." Papyrus said, holding up a hand.
A few moments passed with no result. Just as Glen opened her mouth to say something, however, the first sliver of light fell from the crystal-laden ceiling above them. It was joined by another moments later, and then another ... and yet another. Soon, tiny beams of light fell through the air like sparkly rain, showering everything in the cavern with their magical light.
"Whoa." She whispered, staring at the distant castle as the shower of light imbued it and the other buildings with a strange glow. "Now that's somethin' worth seeing."
"It sure is." Papyrus agreed. "Really jawbone dropping."
After a moment of silence, Glen commented, "I'd heard monsters talking about the Underground. Some are even moving back in my reality; I'd didn't really get why until now. What you people did down here is amazing."
Papyrus accepted the compliment with a slow nod.
They stared in silence for a full minute before Papyrus shook his head and said, "We should probably get going."
"Yeah." Glen said, reluctantly turning her eyes from the spectacle.
They continued on for a good ways, walking across the many wooden platforms over the tranquil waters of Waterfall.
"This place look different from your Waterfall?" Papyrus asked curiously.
"Don't know." Glen said truthfully. "Never been down here. I arrived in Ebott back when the barrier was still up, a few hundred years after the war. People already thought mosnters were just legends at that point, though they had a healthy fear of the mountain. Used to say people going up the mountain would disappear forever."
"Huh. You strike me as the type who'd take that as a challenge."
Chuckling, Glen said, "Yeah, you're right. Thing is, I didn't come to Ebott looking for trouble; I just needed a place to stop and rest a bit. One thousand years of wandering ... well, even a gung-ho troublemaker like me gets to wanting something more steady. Besides, I had a project I wanted to work on to help me get around easier ... a shortcut of my own, so to speak."
"Yeah, I hope you don't expect me to let that one go."
Grinning, Glen said, "When you've got as much time to kill as I do, Earth just isn't enough. It's a big universe, and I figured I'd go and see everything; For once in my life, I have the time. Now I can teleport; it's shaky over long distances, but I generally get where I'm going. Problem is, I can't just zip anywhere; teleportation only works when I've been somewhere before, when I can envision it in my mind. I'm guessing your 'shortcuts' work the same way."
"Pretty much." Papyrus said.
"Which is why you can't just teleport out of here. It's why even I can't teleport out of here; I don't know what's outside that barrier anymore than you do. Oh, there's a chance it's basically the same as it is in one of the other dimensions I've visited, but there's also chance I'd teleport myself into solid rock. To go to other planets, other galaxies, I needed transport ... transport that Earth won't have for decades, maybe centuries."
"So ... what? You were building a ship?"
"At first." Glen said, "But then I got to thinking; ships need fuel. Ships can get damaged. Ships can be destroyed. I wanted something quicker, so I started working on the CPD."
"CPD?"
"Conveniently-Placed Door."
"Nice."
Glen nodded her head at the compliment. "Think about it; a door with one end anchored here, and one end that could be used to appear on other worlds."
"But you said yourself you can't teleport somewhere unless you've been there."
"True." Glen said, "But there's always the possibility that I did. Think about it; if I picked up a door and straight up flew through the cosmos ... and yes, I can do that, though not particularly quickly ... I could put that door anywhere given enough time. Normally that wouldn't mean anything, but if I could harness that probability at will ... well, I'd be able to adventure across the universe as easily as walking into a room."
"Amazing." Papyrus said, pulling out another cigarette. "So did it work?"
"Not at the time. However, it was the Sans from my dimension who-"
A loud roar enchoed through the cavern behind them, stopping Glen in mid-sentance. It hard to guage the distance with the sound echoing off the cavern walls, but it was certainly loud enough to give Glen pause.
"Crap." Papyrus muttered, "I guess it was too much to hope she'd take a day off."
"She who?" Glen asked.
"Alphys. Strange; it's not time for her patrol. I wonder what's got her so ..." Papyrus looked at Glen, alarm in his eyes. "Wait a minute; my brother said a human had been sighted."
"Yes, and he didn't even bat an eye at me." Glen replied, grinning at the memory of the cute little blueberry that was the Magnificent Sans.
"Exactly. I thought he was talking about you, but what if he wasn't? What if there is another human in the underground?"
"Hell of a coincidence." Glen stopped, realization finally hitting her. "Frisk."
Papyrus stared at her. "You know who it is?"
"I think so." Glen said. "In my home dimension, Frisk was the human who broke the barrier and freed the monsters."
"Broke the ... really? That's fantastic!" Papyrus said, his sudden excitement reminding Glen strongly of her Papyrus.
"Maybe not." She said. "In the last dimension I was in, she killed most of the monsters in the Underground. Went from the Ruins to Castle Dremurr slaughtering anyone in her way."
"She killed them? Then ... my dreams ..." Papyrus's skull managed to turn even whiter. "Sans! He's probably at his post just outside the Ruins! If this Frisk is set on Genocide ..."
Eyes glowing, Papyrus took off running at a speed even Glen's Papyrus would've had difficulty matching. Unfortunately, Glen couldn't even come close. She tried to call out to him, but despite her best efforts to keep up, he was soon out of sight. A slight prickling sensation of her rune told her he'd just slipped into a shortcut, likely headed to find his brother.
Glen considered her options; part of her wanted to teleport back to Snowdin and assist; if Frisk was good, all the better. If Frisk was possessed, Glen could catch her and maybe drive the ichor out of her before anyone else suffered.
On the other hand, it wasn't her world. It was a cold view, but long ago she'd realized that sometimes she had to prioritize one problem over another, and not fall into the trap of trying to fix everything. She was in a strange dimension with no idea where the Sans from the previous dimension and Jake might be, and was no closer to finding and recovering either the fragment of the Inverse harmonius or J-27's Asriel.
Another roar prompted her into motion. With a final glance back in the direction of the roars, she ran down the dimly lit path.
While no match for Papyrus in terms of speed, from the decreasing volume of the roars, Glen was certain she was faster than Alphys. The idea of the bumbling anime-loving lizard woman stomping through the caverns was ludicrous at best ... but given everything else different in this universe, Glen thought caution a prudent choice.
Her retreat led her to a series of smaller chambers, many with houses. It was in appearance a small town, a single cavern with a lake linking them to a cavern filled with what looked like garbage from the surface. Avoiding the houses for the time being, Glen hurried into the junkyard, her eyes open for old newspapers. Given all the differences she'd encountered thus far, she really wanted some idea of what the surface was like.
Fortunately, she didn't have to look for very long. While there were no newspapers, she did manage to find an old tablet computer. The screen was cracked and the battery dead, but Glen had enough experience fixing her own tablet back home (usually after inadvertantly sitting on it) to use her Dreamer abilities to restore it to perfect functionality and augment its wi-fi capabilities enough to connect to a satellite. It wasn't a great connection; the barrier probably didn't make things any easier. Still, after a few false starts, she managed to find a familiar news site.
Oddly enough, there was no mention of the Systems Alliance. Most of the big seemed to be about restoration efforts on major cities following Earth's overthrow of some alien group known as the Combine. While most stories didn't go into detail, the names 'Gordan Freeman' and 'Alyx Vance' came up a few times. Still, on the whole, it seemed like the surface was relatively peaceful.
"That's something, at least." Glen murmured as she continued moving through the Junkyard.
Another shout sounded, this one far too close for Glen's comfort. She looked up from the datapad to find a pair of green eyes staring at her.
"Gah!" She said, almost dropping the datapad.
"Aaah!" The eyes vanished as the little robed figure disappeared in the mess of the junkyard.
Glen started to follow when she heard a deep voice shout, "HALT!"
She froze in place as heavy footsteps approached her from behind with frightening quickness. She slowly turned to find herself face to face with a short lizard-woman wearing partial plate mail and carrying a surprisingly large axe. Her scales were yellow, and she appeared more than a bit on the thick side, but that was where the similarities with any Alphys Glen ever encountered ended. This Alphys's thickness wasn't flab, it was muscle; hard, toned muscle that reminded Glen of the naturally hardy dwarves. She didn't wear glasses; in fact, one of her eyes was permanently shut, a large jagged scar crossing her face and eyelid.
She grinned at Glen, her sharpened teeth and the near maniacal glint in her eye doing little to calm Glen's nerves. "And who might you be?"
Glen's mind blanked. This was Alphys? She'd gotten the impression that this Alphys would be different, but ...
"I asked you a question!" Alphys barked, axe falling into combat position. "Who are you? I've only seen two skeletons down here, and you don't look like the slacker or the little spaz."
Sensing that Glen's mind was still recovering, Glen's mouth conspired with her lungs to produce the word, "Garamond."
"Eh?"
Recovering, Glen said, "Garamond. I'm Garamond. That's my name, Garamond. Nice to meet you, Miss ...?"
"Captain Alphys of the Royal Guard." She barked. "Why haven't I seen you before?"
"Oh, well ... I've been around. I move around a lot, being an ... uh ... anthropologist. Monstropologist."
"Monstropologist?" She said, sounding suspicious.
Shock now mostly gone, Glen straightened up, smoothed her shirt, and started talking completely out of her backside, figuratively speaking. "That's right; a monstropologist. I study the relics of our past. Just got done with a five-year exploration of the Ruins. Fascinating place, the ruins; so much history. Did you know some of the engravings date all the way back to the war between the humans and the monsters? I could've stayed there another five years, but I ran out of pens. Keep chewing the damn things until they burst. Always a problem."
"Indeed." Alphys said, her remaining eye narrowing. "And your notebook?"
"My notebook?"
"Your notebook. Undyne has paper all over the place with notes; if you're using pens, you have to be writing on something, yeah? So where is it?"
"Right here." She held up the tablet. "See? Don't need paper."
"But you said you ran out of pens!"
"Did I? Oh, right, of course. I use the pens as styluses. Cheaper than actual Styluses, oddly enough. Don't last very long though."
The look Alphys gave Glen could've cut someone with thinner skin. "Let me see that."
"Uh, sure." The moment she handed it to Alphys, Glen used her power to drain the battery. The screen flickered and died before it was even out of her hands.
"Ah, damn." Glen said, "The batteries in these things never lasts very long. It's why I came here; to see if someone tossed a better one."
After staring at Glen for a good ten seconds, Alphys snorted and tossed the tablet at Glen. "Right. Whatever. Look, Doctor Undyne's sent word that a human's been seen in the underground. The Snowdin Canine Unit's moving to intercept, but frankly I doubt they'll be much more than a delay. If you see the human around here, you send word my way immediately. You have a phone, right?"
"Uh, give me a sec." Glen made a show of smacking the side of the tablet before transferring a little power back into it. Once active, she activated a word processor and looked at Alphys expectantly. Rolling her eyes, Alphys barked out the numbers so quickly that Glen barely managed to get them all into the program.
"First sign of the human-" Alphys repeated.
"Call you right away. Of course, captain. Anything you say."
With a final snort, Alphys stormed out of the junkyard. Glen waited until she was well and truly gone before finally letting out a sigh.
"Well, I guess I can't make fun of the disguise anymore." Glen said.
A voice behind her said, "Alphys is near-sighted. You probably just look like a big blur to her."
Glen spun about to see the same green eyes staring out at him from under the hood of a cloak.
"That was really cool, what you did." The figure said. "You made all of it up, didn't you?"
Glen considered lying, but the boy's tone made it clear there was no point. "Yup. Used to play a game called Dungeons and Dragons. When everyone else made fighters to smash through enemies or mages to blow them to bits, I was the girl who made the bard or the thief who talked their way outta trouble. It's kinda funny; every time I bluff in real life, I swear I can hear dice clattering against a tabletop."
The boy laughed and pushed back his hood. Glen sucked air between her teeth as she recognized the boy as a bossun.
"I'm Asriel Dreemurr." He said, holding out a fur-covered paw. "Nice to meet you, Miss Garamond."
ns 15.158.61.16da2
