Some things I forgot to mention in the first chapter and couldn't in the description. This story will also feature some sexual themes throughout the story, somewhat due to the dryad's... rather revealing outfit, though she won't be the only source. Frisk is also aged up to be 16 years old in this story. I'm currently undecided about adding sexual scenes to this story, will try to keep it closer to lime than lemon if I go through with it.

The way this armored girl stated, in a matter-of-factly voice, that they wouldn't like this land called Terraria didn't sit well with the monsters. Undyne spoke her mind first, "What do you mean "we won't like it here"? Is that some sort of threat?!"

"Not from me." The armored human looks over at the sun slowly dipping below the horizon. "Look, we don't have much time before the day ends. Either you come with me to my settlement or you- "

"And why should we trust you?" Undyne interjected with a low growl, causing her to stiffen defensively. "First you tell us how we're going to feel about this place, and then you expect us to listen to what you say?! You've got some nerve, human!"

Sans took this time to look at this human's LV. What surprised him was that it was still at 1, yet her HP was at an insurmountable 200. From a distant memory of when Frisk went genocidal, Sans knew that even at an LV of 19, he never breached 100 HP.

To top it all off, this new world has far more magic in its air than even the underground did.

"Undyne, I don't think she's joking around." Frisk said with a low, slightly unnerved voice. "We all were feeling something was off about this place even before exiting the underground. Perhaps we should take her word as someone who's already been living here for a while."

The armored girl nodded at Frisk in thanks. "If you choose to come with me to the settlement, I can explain more there. Otherwise, it would be safer to go back to where you came from." The sky was starting to darken. "Make your choice now; night is almost upon us."

There was a pregnant pause before Frisk stepped forward, filled with determination. "I'll go. We need to know as much about this land as we can before we can make any proper plans for getting everyone out of the underground."

Toriel looked at frisk before sighing. "As reckless as ever, my child. Then I'll be joining you this time; if this world is as dangerous as…"

She shoots the armored girl a confused look, prompting a facepalm. "Right, forgot to give my name. It's Delta." The monsters immediately thought about the delta rune, but figured there was no connection.

Toriel cleared her throat. "If this world is as dangerous as Delta claims it is, then you'll need all the help you can get."

Sans chuckled. "Eh, why not? I'll go too. I'm curious about what's going on up here that's so 'dangerous'."

This baffled Papyrus, but he quickly recovered. "I'LL BE JOINING AS WELL! NYEHEHEHE!"

Undyne was going to say something when Asgore started speaking first. "I think I'll remain behind. Someone needs to warn the population that the surface isn't safe and they'll need someone there." That was only one reason. The other is that he's all too aware of the bad blood between him and Toriel; that kind of discrepancy will only hinder progress.

"Then I'm staying here too!" Undyne claimed boisterously.

"No, Undyne. I want you to go with Frisk any everyone else who goes with him. They'll need someone besides Delta who's proficient at combat; you're the strongest one here besides me and Tori." Asgore shivered at the glare that got shot at him, but didn't comment on it.

Undyne sighs before nodding. "Understood."

Alphys finally managed to speak up. "I-I think I'll stay behind as well. I've just confirmed that our cell phones still work even on the surface in this new world, so I'll keep communications between you guys and the underground live."

Everyone having decided on what they were doing, Delta nodded as she went into her bag. "Then we should get going."

Papyrus suddenly had a thought. "HOLD ON, HUMAN DELTA! HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO REACH THIS SETTLEMENT YOU SPEAK OF?"

"Firstly, only a few seconds if we're lucky. Secondly, I used the term 'settlement' very loosely." This baffled everyone. What baffled them even more was when she brought out six hourglass-shaped bottles filled with a cyan liquid, when the bag looked barely big enough to hold two, and handed out five of them.

Sans merely asked, "What are these?"

"Recall potions. When you drink one, it teleports you to what I think is the center-point of this world. We should probably go one at a time and move immediately after, else we just start dog-piling on the first person to teleport. Wouldn't that be a sight?"

Uncertain if that was Delta's attempt at humor, Undyne drank her potion first. Barely a second later and she disappears, leaving behind blue energy particles. Sans had to hold back a snort of laughter, since the recall potion almost worked like his 'shortcuts'.

Frisk was the last one to drink his potion, though right before he teleported he heard a gravelly moan come from the slowly deepening darkness of the night. On the other side, with all of his friends, he moved out of the way before falling onto the ground, unstable from the teleport.

Delta teleported a second later and was amused at how everyone, except for Sans, was on the ground from teleportation sickness. "Try and keep your stomach in your body. Also, you shouldn't be as affected by any future teleports; the first one is always a doozy."

"We very well could have used some warning, Delta." Toriel huffed before giggling. "Ah, well… any tele'port' in a storm, ay?" Everyone laughed at that except for Papyrus and Undyne, who groaned at it.

Delta shook her head in amusement. "Well when you're done being punny, have a look at what's in front of you

When they looked up, they started beholding what looked like a large, glowing, teal castle that had a small house sitting next to it. The nearby sign had written on it: Vortex Castle.

Delta motioned toward the castle. "This is why I used the term 'settlement' loosely. Before you ask, we didn't build it ourselves, it was there before any of us were even here."

Sans snorted. "So, you're essentially squatting in this abandoned castle. Dignified."

Delta rolled her eyes. "We didn't really have a choice considering- " She was cut off when everyone heard a noise. When they turned around, they saw what looked like a human that has seen better days shambling towards them in the darkness.

Papyrus didn't miss a beat. "HELLO, HUMAN! DO YOU LIVE IN THIS CASTLE AS WELL?" The 'human' ignored him and continued to shamble towards him.

Undyne wasn't fooled. "Papyrus! Get away from that thing!" Sans, in a panic, tried to turn the 'human's' soul blue and launch them back, only for nothing to happen. The 'human' was soulless, which filled him with dread.

Delta quickly drew her Tendon Bow and fired an arrow at the 'human', striking a critical hit and causing it to explode into ludicrous gibs and some coins, stunning everyone else. "And that's why nighttime is so dangerous." Sans noticed the bow and was immediately put on edge over how it looked as well as how she had... done this before.

Papyrus looked appalled. "HUMAN DELTA, WHY DID YOU KILL HIM?! I WAS CERTAIN ALL HE WANTED WAS A HUG OF ACCEPTANCE!" Frisk suddenly had flashback to when Papyrus kept trying to offer said hug of acceptance and broke into a cold sweat.

Undyne didn't jump on Delta for killing the 'human' like she normally would when someone kills something, but rather looked at the slowly disappearing gibbed remains with a look of unease. "No soul appeared when it died… was it even alive to begin with?"

Delta sighed. "That's because it was a zombie and they- " More gravelly moans were heard as more shapes started shambling towards them. "- are everywhere during the night."

Frisk recovered from his initial shock and managed to perform a check on one zombie:

*Zombie – HP 45 ATK 14 DEF 6

*What remains of a human. Somewhat tenacious, entirely mindless and souless.

Delta shook her head. "Zombies aren't the only things that start popping up at night. Keep an eye on the sky; demon eyes will be flying around trying to attack you as well." As if on cue, a giant eye with what looked like long, stringy muscle tissue trailing behind it appeared, making a dive for Toriel. Frisk, still having not kicked the checking habit, managed to do so:

*Demon Eye – HP 60 ATK 18 DEF 0

*A flying, disembodied eye. Flight patterns are somewhat unpredictable.

Delta shot an arrow at the demon eye, with the arrow and the eye bouncing off each other, before saying, "I think it's best you guys head inside for now while I try and thin the number of hostiles out here. Go into the house; there's someone I want you to meet." She starts firing more arrows at all of the zombies and demon eyes that started swarming the area while the everyone else made a mad dash for the house.

Everyone except for Undyne, who summoned her spear with a battle cry. "You think I'm just going to duck into a house without a fight?! I DON'T THINK SO, SO COME AND GET IT YOU LIFELESS CORPSES! NGAAAAAAAAAH!" Delta was about to object, but noticed that the monster was very capable of defending herself, so she focused on thinning out the zombie and demon eye population.

Another demon eye tried to get the drop on the monsters and humans who did dash for the house, but Toriel managed to deflect it with a fireball as they burst into the house, much to the shock of its lone occupant. "Wha?! I thought it wasn't a… oh."

Frisk breathed a sigh. "Sorry we let ourselves in, but things were looking… dangerous out there." He got a good look at the green haired girl and almost fell over from the fact that all she wore were vines and leaves.

The girl didn't notice Frisk's initial reaction as she studied the group that entered. "Hmm… are any of you, by chance, related to that mountain suddenly appearing?"

Toriel nodded, though she was slightly put off by this girl's… fashion choice. "We were just as surprised when my child here told us it wasn't the same surface as the one he came from. I apologize if we gave you a scare."

"It's quite alright. Have you, perchance, met with an armored girl named Delta?"

Papyrus burst in, "WHY YES INDEED. SHE GAVE US 'RECALL POTIONS' AND WOUND UP TELEPORTING NEAR HERE. THAT'S WHEN WE WERE GREETED BY ZOMBIE HUMANS AND WE WERE TOLD TO RUN TO HERE!"

"So, Delta's out there still? Kind of figures; she tries to "thin out" the number of zombies that appear every night in an attempt to make this area safer at night. I keep telling her that these zombies will keep coming back in droves, but she's insistent."

Sans thought back to when he saw that Delta only had an LV of 1. If she has been doing this almost every night, then perhaps LV also works differently here.

Toriel looks at the girl with confusion. "How are they endless? As morbid as it is, I don't think there are that many…"

The girl finished her sentence. "Dead people? You're right about that. These zombies seem to be made of some sort of magic, though I'm not sure how or why the magic gets formed into zombies or… whatever else that's hostile."

Frisk breathed a little bit at that, but deep down, he was terrified. The last time he chose to fight, he wound up slaughtering many innocent lives before being stopped by Sans. Even now, he shudders at the motion of holding an actual weapon and using it to kill anything. He promised himself he would never kill again.

His thought process was cut off when there was a slam at the door, with Delta and Undyne panting like they've been running for a long time. Undyne shook her head. "Those zombies are relentless, not to mention numerous. I've seen zombies with what looked like slime on their heads and even ones full of arrows. Best part? Every single one drops a random sum of copper or silver coins."

Papyrus raised a metaphorical eyebrow at that. "ONLY COPPER AND SILVER? IN THE UNDERGROUND, WE ALWAYS USED GOLD COINS FOR EVERYTHING, AND IT'S NOT LIKE THEY WERE UNCOMMON."

Delta sighed. "What a wonderful world you guys must have lived in." Something started thumping at the door. "Don't answer that. Zombies tend to do that a lot whenever you manage to get inside." Walking to stand beside the green-haired girl, not realizing that Sans was giving her a look of suspicion, she crosses her arms. "Since we're out of danger, why don't we introduce ourselves?"

Toriel gasped. "How rude of us. You told us your name, but none of us told you ours. I'm Toriel, and this human child is Frisk." Frisk waves.

"I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS!"

"Sans, Sans the skeleton."

"Undyne, head of the royal guard."

The green hair girl nods. "I'm Isis. And I want to take a moment to read your minds. You think I'm a human, right?"

Undyne raises an eyebrow. "Aren't you?"

"Nope. I'm actually a dryad, we just take a human form whenever we're out in the open like this."

Everyone except Toriel looked at Isis a bit funny, with Sans saying, "That's odd. Where we're from, all the dryads died out before monsterkind got sealed underground."

Isis raised an eyebrow. "Don't know why you wanted to tell me that, but okay. Also, while I'm curious about your kind getting sealed underground, I think that's a topic for another day."

There was deafening silence after that, since nobody wanted to speak up. Frisk decided to break the ice doing something he still occasionally has fun with. "Anyways, dryad? More like 'fine'ad!"

Undyne and Sans had looks of amusement, Papyrus and Delta looked confused, and Toriel looked exasperated. Isis facepalmed rather hard. "Oh sweet world tree above, not another flirter. I get enough from Dante as it is." She gives Frisk a flat look. "Look kid, would you be flirting with me if I told you I'm over 500 years old?"

This baffled everyone but Delta and Toriel, with Papyrus saying, "BUT YOU LOOK ABOUT AS YOUNG AS HUMAN FRISK HERE!"

"Flattering, but… let's just say, the sands of time are flowing. And well, none of you are aging very gracefully… except for Toriel."

Sans chuckled. "Blunt."

Isis shrugs. "I tell it how it is, baby cakes. Delta would know; we've already had this conversation."

Delta nods before groaning. "I need to take my helmet off for a bit, it's getting stuffy." She did so and everyone saw that she looked about Frisk's age with flowing green hair that was brighter than Isis' and green eyes.

Frisk's very first thought was, 'she's cute'.

Undyne scoffed. "Let me guess, you LOOK Frisk's age, but you are actually something that looks human and is far older than that."

Delta gives her a baffled look as Isis giggles. "No, she's human." She gives the girl a confused look. "Still haven't pinned the actual age down, though I would hazard the guess that she's at least 16 like Frisk is."

Toriel gives Isis a confused look. "Hazard the guess?"

Delta shook her head. "I can't remember anything from my past beyond when I woke up in front of the Vortex Castle with Keven. I'm not keen on devoting any energy into trying to remember though; that's the least of my worries."

Isis nods. "Seems everyone, myself included, has forgotten what happened in the past, why everyone is so scattered across Terraria, and why there are so many monsters about… not your kind of monster."

Undyne grunts. "You guys seem to try and make it clear that the monsters you've been dealing with are different from us."

"Radically so. Perhaps we should make a distinction between you and them. Perhaps we should call your kind something else?"

Toriel thought for a moment. "Perhaps calling us Ebott monsters, after the mountain we were sealed under, would suffice?"

"If you feel that will work." Isis claps her hands together. "Delta, it's getting late so why don't you show them around the Vortex Castle and help them find rooms? I'd like to, but the teal coloring hurts my eyes staring at it for too long."

"That sounds fine, but I have a question for Delta." Sans suddenly spoke up, face and voice very serious. "What's the deal with your red and black bow you used outside?"

"You mean my Tendon Bow?" Delta brings the bow out and Frisk almost had a panic attack. The coloring was eerily similar to the real knife he found during his genocide. The main body was grey and black with red highlights and the string was bright red, like it was made of stringy flesh.

The appearance unnerved Papyrus. "THAT BOW LOOKS… VERY WRONG TO ME."

Delta gives the bow a worried look before putting it away. "Might be because it's made of… crimtane. Even I'm still slightly unnerved by it; the only reason why I still use it is because I've yet to find a stronger bow. And I didn't name it. Keven, who calls himself 'the guide', named it when he was helping me forge it."

Sans thought back to the knife frisk was using during their battle and wondered if it was, somehow, made of the same material. Toriel asked the question he just thought. "What is this… crimtane you speak of? Is it a metal only found here in Terraria?"

Isis let out a sigh. "I wish it weren't. While forging crimtane ore into ingots seems to make them… more inert than they normally are outside of appearances, crimtane is the result of… something infecting this world." She shakes her head. "It's not important right now to you guys."

Delta leers at Isis. "What if they want to go back to Ebott? You do realize that one area of that 'something' is between here and there, right?"

Isis sighed. "Right, forgot about that." Looking back at the Ebott monsters, she adds, "I still won't say anything on the account that all of you need a good-night's sleep. We can worry about all of that in the morning."

Undyne was about to object when Frisk and Papyrus yawned. "Alright, fine. But I want to know all the details about this 'something' that lies between us and Ebott in the morning!"

Delta sighs. "I want to say you guys would be better off not nowing, but I can tell you're stubborn. I suppose I can do one better and show you what we mean. Believe me when I say, you're not going to like it."

Sans lets out a sigh. "That's twice you've said we wouldn't like something within the span of half a day. IS this place really that bad?"

"You don't know the half of it…" Delta sighs before shaking her head and putting her helmet back on. "Let's just drop the subject while I…" Hearing the banging on the door continue, she sighs. "While I go eradicate some pests outside so that you guys can get to the castle safe." She draws out a rather regal looking broadsword that looked like it was made of platinum before swiftly opening the door, swiping the zombies away from the door, and shutting it before any could get in.

Undyne had a look of disbelief. "Was she seriously using a sword made of platinum?"

Isis giggles. "Yes, though it's different from the precious metal version you're thinking of. In this world, platinum is stronger than tungsten, which is what her armor is made of. Downside is that it's far rarer than tungsten."

Undyne groans. "This world is weird."

Toriel giggles as well. "Next thing you know, you'll be able to cast water out of a spell book. Regardless, let's wait until Delta is done outside before we go anywhere."

Frisk could hear the sounds zombies make when killed and it was putting him on edge. She was cute, certainly, but he was wondering if she was turning into someone who kills without a second thought, like he had started to when he was caving in to Chara's genocidal suggestions.

Sans looked at Frisk and knew the kid was having… issues with the current situation. Despite Delta and Isis being friendly, this world was beginning to look like a kill or be killed world.

That, and that Delta is far more important than what anyone knew.