As they walked down the road, Karak's endless questions started up again, now curious about how many different 'spells' Sans was able to do. Sans kept his replies on that subject vague, as he didn't particularly like talking about himself, and instead talked up how awesome Papyrus' abilities were in comparison.

Sans found that, for once, he felt like he could talk about Papyrus without breaking down, so this led to reminiscing about his brother's puzzles, and describing just how hard Papyrus had tried to get into the royal guard. All that gave Karak plenty of material for new questions that lasted all the way up until they crested a hill and spotted the tower.

The stone building lay in the middle of a low, overgrown valley, less than a kilometer away, just barely concealed from the average traveler by tall underbrush and the geography around it.

"There it is," Karak pointed it out to him. "There are a few guards outside at the entrance, but the first floor is almost completely clear. It's the next level up that I couldn't get past."

Sans studied the tower contemplatively as they continued down into the valley, pushing their way through huge ferns and other groundcover. It was at most five or six stories high, much smaller than he'd been expecting, but he supposed it made sense considering this world seemed to have slightly less than medieval-level technology. Constructing tall buildings required enough engineering know-how to keep the wind from knocking them over. And besides that, whoever had built it had obviously wanted to stay at least somewhat hidden.

"who does this tower belong to, anyway?" he asked curiously as they neared it.

"I don't really know," Karak admitted. "The only living things I've run across inside have been monsters, and they aren't exactly talkative. Present company excepted, of course."

With a grin, Sans gave an exaggerated shrug. "yep. i may be short, but that doesn't stop me from being the tall-king."

Judging from Karak's blank expression, his pun had gone over the boy's head. He chuckled. "heh. alright, i guess that one was a bit of a stretch." Shrugging, he went on. "anyway, if you've gotten in before, the guards will probably be expecting intruders. any plans for getting around them?"

Interestingly enough, Karak hesitated for a moment before answering. "I wouldn't say they're expecting us," he said slowly. "They're, uh... definitely not sentient. Like, even less so than the skeletons."

"really?" Sans blinked, raising an eyebrow curiously. "what kind of monsters are they?"

"Zombies." Karak shuddered slightly. "I really don't like them."

"huh. never heard of them. what are..." Sans trailed off as he spotted a guard coming around the side of the tower. Karak saw it at the same time and quickly pulled the skeleton into a nearby bush to hide.

Sans peeked his head out to get a better look. His first thought upon seeing the monster had been 'human,' but this guy very much was not. Not with that gray-purple shade of skin, and definitely not with the rotten patches all over, exposing muscle, intestines, and bone. The whole side of its face looked half smashed in, the flesh sheared away to reveal a crushed skull. Sans watched in morbid fascination as it dragged itself towards the tower's main doors, a low moan echoing across the short distance between them.

Karak scowled. "They used to be human. Zombies are one of the few monsters that don't just occur naturally in the world. They're made by necromancers, people who take human corpses and use magic to give them 'life' again. Which pretty much tells you what kind of person owns this tower."

Sans couldn't help the look of disgust that spread across his face. The gore didn't bother him much (though it did remind him of past nightmares in a long, golden hallway) but from what Karak was saying, these things were the human equivalent of someone taking monster dust and making puppets out of it. "that's... just sick."

"Some people think that skeletons fall in the same category as zombies, you know," Karak mentioned, giving Sans a side-long look. "Because of, ah..." he couldn't quite seem to say it, so he merely held up an arm, poking vaguely at the bones beneath his skin with the other hand.

way to make this awkward, Sans couldn't help thinking. "i know humans have skeletons," he assured the boy in a dry voice. "most monsters do, too. trust me, the actual bone structure is much different." He jerked a thumb up at his jawline, the most obvious example of this, then winked to further prove the point.

Karak nodded slowly. "Yeah, I figured you weren't just undead. Skeletons and zombies do seem a lot alike, though. I only knew skeletons were different because I've found them all over the place, and there's no way someone made them all just to let them roam the countryside for no reason."

This conversation was getting uncomfortable, so Sans returned his attention to the tower. "so what's the best way to get past them?" he asked, gesturing towards the door where another zombie had shambled up to join the first.

"Besides putting them out of their misery?" Karak looked up, as though the sky held all the answers. "Not sure. We could try distracting them, I guess."

Sans followed his gaze, then tilted his head with a smirk as he spotted something. "have you tried the window?"

Karak blinked at him in confusion, then glanced back up to see the large glass window at the very top of the tower. He shook his head with a snort. "Yes, because I'm totally able to climb up a smooth stone wall all the way to the top of a huge tower. Of course I'd think to try that."

"hey, sarcasm isn't funny," Sans said with a chuckle. "besides, you wouldn't need to climb." He pulled a hand out of his pocket, letting it glow blue to show his intent.

Eyebrows raised, Karak frowned incredulously. "Really? You serious? All the way up there?" Sans just widened his grin, and Karak sighed. Gritting his teeth, he paused for a moment to steel himself, then crawled out of the bush and stepped back so that there wasn't any foliage above him. "Fine. Just don't drop me."

"aw, come on," Sans gave his best innocent look and pinged Karak's soul blue, adjusting his gravity so that he began to fall slowly upwards. "don't you trust me?"

For a moment, Karak didn't answer, simply shifting his body to adjust to floating, but when he did, it was with a bright smile. "Heh. Yeah, actually. I do trust you, Sans."

"oh. sorry to hear that." Casually, he turned away, letting his magic fade out. Karak hovered in one spot—a good two stories in the air by that point—for a long, uncertain moment before suddenly plummeting back towards the ground again.

"AAAUGH!"

He needn't have screamed so loud; Sans flung his arm out and caught him in his magic a split second before he hit the grass. The skeleton burst out laughing at Karak's wide eyes and terrified gasping. "gotcha," he said cheerily.

"Sans!" Karak flailed in the grasp of Sans' magic, his whole face red. "You're a monster! A real monster! How could you?!" Despite all the yelling, the boy was giggling right along with him.

"hey," Sans interjected with a huge grin. "it's not my fault you keep falling for my pranks. you're only human, after all."

"pffft!" Karak let himself go limp, shaking with laughter. "Alright, alright, you got me. You got me good."

Sans was about to reply, but a commotion from his left cut him off as two zombie guards pushed their way through the bushes in their direction. "whoops," he said offhandedly. "kinda forgot about these guys." Karak let out a low squeak as Sans sent him flying back up into the air again to get him out of sight.

To his surprise, the zombies stopped in their tracks when they spotted the skeleton, their broken faces contorting into looks of mild confusion. One of them, the first zombie he'd seen, pointed at him. "Nnnnn-tru-drrr?" it questioned.

Sans blinked. That was the first time he'd heard a monster here speak, or at least try to speak. Had they recognized that he wasn't a human? "intruder? me? nah, i'm jus-"

"TRUDER!" the other zombie screeched suddenly, and launched itself at him. Sans ducked out of the way, letting it careen past him into another clump of bushes, where it managed to get entangled in branches and leaves.

The first one took that as an answer and also moved to attack, letting out a loud growl and opening its mouth wide to bite at him.

Sans took a shortcut, activating blue magic on himself at the same time, and a moment later, he hung in the air beside Karak, hands shoved in his pockets. "i thought you said they weren't sentient," he commented quietly.

There was no deception on the boy's face, only a deep confusion. "I... I mean, I didn't think they were. They're puppets, they're just following whatever directions the necromancer gave them. I've never heard them yell like that."

"maybe they've retained some of their former intelligence?" Sans guessed. "what about their souls? do they still have their human souls?"

Karak only blinked at him in response. "I have no idea. Does it matter?"

Sans shrugged, realizing he'd lapsed into scientific analysis mode. "just musing out loud," he brushed it off. "monsters here are... different. i'm still trying to figure them out."

"We should check out the window before they figure out where we went," Karak pointed out.

Lazily, Sans glanced down at the zombies still crashing about in the underbrush below. "nah. no one ever looks up." But he pulled a hand out of his pocket and began lifting Karak and himself higher. Originally, he was just going to send Karak up, but now that he was already in the air, might as well check things out himself, too.

It proved to be a fruitless endeavor, as something invisible shoved both of them several meters away from the building the moment they were in reach of the window. Sans struggled against whatever force was keeping them back, but his magic didn't seem to be strong enough to push past the spell. He could move them up and down, but not any closer to the glass.

"Looks like some sort of study," Karak mentioned, straining to see inside from their new distant position. "Or maybe a workroom. I don't see anyone in there, though."

Sans narrowed his eyes as he analyzed the magic bubble of repelling that had been erected around the window. The humans in his world definitely didn't have anything like this at their disposal; not anymore, at any rate. "welp. guess this guy already took the ability to fly into account. too bad."

"Yeah, I suppose we'll have to use the front door, like normal people," Karak commented with a smirk. "How terrible."

Letting Karak's sarcasm slide for now, Sans scanned the ground below them, trying to decide how many guards there were. Five seemed to have clumped up together searching the bushes, due to the earlier confrontation, but who knew if more still patrolled the other side of the building.

"they seem pretty distracted at the moment," he pointed out. "think we can just drop down in front of the door and walk in?"

Karak shrugged. "Maybe. If they spot us, then we'll have to hope they don't know how to open doors. But it sounds like a good shot to me."

"a'ight." Sans deftly swung them around the side of the building to the front, double checked for wandering guards, then let gravity take its natural course, setting them down gently on the grass in front of the large entrance.

As soon as his feet had purchase on the ground again, Karak turned and pressed one shoulder against the door, using his full body weight to shove it open. It did so slowly. "When we get in," Karak huffed, "be prepared to start dodging."

Sans nodded, and when the door was open enough, he slipped inside. Karak was right behind him, and the door swung shut the moment the boy stopped pushing.

It took several moments to adjust to the darker room. Torches rested in sconces on the stone walls, but it was a far cry from the bright daylight outside. To Sans' surprise, the place seemed to be pretty empty, with only a few low tables in the corners, covered with bowls and plates and surrounded by simple wooden chairs. No decorations hung on the walls other than the lights; no rugs or other carpeting hid the plain, white tiled floor; and there wasn't a single person in sight.

At least, at first. Just as Sans opened his mouth to ask Karak what he'd expected to see in here, a pale figure faded slowly into existence in the center of the room: A ghost monster, hovering a foot off the ground, glaring at them with large blue eyes. It had no limbs manifested, giving it a very similar look to Undyne's neighbor, though it 'stood' much taller than Napstablook.

Sans barely had time to take in its appearance before it let out a screech, and detached spectral hands appeared and lifted three plates off the tables into the air. The objects spun slowly for two long seconds before being suddenly hurled in their direction. Sans jumped to the side, letting the pottery sail past him and smash into shards on the wall behind him. Karak did the same, though the boy also drew his sword, swinging and shattering the third plate before it could reach him.

The ghost was undeterred by its misses, and with another yell, it picked up more dishes to throw at them, never actually moving from the middle of the room as its many ghostly hands did their work.

Sans, thankfully enough, was the absolute master of dodging, in his own humble opinion. Karak didn't do too bad, either, and whatever the boy didn't dodge, his sword took out easily enough.

Running out of pottery to throw didn't stop the ghost either. Its eyes flashed in annoyance, and its hands all worked together to haul a table into the air, lobbing that at them instead with a mighty roar. Sans outright laughed at this, ducking away to a corner of the room, and the table hit the wall with a resounding crash, splintering into pieces. The chair that followed met a similar fate, as did the next one, and the next.

The ghost became increasingly frustrated, as the pile of debris against the far wall grew and the 'ammo' supply steadily shrunk. Soon, there were no more chairs either, and with angry cries, the ghost smashed the last few tables against the wall as well, not even bothering to properly aim them this time.

Sans gave the ghost a patient smile. "you seem to be out of stuff to throw," he commented lightly.

"Not quite," Karak murmured under his breath, still crouched and ready to dodge.

The skeleton blinked at him in confusion, but it soon became clear what Karak meant as the ghost began cackling with evil laughter, its eyes glowing an ominous red. Loud snaps and cracks rang out, and Sans watched in fascination as the floor tiles themselves rose one by one into the air. "well. i stand corrected."

The entire room abruptly became a flurry of movement, tiles filling all available space like some sort of bullet hell video game.

Sans ruled at bullet hell games.

The ghost's final barrage chipped the stone walls, smashed the debris from before back up into the air, and sent pottery dust and splinters flying in dangerous, shard-filled clouds that further obscured the room. Thankfully, it didn't last long, and at the end of it, the skeleton stood unscathed, though drops of sweat slid down his face as he fought to catch his breath, leaning against the wall and keeping a wary eye on the ghost. Karak had managed to make it to the other side of the room somehow, looking a little battered but otherwise no worse for wear.

As the cloud of debris slowly settled, the red glow drained from the ghost's eyes, leaving them a dull blue color again, and it stared at them with a strangely neutral expression. A ringing silence permeated the atmosphere as they tensely watched each other, before the ghost simply faded out of existence, seeming almost sad.

After a moment, Karak let out a relieved laugh. "Well, that was crazy," he said breathlessly, sheathing his sword. "You okay over there?"

"oh, yeah. peachy." Sans gave him a thumbs up without moving from the wall. "i thought you said that the next level is when it gets hard."

The boy shrugged and went to Sans' side, helping to steady him. "Yeah. The next floor has a mini-boss," he explained, pointing to the far end of the square room where a staircase was inset into the wall.

The new term pulled Sans' attention from his exhaustion for a moment. "mini-boss?" he questioned as the bizarre mental image of a doll-sized Asgore popped into his head. "like a tiny boss monster?"

Karak snorted. "This guy's anything but tiny," he responded. "I call them mini-bosses because they're not, you know, the main boss of the place, but they're much stronger than the other monsters. Like I said, I can't get past this guy, mostly because of the time limit."

Sans raised an eyebrow at that. "what, like it kicks you out of the room after a few minutes?"

"No, it..." Karak hesitated, his mouth twisting uncomfortably. "Er... Something like that, yeah."

Sans would have been able to tell that the boy wasn't telling him something even if he didn't have special training as a judge. Something else about this whole situation with the ghost throwing stuff seemed off to him, too, though he couldn't quite put his finger bone on exactly what was bothering him. He shoved his hands in his pockets without a word and just looked at Karak. Calmly.

The boy squirmed under his gaze, one foot scuffing at the now dirt floor. "It's hard to explain," he said lamely. "Easier if you just see for yourself. How's your HP and MP? You ready for this?"

After watching him for just a moment longer, Sans decided to let it go for now. "i'm good on magic, but i could use a bit of a breather. i'm, uh, definitely not cut out for this kind of stuff."

"Not cut out for...? Sans, you didn't get hit once that whole time, what do you mean you're not cut out for it?" Karak cracked a smile, sitting down amongst the debris. Sans plopped down next to him, sprawling on his back with his hands up behind his head like a pillow. Karak shook his head. "Seriously, that was pretty cool. I didn't think you could move that fast."

Sans only shrugged, now focusing on slowing his breathing. He wasn't about to admit that with his HP, he literally couldn't let himself get hit, not even once. "i'm fast, but i can't keep it up long. you should see my bro, his stamina is seriously something else. me, i prefer doing absolutely nothing if it's at all possible. all this running around is crazy."

"Hey, if you need a boost, I've still got plenty of-"

"nah," Sans interrupted before Karak could even start rummaging through his bag for another of those disgusting potions. "i'm good, thanks."

Karak chuckled, the mischievous gleam in his eye stating clearly that he'd already known how Sans would react to that. Not that it was too hard of a thing to guess. The boy poked through the pouch on his belt anyway, pulling out a vial of some new kind of potion, this one red, and downing it himself. By his expression, Sans guessed it was as vile as the other kind, but Karak looked much better afterwards.

"so what's our strategy for this 'mini-boss' upstairs?" Sans asked after a minute, slowly sitting up again and stretching to pop his back.

Frowning, Karak gazed at the staircase in thought. "I'm not sure, to be honest. The doors all close as soon as you walk in, and it seems like the only way past is to kill the boss before..."

"before it kicks you out," Sans finished. He let out a low hum, rubbing his chin. "maybe i can try shortcutting past the door to the next room. as long as i have a general idea of what's on the other side, i can probably manage it."

Karak blinked, then grinned. "I keep forgetting you can do stuff like that. This feels totally like cheating."

Sans winked. "yeah. it totally is. so?"

The boy just laughed as they both pulled themselves to their feet. Karak turned to face the staircase, looking a bit nervous. "Ready?"

"ready as i'll ever be," Sans replied, and they headed up, Karak leading the way.