When I wrote Worth a Thousand Words in 2020, I wanted the story to move along at a pretty rapid pace. However, in the process of narrating the lives of Asriel and Chara from their pre-Undertale days to the months after the barrier was broken, I left a big gap in the story that's been staring at me for a long time.

The chapter "Unfinished Business" (which tells about Frisk coming back to Mount Ebott many months after the barrier was broken) is only five paragraphs long, and it breezes past a very big question: what did Frisk actually do on the day he returned the underground?

This story is designed to answer that question. I hope you enjoy it!

Thanks as always go to TakaiWolf, whose editing powers overcame even the dumbest mistakes I made.

(I thought about naming this story "Dreemurrsdämmerung", but nobody except opera nerds would have got it.)

PROLOGUE - Chapter 1: The Abomination

Aelric grunted in pain as the weight of the demon slammed into him, knocking him to the ground. Its claws slashed against his brigandine, and he had to bite back a scream as it pierced the seams and tore into his flesh. His left leg was bent unnaturally, crushed under the weight of the bear-like creature. Mercifully his sword arm had not been pinned, and with all the force he could muster he plunged his weapon into the side of the monstrosity.

The blade snapped, but not before it penetrated the creature's hide. The agonized roar of the beast died almost as soon as it began. The blade fell free from the disintegrating demon, and Aelric gagged as the vile powdery remains of the brute smothered him for a moment. Kicking free from the remains, he rolled to his side and got to his knees, retching.

He stumbled to his feet, and almost fell again as his left leg screamed in protest. He dropped his ruined weapon and cautiously raised himself up again, more slowly this time. Several men lay dead around him. The land all around was coated with the acrid, dull gray powder of slain demons. As he picked up a halberd from the ground next to a fallen soldier, using it to support his weight, his eyes scanned the battlefield.

There were a handful of soldiers near him, fighting off the hordes of beasts rushing at them from all sides. Aelric estimated there were at least thirty of the fiends. Only a few hours ago he would have considered that insurmountable odds for such a small group of men. When the battle had commenced and the longbowmen had launched a volley of arrows towards the rushing, shrieking mass of demons, it had had almost no effect. The arrows had buried themselves in their enemies, but most of the monsters shrugged them off, tearing them out or snapping off the shafts and surging forward as if they hadn't felt them at all. More than one soldier near him had cried out in terror as the enemy swept towards them. Aelric had wondered if the battle was about to turn into a slaughter.

And it had… but not in the way he had thought. As the armies crashed into each other, It quickly became apparent that in melee combat the beasts were incredibly fragile. If you could stay on your feet and not get overwhelmed, one or two strikes would bring down just about any of them, even if it was just a glancing blow on one of their appendages. More than once Aelric had been astonished when the flailing, clumsy strokes of an untrained swordsman had cut down creatures twice the size of a man. A strong swing of a polearm could take down three or four of the smaller ones with one swipe.

The battle had not been entirely one-sided; there was still the matter of the sorceries their enemies could produce. Every one of them appeared to have the ability to create spectral energy with which to attack. But even those infernal powers had been blunted by the human army. True, the weapons that the demons could conjure in their hands were fearsome, and some of the beasts could even rapidly alter the shape of their weapon in mid-skirmish. But the distance over which they could create projectile weapons of ice, fire, and shimmering blades was very short, and appeared to quickly exhaust the beast whenever it cast such a spell. As if that wasn't bad enough for them, most of the creatures appeared to need a moment of concentration before they could conjure a spell. The bowmen effectively broke that focus by raining arrows on the creatures from a distance. And in close-quarter combat, if you could absorb the pain of a magical attack (which wounded but usually didn't kill), you could easily finish off the spellcaster before he could recover from his efforts.

Aelric turned and looked along the length of Abbotvale. Only a few hours earlier, the valley had been swarming with innumerable masses of snarling and bellowing demons of all shapes and sizes. The standards of purple and white marking the lines of their enemies had stretched out almost as far as he could see. Now, almost all of those standards had been trampled into the mud, and the few remaining contingents of beasts were fighting with the desperation of those who knew they were doomed. Even as he surveyed the scene, a trumpet sounded over the valley. The leader of the beasts was sounding the retreat, calling the demons back to him.

"Sir Aelric!"

There was panic in the voice of the soldier in front of him. "Soldier" was hardly the right word. The man (Segarus, he remembered) was little more than a youth, entirely untrained in any form of combat. As the prospect of war had become inevitable, able-bodied men had been conscripted from anywhere they could be found, and there had been precious little time to train them before the demon army had launched its heaviest, most desperate assault, which now appeared to be its final one. Segarus was an acolyte, a scholar in the nearby monastery, who looked as though he had never held a sword before and risked cutting his own leg off with every wild swing. Like the rest of the ragged group of farmers, merchants and tradesmen who had been assigned to his contingent, Aelric expected very little out him. Unexpectedly Segarus had fought with spirit and bravery despite his lack of skill with the blade. He was standing there now, white-faced, pointing at something behind Aelric.

Aelric swung back around. And his blood ran cold.

Quinn, a veteran soldier, had been struck down only moments earlier. Aelric had seen a large, winged reptilian demon diving down onto the man and had rushed to his aid, but a group of darting spine-covered creatures had prevented him from getting there in time. By the time Aelric had slashed the beasts to powder, Quinn was lying face down in the dirt. The last thing Aelric had seen before the ursine monstrosity had leapt on him was the reptilian creature bending over Quinn's dead body.

The beast that now faced Aelric still resembled that reptile, but it had changed into a grotesque, horribly mutated abomination. It had been large before, but now it was massive, standing well over twelve feet. It let out a deafening shriek and leapt into the air. But something was wrong with its wings. It struggled for a moment before falling back on the ground. Where the wings had been leathery and taut earlier, they now were covered in raw patches of what looked like human skin. Bizarre limbs and appendages appeared out of its side, resembling human hands and feet. The scales on its reptilian head had fallen away, exposing patches of flesh and even hair.

As Aelric stared, frozen, it let out a deafening, blood-curdling shriek. Two of the appendages reached down to grab a sword and an axe. The closest solider, a raw recruit pressed into service just days earlier, stumbled backwards as the reptile lurched towards him, unsteadily at first but with rapid acclimation to its new size and body. The white-faced soldier took one last look at the abomination coming towards him before turning to flee. Before he had taken three steps, the reptile shrieked again. A dull red light pulsed in its chest, and it flung out yet a third appendage at him, a scale-covered arm ending in a human hand.

Aelric could hardly fathom what happened next. An explosion ripped out of the demon's deformed hand like a blaze of lightning from the sky. The soldier's screams lasted only for a second before the entire area – the solider, the ground, the very air around him – burst into an inferno. Aelric gasped and pulled back from the unbearable heat. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the blaze disappeared, leaving only a blackened, smoking patch on the ground.

Aelric had seen demons working their power before, but never so devastatingly. Even among the largest of the beasts fighting them – even from their leader, the most powerful demon Aelric had seen – there had never been anything like this. Cries of alarm rang out from all around. Many of the conscripts turned to flee.

With a grunt of pain, Aelric launched himself towards the beast. Fortune was with him – the creature had turned to shriek at the group of men behind it, leaving it exposed to his attack. Aelric wished he still had his sword; his skill lay in swordfighting, not polearms. But he could hardly miss as he swung the halberd at the lizard, striking it hard in its side.

The blow should have killed it. But to Aelric's horror, the beast only screamed in rage and whipped around to face him. Pungent white ash poured from its side where the halberd had bitten deeply into it, but the wound did nothing to slow it down.

Aelric leapt back awkwardly as the creature's newly sprouted arm effortlessly swung an axe at him, as if it weighed no more than a branch. His injured leg buckled under him as he landed, and he went sprawling onto the ground. With another piercing shriek, the reptile pointed its human hand at him. The red throbbing on its chest intensified. Aelric closed his eyes.

The shriek suddenly became a scream of pain. Aelric opened his eyes and struggled back to his feet. Segarus had rushed forward, slashing wildly at the creature that towered over him. Incredibly, his sword had connected with the creature's legs. The demon shrieked again. Segarus narrowly dodged the axe that swung down on him and slashed at the legs again. With a cry of rage, the lizard toppled and fell to the ground. With every bit of strength he had, Aelric swung the halberd down on its head.

The screams of the demon were cut off almost immediately as it disintegrated into ash. Its chest was the last to dissolve, throbbing red. Suddenly, a burst of brilliant red and white light launched itself from the powdery remains and rocketed back over to the dead body of Quinn as if pulled by a lodestone. Aelric snapped his head around just in time to see the blazing object sink into the dead soldier's chest. For a moment, the corpse pulsed with an unearthly glow. Then the light faded away.

The exhaustion of the battle finally caught up with Aelric, and he felt himself tottering. A pair of hands reached out to steady him.

"Segarus," he breathed heavily. Even as he spoke, his leg gave way. With a grunt the acolyte half-lowed, half-dropped Aelric onto the ground. For several minutes, the two exhausted men sat in silence. The knight scanned the battlefield with weary eyes. The losses on their side had been heavy in the nearby area, but the battle was nearly over. Only a few skirmishes were still ongoing nearby.

"I thank you, Segarus" Aelric said with effort. "I owe you my life."

"It was my honor, sir. But… sir… what was that thing? I have never seen any creature like it."

"Nor have I. There is something diabolical here that I do not understand. I would swear that I saw it kill Quinn not ten minutes ago, but something infernal happened to it afterwards. I have never seen such sorcery as it possessed. We must report-"

"Look out!"

The cry came from behind them. The men turned and immediately scrambled to their feet as a fresh wave of spine-covered monsters surged towards them. At the forefront was another large reptile, this one wingless, brandishing a huge weapon. Curiously, although it swung its weapon at any soldier who came too close, it didn't appear to be engaging in the fight himself. Clearly, the spiney demons were under its control, or command at least.

In the commotion, Aelric caught a glimpse of the beast striding towards the body of Quinn before his own attention was diverted by a snarling monster leaping towards him. When Aelric was able to look again, his face went rapidly through confusion, then incredulity, and then horror.

The reptilian demon was bending over Quinn, with its claws resting on the dead man's chest. The same throbbing light that had pulsed in the misshapen demon was now vibrating in the claws of the reptile. The monster pulled the glowing red and white object towards its own chest.

"Segarus!" Aelric screamed out, kicking away a demon that snapped at him. "Segarus, stop him!"

Segarus turned to look where Aelric pointed, then with a yell and a last swipe at the demon harassing him, turned to rush towards the reptile. Aelric's leg again screamed in protest, but he stumbled after him.

The beast did not immediately notice Segarus running towards it. Whatever was preoccupying its attention caused it to roar in anger. Then it spotted the man lunging forwards, and with one claw smoothly scooped up its weapon and effortlessly parried the acolyte's sword swinging down. The force of the deflection sent Segarus sprawling into the mud, and Aelric's heart sank. But the demon did not press its advantage. Its other claw still held the object that pulsed with an unnatural white and red glow. Once again it pressed the object to its chest. It held it there for a moment and again roared in apparent vexation. As Segarus struggled to get his feet, the creature turned to him and raised its massive weapon. But even as the bludgeon began to arc towards the defenseless acolyte, Aelric stumbled forward and swung his halberd with all his might at the infernal glow pulsing in the monster's claw.

A deafening explosion blew Aelric backwards. His head struck a rock, and everything became unfocused and blurry. The sounds around him grew indistinct, but for a moment he thought he could hear the shouts of running men and the desperate sound of a trumpet far off. As everything faded into blackness, an unexpected feeling of peace filled his heart. He felt the darkness embracing him, soft and welcoming. Then, he knew no more.