Chapter 6: Spider Goods and Ribbon

Moving on, there were two different doorways we could go through. There was a path to the right, and one heading straight forward. I tried to remember which way Asriel took me when we first met. However, Frisk started pulling me to the forward path.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming."

The room she led me in was a dead end, though there was a sign, and a couple of spider webs with papers stuck in them. I walked up to the sign and read, "Spider Bake Sale. All proceeds go to real spiders."

Spider goods, huh? I thought. I remembered that little spider girl that I met when I was younger. As creepy as it was, they'd cook the tiny spiders into their goods. The little buggers would bravely jump on in. At least there were countless numbers of them.

"So, did you want to get something?" I asked Frisk.

I like the donuts, Frisk signed.

"Do... you know what's in them?"

She nodded her head. I try not to think about it.

I shrugged. Probably for the best that she didn't know what was in them. Most people probably wouldn't want to eat actual spiders. At least the idea that it was made by spiders didn't bother her.

I checked my pockets, and found that my coin bag was still there. I guess it hadn't been lost since falling into the Void. Looking inside, I still had all my gold from before. I didn't remember exactly how much was in there, but it had to be about a few hundred (they were small coins).

With that in mind, I decided to buy two donuts, one for Frisk and one for me, and a bottle of Spider Cider for myself. 7 G per donut, 18 for the cider, about 32 G in total. Nothing too terrible.

Since the room was a dead end, we headed back and went around through the other door. The next room was quite a long one, with some Froggits hopping around, hanging out. A sign was set up. I read it and it said, "Did you miss it? Spider Bakesale down and to the right. Come east food made by spiders, for spiders, of spiders!"

I looked over to Frisk, who had walked past, and was enjoying her donut. Did she already know? She had to have seen this sign in the previous timelines, right?

Frisk was minding her own business, so I watched as she tried to communicate with the Froggits, who were remaining passive to her.

Then I got a call on Toriel's phone. Answering, I heard said goat monster speak. "Hello? I just realized that it has been a while since I have cleaned up. I was not expecting to have company so soon."

"Okay. When was the last time you had company?" I asked.

"Oh... It's been... a few months, I think," she replied. Something about that sounded off, but I wasn't sure. It's not like I knew what she was doing since she disappeared.

"Anyways," Toriel continued, "There are probably a lot of things lying about here and there. You can pick them up, but do not carry more than you need. Someday you might see something you really like. You will want to leave room in your pockets for that."

"Um, thank you. I'll be sure to tell Frisk that."

I heard the hang-up sound, and put the phone away, looking up at Frisk, only to find that she had engaged some monsters.

She had apparently wandered to the other end of the room, and a couple of monsters had come over, and began to attack her. Frisk was backing up, trying to defend herself, and she was holding a stick, lifting it up...

"Woah!" I ran over and stopped Frisk from swinging it down. "Frisk, calm down."

Frisk looked up. She had a frightened look on her face. These enemies must face caught her off guard, and she didn't know what to do.

"It's okay..." I told her calmly. Clearly, this was not a good time to deal with some monsters. I turned to them, and asked, "hey, would you mind letting us by. We don't want to fight."

One of the monsters, responded, unwavering, "FILTHY SINGLE MINDER..."

The one that spoke was another bug monster, though it didn't have wings, a bit larger, and definitely not part-ghost. Its mandibled face looked pretty mean. A Migsop. And it had a friend, a lime-gelatin monster that I knew to be a Moldsmal.

I was really annoyed by this. I get that they wanted a fight, but why? What did we do to get on their bad side? As far as I knew, Frisk was minding her own business, and I was on the phone. Maybe Frisk threatening to attack them didn't help things, but I'm sure she didn't start it.

To make matters worse, they were blocking the exit out. So they weren't giving us a choice.

Moldsmal gave out a squishing sound, and the Migsop just glared at us.

I took this time to check the monsters. Frisk looked at me expectantly, unsure of what to do. I sighed.

Okay, Frisk, I signed to her, that gelatin monster is a Moldsmal. It's... stereotypical: Curvaceously attractive, but it doesn't have a whole of brain cells...

Frisk giggled at that. Good, glad I could relieve the tension a bit for her.

And that bug monster, that's a Migsop, I continued. It seems evil, but... I took a closer look, and made a guess about what was going on with them. These monsters weren't normally violent... It's probably just with the wrong crowd... I think.

"HEED THE SWARM," the Migsop called out. I stood in front of Frisk, as I knew they were getting impatient.

Their attacks began. A bunch of locus-like projectiles swarmed at our sides. They weren't coming to the middle, but I could see that it would limit our movement for the Moldsmal's attack. The gelatin monster sent a bunch of simple projectiles at us, which then split into serval smaller shots going out in a circle from their origin point. Easy enough to dodge, and Frisk followed my steps.

Moldsmal then did a little wiggle. This caught Frisk's attention, which made her smile, and then she began to wiggle her hips. Moldsmal wiggled some more in response.

While they were this, I turned to the Migsop. "Hey, so, um-"

"I DON'T CARE!" the monster interrupted.

Okay, rude, I thought.

Once Frisk and the Moldsmal were done, Frisk clapped excitedly, and the gelatin monster bowed, and gleefully hopped off.

Now by himself, the Migsop looked to his left, then his right. Then, a smile appeared on his face. "Swing your arms, baby!"

Without a care in the world, the bug monster, began to happily dance, doing the wave with its arms.

"Nothin' like alone time!"

Well, it wasn't completely alone. But were happy to wave goodbye, and slip past him, on into the next room.

I knew something had to be up with him, I thought. I guess Frisk was the MVP here. She gave the Moldsmal reason to move on happily, and coincidentally gave the Migsop the time alone it needed.

In the next room, there were six points that were cracked, and some more escape holes on the wall. There was a sign to our left that said, "There is just one switch."

Okay, I thought, so these points in the floor must break, and in one of the holes, is the switch.

Looking at the other side of the room there indeed were spikes baring our way.

Frisk had already made her way to one of the potential holes, and started poking at it.

"Hey, Frisk, be careful, you don't want to fall down again," I told her.

She turned and signed, something's down there.

"Yeah, I read the sign." I put my hand on my chin as I thought about what to do. "Okay, I'm going to open on the hole, and I'll use my magic to levitate you down. Step back, please."

Frisk stepped away as I caused a small fire burst, breaking open the hole.

"Alright, now, hang on." I channeled my blue magic into Frisk, and lifted her off the ground. It was hard to see the cracks in her Soul, since they were faint. But I knew they were there, and the idea disturbed me.

Taking a deep breath, I carefully lowered Frisk into the hole.

I leaned over the hole to make sure Frisk was set on the ground safely, and called down, "Okay, what do you see down there?"

Frisk looked around. It was just a brick room with another pile of leaves and an exit. Eventually, Frisk found something. She walked over to what appeared to be a carrot or something in the ground, and tried to pull it out.

"Wait, Frisk!" I called out, but it was too late. As she pulled it out, it rose out of the ground, revealing itself to be a monster.

This thing was a carrot-like monster, with a pretty scary face on it.

"Frisk, it's a Vegetoid!"

Frisk looked up at me, and made a hand sign, the tips of thumb and fingers touching together, and tapping her mouth. The sign for "eat" or "food".

I laughed. "No, Frisk, you shouldn't eat. Its serving size IS one monster, ...but you're not a monster."

Frisk did her silent giggle, as the monster began her attack. Frisk caught on to this, and began attempting to evade the oncoming vegetable projectiles. One or two snagged her, but she did well. I didn't even need to call out.

You're catching on, kid, I thought. Still, you need to know what to do next...

"Frisk, pat your stomach," I informed her.

Frisk did so, and the Vegetoid smiled. "Eat your greens".

The monster unleashed another wave of vegetables, but this time there was a glowing green one among them.

"Frisk! Grab that green one! It's healing magic!" I called down.

Weaved into between the veggies, and grabbed the green one. With a disgusted expression, she bit into it, and the entire thing was absorbed into her body, healing the wounds she just got.

The monster smiled happily, and then hopped away. Frisk dusted herself off, and followed it out of the exit. When she climbed out of the hole on the wall, she walked over with an unhappy look.

That was gross, she rapidly signed. Never make me eat vegetables again!

Yep, I thought, she's a kid. Of course, she hates veggies.

I gave a smug look and said, "no promises."

Frisk pouted, but I just patted her back. "Come on, we've got more holes to check."

We spent the next fifteen minutes checking the remainder of the holes. We had to fight some more Vegetoids, much to Frisk's dismay, as she had to eat more of the magic veggies to please them. Eventually, she finally found the switch. Once she pulled it, the spikes lowered.

While Frisk was climbing out of the escape hole, I decided to check the last hole out of curiosity. Breaking open the hole, I looked down, and found my ghostly friend.

"Blooky, what are you doing down there?" I asked him.

"i fell down a hole... now i can't get up..." he replied, "go on without me..."

"Really, a ghost fell down?"

"wait, ghosts can fly, can't they... oh, well..."

As he began to disappear, I quickly called out, "hey, wait!"

He solidified back up. "yeah?"

"I... want to thank you... for remembering me."

"oh... you're welcome... i guess..."

...

"this is akward... i should go..."

As he vanished, I couldn't help but smile.

Suddenly, I felt a tug on my shirt. I looked down to find Frisk.

"Oh, hey. So... sorry about the veggies, but later, to make it up to you, I'll make this excellent pie recipe I know-"

Frisk timidly held something up to me. It was a red ribbon, though it seemed old, as its color had faded over time.

"Oh... where did you find this?" I asked her.

Frisk pointed over to one of the holes in the corner.

"I see... Did you want me to put this in your hair?"

She nodded.

I smiled, turned Frisk to the side, and began tying the ribbon into her hair. "There, you look great!"

She smiled.

"Okay, now do a spin."

She happily spun around in a circle, showing off her new hair accessory.

I chuckled. "If you're cuter, monsters won't hit you as hard. And girl, you are cute!"

Frisk jumped up and hugged me.

When she was done and backed away, I took a closer look at the ribbon I put in her hair. I got an odd feeling looking at it, like a feeling of sadness. But I didn't know why... I didn't even recognize the ribbon, I was sure of it...

Frisk tapped my side and signed, mommy, are you okay?

I shook myself out of my trance. "Sorry, just... something was bothering me. But it's no big deal, so don't worry about it."

Frisk nodded and began to walk towards the exit.

As I began to follow her, I continued to stare at her ribbon. It did look nice in Frisk's hair, but I felt like I should've known who it used to belong to.

But, why...?

In the dark corners of the Underground, a figure stood alone in the shadows. Lost in thought, ...until their eyes soon shot open. "I see..."

As they began to leave, returning to their "home", they began to muse over something. "I know this person. Yes... Chara... Chara Dreemurr... I remember."

From their cloak, they pulled out their arm and summoned a long, bladed weapon. "I remember you... And soon, we will meet. At long last."

Author's Note: Chara and Frisk continue their journey through the Ruins. They got their goods from the spiders, and Frisk found the Faded Ribbon.

Yes, I chose to ignore the Froggits in the room after Napstablook. I was honestly planning to include them, but as I was writing the chapter, I couldn't think of a way to include them. In the game, they are tutorials for basic mechanics in the game, both primary (the Mercy mechanic) and secondary (skipping text, and entering full screen). Since I'm not really writing like that, since I'm not breaking the fourth wall, and I'm trying to write it more naturally, I couldn't find a way to make it work, so I chose to just mention them in passing. Kind of a shame, I wanted to add the Switch's version of the tiny Froggit line, but I couldn't fit it in (maybe I'll try later at a potentially more fitting time).

Also, mystery character at the end! While they have been planned for later, adding a tease to them was a spur of the moment thing. Does it seem out of place? Maybe. Or is it?