The Mountain's Secret

"No way..." Lyria's eyes widened.

"Elris confirmed its existence. Maybe Cecil got rid of it before we got here," Astrid said as she checked the walls for anything out of the ordinary. She found nothing.

"Are we too late?" Luna clenched her fist.

"What are we going to do? This was an important part of the plan..." Lyria was worried about their friends who were fighting Cecil at that moment. "Without this, defeating Cecil will be way too difficult."

"There's nothing else we can do but to head down there and help our friends." Astrid prepared to head out again.

"C-C-Can we at least warm ourselves up first before going out into that inhospitable weather again?" Amelie was shivering from the cold. Luna felt sorry for her and borrowed a fire spell from the mage skill tree to create a small bonfire out of sticks around the cave.

"We should let Frisk know first." Astrid summoned her menu tablet. "Frisk. There's no reset mechanism."

No reply. Only the sound of some faint noise caused by the bad signal.

"Frisk, can you hear us?"

There was a voice, but it was too choppy to clearly hear it.

"Frisk?"

"Can you hear me?" It wasn't Frisk voice.

"Who are you?"

"It's Elris."

"Elris!?" All of them exclaimed.

"I believe you've reached the top of the mountain. I'm here to provide the rest of the instructions."

"So the reset mechanism really does exist?" Astrid was relieved.

"Yes, but you will have to get to it first. It's hidden deep inside the mountain. You will need to make the entrance open up."

"And how do we do that?"

"You dance."

"Wait what?"

"Not just any dance. That dance from the Oodle Noodle commercial. It will make the entrance open."

The girls looked at each other.

"We're really doing this, huh?" Luna sighed.

Amelie was already dancing. "Come on! Let's go!"

The rest of the girls started dancing too. It wasn't long before the cave walls opened up and revealed a hallway.

"Wow. There really is a hidden door here," Astrid was surprised.

The girls went inside the entrance. There was nothing else in the short hallway but a set of large stone doors with intricate carvings.

Elris continued, "There will be a sphinx behind that door that will ask for a password. If you get it wrong, it will attack you. Don't bother fighting it. It's immortal."

Astrid sighed. "One sphinx is enough."

"The password is corn soup."

"Corn... soup?" Astrid repeated. She wasn't sure if she was hearing it right.

"That's right. Corn soup."

"Why corn soup?"

"You didn't expect that, did you?"

"That was way too unexpected."

"Exactly. Passwords should be unexpected."

"Alright! Let's do this!" Luna was the first to enter the hall of the sphinx. She stood confidently in front of it.

The guardian sphinx eyed them menacingly. "What is the password?"

"Corn soup?" Luna answered.

"Incorrect!" The guardian roared.

"What!?" All of them were shocked at the turn of events.

The giant sphinx went terminator mode on them and started shooting them with eye lasers. They ran all the way to the hall's entrance.

"Close the door!" Astrid shouted.

The girls hurriedly shut the doors tight. They all collapsed on the ground and caught their breaths.

"Elris!! I thought you said that was the password!" Luna said angrily.

"Sorry, I accidentally mixed it up with that other sphinx I made," Elris apologized.

"Are you doing this on purpose!?" Astrid shouted.

"Don't worry. There is another path I made because I sometimes mix up passwords and get locked out. It happened to me several times before. This path has traps though so you have to follow my instructions carefully."

"You better be telling us the right instructions or I will rise from my grave and haunt you forever." Luna's expression was dark and vengeful.

"It will be the right one! I promise!" Elris cleared his throat. "Ok, so walk to the end of this hall. There is a secret trap door there that can be activated by doing that dance you did earlier."

The girls sighed and danced when they reached the end of the hall. Only Amelie really enjoyed the dancing. Just as Elris said, a trap door opened. They entered the new area by climbing down the ladder.

"This doesn't feel like the mountains anymore." Luna felt like she just got teleported to the jungle where the ruins of an old civilization was located.

"Yeah. Looks like an ancient swampy ruin," Amelie agreed.

"You sure put a lot of effort into designing this whole area for a mere backup safety feature," said Astrid.

Elris laughed. "I got carried away when I was working on this. I'm glad it finally had some use though."

The girls continued walking forward, being vigilant in case a random trap was nearby.

"STOP! TRAP!" Elris suddenly shouted.

"Aah!" The girls immediately stopped in their tracks and waited for something unfortunate to happen.

"Oh wait. That was at the next column. My bad!"

"ELRIS!!" The four of them shouted angrily.

"Sorry, sorry. It's the next column. I promise!"

Upon reaching the next column, Astrid disabled the trap before they passed. They continued walking forward.

Elris chatted casually, "This area was actually inspired by that one classic videogame about a girl who raids tombs and that one series about a treasure hunter who... STOP! TRAP!"

"Aah!" The girls immediately stopped. They expected something to happen, but nothing did. They all sighed in relief. Astrid disabled the next trap.

"Ok, so we just need to keep going like this and we can reach the end of this hall safely," said Lyria.

"This will be a piece of cake..." Amelie walked forward and accidentally triggered a trip wire. "Oops."

"Amelie!!" Luna shouted.

A spherical boulder fell behind them and started rolling towards them.

"It's Chris!" Amelie corrected.

"RUN!!" Astrid shouted.

The girls ran as fast as they could. They triggered the other traps as they ran. They had to dodge poison darts, swinging blades, flame throwers, and holes leading to waters filled with carnivorous fish. Thanks to Lyria's shield and protection spells, they somehow managed to survive all that and reach the end of the hall.

Luna laughed while still shaking. "We... survived!"

"Are we almost there yet, Elris?" Astrid asked.

"It's in the next room. Great job," Elris replied.

The girls rejoiced at the news. They pushed open the doors and found themselves in a more futuristic room with buttons and computers.

"How in the world did we go from jungle exploration to science fiction?" Astrid wondered.

"Don't ask. Anyway, head to the middle of the room. That's where you'll find the mechanism. Set the date of the reset to before Aries was changed. It would be safer to select a date far from that day they changed Aries, but not too far away so your friends will have the level and skills to fight Cecil."

The girls looked at each other.

"It would be safer to set it before the guild war event was announced, right?" Astrid asked.

"Yeah. Tank and the others already had a high level then," replied Luna.

Astrid changed the date to that point in time.

"Just press the button when you're ready. I'll contact you again if anything happens. Good luck ladies." Elris ended his call.

Astrid proceeded to contact Frisk. "Frisk. We found the reset mechanism. It's all set and ready."

"Thank goodness. I'll let Wen know immediately." Frisk was happy to hear the news.