The Time Before (Undertale)

13 ~ Unfulfilled Purpose

Sans was far too excited to go to sleep. There was just no way he could sleep with what was going to happen tomorrow.

Because tomorrow, they were going to start construction on the CORE. Not a prototype, but the real thing, which would sit out in one of the massive magma pools of Hotland.

It had taken another five months to find a working design, but they had done it, working together a combination of technology and runes to create the huge Magical power plant. Gaster had even included a number of additional features. Many of the upper chambers-- the ones that would be open to the public-- could be swapped around to create a huge, changeable labyrinth. The CORE would also be an easy route to New Home. In the event that a human made it to Hotland, all other routes to New Home could be closed off, and the human led into the CORE, whereupon they would get lost in the maze. Then a number of floodgates could be opened, sending a torrent of the Magical energy the CORE produced through the hallways to kill the human.

Of course, Gaster said, they wouldn't need to do this, because Sans would kill any humans before they made it there.

But, they were building that with the rest of the stuff, and they were starting it tomorrow.

Sans didn't fall asleep until well after midnight.

~o0o~

The problem with building in magma was that you had to build using materials that wouldn't catch fire or melt in the extreme heat. The problem with that was that metals like this tended to be rather expensive, especially when in the Underground where resources are limited.

Luckily, Gaster was the Royal Scientist. So he had not only amassed a rather sizable fortune, but he also only just had to ask the king for funds for any project, and it would be given.

The supports that would actually be in the lava pool, holding the CORE above the magma were made out of pure tungsten. Almost everything else within forty feet of the surface was made or encased in titanium or nickel alloys to withstand the heat.

Despite the difficulty of heat, CORE construction proceeded at an astounding pace. Gaster thought they could get the entire Underground powered in a little under a year.

~o0o~

It was just after they had gotten the primary emergency overflow chamber built that it happened.

It was late, and Sans and Gaster were going over the process for building the secondary overflow. It was substantially different from the first, as, if the first was failing, then the second needed to be stronger.

They were checking over the blueprints one more time, just to be sure, when one of the various devices on Gaster's desk started beeping.

Sans stared at it. Gaster had a wide variety of alarm systems set up, to warn him if this was about to blow up, or that was about to collapse, or something was about to dissolve into chaos. Sans had thought that he had heard all the alarms at some time or another, but this one was new to him.

And then Gaster was grabbing his shoulder, pulling him up and out of the lab. "Come on! We have to go!"

"what? what's going on? where are we going? what's that alarm?" Sans shouted back as they raced towards the elevator.

"That's a proximity alarm, one I hooked up to monitor nearly the entire Underground." They stepped into the elevator, and Gaster hit the button to take them up to the main lobby. "Paired with an automated camera system, it finds and tracks the energy from a human Soul, whenever a human falls into the Underground."