Returning to his body, Sydra brings Lorey and Haley out of his Arbor Sanctum, and they begin to walk through the city. The three of them decided that checking the three buildings that went through the ceiling would be the best place to start if they wanted to get back to the surface.
Entering the first building, Sydra looks around for the staircase leading up. The interior of the building looked like it was for creating large sandstone blocks, as everywhere one looked there would be tools for shaping the bricks, as well as multiple stacks of bricks. Going past several of the sandstone brick piles, the group finds a ladder that leads up to the next floor.
'I'm surprised that they were able to go up and down ladders," Haley says, glancing back at several of the Kantoko that were in the room, frozen in place over their tools.
"I am as well, lets just hope this ladder goes all the way up," Sydra says, climbing up the ladder to the next room. Getting off the ladder, Sydra turns around to find another one. "How did they get these blocks down to the room below?" Sydra wonders as his vision is filled with more sandstone blocks.
"Maybe the Kantoko had powers as we do, and one of their powers was moving sandstone," Lorey says as she points toward a ladder on the opposite side of the room.
The process of climbing a ladder to get to the next room continued all the way to the last floor below the sandstone ceiling above the city. The final floor had large open windows that overlooked the entire city, but there was no ladder, which meant there wasn't another room above them.
Approaching one of the windows, Sydra looks at the other two buildings that went to the top. The one on the left side also had windows, and Sydra could see that there was no room past the ceiling in that building either.
'That leaves just one last building,' Sydra thinks, turning his head to the building on his right. This time, when looking through the window on the top floor, Sydra could see a staircase that led past the sandstone ceiling.
"Do we really have to climb all the way back down, just to go up once more?" Haley asks, frowning as she looks down to the ground that was hundreds of meters below them. Although the three of them had increased strength due to their power, climbing all those ladders to get here still took its toll on their stamina.
"I think I have a way that we can get over to that building without having to go back down," Lorey says as she walks over to the window and holds out her hand. Controlling her aura, Lorey begins moving the sandstone around them to form a walkway that led from their building to the one on the other side. Once the walkway was finished, the three of them stepped through the window and crossed over to the other building.
"I could have probably just flown us over, you know," Sydra says, growing his wings to show that they were able to get to their full size again.
Looking at his wings, Lorey begins to feel that what she just did was pointless. "Well, we made it here, didn't we?" She asks sarcastically, before turning around and walking over to the stairs. Feeling guilty, Sydra retracts his wings and follows her up the stairs and to the next floor.
Reaching the top of the stairs, Sydra is surprised that they didn't enter another room, and are instead in a large open mine, with multiple Kantoko frozen with pickaxes in their hands. Going through the center of the space is a metal track, with a cart filled with broken sandstone chunks in it.
"It seems that they mined all the sandstone from here, and then took it back down below," Haley says, walking over to the cart and pulling out one of the chunks from it. Looking down the track, Sydra notices that the tunnel the track comes from is sloped up.
"I think that we should follow the tunnel, it might lead us to another building that goes to the surface," Sydra says as he empties out the cart for the girls.
After the girls get in the cart, Sydra activates his lightning aura and begins pushing the cart into the tunnel. As he speeds up, the girls begin to feel that they are on a roller coaster, except they don't know that it is called a roller coaster.
The slight ascent of the tunnel quickly turns into a steep one, and Sydra begins to feel as if he is pushing the cart straight up. "Dang, this is getting difficult," Sydra says as he uses the wooden planks beneath the metal rails as foot placements to keep himself from falling back down.
Turning his head slightly to look back, Sydra realizes that he really is going straight up, and the only reason the cart hasn't fallen off is due to it being hooked onto the track. 'This is crazy, why did they even make a track like this?' Sydra wonders as he grows his wings to help him out.
Flapping his wings, Sydra begins to fly up the tunnel, pushing the cart up the track as fast as he can. Inside the cart Lorey and Haley are holding onto the sides as tightly as they can, their knuckles becoming white as their fingers dig into the metal sides.
"This isn't fun! How much longer is this tunnel?" Haley says, her eyes closed tightly in fear. Looking past her, Lorey searches the tunnel ahead of them for the end.
"I think we are almost there, the tunnel looks like it will go back to being level soon," Lorey says, causing Sydra to increase his speed and get them out of the straight-up tunnel as fast as he can.
Soon, the tunnel goes back to being flat, and Sydra slows down to rest. Looking around, Sydra sees an opening in the side of the tunnel, and a staircase beyond it.
"Hey, I think there is a staircase that goes up from here, we should check it out," Sydra says, letting go of the cart and pointing at the doorway. Hopping out of the cart, Lorey and Sydra begin walking over to the doorway before noticing that Haley is still in the cart.
"What are you doing?" Lorey asks in confusion, heading back over to the cart and shaking Haley's shoulder. "... I think she passed out,"
Frowning, Sydra heads back over to the cart and squats down next to Haley. "Yup, she passed out. What should we do?"
"I guess we should carry her until she wakes up," Lorey says, putting her hands under Haley's arm[its and trying to lift her out of the cart.
"Hold on, her fingers seem to be stuck," Sydra says, noticing that Haley's fingers have created deep imprints on the metal cart. Reaching his hand forward, Sydra begins to pry her fingers off the cart, one by one. Once all her fingers are off the cart, Sydra picks Haley up and places her on his back.
"Now we can go," Sydra says, heading into the tunnel and going up the stairs. The staircase this time goes straight up, and after half an hour the group enters a room inside another building. Looking around the room, Sydra sees an open door on the opposite side, and the sound of people talking is coming through it.
"Haha, we finally made it back to the surface," Lorey says, hurrying over to the door and peering out of it. When she sees that it is another group, Lorey runs out of the room, surprising them.
"Lorey? What are you doing here?" Asks one of the members of the other group. "I thought your group went to the other side of the temple,"
Walking out of the room, Sydra notices that the group in front of them is incredibly surprised to see people. Placing Haley on the ground, Sydra pulls out a bottle of water and downs it, before being over to try and wake Haley up again.
While Sydra is busy with Haley, Lorey begins to explain what they went through, and how they were betrayed by two members of their group. During her explanation, Sydra succeeded in waking up Haley, who was excited to find out that they had made it back.
"Wow, I can't believe you found a whole city down there. You should return to base, and let Commander Lufit know what happened," The leader of the group says, pointing towards the back of the building where a hole was blown into the wall.
Thanking them, Sydra and the others left the building and headed back to the center of the sandstone temple, where a tent is set up for the commander. Along the way, Haley says she has to go see someone and leaves Sydra and Lorey to continue onto the tent alone. As the two of them get closer to the tent, they hear two familiar voices coming from within.
"It's true, we were walking through the temple when that new guy attacked us. I think his name was Sydra, and he was the one to kill our leader and our other teammate," the voice says, before another one chimes in. "If we hadn't managed to get rid of him quickly, we would have died too,"
Listening to the story from the outside, Sydra feels rage building up inside his chest from the lies. 'Betrayed them, my ass. Those two betrayed us,' Sydra thinks as he starts to barge into the tent. However, before he can go in, Lorey pushes past him and enters the tent in a flash.