The four of them, two men and the two spirits made their way through a large door on that was on a secondary pillar inside the central tower, they made their way through a tunnel that wasn't too long but was lit with countless inscriptions and diagrams before coming up to a smaller room, there were four silver pillars in a circle surrounding a massive array that lined the floor, it flickered with a silver light beating rhythmically like a heart.
Seth had begun to use his spirit vision near-constantly at Silva's reminder so he could see a lot more, like the entrance door to the central tower the entire array was entwined with multiple spiritual ley-lines looking like a cross-hatched jumper, at the centre those very ley-lines shot up and travelled through the ceiling and outwards like a tree that reached the sky.
"It's beautiful…" Seth couldn't help but exclaim, if someone were to tell him this was some mystical tree like the world tree you see often in fantasy stories, he wouldn't doubt them for a while.
"Right? A spirit-based teleportation array like this would be exceedingly hard to find anywhere else, it's the masterpiece of our royal family made over tens of generations" Lloyd said smugly after hearing Seth's praise.
"So, it's different from normal teleport arrays?" Seth felt like asking, he thought what he was going to use was just that.
"Hah, they can't be compared! Normal ones can only go to one place and back by linking the two arrays, yet this one can follow the multitudes of entwined ley-lines and teleport to a myriad of suitable places, not only that it's basically impossible even for someone that can control spiritual power to directly interfere with ley-lines so it's incredibly secure, let alone those without!" The king couldn't help but boasting about this fine piece of artistry that his family had made, forgetting one fact.
"You say that, but I literally just had to get rid of the corru-" Seth murmured under his breath before Lloyd shot him a glare as if telling him to 'ignore that', so he zipped his mouth before saying more.
"So, it's ready to go right?" He said to remove the awkward atmosphere he almost stupidly created.
Lloyd nodded before speaking "Yes, luckily the energy used by it is supplied by the ley-lines itself, I only had to do some touching up to repair some things that were damaged by the passage of time so it's already fully functional, but first I need to know your plan"
He glanced at Seth waiting for him to give an answer, inwardly Seth was lamenting slightly 'Plan? What plan? How can I plan when I don't know what the world is like up there now?' But he held it in.
"Well first things first, the obvious thing I'll need to do is get my bearings I guess, ideally I'll head to wherever the nearest town or such is to gather information try put together what the hell the world is like now but finding some other people that are alone might work as well"
"Hmh, definitely a solid idea but what are you going to do for a background? I know it's a habit of adventurers to stray away from sticking their nose where it doesn't belong but there'll be bound to be someone to try get something out of you." Lloyd said with a slight nod.
"A background huh? Kind of hard to have something like that when where I came from probably doesn't even exist anymore…" In his mind the figure of his parents in this world flashed before him, he had already gone through the pain of losing everything once before, so it didn't affect him as much this time, but it still pained him.
"Sometimes something simple is the most convincing" Lloyd said, as if he was talking from experience.
"Well, I'll think of something once I have more information" Seth shrugged his shoulders, he doubts he would be intensely questioned as soon as he arrived on the surface, but it wouldn't hurt considering what he could use for cover now.
"As long as you don't slip up because of it, that's fine; Remember it's not just your life the but the lifeline of my family that's resting in your hands!" Lloyd felt the need to remind Seth.
"Yes, yes I know I'm not planning on getting myself killed after getting a 3rd chance at life" Seth waved him off and started walking towards the centre of the teleportation array 'Who knows if I'd even get a 4th? It's already a miracle for it happening once let alone twice' He thought to himself.
"Just a second, there's a couple more things you should know" Lloyd stopped him at the last second.
'I thought you said you were done?' Seth wanted to say but instead just waited for Lloyd to continue.
"I thought I'd tell you now rather than when you actually needed it, another function of the amulet is similar to that of this teleportation array, it's something only someone with spiritual sense can use" He held his hand out towards Seth.
Seth could only attempt to slightly raise an eyebrow before he realised what he wanted, he took the amulet he had around his neck and placed it in Lloyd's hand who then walked off with it towards one of the lines of light that was a spirit ley-line.
His hand reached out towards it surprising Seth, considering his first experience doing that he thought Lloyd suddenly turned suicidal but then realised he was wrong, the silver energy around Lloyd's hand had compressed and formed an almost armour like film around it, solid and unmoving as he touched the ley-line instead of performing a communication he instead started shifting it albeit very slowly.
He brought the ley-line towards the amulet and as they overlapped tiny threads seemed to exit the ley-line and weave themselves through the intricate silver pattern on the amulet before he let it go and it floated in place as if it had become part of the ley-line.
Seth's eyes widened as he realised, he had just seen the basic skills used to construct a spirit-based array, although he didn't really understand everything, he just saw he knew they were closely held secrets of the Reverie royal family.
Lloyd saw the surprise on his face and smirked, then he walked over to the terminal next to the teleportation array, inputting some commands before the pattern on the array shifted, he then walked over and placed a gold coin in the middle of the array before returning to the terminal and tapping away some more, soon after the lights in the array intensified for a minute or two before letting out a bright flash, the gold coin had disappeared.
'Where...? Wait!' Seth was lost as to why Lloyd would show him teleporting a coin before the cogs in his mind quickly started turning, his gaze quickly fixated on the amulet that was still floating in mid-air after being attached to the ley-line, above it, floating inside a small circular bubble of light was the coin from before.
"This is… a portable teleportation array?" Seth stammered the words out of his mouth.
"Well yes and no, it's not a full teleportation array itself, but rather a beacon" Lloyd explained, waiting for the words to sink in before continuing.
"You can't send anything back to here using the amulet, but by attaching the amulet to a ley-line you can create a co-ordinate beacon that this array can trace, so I can send items to you if you're really in need of them" he said.
"Every ley-line in this world is linked to each-other one way or another, this is why spirit teleportation arrays are superior, unlike mana-based arrays which eat up a tonne of resources and need a second array to function, as long as we can designate a co-ordinate along a ley-line in this world it can be used as a teleportation destination!"
"The only downsides are that the larger the teleportation load, the longer it takes to transport, and you may need to find a suitably size ley-line, or it won't function, plus the calibration for teleporting will take longer at the same time" Lloyd continued to explain.
"That doesn't seem that bad for a downside, rather they're not much of a problem at all?" Seth cocked his head; a little extra time isn't that bad right?
"For what we need to use it for, no, but think on a larger scale, using it for retreat in combat is not an ideal idea since compared to contemporary teleport arrays that activate instantly, this takes time which could cost you your life, on the other side to use it to move an army is near impossible since there's no ley-line that could handle that much as far as I know, that's why large mana-based teleportation-arrays are still superior in that aspect."
"I see, not that it's much of a problem for us now" Seth replied.
Lloyd just shrugged his shoulders, it was true, but he still felt the need to explain the downsides and upsides.
"Anything else?" Seth asked just in case Lloyd sprung another thing on him.
"Not really, as for the technique I used to attach the ley-line, I'm sure the silver spirit you have there can teach you" Lloyd said as he detached the amulet and returned it to Seth, Silva heard this and nodded.
("I was planning to do so anyway") He said lightly.
Seeing everything was prepared Seth strode on to the array and stood in the middle waiting for his chance to finally leave this place, Silva turned in to a flash of light and merged with him for the sake of convenience.
"You might as well take a seat, it'll take a little while for the array to calibrate for someone like you" Lloyd said seeing Seth standing in the middle slightly impatiently.
'Take a seat? There's no seat.' He retorted in his head before sitting on the ground cross legged, he closed his eyes as well as if wanting to take a nap for the first time since he revived, not that you could see his eyelids anyway, he resembled an old sage with his white hair and covered eyes.
'Finally, I can get out of here!' Excitement rose up in him as he waited, after another half hour or so Lloyd announced that everything was ready.
"Okay, it's set up, I'll drop you outside the outskirts of my former capital, are you ready?"
Seth's head tilted up in Lloyd's direction, he let off a confident nod as a flame burned in his chest.
"Here you go- "He pressed a key, and another blinding flash filled the room that made all the other lights look like dimmed lamps, soon after there was not a single thing left in the centre of the array, Seth had finally left.
"They've left" Azula came up from behind Lloyd, floating in the air as she stared at the same empty point that Lloyd was also looking at.
"Yeah… Hopefully we will get some good news sooner or later from them" Lloyd murmured with a sense of longing in his voice.
"Even so, what about…?" Azula send a questioning look at Lloyd.
"We should prepare that as well, it's the last resort so I don't know if it'll be successful but just in case something happens, it's better than nothing" Lloyd nodded and spoke with slight reluctance, they then left the teleportation array room and entered the centre tower once again, Lloyd input a long string of letters on the terminal before confirming them.
As he did a mechanical sound echoed in the tower as two large cylinders rose from the ground, inside two figures covered in fluid floated inside, as he looked at them Lloyd's face had a grim undertone, on the other hand Azula's face showed a slight sense of enjoyment.