A faint blue light passed over his hand.
Hisssss...
The doors separated.
Frost looked inside.
"Huh?"
The room beyond was enormous and mostly empty.
At its centre stood a circular raised platform roughly fifteen metres across, constructed from smooth black metal.
Several concentric rings had been engraved across its surface, accompanied by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of intricate symbols that Frost couldn't recognise.
The markings immediately reminded him of the trigrams Syrn had used earlier.
Except this one was built directly into the floor.
Several metallic pillars surrounded the platform at equal distances, each reaching almost to the ceiling. Thin lines of blue light travelled through them before disappearing into the floor.
Frost slowed slightly.
'Don't tell me...'
"Everyone onto the platform," Syrn said.
Jason looked between Syrn and the strange structure.
"What does it do?"
"It will take us to Linden."
Jason frowned.
"Take us?"
Syrn nodded.
"Teleportation."
Frost stopped walking.
Of course.
'Of fucking course!'
After watching Syrn fly, summon a giant bird, create magical barriers, and blast a hole through an eldritch monstrosity, instant teleportation shouldn't have surprised him anymore.
And yet it did.
"You can teleport that far?" Naomi asked, her curiosity seemingly overcoming some of the exhaustion in her voice.
"The platform can," Syrn replied. "It's connected to Linden's transit network."
Frost looked down at the intricate symbols covering the structure as he stepped onto it.
'A teleportation network...'
That was considerably more impressive than he had expected.
More importantly, it explained why Syrn had brought them here instead of simply flying all the way to Linden.
Frost glanced at her.
"Didn't you say teleporting all of us would be too taxing?"
Syrn looked at him.
"For me." She pointed toward the platform beneath their feet. "This doesn't use my energy."
"Oh."
He nodded.
That made sense.
'So she could have teleported fifteen people herself... It just would've exhausted her.' Another useful piece of information.
He stored it away mentally.
The others gradually stepped onto the platform until all fifteen students, Syrn, and the outpost officer were standing within the outermost ring.
Frost looked around.
"Is there anything we should—"
"Don't move."
Frost immediately became still.
Syrn glanced over at him.
"I meant once it activates."
"Oh."
A few people snickered quietly.
Frost ignored them.
The officer walked toward a waist-high metallic structure near the edge of the platform and placed his hand against its surface.
The symbols beneath Frost's shoes suddenly lit up.
His eyes widened.
One after another, the concentric rings began glowing with pale blue light, starting from the outside and progressing inward.
A low hum filled the chamber.
Hmmmmmmmmmm...
Frost felt the hairs on his arms rise as the air itself seemed to become heavier. The symbols surrounding them began lifting from the platform.
Not physically, of course.
Rather, glowing copies of the markings rose into the air, slowly rotating around the group in several enormous rings.
Frost's mouth parted slightly.
'Okay... That's fucking cool.' Even after everything he had witnessed today, he couldn't deny it.
"Destination confirmed," the officer said.
One of the surrounding pillars flashed.
"Linden Central."
Frost's attention immediately sharpened.
'Finally.'
He was about to see the place Syrn had been talking about this entire time. Perhaps more importantly, they might finally get some actual answers.
The humming grew louder.
Syrn stepped onto the platform and looked around at them.
"You might feel slightly nauseous the first time."
Frost's expression changed.
"Wait, how slight—"
The world disappeared.
There was no tunnel of light or any sensation of travelling unimaginable distances.
In fact, there was no feeling of being pulled apart and reconstructed somewhere else. For one infinitesimally short moment, Frost simply saw nothing.
FLASH!
Then his vision returned.
Frost staggered.
"Ugh..."
His stomach twisted violently enough that he instinctively covered his mouth. Several people around him reacted considerably worse.
"Oh, fuck—"
Someone immediately dropped to their knees and vomited whatever they had for lunch back on earth.
Another stumbled sideways before being caught by Jennifer.
Jason bent forward with both hands on his thighs, looking dangerously close to throwing up.
Frost swallowed repeatedly, in an effort to return the food that had risen to his throat back where it belonged.
'She said slightly!'
Syrn, naturally, looked completely unaffected.
"Give it a few seconds."
Frost glared at the back of her head.
'Easy for you to say!'
Fortunately, she was right: The nausea faded almost as quickly as it had appeared.
Frost slowly straightened, then he finally looked around.
They were standing on another teleportation platform almost identical to the one they had just left, except the chamber surrounding this one was several times larger.
And far busier.
There were multiple platforms spread throughout the enormous hall, some glowing while others remained dormant. People constantly moved between them, appearing and disappearing in flashes of light.
Frost spotted humans immediately. At least, he assumed most of them were human, but the more he saw, the more his eyes widened in realisation.
A towering man with sickly, grey skin and two short horns walked past one of the platforms.
Nearby, a woman with long pointed ears stood speaking with someone barely half her height. Another figure had a long furry tail swaying casually behind them.
Frost slowly turned his head.
Oh...'
He hadn't imagined Syrn's ears.
Before he could properly process that revelation, the enormous doors at the far end of the chamber slid open.
Bright sunlight poured inside, and beyond them lay the first glimpse of Linden.
Frost stared, having completely forgotten about the nausea.
'What the hell kind of world did we land in?'
Syrn didn't give them much time to stand around gawking.
"This way."
She began walking toward the enormous open doors at the far end of the transit hall, leaving Frost and the others with little choice but to follow.
Frost fell somewhere near the middle of the group, his gaze still wandering between the unfamiliar races moving throughout the enormous chamber.
He wanted to stop and stare at half of them, but considering how little attention anyone else seemed to be paying to their presence, he figured doing so would probably make him look like an idiot.
Eventually, they stepped outside.
Frost stopped in his tracks, and so did almost everyone else.
"What the fuck...?"