Theodore looks up at the illustration in a rare display of initiative.

"...Oh, that. It's completely inert. I can't detect any magic at all in it."

Ame gets up and peers out into the hallway.

"C'mon. Let's go take another look."

The party follows along, after Elizabeth does something quick involving a tiny tendril of ulgu to the campsite.

The ostensible teleporter room is right in the middle of the inner sanctum, with wide doors and easy access to the rest of the area. Also, there's instructions in English engraved in small font on a sort of dais.

To operate you must declare a destination index and declare passphrase. Ensure viric storage is full. Check current status with glyph A1.. Refill viric with glyph C3... Refer to indices with glyph A2...

The notes in the teleportation network book seem to have the relevant incantations, scattered around many pages.

Ame glances between the dais and the book, flipping through several pages, then brightens, pointing out the English labels.

"Yeah, see here, according to the book this label here is viric storage, you power it up like this," Ame says, then recites the incantation and dumps twenty-five mana into the dias. "Then, this one here should light up blue once the spell is primed..."

Theodore listlessly walks up to the storage and puts in- Three hundred fifty, apparently.

Ame blinks.

"Did you just memorize that incantation well enough to cast it from hearing it once or did you already read this and just not know what it was for?"

"I didn't read that one. I skimmed it and it was all in that weird alphabet, apparently I didn't notice the one tiny incantation on page six hundred whatever. It's not exactly... That's an old power-feeding incantation, very standard. Wouldn't have known what to charge, anyway, I bet."

Ame is still giving him an impressed look. That was impressive.

Back to the book, flip flip flip flip, ahah. "The destination nodes are numbered, but there's a list right here, let's see where we could, in theory, go..."

The list is long, and comes with a series of atlas-style detail pages with numbered dots. All over the northern half of the continent, but much more sporadic on the southern half and the outlying islands. There are 712 in total.

One of them is fairly near the mountain range where Saroshem is supposed to have been.

You don't say.

"...well, that's going to save us some time."

"You need to get to a random mountain for some reason?"

Liz and Bys look at each other, then at Ame.

Ame snaps the book closed and turns to Theodore. Now's as good a time as any.

"So. Theodore. How would you feel about joining our party?"

He blinks, bewildered. "...You really shouldn't trust me less than a day after I tried to kill you?"

"If you want to put it like that, then I'd rather have you where I can see you? You were literally brain-damaged when you did that and one of the conditions for joining would be that you get in the habit of letting me heal you every day to make sure you don't relapse but... the reason I'm offering is because I think you joining us is the best outcome here, for everyone including you; I mean, do you want to risk relapsing? Or do you want to hang with the girl who can cure your madness with a touch?"

"Anything that gets you away from the horrors of dhar is something you should grab with both hands and put your back into."

He glares at Elizabeth for a moment, then sighs. "I have nothing better to do. I guess it's a penance of sorts, and like you said. The only way I'm staying sane, staying me. Yeah."

"I'll save the hugs for when you're more in the mood for them," Ame says lightly. "Welcome to the team."

Ame takes a breath.

"So. In a sleepy little town, in that town's sleepy little dungeon, a lost whore was learning to be an adventurer when she tripped a trap that had lain dormant for generations. Rather than kill her, the lost whore was granted a boon and given a quest. That quest was to travel to a far off place called Saroshem and find what was left there. The lost whore got kicked out of the sleepy little town for being too interesting and picked up a spunky jade sorceress as she set out on a grand journey that was destined to fill many counterfactual books. Things of interest but not relevance happened, she met a nifty fischer girl, some more things of interest but not relevance happened, and then she stuck her nose into a certain situation and here we are." 

Do Liz or Bys want to add anything to that?

"We all have reasons to follow Ame, now. Interest, holy duty, sanity. I believe you want to do better."

He lets his head thunk back against a wall.

"Buried ancient traps and great journeys. If we don't all die it'll be interesting. Sorry if I can't muster up, like, enthusiasm right now."

"It's entirely understandable. This is a serious moment, too, not some tavern toast."

Ame is not going to bring up the thought that, with Ame around, Theodore could hypothetically keep using dark magic on occasion without negative consequences... but she's pretty sure suggesting that'll go over worse than them finding out they're following a neophyte Demon Lord.

"So," Ame says slowly. "I don't actually know what we'll find at Saroshem. We could go today. Or we could fuck around for a month exploring this teleport network and any nearby stuff and leveling up. Thoughts?"

"Level up. Get Ame some magic. Get us both more spells. Learn what Theo here's deal is and how we work as a team."

Nodnodnodnodnod.

"Maybe we can go - here. To the coast. I miss sailing."

"We can go to the coast."

Ame grins. "We can go anywhere."

Slightly less grin. "Almost."

Merely wry. "Probably. Did I mention the warning that intruders would be teleported into magma on the entrance to this place."

"Eep!"