After enjoying a quick lunch and a break, the eight of them prepared to return to the facility. They still needed the opportunity to review the spoils of their efforts.
Thanrie had been going over her own evaluation of how things had worked out. Having Rhyde and Yuxzn handy had been very useful at managing the risk of this whole project. Rather than just press recklessly against their foes, they had played it safe. She took account that Mhyl having enhanced senses made her exceptionally dependable for providing first warning of any problems, a resource they would need to make better use of in the future. All five senses were possibly useful, although 'taste' might have some very situational uses. Touch.. that's probably how Chyurae did his thing, or part of it at least.
Thanrie turned to Mhyl. "So, how did lunch taste?" It was a curious matter, how elves enhanced taste might change the way foods tasted. Mhyl thought about it herself for a moment. "Scientifically, tasting food is mostly the smell of the food, with taste-buds getting very specific signals in small areas. So, the aroma of food is probably stronger for me, but everything still fits to scale there. However, I guess strong tastes would have more of an impact, so like I probably can't have very spicy foods." Mhyl thought that was a shame, she had enjoyed some of the stronger spices in certain cultures back at Earth.
Lwyn considered the conversation, deep in thought. She still didn't know where she stood in matters like smell and taste. If her's was too strong, was her food then actually much more bland then she thought it was for the humans she's worked with? If her's was more human-like, had she been overpowering Mhyl with strong flavours without knowing it. If she was really middle-of-the-road, she might have even been doing both, depending on exactly how different everything was.
Qheria took the context back to their current situation. "On matters of smell, we need to be careful. We don't know if the smoke has vented completely yet. Mhyl, if you start feeling dizzy or tired, let us know right away, okay?" Qheria then shifted to Izhaethyx. "Rhyde, what's our plan for making sure we can take care of everything here safely?" "Well, I've been considering that only half of us have any chance of completely understanding what the stuff here could actually be good for. The other half would only get in the way, so we're going to be responsible for making sure you four can do your research safely. We'll be watching for any further threats in the area, as well as anything that could potentially cause a problem. If you four notice any potential risks during your investigation that we should also watch for, please let us know."
It means the guys would be focused on safety while the girls handled the research. Rhyde's statement also gave Qheria the impression she was to hold responsibility over their research at this point, but that safety would mostly be taken care of for her. It was a load off her mind, considering their current progress. Yuxzn coordinated a defensive plan for their guard-portion of activities, while the four girls discussed their own plans.
"So, how are we going to do this?" "Planning away from everything is going to be harder because we don't know what we're working with. We need to cover most of the plans while present. However, keep in mind each of our strengths, both Celesi-physical abilities, like Lwyn's nimbleness and Mhyl's keen senses, as well as our Terran-knowledge." Lwyn sought after the answers Qheria provided. Mhyl then got technical on them. "We also need to make sure we don't rush to expectations. The lights here were a great example of how things can be still unexpected, I'm pretty sure this place is water powered, but it doesn't seem to run on electricity. Some kind of neon filament or something. If something looks familiar, we still need to be careful and look for where that familiarity ends." It was some really good advice.
Qheria turned back to Rhyde, reporting that they were ready to go. Once all eight of them were ready, they set off back to the facility. The guys all went first, following whatever plan Yuxzn had set for them. Then, the girls set into action. The main entrance had a lot of stuff just waiting there, having made use of the large doors, but most of it appeared too big to be worth investigating. They would have no way to bring it home. Thanrie was momentarily hopeful that there might be like a car or something, but then realized how that might be too soon for Qheria. Smaller things would be better.
Further in the back, shelves were filled and sorted of some of the smaller trinkets lying around, mostly in boxes. The labels on them were similar in design to the control room, so they didn't make any direct sense. It was like walls of randomly wrapped giftboxes, no word what could be inside. The unknown also featured a degree of danger. Things could hide in boxes, and contents in boxes could be fragile or otherwise dangerous. Things not in boxes were usually too big or too heavy for boxes, which would itself present a problem.
Lwyn however, getting in touch with her innkeeper side, was noticing patterns as she looked around. For bandits, they were being pretty darn organized. While the symbols were unfamiliar, areas were consistent with distinct patterns. That means they could deduce something of an area simply by figuring out what was common to an area. This brought her further inside, the objects not in boxes might not be themselves an option, but they were visible and still fit in with everything in that area. Finding an area with visible objects that presented a theme they could get value from would mean that the boxes in that area would hold smaller things that were also of value.
"Mhyl, this place is full of patterns, we just need to figure out the patterns. The light around here is horrible, the sun is back-washing everything, and the lights in here don't actually help much. We'll need to try and spot written patterns and other fine details while everyone else looks for clear patterns of interest. Once we find a place we like, we can start figuring out the safest way to open boxes." Lwyn was leading off with a fairly tactical plan that would help. Lwyn's own eyes were fairly sharp too, almost as much as Mhyl when compared to the humans of the group, so obviously Lwyn would be working with Mhyl here. Thanrie and Qheria were assigned to work on the bigger picture.
Qheria looked around at some of the visible objects sitting on the shelves. The first area she found looked like parts, as it had what looked like an engine, some giant gears, and some similar mechanical tubing. A parts section would be useful for repairs, if that was ever needed, but first they needed something to repair. The second and third sections were full of boxes, nothing outside of them, so that didn't help at all. The third, fourth and fifth sections had metal objects that not even they could recognize in this lighting. Tampering with unknowns would be better in a safer situation. Sixth and eight were more boxes, seven and nine were more unknowns. On the tenth was a heavy geared pulley, a set of wheels, a heavy chain with a hook, and a really heavy looking jack. All stuff that moved things around.
Thanrie had been having no luck when she noticed Qheria had finally gotten interested in something. "Found anything promising?" "Maybe, this section looks really utility. We could all use a few helpful utilities to work with." Thanrie went over the stuff Qheria said she found as Qheria went to report to the others. She found Lwyn first, reading labels from the fifth shelf, way high up. Maybe one of them would have less use of things designed to move people around, but Lwyn could still make use of things moving other stuff around. "Lwyn, bring Mhyl. We've found something that looks like it might hold some promise."
Mhyl investigated the area Qheria had found. She and Lwyn had been working on figuring out what they could with labels. Lwyn had found most of the top shelf were labeled with a constant symbol, which either claimed it was delicate or could explode dangerously, they weren't quite clear on that yet. Either way, those weren't any good. The bottom shelf were all large boxes, possibly fairly heavy, so she was mostly focused around the middle. She looked over the wall, and saw a box that looked alright according to it's labels. Nothing dangerous looking, but some of the symbols looked instead useful. She motioned for silence, as she poked the box with her book, to see if anything was alive inside. No motions, no breathing, nothing. She nodded at the box, and Qheria helped her bring it down.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
They carefully opened the box and found the inside was filled with small generic trinkets. Mostly hard to identify. Lwyn set to examining the contents while Mhyl went to look for another box to test. They continued along with this as Lwyn set aside a few interesting subjects she found along the way. The two humans went through some of the things she had found. Some strange shoes, a pair of gloves, a belt, and a headset. The first two were fairly small, which would require someone fairly small to use. Qheria picked up the belt and tried it on. It fit well enough.
Thanrie noted the direction things were going with Qheria. "Qheria has a bit of an idea, but we should be careful. Trying these things indoors isn't safe." Thanrie had a point, Qheria had to admit. Qheria took leadership of the situation. "Mhyl, Lwyn, this should be good enough for now. There are things we need to test out, let's bring everything outside and see if they are any good. We should bring their boxes too, so we can check the labels and such." Qheria took the belt off as she talked, just to be safe.
Outside, they got a better look at everything. The gloves were so small, only Lwyn could wear them. The shoes were somewhere around Lwyn and Thanrie in size, Thanrie opted to take them as Lwyn had something already. Qheria was still carrying the belt, so Mhyl looked at the headset. All generic stuff they could just wear, it was clear what Lwyn was looking for. They were all common to one shelf too. They all had weird controls too. Qheria's belt had a lot of stuff going on with it. Mhyl went to look at it. "Eh, neat. A thermal diffuser with an air compressor? Why would it... oh wow!" Everyone looked at Mhyl like she was talking French. She noticed, and offered to take the first trial with it.
Mhyl stepped away from them all, and put on the belt. She then set the controls and shifted something there. The whole thing in a quick moment compressed a lot of air, heated it to build pressure, and then burst it off in a jet stream. Mhyl went high into the air as a result, but her descent was slowed down safely by the same process, so that she didn't get hurt landing. Qheria took the belt and tried for herself, jumping high into the air with little to no trouble. It gave her a beast of a leap.
Lwyn was looking over her gloves in the meanwhile. The padded metal was suspicious. She could feel there were controls inside the gloves, with a faint twist of the fingers. Doing so gave her hands a static-like tingle. It was slightly familiar. She turned it off and got one of her blades from her crossbow. She turned the gloves on and dropped the blade, but the blade did not fall. "Cool, it's like a magnet or something. Very nice." The metal of the gloves were not only flexible, but also durable as her own blades couldn't pass through them. She went over to the metallic wall of the building, and scaled it with no issue at all magnetically. Near the roof, she even hung herself from the celling, nothing to hold at all, but her gloves kept her up. She could even hold herself up with one hand, aiming her crossbow with the other.
Thanrie had finally managed to get the shoes on, which at least fit. The foot-operated controls though seemed weird. She managed to get the boots activated, to find herself drifting faintly above the ground. She fell over quickly, having no traction with the ground. "Ah, so like ice skates." Thanrie started on a quick dash, and turned them on again. Her momentum carried forward very quickly, and careful motions could have her almost air-skate with the gusts being generated. She ended up moving very quickly.
Mhyl looked at her's last, having noticed everyone else was already occupied. She turned it on, and it started making a faint hum. A faint circle could be seen in the corner of the headset from her perspective, showing a flow of colors growing from it. As she turned around, the circle itself turned. As she got closer to one of the others, the shape of the circle shifted. Watching her wander around randomly, Lwyn went to check out what she was doing. She held out her hand to check it out, as Mhyl was considering what was being shown.
"Lwyn, this is weird. It's like it's showing stuff around it." "Oh! Wow! So it's like a radar or something, the color intensity seems to show how much shapes there are around it. But nothing in color. But how is it actually getting all this?" "Ah... that sound, is it using echo location?" Mhyl had Lwyn help with figuring out the concept by showing her the display of the headset, finishing it herself. It worked like a bat, and the faint lights it used would then even work in pure darkness. It's range was really nice too, and seemed to even pass through some solid objects. The meaning it was trying to express would take some getting used to, but it looked really useful, especially with her keen sight as is.
They figured out that their stuff did require some kind of power cell, like a battery of some kind. All of them used the same style of power source. Mhyl went back into the areas they were at and searched around the first section with spare parts, eventually finding one containing a lot of the same power cells. She could almost see their shapes inside the box with her new headset. Controls on the headset could rotate perspectives of what she could see, so she didn't only have a flat radar perspective. Using her new headgear, she went through some of the other boxes, discovering some neon filament lamps they could carry. With it, the others could look through things with a bit more earnest.
They were finding a lot, but started getting worried about how much they would be carrying. The place wasn't going anywhere, and they had a bunch of stuff to work with. They grabbed a few more smaller trinkets and decided to leave things at that. Lwyn grabbed a few incense burners, claiming that such things would be perfect for returning with Amber-leaves, if the place got it's old visitors back. They would just simply return another day, and look for anything more to bring back. All four of them liked some of their basic discoveries as is, adding more another day would just be even better.
Qheria went to Rhyde to report that they had completed their investigation, and should call it for today. Mhyl was having fun watching this happen through her headset. To think the bandits thought all of this was just... junk? This stuff was all pretty awesome. It did kinda make her worry just how advanced the Fortress actually was. The fortress was pumping out things like this and calling this leftovers, how would they find enough stuff to stand higher than the Fortress if they only had access to such crumbs? However, the rest of the Marauders didn't even have this much, they were excluding themselves from everything. It really was a very foolish idea, to keep their own development so far in the dark like that.
Rhyde returned with Qheria, announcing that they would be having dinner at one point during their journey. For now, they needed to reseal this facility, so that nothing went wrong with the equipment here. It meant giving everything back to the beasts that had taken it previously, but those could be dealt with, and hadn't damaged equipment so far. Qheria did it personally, jetting up to the second floor from the ground, and then jumping back down before the doors had shut. Having secured the place, all eight of them proceeded back towards home. Once back underground, they all stopped for dinner, before setting off along the long underground trail leading to home.
It was fairly late in the day when they returned, so everyone decided to call it a day and just settle in for the night. Rhyde and Yuxzn gave their parting wishes as they too went back to the Marauders. Everyone was pretty tired at this point, not physically. It was just a pretty long and busy day, travelling that far away from home. Everyone was very thankful to find themselves in a place they could rest peacefully, not having to worry about things. They were also very happy just how safe they had made that outing, careful and slow progress had maximized their odds of success regardless of luck itself. They had even been fairly careful with experimenting, depending on the labels and other observations to deduce what was safe to use. Their new equipment could even appeal to future safety.
Feeling very successful, all four of the girls went to bed pleased with their group achievement. They had finally done something they felt they could truthfully be proud of.