Meesei remained distinctly calm, even with Ariel's frightened reaction. "This ruin still had a functioning animonculory when we found it. For a while, it produced hostile automatons until our scholars temporarily shut it down. Before we left, they had made the animonculory produce a non-hostile, but mindless automaton, so we tasked them with studying the machines to produce automatons under our control. Evidently, that research has bore fruit. I am eager to speak with the scholars to see what solutions they found."

Thanks to his unfamiliarity with Dwemer machines, Rukeewei had actually been less startled than Ariel before Meesei's explanation. Still, it was another surprise that seemed to give him more reasons to worry. At the very least, it was already apparent that the air inside the ruin was much warmer than that outside. He extinguished his torch after the doors closed behind them, since the interior of the ruin was well-lit. 

With the military discipline of their scouts, they stood respectfully at attention as they greeted Meesei and her pack. "Champion, it is good to see you return. Do you need assistance with anything." A Nord among them asked. 

"No thank you. We will be fine heading to the city on our own." Meesei answered. Raldbthar was, of course, a city in itself, and no doubt contained much that would be of interest to someone like Ariel, but Meesei suspected the next great surprise would come when they took the lift down to Blackreach itself. 

---

Gallus was quite alone in the training room when Ri'vashi set out to pay him a visit. Others might have used the room during that time, but they had taken to avoiding it whenever Gallus was using it to avoid any potentially awkward situations. Fortunately for Ri'vashi, she had already shown Gallus more than enough awkwardness on her part that she could approach him with relative impunity. 

Opening the tall, metal door to the chamber, Ri'vashi paused at the entryway of the room with her arms crossed over her chest as she watched Gallus bashing away one one of the dummies. "Do not bother with this one, she is simply here to investigate the unusual number of broken training dummies coming out of this room recently." She said in a distinctly non-serious tone.