The little machine did look damaged in obvious ways, but as they suspected it was very difficult to tell what was actual damage, and what was just 'natural' for them, if that word could be used. This machine's body was made up of rusted pipes, broken gears, and broken metal containers. Its head for example looked like a big metal bowl with an antenna sticking out, and all overs its body little holes could be found. It looked more as if rust had eaten away at the body making these holes, and it wasn't crazy to imagine that the parts that made up its body were this damage before being attached to the little guy. 

But they would have less time to wonder about how to awaken it, as after tampering with it for a bit, making it shift side to side, its eyes, which looked like big bulbs, would slowly brighten up to glow with the same golden light in its core, before it eyed the three of them, and almost instantly went into a panic, flailing in the cables. And then that panic swiftly turned into illogical bravery. 

"AH, VARDEN... ARMORLESS VARDEN!!! YOU WANT TO FIGHT? I'LL TAKE YOU ALL ON! C'MERE AND GIVE ME ALL YOU GOT, I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT A MACHINE CAN DO!" it swung back and forth in the cables, making it very difficult to try and untangle or free from it, but that swinging and wriggling on top of the fact the girls had already been working on untangling it in the first place suddenly released the machine, sending it flying through the air from its own movements as it went right past the girls in an arc over their heads, and landed right on its head with a loud ~CLUNK~. And there it simply rested, lying on its back, arms and legs sprawled out as it stared up into the sky in defeat. Accepting its fate at the hand of the Varden just like that as it came to the end of its emotional roller-coaster, if the mechanical logic it was following could be considered emotions.

Of course it had no way to understand they had come to 'rescue' it, rather than kill it like it suspected. "Woe is me... been up here for thirty years and haven't ever been spotted. Then the glass breaks and now I die. I miss just being a core stuck in the mud with no body. Those were the days..."

The cables seemed to be attached to some equipment up on top of the entryway to the stairwell they had come out of, including an antenna, a radio of some sort... the girls wouldn't know exactly what these things were, but they could get a sense that it was common knowledge what they were and what their purpose was. One of the cables on the radio had been pulled out, which was no doubt why contact had been cut.