There were a couple of very specific tools that Collapse had found among the supplies, including what appeared to be some sort of tongs used for grabbing hot metal while keeping away from it, if their length was any indication. Other than that, she was now a few wrenches and hammers heavier.
Magloria began checking inside some of the open crates, before she came upon a couple she found suitable. "I think this is steel inside this one, and brass in the other. Unsummon some of each. We can use them to build certain things." she whispered, before she remembered something and added, "But try to keep the light of your horn hidden, so it doesn't attract attention."
Collapse nods and walks up to the crates and takes a few moments to look over the contents. Her horn lit up but it was dimmer than before. What Collapse was doing was allowing her magic to slowly build up rather than perform the spell all at once. That's why you would see the bright gold flash - when she casts the spell at once.
Within her mind she works her way through the spell. A bit of the steel and brass vanishes in a gold flash of her horn but it was as Magloria wanted. She was able to secure an amount of which they needed. "Alright we got that. Do you reckon that we should scram out of here and move onto the next? I think this is all they'd really have in here. Perhaps we can come back another time and get more steel and brass if we need to." Collapse whispered quietly.
Before Magloria could reply to Collapse's question, they heard a loud, brittle shattering sound from somewhere out in the main part of the building, followed up by a series of questioning voices. Seems like the panthins were wondering what made the noise.
"That's our signal. We're leaving whether we want to or not." Magloria whispered, before turning towards the way out and sneaking over to it, then kept going back the way they came.
Assuming Collapse followed behind her, she'd be able to see what the commotion was. Several panthins were standing around a scattering of tiny ice shards, quickly melting in the heat of the room. The rest either kept working or had also turned their attention to this strange phenomenon. "How do you think that got in here?" she could hear one ask.
Collapse silently agreed and would follow Magloria as quickly, and quietly as possible. At least they managed to secure a few items worthy of value. It wasn't nearly enough to be satisfactory in Collapse's opinion though but still they had a minor success nevertheless.
Upon her seeing what the commotion was she was curious how those ice shards got over there like that. Was it something Magloria did prior to this? She didn't see Magloria cast any spells when they were inside the building. Either way, it had proved a decent enough distraction for them to leave unhindered if all went well.
When they had exited the building from the way they came Collapse looked about for Jump Start before asking any questions. She wanted to make sure she was okay.
They spotted Jump Start in the same place where they left her, though obviously no longer watching through the window. The ice cubes she had been given now missing. As soon as she spotted the pair she waved to them. "Glad you got out ok. Did you get what you wanted?" she whispered.
Magloria nodded. "A few things, should help about a bit later on." she quietly said, then looked out over the feline town. "So, which of the two places should we go next? Judging from what I saw they're both around the same distance from us, so either of them works for me."
Collapse smiles as she walks up to Jump Start. "I secured us a few more tools and some metals we can use. I'm sure you'll like to have them, anyways." Collapse whispered as she took out the tools and gave them to Jump Start quietly. In a sense, she was giving Jump Start the tools. After all, Collapse technically carries around a whole tool set, so she'd figure Jump Start wanted them.
She looks over to one of the locations. "Lets check out the...public service building?" Collapse suggested, pointing on over to the building. The other workshop would likely contain more tools, but she wanted to see what was in the other building first.
Jump Start kindly accepted the tools, placing some of them inside her own saddlebags while fitting some of the smaller ones to her tool belt. Magloria looked over to the general location of where their next intended goal is.
Thing is, there was more than one building over there that looked like it could have the things they needed. Since everything was so dark and they were at such a distance when they first spotted them, they had no idea what any of them contained, just that they didn't look like they were for living in.
"Alright, but we may need to split up once we arrive there, so we can search them faster. I'd rather not spend too much time here, eventually the sun will rise and it'll get a lot more active..." Magloria replied, and began leading them forward.
Eventually they came to the street that they were after, important-looking buildings on both sides, covered in shadows and moonlight. No panthins could be seen wandering, which was a good sign at first. Problem was, just because they couldn't see them, doesn't mean they weren't there.
Collapse looks to Magloria as they are lead forward. "I would rather not split up because if one of us gets caught and we are split up, it would be harder to deal with than if we all were together. We'll look into this other building and see what we can find. If we want to leave after that, we very well could." Collapse whispered to Magloria as they proceeded forward.
Upon arriving at the buildings she would look to the on on the right and quietly walk up to the windows (if there were any) to peek inside to get an idea of what was contained. She definitely was a bit nervous. If they got caught they would have a harder time coming back here since the panthins would beef up security. It was likely they wouldn't take too kindly to the idea of intruders here anyways.
If there was anything inside the building that looked valuable or worth their time, Collapse would look for a way to sneak inside the building.
"In that case we won't have enough time to search through all of these buildings, or we do and skip the workshop. I wouldn't normally suggest splitting up, but since this place looks rather uninhabited..." Magloria stated, not bothering to finish her sentence when Collapse moved over to the first building.
The first building had several windows, however each of them had wooden shutters covering them, to keep out unwanted guests when it was time to leave. For that reason, Collapse and the others could only barely see what was inside. There were some desks with papers and other writing supplies inside, drawers, and other business looking things.
There was also what appeared to be products or decorations along some shelves, but they couldn't make out what they were.
Nothing inside looked valuable, but they could barely see anything anyway. For all they knew, this was a cartographer's workplace, or a bank, or just something random like an insurance company.
Considering what she had seen inside of the building it may very well not be worth the time. They were after tangible items they could get and not have to waste time with discerning the possibilities.
A slightly disappointed Collapse walks back to Magloria and Jump Start.
“Can’t really see anything too valuable in there, for us. I can’t even tell what it is inside and I would say we should just check out the other place instead. At least we have a good idea of what will be in there.” she whispered, hoping they could find something more than a few tools. But she wouldn’t mind more tools though, if only for the novelty of having something that didn’t belong to her. She tried to shake away the thought but just couldn’t help it.
If they accepted the idea of going to the other shop Collapse would walk alongside them towards the other shop. Maybe this one would be different than the refinery.
Magloria rose an eyebrow at Collapse's decision on the matter. "You want to just leave this place alone because you can't see anything from here? If that was what we did back at the refinery, we wouldn't have anything from it and it would've been a complete waste of time." she protested.
Thing is, where exactly was Collapse's next intended destination? There were several other buildings around that was similar to the one they were outside of, but then there was also the workshop looking place that they had to travel a bit to reach.
Looking up at the moon, Jump Start pointed out that the night was just over halfway over. Walking from each place took a while, given they had to sneak around constantly. If they go to the workshop now, they likely won't have time to come back here *and* leave Carocol without being spotted.
Alternatively they could search around the other nearby buildings, go to the workshop, then run like mad when they inevitably get noticed by the higher amount of panthins out and about when dawn arrives.
Collapse looks to Jump Start and then up to the moon. For a few moments she seemed to weigh her decisions. "Given the amount of time we have left, I'd think we should try our luck with this one here. We will not have enough time to go the workshop, then come back, and leave. So let's just try our chances with this one here. We'll see how much time is left - then we leave if there isn't a good amount." Collapse suggested.
With that in mind she'd lead them over to the building she was looking into and attempt to find an entrance into it. It was likely that neither of them of would object to it so they'd likely find a doorway or a window they could get through. If they successfully found one, Collapse would attempt to find her way inside.
There was no obvious way into the building, aside from what looked to be a sort of catflap in the front door. Strange, why would they have something like that? Was it for their children? Seems a little demeaning if it was.
Just before she was about to give up her search, Magloria rolled her eyes, then focused on where she thought the locking mechanism was. Her horn glowed as the temperature at the window quickly lowered, and soon there was a thin layer of ice covering most of it.
Taking out her shortsword, she fit it between the shutters and struck. A metal clinking was heard inside, as part of the window slightly opened from the force... and now lack of lock.
Collapse smirks to Magloria's action as she walked forward and placed her hooves on the window and began to slowly push it open. It was best to open the window slowly just incase it would squeak. If there were no issues with opening up the window Collapse would climb up on inside. When she climbed up into the window the other two were free to get a good look at her back side if they wanted to.
It seems she was taking a little bit of time to get up into the window. It seemed she was mostly steadying herself and quietly slipping in but in truth she just wanted to give them a nice view of herself as she got up inside. Her tail swooshed over the window cutely as she enters into the building.
Now that she was inside, she'd proceed to help them up into the window if they needed it. Then she'd begin looking around.
The window opened up without problems, aside from the fact that it felt like packed snow, chilling Collapse's hooves as she pressed on the wood. She immediately could see better inside the building. It appeared to be some sort of planning center of sorts, judging from the little models of various buildings, walls and other things. A couple doors led to some backrooms, which would likely have the more important stuff.
Magloria, on the other hand saw nothing but pony butt. Based on her expression (that Collapse couldn't see) she was very unimpressed with the time that Collapse was taking to enter through the window. She would be even less impressed if she could confirm what she thought the reason for Collapse's slowness was.
Once Collapse was completely inside the building, Jump Start went through next, taking far shorter time to do so. Sure she wasn't as quiet, but the windows weren't high so the noise made wasn't that much anyway. Finally, Magloria climbed through.
"Well this place seems like it might have something. Or it could have nothing..." Magloria huffed, searching around some of the shelves, walls and desks. "Check the other rooms, would you two?" she suggested to Collapse and Jump Start.
Upon seeing the interior of the place it made Collapse glad they didn't decide to skip this building. While the models looked kind of cool she wanted to take something truly useful. Perhaps public records, anything worth of value to them. She would like to find some stuff that would be useful for anyone back home. Records. History texts, books, that sort of thing.
If Collapse could bring that stuff back to Equestria it would be surely be enough to give her a raise. But also since she just wanted to look through those since she was also curious.
Collapse accepted the suggestion. "You got it." she smiled before going to open up one of the doors to proceed her way in. Magloria had the room they just went into covered. With how this building was dark it was likely no Panthins were here, unlike the refinery they were at previously. She smirked under her breathe, hoping very much to find something worthy of interest besides a few tools and materials. Wouldn't that be nice.
The room that Collapse strolled into was filled with several drawers, boxes, cabinets and other containers, along with various papers lying about on surfaces, or things pinned up to walls. She couldn't make out what they were exactly due to the darkness, particularly in one spot on top of a cabinet, but this certainly looked like a place where they would keep records of things.
One of the things pinned up to a wall looked to be a large map of Carocol. It wasn't a map of the surrounding area unfortunately, but it was at least a good indicator of what else she might find in here.
Collapse would unpin the map from the wall and carefully fold it up and put it into her saddlebags first off. Looking to the boxes she began to go through the boxes first and foremost. Her hornlight was used to illuminate what she was going through but she kept it dim and low to the ground just incase. Once she had gone through the boxes she would unsummon the things she found interesting or valuable.
Hopefully there wouldn't be any cameras or anything of that sort around here. It didn't seem like they had them.
Collapse managed to secure the wall map and a few building records, and 'blueprints' she assumed, that seemed the most complicated or extravagant. Further search was interrupted by an unsettling sound.
"Brreow?" said a high sounding voice from somewhere in the room! They might not have cameras in their buildings, but that didn't stop a small black cat that was sleeping on top of the cabinet from existing. It's presence was obvious now, thanks to a pair of orange feline eyes watching her from the small clump of black fur.