Going down the hatch was like stepping into another world, a world that was the flying machine #8766. Navigational and mechanical equipment on a larger scale in such a small area; a true nerve center to a potential very large beast. Other than a folder of navigational documents, maintenance records and cargo manifests, this area held various items of personal interest, but nothing to be considered a big prize salvage wise. However, here we also encountered one of the desert's pests; a swarm of basquitos. Despite initially trying to leave them alone, we were forced to take on these hostile creatures and destroy as many of them as possible.
Unfortunately, after having a short rest, it seemed at least one of these creatures was a carrier for grit fever, and managed to infect me. Luckily, after inquiring with our medic a little later, she found a stash of disease suppressants on the rover. Before I had fully awoken though, Nemora and Kole were having a conversation nearby, seemingly unaware of me. Nemora seemed to be inquiring after something I caught only a brief glimpse of, later mentioning she wanted to keep it secret. I would have considered the possibility of it being a dream or hallucination, were it not for the fact I saw Nemora sneak the object back into her bag later on.
Feeling extremely reinvigorated by the medicine, I felt eager to get back to exploring the crashed flying machine. We quickly went through the last bit of the area we explored previously, before heading down into the bowels of the vehicle. I don't think any of us had imagined how big this thing would be, especially given how cramped the nerve center had been. It seemed like you could fit an entire Juxtalen town into one of these, and perhaps even have some spare room.
According to the cargo manifest, there should be a large supply of fuel, Pre-Collapse weapons, ammunition and food; although those probably have been long gone. Of most interest, however, is that this transport should also contain a military grade rover. Recovering that would likely be a serious upgrade for us. We did not have to look around very long to find the rover, which had been modified and was far more technologically advanced than the loaner rover we used to get here. It's all above my head, but then again, mechanics were not what I was there for. Kole inspected the vehicle for a little while to see what's what, but was unable to start the rover. He mentioned the batteries being dead after roughly 900 years, and needing a pump of some sorts to bring them back to life. Unfortunately, it seemed the rover's maintenance equipment was not part of this shipment.
Further exploration revealed one, possibly two side entrances, a rear entrance and a front ramp to this flying vehicle. The rear entrance appeared to be open, going by the amount of sand inside, which was home to at least a handful of sand crabs. The most disturbing discovery, however, was what we encountered on the rear upper deck. Given that we did not want to disturb potential sand crabs living underneath the stairs leading up there, I climbed the walls to have a quick peek. Upstairs, I noticed six humanoids shambling about, realizing these only could be 900 year old Dabbeck; zombie-like creatures transformed by some terrible bio plague weapon of the past. I was not aware it was possible for such creatures to still exist, only showing once again the horrors that happened during the Collapse.