Marco
The blond haired youth gave a heavy sigh at his teammate's flustered rantings but didn't say anything about how it wasn't his job to constantly remind teammates of their available resources, or how using knock-out gas in a place with NO ventilation could be just as dangerous for them as it would be for the goblins if they weren't careful, or how it was a stupid, rookie mistake to use up all your special items early on in a fight if you don't need to, potentially leaving yourself exposed should something bigger and nastier rear its head later. He didn't mention any of this because after spending a year here already, he'd had more than enough time to learn that most women weren't like his sister. They were emotional and irrational and cared more about 'winning' arguments than actually sharing information, ad tended to get flustered, embarrassed, and more angry when they were proven wrong, rather than relent and admit their logic was flawed. He'd gotten his head bitten off more than once when he wasn't in the wrong before, and had learned to just shut up, nod, and let the girls say what they wanted within his first few months at the academy.
He was happy when the monomeric boy stepped in and ended the argument, nodding at his leader's orders. "You got it team captain, I'll take point then."
He moved forward in front of ashing, staying in a low, crouched position as he shuffled across the dank tunnel floor, making as little noise as possible. He scanned the floor carefully as he proceeded, the complete silence in the burrow's tunnels making him very anxious. Despite the increasingly low light he quickly found what he was keeping an eye out for, thought not in the state that he thought he would. There was a small, rudimentary tripwire set up as he had expected, but he found the cord had already been snapped. He crouched lower and picked up one severed end of the cord and brought it close to his face, shifting down his tinkerer's goggles to get a better look at it. As he suspected there was evidence that the small cord had been rather recently cut, and by something rather big as the fibers showed tension damage over a wide area, suggesting something with a rather stocky leg had tripped the wire. However nothing with such a large leg should have been small enough to fit in the burrow. Maybe it was damaged when a goblin fell down on it? It was a possibility, the goblin they'd shot had an injured leg after all, he could have stumbled over and fell on the tripwire. Marco glanced around and couldn't see any trap mechanism, activated or not, that this wire could be attached to, instead it just disappeared into the dirt wall. So this was an alarm system, likely connected to some rudimentary bells and loud metal things that would make a very loud noise if this thing was tripped by any would-be intruder. But then that still left the question, where the hell WAS everyone? All marco could think of was that the goblin from earlier had mistaken their group for some sort of goblin extermination squad, rushed back to the burrow, warned everybody, and had the whole tribe evacuate before the three got there. Considering how they had earlier lost track of the goblin and spent some time searching for the burrow, it wasn't entirely impossible, but goblins tended to be cowards only when outnumbered. In large groups they were usually more known to be vicious and aggressive. A typical burrow could house anywhere from 5-8 gray goblins at any given time, so unless they'd been victims of a major raid before, the goblins would have no reason to find their party of three a real threat.
Marco didn't like this. The numbers weren't adding up in his head and the possibility of all this being an elaborate (a little TOO elaborate for what goblins usually pull off) trap for their party kept lingering in the back of his head. Done with his examination of the tripwire mechanism and, determining it was relatively safe to proceed, marco gave a silent signal to his two teammates that it was safe to proceed and waited for them to catch up to him before slowly continuing forward. Thankfully for him Goblins were adapted to low-light visibility, but were still blind in total darkness, so there were a few small torches mounted sparingly across the tunnel wall that prevented Marco from completely loosing sight of where he was going. Not like there was anywhere but forward to go mind you, but he still kept his eyes peeled for traps and was thankful for the small amount of light that made this possible.
Soon they came across the entrance to a small alcove. Judging from the musky scent coming from within and the small fire pit in the middle this was likely the goblin's 'meal hall' where they would keep and prepare whatever animal meat they were going to feast on that night, as well as a few rudimentary cooking utensils and what passed for goblin tableware (as with 90% of goblin equipment, the majority of these would just be crude instruments carved from rock, save for what metalware they could steal from the academy students and staff). This meant that this would be the largest 'room' in the burrow and, predictably, the light from teh fire pit did not even reach the walls of the meal hall, leaving a wide band of darkness where enemies could potentially be waiting in ambush.
Leaning out of his peek inside the alcove, marco then turned to his two teammates and whispered to them. "Right, so it looks like we've found their meal hall. This room is usually the largest in a goblin tribe's burrow and is the likeliest place for them to stage an ambush, I'm not liking how that fie pit's burning with no one tending it either. That being said, it's possible we could find some of the gardening tools we need in here since the goblins might have improvised them for cooking or eating, it wouldn't be the first time they used a watering can as a kettle for example. If the tools aren't here, then we'll know that they'll be found in the stockpile, a smaller room where goblins hoard all their 'treasures' as well as whatever surplus resources they might have that is usually situated in the deepest part of the burrow. It'd be smart for us to check this place before moving on, but again: the whole 'ambush' thing. Goblins are adapted to low light visibility, so if we go in there now and they are waiting for us, we'll be at a disadvantage, however we can use that to our advantage. If either of you two know any techniques that produce a large amount of light, preferably one that doesn't generate a lot of noise to go with it, we could knock two birds with one stone. First we'd illuminate the meal hall and be able to see if there's anything in there we need, secondly if the goblins are there the light would temporarily blind them and allow us to rush them before they recover. I could use my flashbangs for this, but the problem is with the 'bang' part of its name. I'd rather not alert anything that could still be waiting farther down the burrow, so if either of you two have any more silent alternatives like I ask, i would suggest using those now."
He looked up to Orin with a calm but focused expression. "Does that sound acceptable captain?"
Bobby
The construct bowed lightly in response to Hibiki's correction "Apologies for my lack of clarity commander, I was referring only to the temporary separation brought by our variant choices in how to descend the slope. It was not my intention to imply that our group was going to undergo a more permanent separation for the purposes of the mission."
when the two others caught up with himself and the team leader bobby greeted them both cordially. The human then suggested that they get the mission underway, but confessed he had no idea of how to actually find the items they needed. "I will be capable of identifying the components once we come across them, however the knowledge I have on how to go about finding these specific reagents in the wild is very limited," he added. "Perhaps our commander, who has the most years of experience at this academy, can provide us with more information on how to proceed?"
