Almost immediately, Vark recieves a response. However, the voice is male and clearly not that of the Marquise.

You have reached the household of Lady Wydrioth. Thank you for your message. It will be passed on to the Marquise at her Ladyship's convenience.

Thurston nods at Vark's indexing of the things they had found, not really interested unitl he mentions the helmet. 

"Wait what?! Can I see it?" he says not hiding his excitement for that object. 

“Yeah sure,” he says, sliding the bag to Thurston as he tinkers with glyphs.

A short moment after he sends his message he jolts back in surprise. “Oh... uhm, she’ll get back to us later I guess.” He looks around at the others with a shrug. 

Thurston takes the helmet and admire its manufacture and tries it on. It's a little bit difficult to put it on without taking down the rag of the cape that covers the acid wounds but he finally manage to put it on. 

He then looks to the others as if he was expecting to start flying right away. But nothing happens. He looks confused to Vark.

"Where's th' ox?" Bründir notes, "Heard ye need a maroon ox t'make things with wings fly."

"I beg you pardon... a what?"

"Don't humans have an ox with wings that's s'posed t'be a sign fer virility or somethin'?" The dwarf looks around the room, wondering if he should continue with the bits he's heard of Human culture.

Vark's head cocks to one side in confusion as he looks at the bard. "Uhm... I think... I think you just need to attune to it first." he says, turning back to Thurston.

"I am not sure..." replies Thurston " Not us Norscan, maybe the people from the Empire? I do not know... they are weird. Maybe Seid had heard of it... the helmet has wings though"

"Sit with it for a while, see if its wings flap then," Aiden says. "Perhaps not here though." He turns to Vark.

"She did not say anything to you? I would think that the capture of this fort would be of the utmost importance."

Vark shakes his head in response. "I didn't get through, well not to her directly. There was some kind of... ward I guess. I heard someone else's voice say that Lady Wydrioth would get back to me when she could, maybe she's just busy right now."

Bründir looks over the room and occupants for a few moments as Vark shakes off the rejected communication, "Ok, what've we got? A fort, pro'bly with a few rats still crawlin' about. Some very choice bits an' bobs, courtesy of our former enemies. A gaggle of ones too smart 'r scared t'fight us....for now." The dwarf pauses for a moment to scratch his head, as though the next item were just out of his reach. "What am I missin'? Feels like we've got something big left, but I'll be damned if I know where we go fer it."

"I must admit that I would be more at rest with three dragonborn bodies instead of having them devoured, or not, by that thing in other plane. I got one of them, at least I think I broke her neck, but... you know what I mean" says Thurston with his old helmet in his hand, in the process of putting it on his backpack. 

"Yeah, if they're still out there somewhere... they'll probably be pretty angry."  Vark falls quiet as he imagines the horribly conjoined sisters, stalking whatever dark plane they've been imprisoned on and plotting their revenge against the Acharnost. "A-anyway uhm," he begins, trying to dispel his active imagination. "This... this is a big fort. It would take a while for us to try and get it completely under our control so maybe... maybe the elves would want to deal with it? We've taken out the real danger here so it should be easy for them to finish off the 'rats' and man the fortress so more bandits don't take it back. We could just head back to Sheercleft... and then we can go see Aury!" 

Aiden frowns, considering the half-orc, and then Thurston. "If we're planning on going south...we could make for Eikthyrnir."

Thurston ponders Aiden's words.

"Were was your giant friend again Vark?" asks Thurston to the warlock,

A strange look passes over Val's face as the group begins to speak of going south, but towards home... no there was no home left. Nothing but frozen corpses and shredded tents. Where was her home? Sheercleft? Not quite... everyone else had a place there, but she was the outsider, the giant-blood. Maybe once all this was over, she could find somewhere that she could call her own. "I do not relish the idea of leaving anyone here with the potential to reinforce for an attack by the elves. It will take them time to gather a force large enough to occupy this place. Plus who knows what other sort of devilry they could do with that circle thing..."

Aiden nods. "Then we hold this place until they get here. We have supplies, and if we can assault this fortress, we can hold it against whatever rag-tag cult army they could amass before the elves get here -- especially with their leadership...indisposed."

Vark gives a slight pout at the idea of having to stay here any longer, but Aiden and Val’s opinions do make sense. Turning to Thurston he responds, “Aury lives at the top of Endelfell. My tribe lives at the foot of the mountain... I guess I should visit my mother too.”

"There's a circle fer teleportin', right? Could we use it t'get there quicker? I think we talked about it, but I don' know much about all that. Maybe we can send fer Seid to come look at it if he's got a guard with him? A few days t'get 'ere, then how long 'til we can use it?" Bründir toys with a few of the Mastercraft weapons left out from the claimed hoard. They were nothing compared to Dumdrengi, but it didn't hurt to have options.