The guards pass you through fairly readily; a brief stop as a few clerics give you a once over with a variety of detect spells, a few gates raised, and some paths through minefields highlighted are all that's between you and home. After the couple of hours the trek up to the city proper, Esk is taken away by the ever-present medical staff for returning teams, and the rest of you are run through a quick debriefing. The officer conducting it looked more bored than anything - it seems as though this trip was par for the course. As the meeting ends, the officer notes that the device you found, whatever it was, is still being examined. They'll contact you about it if they need anything, so she asks that you stay in touch. Everything wraps up, you're given your payment (a thousand ebbs apiece), and turned loose on the streets for a few days.

Morte

One of the medics that greeted you on the way in pulls you aside as you leave the building. "Do you have a few moments? Esk is in the infirmary and wanted to talk to you." She leads you back into the building and to a small hospital room. Esk is there, his stump wrapped up in bandages and a weak smile on his face.

"Hey. Turns out I'm in the market for a new arm. Know anyone? Yours seems pretty, ah, handy. Well built, few tricks. I have some money saved up."

Blackhands

The maintenance division has work. The maintenance division always has work. Everything in the city is constantly on the verge of breaking down, and they don't have the manpower to deal with it, from their point of view (despite employing a solid tenth of the workforce). You end up at the nearest of their branches, one of the smaller ones at the edge of the city. Most of the tasks are day-to-day, and accounted for by the regular staff. This leaves you with the role of go-fer and jack-of-all-trades - if something comes in that doesn't have an apparent way to deal with it, it gets shunted over to the group you're working with. After a few hours of running around fixing small problems, one of the higher ups grabs you.

"Hey. We're rounding up a group of more experienced techs to come poke at something. Some sort of high-energy magical creature bound up in a container. We're supposed to "make it useful." Interested?"