They stayed for one more day as Jelin had said in the hopes of finding other things, an actual way in included.  They found a lot of objects to bring back for study but not another way in other than a few extra bat sized holes.  Once their second night as over, Jelin called them to start preparing to leave.  Mel, however requested to stay a while longer.

Apparently some of her brood had gotten injured either from the journey they took or from minor altercations with stray bats.  A very select few had even managed to somehow get themselves trapped.  None of them would ever be able to make it out so Mel wanted to use their last moments to honor their sacrifices by learning as much as she could.  Jelin was very happy that she was finally accepting her brood more and agreed almost immediately.  The extra information could also end up being helpful, after all.

He made sure that everyone slept and got some good rest then started to leave in the early afternoon.  He gave a final warning to Mel to not take any extra risks because he wanted her back safely.  Mel agreed to stay mostly near the camping spot and then transferred control of the part of her brood that was returning with them over to him temporarily.

The return journey wasn't particularly fast since they had so many little spiders and bees carrying a lot of things.  A lot of the talk on the way back was about the ruins and what to do about them.  Jelin had an idea that trying to have Zaer supply some wax and mix it with something like the coating might let them make some kind of model map for them to look at and plan better.  Between her and Mel, they should have a pretty good idea of what the structure was like.

From there, the discussion moved away from the structure and into what else could be done with the wax and coating.  Even Emmy finally joined in as they brainstormed various ideas.  Jelin even suggested the possibility of turning one of the underground work areas into the map room they had considered so long ago.  Some wax and coating could give them a very accurate map while still allowing them to alter it on occasion.

Emmy seemed to like the idea of turning it into something like modeling clay and using it for art or simple crafts.  She actually came up with the idea mostly on her own without input from Jelin.  Zaer, on the other hand, wanted to try and take the maps idea further and was trying to think of some way it could help her store knowledge like a book.  Jelin tried to hold back on his input because he was enjoying the ideas they came up with themselves.

The three of them were also the main hunters trying to provide for not only themselves but the hundred or so little swarm members, so the conversation was a lot slower than might be expected.  It was, after all, hard to think straight when you were constantly running and jumping around to catch small animals and bugs to feed so many mouths.

After about three days of travel they made it back into the territory in the afternoon and had all of the junk they brought back with them brought to the guest room while Jelin let Ell know where he was putting it.  After that, he headed over to the underground area to take a look at how their bat saving operation was going.  Being honest with himself, he didn't feel great about pulling children away from their mothers to use their mothers as a milk machine, even if they weren't sapient.  

His decision was technically cruel in a lot of ways so he wanted to make sure that as the one who had chosen to do it that he was there to do as much as he could.  His main soothing thought was that he would be saving more of them than they were messing with.  Then again, if all of this worked out well enough, he intended to do something similar again with the large beasts to give them beasts of burden and some of the smaller animals to act as a food farm.

He stopped at the bat room first, when he got underground, to check on how the three family familiars were doing.  They seemed mostly well, though perhaps a little anxious hearing the sounds of other bats coming from other nearby rooms.  The mothers that they had locked up in a nearby personal room were causing a constantly loud screeching to fill the whole underground area.  Clare seemed to be almost overworked in there as she tried to keep them alive and calm.

Jelin chose not to bother Clare too much and went to look at the sealed workroom where the humans should be trying to take care of the babies.  As he pushed aside the stiff and weighted curtain, he was surprised to see that it was relatively calm inside.  A few of the more adventurous babies were trying to crawl around a little even while wrapped in tiny blankets but most of the baby bats were being kept still in seeming comfort as the humans ran around to make sure that they were all fed and cared for.

"You guys need any help in here?"

"Huh?  Oh, it's Jelin!  This is kind of fun, you should do it, too."

"Sure."

He entered the room and began to help take care of the baby bats.  Some of them, he noticed, were a little older and likely to be at the point where they would try to evolve before too long.  That was kind of good as it would lessen the burden a bit and allow them to take care of themselves somewhat but it also meant that they needed to be prepared and put under someone's lead or they would just end up as wild monsters.

"Hey guys.  These, those, and those over there are going to evolve soon.  If any of you have made some kind of connection with any of them, you'll need to let me know soon.  Those that you aren't able to keep under control will have to be kept here under the leadership of the three across the hall.  That goes for all of the babies in here, technically.

If you can prove that you have some kind of connection and can keep them under control, at least somewhat, then I'll let you keep them.  The rest will have to stay down here from now on as they grow up.  We still have another day or so for those ones there that I mentioned so don't worry about it too much, but make sure you let me know, okay?"

The children all gave their own happy versions of acknowledgement while Ain just gave him an exasperated look.  After that, Jelin ran around with them for a while to help take care of the baby bats.  Once he was certain that everything was going just fine, he went back to where Clare was still trying to handle all of the wrapped up mother bats.

He briefly let her know that he was there to help before moving around with her to milk and try to calm the mother bats.  Once they had worked at it for about another hour, the bats didn't seem much calmer but they had enough milk for the night.  Jelin stepped back out with an exhausted Clare and after making sure she was okay, sent her back up to rest and brought the milk sacks over to the workroom himself.

Jelin considered things as they were and after a while of just staring at the wall finally came to a few decisions.  He would, of course, clear it with the girls first but he was fairly certain that it would bring a little enthusiasm back and make them feel better and happier.  He headed up and waited in the main room for everyone to gather for the night as he tried to think it all through.

<Okay.  So, I'll be brutally honest here.  This isn't the only time I plan to do something like this.  An there's going to be a little more and slightly different work to be done for the next time.  Those large beasts would make pretty good livestock and beasts of burden.  In order for that to happen, though, we would need some place to keep them and food to feed them.  I want to try and get that stuff ready within a month.

Before you all give me that look, there's a reason for it.  Just killing those mother bats feels bad after all this, right?  So, I thought about it and realized that we don't actually have to kill them.  It'll be a bit of an annoyance, but we could jus bring them back and set them free near the others.  Then, while we're out there again, we can try to figure out how the beasts live and handle their young, then grab some for ourselves.

In other words, the month deadline is just so we don't have to kill the bats.  It'll be a little tough, sure, but at least it would ease all of our minds, right?  We'll need to send some scouts out constantly and try to learn as much as we can about the beasts now if we're going to go with this plan, though.  At a minimum, we need to know the types of plants they eat so we can make sure we have plenty.>