The three of them decided to start the search from the closest point.
The first drop point was within the ancient jungle behind them. You could almost say that the MDT had chosen the best possible starting point for them with where they had landed. They quickly dismantled their campsite and left most of the cumbersome stuff under the rock. Each one of them simply just carried the bare necessities like food and drinks for their foray into the alien jungle. Tools on the other hand, were not needed. All three off them could split earth when needed.
The flora in the planet were gargantuan by Earth's standards. From the lowly brushes to the skyscrapping trees, everything were unusually large. Even the smallest of trees needed at least three people to cover its' circumference. The trees on the other hand, had no visible branches until about 10 meters of the ground, only further up the canopy could you actually see any obvious branches snaking their way about. On them coils of vines and brambles slithered around the trees in the symbiotic co-existance. Such is the way of things here it seems, that anything that fails to co-exist were eliminated by natural selection.
The concentration of oxygen within the jungle was higher than normal as well, the gigantic trees and shrubs were producing much more oxygen than the plants in Earth could. It seemed like their biological make-up had some difference than those of Earth. A planet with only 20% landmass but have a higher oxygen density than Earth…
Of course, this was Hao Ren's own rambling thoughts. He had little to no knowledge about this, and he could do worse than the Husky back at home.
The jungle had no obvious paths or trails and was fraught with uneven landscape and a thick bed of leaves on the ground. Hidden within these sea of leaves, unseen pot holes or protruding roots. The journey on land was exhausting for the trio. Hao Ren envied Vivian's ability to fly at this point. The vampire would definitely be in her element here. There were ample of space between the towering trees, and she would be able to swerve in and out in her bat form with impunity.
Along the way, they also ran into the local fauna. Some weird looking beasts and bird-like creatures. All of them scattered as the trio approached. The beasts were rather agile, they disappeared almost instantaneously into the jungle as they caught sight of the incoming party. There were also slavering carnivores that attempted to stalk the trio and turn them into dinner. But their efforts were for naught as a single glare by Y'zaks had their courage in flight, and them following it. The great demon sure knows how to make an impression.
"BOOM!"
A loud boom echoed across the jungle, and the trees shook violently. On Y'zaks hand was a sphere of concentrated air that was glowing hot, with it, the great demon carved a path through the obstructing brambles and Y'zaks had powers like this and it made the path easier for Hao Ren and Wuyue to navigate. Wuyue could see hot air swirling about Y'zaks as the great demon hurled spheres after spheres to clear a way for them. The scene itself was rather scary for her and she quipped gingerly. "Mr Super Violent Muscle Man, I'm afraid of hot air the most… I get dehydrated by it…"
Having a great demon who specialised in the lore of fire and a Siren who is well versed with water spells to cooperate as a team was an achievement by itself.
"Be careful with those blasts, we don't want to light the whole place up!" Hao Ren yelled from behind towards Y'zaks. "This place have high concentration of oxygen and this being the only landmass in the planet, we won't have any place to run if a firestorm breaks out."
Y'zaks just smiled as he hurled another sphere forward. "No worries about that. My spheres won't even as much as create a spark. Say… how far more do we need to go?"
"Almost there, almost there." The MDT chimed as it floated through the air while displaying a holographic map of the jungle. The red marker of their target location was within the map's perimeters now. "Would not take another 10 minutes I reckon."
"This is the third 10 minute already... I can't walk any further…" Wuyue grumbled as she pants. As a Siren, her stamina for journeys like this were clearly lacking. She was also concerned about the matter at hand. "... Would the new tenant be all right? Still alive right? The cargo pod had landed here for almost a few days already, and it was a crash landing to boot…"
"No problems." The MDT swirled up and down in a nod. " I have checked the cargo pod's model, and it's a New Eden Federation pod. They come equipped with excellent safety and preservation features. Even if the outer shell had burnt out, the pod could still sustain life for a month. There's even a note on the product guidebook that the cargo would be kept in a state of unconscious preservation. I think it means hibernating…"
"You can't tell what's the status of the new tenant?" Hao Ren gave the MDT a weird look. " I thought you'd at least have some insider information…."
"It's not like if you don't know how Madam Raven works… The fact that she could even remember the delivery company itself was good enough."
Hao Ren nodded and decided not to dig further. They would find out what's what after finding the cargo pod. Wuyue had a rather incredulous look on her face. "It just doesn't sit right with me… they were transporting a living person but why did they call it a cargo?"
Before the MDT could even start explaining the terminologies, Y'zaks booming voice rang out from the front. " I see trails of smoke ahead. I think we found our target!"
The information roused Wuyue who was about to throw a tantrum into high spirits. As both Hao Ren and her looked up, they saw faint trails of smoke rising not far away. Thankfully there were no traces of spreading fire. The three quickened their steps and after a short while, reached the first crashed site.
The impact of the crash and the subsequent explosions had levelled everything within the crash site, and a hundred meter deep crater was created as a result. Surrounding the crash site was a scene of carnage with fallen trees laying about, many of them bore burnt marks. Even the soil of the crater was still steaming hot, and in it lay the the wreckage of whatever that crashed into the ground. It was nothing but twisted metal by then, from the remains, they could make out it's original oval shape. All around it were debris of unknown metals that were still burning. The air was choked with ash and burnt residues.
Hao Ren noticed that the area had many evident burnt marks, and it seemed like a fire did broke up here for a short while. Perhaps it was the forest's natural resistance against fire (like having water-filled fibres or tree barks that are resistant to fire.) It was their luck that the fire had not spread or else things would be really firey.
"... This can't be the cargo pod right?" While Hao Ren had not seen how a interstellar cargo pod looked like, he could tell that whatever that crashed into the crater did not seem like something that performed a controlled crash-landing, and that triggered his doubts.
"Seems like the thrusters of the cargo craft and it's control unit." The MDT floated over the wreckage as it scanned the area with a faint blue light. "Most of the components are fried. Including the black box. Seems like it's a futile run."
Hao Ren looked at the wreckage again and something really serious dawned upon him. "Wait a minute... Did Raven12345 actually planned to get those jokers to drop the cargo pod into Earth?"
"Yep."
Hao Ren almost leapt up in fury. "THE F*CK?! You mean to say that she actually wants to drop this directly on Earth?"
"Well, no one expected the cargo pod to blow up." The MDT explained as it dodged Hao Ren's torrent of saliva. "It's not like gnomish tech will blow up every time... It'll make successful landings from time to time... And truth be told, if the pod were to make atmospheric entry into Earth, Madam Raven would be controlling it herself, and not let it crash land like this..."
Hao Ren has his doubts if the Goddess would be able to pull that off, and was glad that the pod had decided to explode some 800 light years away. If this thing were to land onto a human city, it will be on the headlines for months to come!
"...I guess we gotta look at the other sites." Wuyue sighed while squatting in exhaustion. "The next one is in the mountains right....Wait.. do we need to actually climb it?"
As Hao Ren and Wuyue was about to leave the site, Y'zaks had noticed something. "Hold on, I sensed something!"