D'oh! Okay, she can see fine. Wallace, no so much. Since Halie has Faerie Sight, does that mean she's in front, or behind?
And the things on the floor of the space are small, parchment-thin shards of something fragile that shatter whenever you do more than lightly tap it.
She'd go first.
The shards-- "What does this smell like to you, Wallace?"
Once she gets his nose properly situated, he takes a few good snuffles. "It smells like dirt," he finally decides.
She bites her tongue on the "Dirt has a smell?!?" response, and instead say "Thank you. Doesn't look anything like dirt, though..."
She'll spont/5 some super low level InTe: "Is this some kind of mineral?"
((C'mon, he's a beaver...if you'd stuck a wood shaving under his snout, he could probably not only tell you what kind of tree it's from, but how high the tree was, what time of year it was cut down, and how old the tree was when it died! Now, if he had been a mole, on the other hand...
))
Not a mineral. I'm assuming that you're going to go the "Twenty Questions" route and keep sponting Intellego X until you get it, in which case the shard is Animal.
They have giant noses! It was worth a shot.
She'll also do a non-fatiguing InVi spont to see "Is this vis?"
Yes...each of the shards is vis. Went ahead and did Touch/Momentary/Group – even with the No Gestures penalty, her InVi is still enough to get that.
It is a poor Bjornaer without Subtle Magic 
I assume the cave has no other exits than the one we came in?
"Wallace, could you please go back above and bring me a blade of grass from the island's surface, so I can bring these out? These require a bit more study. I now wonder whether the Niseag has any offspring." If he does, she'll gather up the shards carefully, and prepare to Leap above.
Once on solid ground, she'll assume her Inner Heartbeast (for the slight Stamina increase, for the slight boost to spellcasting), and then fatigue herself to spont an Animal version of "The Whole From the Part" (InAn15): 18In+8An+3Sta+6Au+5=40, halved is 20. Penetration is irrelevant unless the shards themselves have MR (because the target of the spell is the Arcane Connection itself, not the being who shed it), so if these came from a beast, Halie should get a mental image of the creature they came from.
Not that you can see, no.
He does. Give me a Dex roll (quality die) to see how the shards fare.
The spell goes off, but you don't get anything from the shards. (Also, give me a Per roll).
invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3502621/
Her Dexterity is whatever Dex an otter has; the roll itself is a 4, modified by otter Dex.
Perception check is 6+3Per=9.
She's able to gather most of the shards together without breaking too many of them.
Once she gets them up to the surface and gets a better look at them, they look almost like eggshells. Dirty, grimy, brittle eggshells.
She'll grab some empty pawns and fatigue herself to spontaneously cast a Touch range ReVi (base 10, +1 touch), moving the vis into pawn form. Re 5 + Vim 12 + Stam 2 + 6 Au + 6 = 31, halved is the necessary 15. (How many pawns is it?)
She'll then give one pawn to Wallace as thanks for his assistance, and then seek out Drystan.
"First off, I need to know where to deposit some vis I found. Secondly, I'm curious as to the form the vis originally took. These look like eggshells to me--" she holds up the shards that the vis was originally in-- "but Wallace and I found them in a cave underneath Eilean Chon. The entrance was narrow enough that I find it unlikely the Niseag could have laid these eggs; it was easy enough for me to make it through wearing the skin of an otter, but Wallace found it a tight squeeze. I wonder if, perhaps, the Niseag may have grandchildren. These shards are not an active arcane connection to any living creature, or I would have been able to visualize the beast... which leads me to wonder whether the offspring from these eggs may have been consumed by a parent."
Wallace thanks her, then takes the pawn in his mouth and shuffles off. (There were four pawns in all.)
"We have a vault in the Common Lab where we store the covenant's supply of vis. If you'd like, I can show you."
He examines the shells closely. "It's possible. The Niseag, to the best of my knowledge, has never laid its eggs at either island, but there have been a few years that we weren't able to harvest them for whatever reason. Aside from tracking its movements, we've not made much of an effort to study it, though."
"I would expect the Niseag herself to be far too large to fit into the cave. But perhaps these have been there for ages, since a time when she was much younger, and smaller?" Halie shrugs. "How many times was there no harvest? It may be worthwhile to spend some time combing about the loch in case the missing vis is still hiding."
Drystan purses his lips and thinks. "I would say three or four times. But none since we made the map, that's been going on fifty years now."
"No matter then. Thank you for your aid."
I think Halie's finished with the investigation. As long as we know how high we can set our lab-shacks.
What is she going to do with the vis she found?
It's going in the vault.
Drystan takes Halie around to the landward bridge post and shows her how to activate and dispel the bridge to Eilean Chon (and says that it's the same activation on the other end as well).
It takes a couple of minutes to cross the bridge (unless Halie's in a hurry) and reach the dock on the island.
The laboratory building is made of wood, and appears to take up most of the usable area of the island. There's about three or four feet of flat ground around the building before it slopes down to the water's edge, and there are several Burnet Rose bushes planted around the building.
There doesn't seem to be any particular secret to entering the laboratory – just open the door and waltz right in. When she and Drystan enters the lab, she notices that there is a warm ambient light (bright as a sunny day) and the lab is toasty warm. The room seemed to become light as soon as they crossed the threshold.
From the opposite corner of the lab, a large murky watery figure looms. "Who dares trespass," he says in a loud, gurgly voice before Drystan cuts him off.
"Cedric, be nice. We have company. Cedric, this is the maga Halie Bjornaeris, she is living here now. Halie, this is Cedric. He's the guardian of the laboratory."
Drystan goes to a padlocked chest in a corner and touches the lock while casting a spontaneous Rego Terram spell that pops the lock. He opens the chest and places the vis inside, then closes and locks the chest again.
He shows her around the laboratory, pointing out all the features and the bells and whistles that it has.
((Halie gets 4 experience points, and 2 Confidence Points.))