"Or, perhaps, somebody may have been marking off suspects. Eliminating names, one by one, until only one remains. In either case, finding a survivor to question would be welcome, whether Eliza or another.
For her part, Elia took an interest in the fruits of Ebirah's explorations, checking each over for magic.
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"Maybe this Eliza was checking off everyone else on the list."
"This whole business is very peculiar."
"This makes me feel like this Eliza may somehow be the culprit here," Kela says suspiciously. "But there is no way to know for now. Let's continue."
Ebirah nods to the Ulfen and then makes way to the next closest building.
Bhookaaj follows Ebirah, trying to keep alert:
The inside of the front cover of the spellbook is marked "Hendrake" THis corresponds with one of the signatures on the paper, Una Hendrake. 21 of the pages are filled with spells, while the others are blank.
The next building is the largest, the only two-story building in the colony. It looks to be more like a town hall rather than a residence. At one end of the chamber there is a raised desk, like a podium, with tables and chairs arranged in front of it like a courtroom. The main doors open to a large foyer, open to the second floor. To doors at the back of the building lead to small offices. The offices have small tables cluttered with writing materials and what look to be logbooks.
"Doesn't seem to be anything interesting here."
"We better inspect the upper floor."
Ebirah nods to the Undine and begins to make his way upstairs.
"Wait." Valdern motions to Rhyfedd to head for the stairs. The Phantom moves upstair and looks around for any possible trouble. "It's is safer this way. You can die." He points to where Rhyfedd went. "He's already did that." After a brief inspection, if Rhyfedd doesn't find anything wrong, he walks halfway back down and signals the group.
Kela follows along and wonders what is waiting for them here.
Lorelei looks about the place.
Not finding anything of interest, Lorelei will follow the others up to the second floor.
The upper floor is rather uninteresting. With no furniture or other objects, it seems its main purpose is to provide space to overlook the main floor.
"This floor looks rather pointless, doesn't it? Bhookaaj says to nobody in particular.
He then does a quick search of the place, just to be sure:
Ebirah as he assists Bhookaj in his search.
Lorelei shrugs and heads back downstairs, ready to head on to the next building.
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Ebirah and Bhookaaj's search finds nothing.
The logbooks record many different events, including the sea journey, daily work details, a tool inventory, weather patterns, and other mundane record keeping. About 1 month ago, the entries become sporadic and stop altogether a week later.
"... ledgers... journals... overviews... entries become sparser almost a month ago before stopping a week ag- wait," he reads off in a monotone before stopping, "Pages are missing. Four of them."
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"Why would someone take the time to take those pages? We keep finding clues, but I'm not seeing the big picture here." Valdern fidgets with his braided mustache, trying to work the clues in his head. "I guess we need to keep looking around." Turning to Ebirah, he adds. "Grab the logbook. We should show this to Ramona."
"So the colony was still operating even after we had left to come here... but why weren't they trying to contact anyone? Everyone's disappeared recently..."
Nodding to the Channeler he then packs up the logbooks.
"Weird to take out just a couple pages. Why not take the entire book? Heck, why not just set fire to the whole building and destroy all the books? Were people planning on coming back here? Did they know for sure that someone, us, would be here looking over these books? All this just keeps getting stranger."
"It just seems so odd that there's no sign of a struggle in any of this."
"It's almost as if everyone just up and left."
"Perhaps they did," Elia suggested seriously, "There are enough dangers in this world which can draw people to meekly follow them to their doom. Or events which can pluck them loose from the world entirely."
"Whatever it was it was here for awhile before it decided to demon everyone away, and they all knew about it... or some of them did anyway."
Next is a pair of long rectangular buildings. Inside, the floor is hard-packed earth, and along the walls are simple wooden bunk beds, with sacks or bundels of clothing at their feet.
"Bunkhouse." Ebirah blankly states as the enter the long building.
While looking around the bunkhouse, Lorelei points out the coins and talisman laying on the floor. After wondering if a tear in a mattress was a sign of a struggle, Lorelei pulls a wand out from the rip and assumes the hole was made as a hiding place for the wand.
"Hmm, this wand has the initials UH on them. Did that match up with one of the listed settlers here?"
"Una Hendrake. Her name was on that book we found." Ebirah states.
Suddenly, a pair of bug-like creatures, about the size of a large dog, burst from the ground. They hiss aggresively, and a strange green fluid dribbles from their mandibles. They snap at Valdern and Gorglumch, but don't come close to actually connecting.
Ebirah moves up to stab at one of the beetles when they emerge and attack.
More monsters, Kela thinks as yet another creatures pops out of nowhere to attack them. Monster Island was quickly becoming a more fitting name for the place.
Not allowing herself to be distracted, Kela quickly punches forward and summons a torrent of water to attack the nearest creature.
Bhookaaj fires his crossbow neaest bit bug:
Lorelei swings her morningstar at the closest bug to her.
Startled by the abrupt appearance of these new foes, Elia drove the tip of her quarterstaff into the nearest one.
Valdern tries to maneuver himself so that he can flank one of the creatures with Rhyfedd. Using his long spear, he stabs at the large bug-like creature.
Rhyfedd circles around to attack from the opposite side then Valdern.
While Ebirah and Bhookaaj's attacks go wide, Kela's water blast smashes into the creature, and Lorelei's morningstar finishes it off. Elia's quarterstaff strikes the other one, and the combined assault of Valdern and Rhyfedd slay it as well.
Letting out a sigh as the beetles were defeated Ebirah looks more closely at the ground to see if there was any more disturbances creatures like these might have caused.