Looking at the machete and the buckler, Valdern raises his hand to sign that he pass on them. "I would probably have more chance to hurt myself than the enemy with those. We should keep them though, as Bhookaaj said, if we find the proper owner, we could return them." Turning to the next building, he points his spear. "Shall we? Maybe we will encounter kobolds now. We do seem to be getting a random assortment of nuisance so far."
Ebirah nods to the dwarf and stows the remaining armaments before heading with the others to the next building.
"Good. Now maybe we can figure out what happened here."
Bhookaaj follows Ebirah to the next building.
This large building appears to have been a chapel or place of worship, but like the previous room is in dissaray. Several benches that seem to have once faced a basic altar have been flipped over, and a pile of ashes lie among the benches. The top of the altar is covered in a white cloth, and carved onto the altar is a humanoid figure with a stag's head. An ornately longbow hangs on the wall above the altar. A smaller shrine is on the side, with a carving of a half-human, half-avian man. Several religious and ceremonial objects lie about the floor.
"This was a chapel to Erastil, god of farming, hunting and communities."
"There was a struggle here. And this blood by the entrance.",
Bhookaaj concludes, by pointing to the dried blood by the front door.
Lorelei frowns at the sight of the chaos of the chapel and picks up a few of the ceremonial objects and sets them back they likely belong.
"Whoever was in here had no respect for a house of worship."
Lorelei looks over at the dried blood by the front door too. "I wonder if perhaps someone had taken refuge here from what happened? Perhaps they thought they would be safe in a holy place or hoped for divine intervention. Either way, I wonder if there is enough blood to track?"
"We better search a bit more thoroughly."
"Since that blood goes from the entrance to the altar, there might be a survivor hidden in here somewhere."
"If so, they'll need a bit of healing."
"And could tell us what happened here."
"Weird, this is the first sign of trouble, we see so far." Valdern signal to Rhyfedd to get closer to the altar while he stays closer to the entrance.
Bhookaaj notices a secret sliding panel in the altar, but before he can open it, a terrifying specter of a humanoid appears floating above the altar with a wordless howl of rage.
The startling appearance of the creature fills Kela with a dread she has never known. She turns and runs back out into the light of day, praying that the thing cannot follow.
Lorelei manages to stay calm and assess what manner of entity faces them. "This appears to be a poltergeist; a hateful spirit that is unable to leave the site of its death. It is naturally invisible, can telekinetically throw objects. Our choices are to either fight it for little gain to us or to simply leave this building and stay out of its range."
Lorelei will fling an icicle at it, curious to see if she can affect it.
Bhookaaj will slash at the poltergeist with his lovely new magic machete to see what happens.
Seeing the apparition suddenly appear something twinges in the back of Ebby's brain and his fight or flight response instinctively overrides his thoughts. Namely, the flight response as he scurries after Kela.
Elia, it seemed, was made of sterner stuff. At least when it came to unreasoning fear. Sensible caution was another matter. Having already used up much of her magic against the monkey goblins, she wasn't inclined to get into another fight unnecessarily, particularly against a foe which would only return.
"Leave it be," she said, stepping back hopefully out of the poltergeist's immediate range, "If it's confined to the chapel, we can take our time and figure out how to deal with it properly."
The attacks of Lorelei and Bhookaaj strike the creature, but don't seem to be as effective as they should be.
"Damn! There's a sliding panel under the altar, which might have a survivor."
Lorelei sighs. "If there could be a survivor he is likely wounded from that blood trail, which means we don't have much time to help him."
Lorelei will channel positive energy with the intent of hurting the ghost.
Upon seeing the monster, Gorglumch shivers in fear and shrinks back. "Uh... you guys go ahead."
"I don't think I have anything to hurt this thing." Valdern, while staying outside, turn to Rhyfedd and start concentrating. For a moment nothing happens, then all the sudden, the dwarf phantom change into a translucent form.
Rhyfedd seems to be affected by the poltergeist, but because of the change he is going through, he is only able to take a 5ft step away from the undead creature.
The poltergeist dissapears. A chalice and a pair of books fly toward Bhookaaj, and the chalice strikes him, although not hard.
Ebirah stops in his tracks. "Wait... why are we running away?" he asks to no one in particular before turning and heading back in.
Kela moves back into the building just far enough to hold the door open and peer inside. "The wizard said leave, so let's leave!" she shouts to the others. She has no desire to fight invisible ghosts that won't die anyway.
As the party retreats from the temple, the object flying around settle back down to the ground.
The next building appears to be a large house. Like the other buildings, this one is in dissarray, with furniture, clothing, and other household items, scattered about, knocked over, and pushed aside. A layer of dust coats everything.
Still a bit concerned about the possibility of an injured person, Lorelei follows the group towards the large house.
Though she pauses by what look like rather strange tracks.
It looks as if something large and heavy was rolled outside the house by something with odd, starfish-shaped footprints. The tracks lead south, outside the palisade wall.
"Something large was removed her recently," Kela says to the others. "See, no dust. Probably barrels of something..."
"Still doesn't make sense as to why everyone seems to have vanished."
"I wouldn't expected a lot more signs of a struggle or battle."
The tracks don't look like something from nature.
"All the valuables have been left behind too." Ebirah states as he looks over the chest and the golden band. "Slavers care about Gold, so they wouldn't have left things they could have easily put into their pockets. And there's not enough blood and destruction, or corpses, for their to have been a massacre... is it possible that ghost... thing scared everyone away?"
Valdern follows the group in the next building. There is some much information to get but when combine together, they don't seem to make sense. Working on the problem, he starts thinking out loud. "So, something happens here. While everything is in disarray, there is no blood or sign of a fight. The valuable is still here, but the people are not. This happened a while ago, since dust as settle on everything... Except for those circles on the floor here. It looks like there were barrels here, but that someone, or something, came over and took them recently."
"Ok, so it's possible whoever took the barrels had nothing at all to do with the people disappearing since they happened at different times. Though of course it could still be beneficial if we could track down where the barrels went."
The tracks lead south, oustide the palisade wall.
"Hmmm. These tracks seemed to lead south, outside the palisade wall. Should we try to follow them now or finish searching all the building here first?"
"I think we should search the buildings first."
"Might be survivors, with any luck."
"Or other clues as to what's happened here."
Carved onto a sign on the door of the next building is "Arkley". You recall that the leader of the first expedition's name was Rayland Arkley. The interior of this building contrasts with those of the previous buildings in that it is relatively organized. There is simple wooden furniture, including a small table and chairs, a bed, and an open chest that appears to have only simple clothing. A thick layer of dust coats everything.
Noticing the well maintained state of the building Ebirah went about searching the usual spots for stashing things. Namely under stuff.
Finding a Silver pocket watch under the chair cushion and a book with a ring and pouch attached under the mattress he sets them aside as he continues looking, finally turning his gaze to the ceiling. "Hey, something's up there." he says to no one in particular as he moves the chair over in order to step up and grab a piece of paper off one of the crossbeams.
The piece of paper is in fact four papers folded and tightly creased. When unfolded, you can see that it is the Talmandor's Bounty Colony charter. This is a legal document declaring the colony and island under the protection of Andoran, outlining the colony's relationship with the Bountiful Venture Company, and the rights and responisbilities of the colonists. It bears the signature of 3 members of the Andoran People's Council, representatives of the Bountiful Venture Company, and all 100 colonists of the first wave. In a different pen, all colonists names have been crossed out, except for one, which has been circled-Eliza Haniver.
The pocket watch has Azlanti symbols, and appears to also function as a compass.
"This is... foreboding." Ebirah lets out as he looks over all the crossed out names.
"It certainly doesn't sound good." Lorelei looks over the group. "Does anyone know Eliza Haniver? If this list indicates colonists being taken out, then it looks like she may be the only survivor. We need to find her first and ask her if she has any clue just what the hell has been going on around here."