Xun next explores the town's chapel. One could assume that a sanctified place such as a Lastwall church might've withstood the mayhem better than average. Looking from that outside, that image holds to some degree.
On the inside, however, the chapel is grimy and damp. The walls are covered in ash and soot, and the floors are damaged with cut marks and other signs of battle.
Dust-covered pews are placed in rows, and shelves line the walls. Mounds of congealed wax from candles and burned wicks occupy the candelabras.
A charred corpse, as badly damaged as the one at the tavern, rests slumped against the pew in the northwest corner. It is covered in a layer of fine ash and scraps of charred fabric. Amidst this ash, wrapped around the corpse's neck, is a metal chain -- an amulet of sorts.
Several other corpses, much more scorched and burned, surround the lone ash-covered corpse.
Xun recall that this chapel acted as the town's town hall, and that official records were kept in here.
Sieglinde examines the broken piece of plate armor next to the halfling-slash-gnome corpse. Much to her disappointment, the plate is rusty and carries a layer of dust and dirt: any distinctive features are hard to spot.
Roots Drink Rain continues his investigation by heading to the armory. This was no store for the citizenry; it seems to have been a military storehouse. The outside door seems sturdy, but it has now been broken in.
Empty weapon cases and crates are scattered throughout the bare-bones building. In places where there used to be swords and shields are now only dust outlines. It seems that whatever armaments the citizenry of Goldenflame didn't take, the forces of the Whispering Way have looted.
The leshy notices a cart near the armory. Presumably the cart was used by the townsfolk to transport goods. As he walks closer to it, Roots notices that the cart is now nonfunctional: its axles are broken. If fixed, the cart could be pulled by a horse or two PCs.
Arfsnarf and Kló decide to check out the Goldenflame General. They try to look through the windows to peek inside, but the glass panes are too fuzzy from dirt.
Inside the general store, oddly enough, the two agents spot some leftover foodstuffs; one might've assumed that the townsfolk would have have looted everything. Loaves of moldy bread, rotting beef jerky, some wilted vegetables and fruits. Most of the stuff has expired a long while ago, of course.
As they walk around in the store looking for anything that wasn't perishable, the goblin and the druid begin coughing. They start noticing some tiny speckles of spores hovering in the air. Their coughing worsens, and it becomes clear that there is some kind of hazardous cloud in the air.
Sensing that the store and its spore cloud poses a threat to their danger, the two hastily exit the building.
Kló, realizing that the spore cloud is actually from mold growing on the store's spoiled foodstuffs, breaks open the windows for ventilation and carefully scrapes the mold off the food supplies. The store is now secure.
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Roots examines the strange device, but doesn't really understand what to do with it, so he tries to find one of his allies to take a look at it. He spends time looking around the racks and around the cart, looking for any thing that stands out to him as unusual and valuable. Once he's satisfied that he has searched the armory thoroughly, he rushes outside to tell someone about the strange cart he found.
He finds Xun, who seems to him to be know a lot about the world of animals and their strange technologies. He moves up to him soundlessly, then tugs at his shirt from behind. Once he has the bard's attention, he breathlessly tells Xun about the cart.
Breathlessly he says, "Xun! Xun! I found something important! It looks like you something that animal people tie their animal slaves to and make them pull! I forgot the word for it. I don't think there is a word for it in Sylvan. But maybe we could use it! You should look at it, because then we could make the animal outside be our slave and they can pull things for us."
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Xun looks through the bodies in the chapel and hopes to not have to use magic in this place. He was never a big fan of religious places but mixing them with a slaughterhouse could be too much.
He begins to look for the records in order to find something that they could take. Maybe they did not burn.
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When Roots find Xun he is finishing looking for the records
"Damn, you startled me. Try to make some noise as you come closer." breaths heavily Xun and shares what he found in the chapel.
"Animal people... animal slaves? " says as Xun is walking to see what Roots meant
"Oh! A cart, but the axis is broken. I am not sure if I can fix this, I am a leatherworker... Let me see."
Xun looks for tools and begins to work on the cart.
Kló starts ransacking the store. Arfsnarf, once the worst mold clouds have completely dissipated, joins him. Together they find a burlap bag of rolled oats. The oats appear to be unspoiled.
Sieglinde stays in the The Flaming Wheel bar area, cleaning and gauging the piece of plate mail. She eventually has an "aha!" moment, and completes the image. The armor bears iconography of a flame and the hilt of a sword: a portion of the religious symbol of Iomedae, goddess of justice and honor, a popular deity in former Lastwall.
Sky Shark, determined to find the relic, continues his search. Tearing down multiple floorboards, punching holes in the walls, he looks even in the most ingenious of hiding places. And yet, he comes out empty-handed.
Xun looks for the town's records. He rummages through the bookshelves, tossing aside stale religious texts, and examines anything that looks factual. He finds that some of the bookshelves were caught in whatever flames scorched the chapel, but luckily not nearly all of them.
The bard finds census records and historical documents kept by the Goldenflame town council. These records detail the history of the town’s inhabitants and notable events in the town's history, including festivals, feasts, and the like. With this collection of documents, the memory of Lastwall and Goldenflame can live on — exactly what the Venture-Captain wanted!
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Arfsnarf makes a sort of bored, disappointed expression at the oats.
"Eh, this doesn't get Arfsnarf excited on the weekend. Buuuuuut, we do have a horse! Now it can eat if it helps us get back."
After helping to haul the oats out of the general store, the goblin heads to the chapel to search around.
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Deciding that leaving the armor to Sky is the wisest thing to do at the moment the oracle goes to the general store to see if their fellow Pathfinders are doing fine.
"Kló, Arfsnarf? Are you alright? What's going on here? asks Sieglinde as she gets updated to the current situation at the general store.
Sky Shark abandons the guardhouse for the time being and instead locates the piece of plate mail he's heard about. From what he can tell, it looks like a regular piece of armor -- it's only natural that a martial artist would be uninterested in the nuances of metal armaments.
Arfsnarf walks to the chapel, where he is greeted by a sight of burnt stone and bookshelves and corpses. He looks around, and after a while finds a wayfinder, dropped beneath the pew in front of the altar. The wayfinder has some minor scorchmarks on it, but is otherwise unusual and bears no distinctive features.
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Roots apologizes to Xun, saying "I am sorry. I'm not used to making noise. We had a vow of silence at my monastery. And before that I was just a spirit and I couldn't make noise then either. But is this important? I hope its important."
Watching his party members scurry by, searching buildings and bringing out strange, important looking relics like books and a suit of armor, the leshy begins to become anxious about his lack of understanding. Despite how hard he has worked on learning their language, many of the words they use go over his head and he since most of their technology is unfamiliar to him, he has trouble figuring out which artifacts are important. As his nervousness starts to get the better of him, he begins to breath deeply and concentrate on the sensation of the sun on his leaves.
Understanding will come. Isn't that what the Teacher always said? For now, it is enough that I just do my best to protect them. For now, just breath deep. Concentrate on the sun. Feel the energy flow through you.
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The goblin decides to stomp around the chapel for a moment, seeing if there are loose boards revealing empty spaces within which to hide things. He wouldn't be the best at recognizing religious significance of other objects in plain sight in that place.
Arfsnarf emerges from the chapel to share his find. Waving it in the air, he exclaims
"No initials on this Wayfinder, but scorch marks."
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Roots Drink Rain meditates.
Xun heads to the armory, rolls up his sleeves, and gets to work. He replaces the broken axle. Piece of cake to an artisan like him. The cart is now in a working order; a bit rickety, perhaps, but it should hold together.
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When Xun calls out for medical help in the chapel, the big ulfen jogs over, tossing the oats in a spot where anyone can put them to good use.
He lumbers cautiously into the chapel, frowning at general burned smell as he moves to the burned body.
He stoops low, sniffing and pawing carefully to learn what he can.
Sky and Kló go to the chapel to examine the corpses. Sky's experience tells him that the corpses did no burn through mundane means — the flames were magical in origin.
Kló pokes at the corpses. The lone corpse belonged to a goblin, judging from its large balloon-like skull and pointy teeth. The other corpses surrounding the goblin corpse were doubtlessly zombies before they were immolated.
Sieglinde joins the two, and inspects the amulet. It seems... exotic? Maybe.
Roots Drink Rain takes over his fellow monk Sky Shark's search in the guardhouse for the elusive ceremonial armor. He finds the small building has been figuratively turned upside down by this point. The leshy looks everywhere one possibly can. Ten minutes pass, and there is still no sign of the armor — it's impossible that it is in the guardhouse.
Arfsnarf rummages the armory. Unfortunately, it seems that the storage for weaponry and armor was the prime target for the Goldenflame evacuees and undead hordes alike: the goblin is hard-pressed to find a single blade of a dagger.
While his fellow agents are wrapping up the investigation, Xun drags the zombie cadavers from the plaza (not including the horse, of course) and the chapel's burned goblin corpse into the cart. He tosses the piece of armor from the tavern on board.
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After the examination, Kló considers for a few slow moments, then looks across at Sky.
He points to the corpse, ”Gibb Potsmasher? Saerenite Wizard.” Then he blooms his hands out in the universal symbol for explosion, making a supporting sound effect.
Kló carefully collects the small goblin body, respectfully tucking it into one of the provided sacks as he offers up a simple prayer to Sarenrae.
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Xun walks next to the cart trying to get it easier for the horse.
"So far no new treats can be seen. Maybe we will be able to leave without more fighting. But sneaking with this cart back might be a challenge." says Xun.
He looks at the dossier of missing agents
"So we have at least one body, and few items."
Sky Shark takes a few more moments to inspect the plate armor. Something about it is familiar, but what? Who knows.
As Xun loads the cart with the zombie corpses, Roots Drink Rain eyes them. A peculiarity catches the leshy's attention: one of the zombies, though its outfit is now dirtied and torn, was wearing fine clothing including a ruffled collar and a ripped silk cloak. Roots and Arfsnarf inspect the finely-dressed zombie closer, and ascertain that it was a human in its lifetime.
As the Pathfinders are walking around Goldenflame, going from building to building and exchanging their thoughts and discoveries, the afternoon sky becomes cloudier, and the Pathfinders begin to feel an increasing sense of dread. Like a sixth sense, the explorers' instincts are screaming that the trip into the deadly Gravelands has been suspiciously uneventful. It is a sensation of looming misfortune: something bad is going to happen eventually.
Kló, Xun, and Sieglinde happen to gaze into the western horizon, and see strange movement of faint shapes, almost as if mountains were alive and swaying back and forth as they walk the earth. Looking at these distant shapes amplifies the uneasy feeling. A discomforting thought crosses the mind: those shapes are gargantuan undead monstrosities. The colossi do not seem to be traveling fast and they are very far away, barely visible in the horizon, but they are lumbering directly towards the town of Goldenflame.
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"This human animal is covered in shiny bark! Wow!" he says excitedly as he points out the once well dressed zombie.
Roots feels a sensation of fear as he sees the mountain like forms moving in the distance. "That...that looks bad. We should hurry to that big...cave over there," he says, pointing to the university on the edge of town.
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Xun listens to what Roots has discovered and goes through the dossier
"Clement is known to appreciate the finery associated with the Taldan party scene, dressing in the finest clothing and enjoying the most decadent food and drink every town has to offer..."
He looks at the mutilated body
"Could it be Clement? His Wayfinder was in the horse's throat. It sounds like a reasonable assumption."
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Kló frowns over at Xun. "But did we look inside the horse?" He shrugs grimly, "I mean, if the wayfinder got stuck on the way down ..."
He doesn't get a chance to complete the thought, his dark eyes being drawn to the horizon. He scowls, squints, then his eyes widen in fear. He points at the movement on the horizon.
"Those are big undead." He looks at each of his fellow pathfinders in turn, "REAL big. We should hurry."
With the town of Goldenflame sufficiently investigated, the Pathfinders turn their attention to the town's College. According to the Venture-Captain, the college was known for its documentation of the history of Lastwall, and is likely to contain an impressive collection of relics.
You gather your gear, load the cart, and head to the college. Walking through the town's lifeless streets and among its ruined buildings, one might have the somber realization that these six explorers could well be the last living creatures to walk here. Hopefully not.
The college is some 10 minutes walk away from the town plaza.
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You reach the Goldenflame College. Once you've seen the state of the town, you can surmise the state of its college.
Looking from outside, the college main building has survived the rise of Tar-Baphon and the ruin he brought somewhat well. Although run down, it still bears signs of its once-beautiful architecture: ivy-wrapped columns, majestic archways, and a partially intact stained-glass window. The colorful stained glass portrays a divine goddess, Iomedae herself. Xun and Sky Shark recognize that the architecture here is pre-Cheliax style that was popular in Vellumis, the oldest city in Lastwall.
You leave the cart, and look around, eyeing the entrance. Two wide staircases lead into the college. Centered above them is a religious symbol. Engraved into the graying stone is "Goldenflame College, Est. 4083 AR." The pair of sweeping staircases lead to a veranda with entrances to the building.
Alarmingly, you spot a corpse, lying face down on the veranda, facing the college entrance.
It is dead silent. The sky is cloudy, and a moderate wind blows, shaking the surrounding trees.
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Kló helps find a spot to leave the wagon, but he can't seem to take his eyes off the corpse. "You think that's ... ya know ... actually dead? Dead dead?"
With the pain of the last fight fresh on his mind, the big man readies his shield. He looks to the senior agents, ready to follow their lead should anyone move to investigate the body.
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Sky will help Klo with the cart, believing the two of them to be the ones with the most strength to pull the cart without tiring themselves out before a possible fight. Even while pulling the cart, his eyes peek from behind his mask and scan his peripherals for any hostile undead.
Sky sets the wagon down with Klo and looks at the body as well, from afar. "Maybe someone should throw something at it, see if it moves first."