Dolgrin can tell that the spirit is trying to communicate, but he can't make out the code, if there is one. Maybe one of the others would be able to figure it out.
Hearing the odd knocking amid the pause, Ku'Hania works to discern a pattern, that might indicate the spirit attempting to communicate.
Ku’Hania, through her understanding of the communication methods needed while underwater, manages to parse a meaning from the series of knocks and bangs over several minutes.
”Why…did…he…do…it…”
"If this is like some other undead, the...poltergeist seems to be trying to talk about being betrayed. It is asking 'Why did HE do it.'" the shaman conveys.
"Is... is that your body? she asks.
After a while Ankha sheepishly returns, clearly feeling guilty for having abandoned her comrades in the middle of a fight. “S- … Sorry. I … I don’t know what came over me.” She slowly lowers the bardiche with which she hoped to make amends and glances around, confused by the lack of activity. “Is … is it over? Did it leave?”
The knocking sounds clue her in to the ghost’s continued presence, but in a thankfully invisible form—she’s not sure that she wouldn’t just run away again if she saw that … thing … again. With Ku’Hania explaining the message and striking up a conversation, the alchemist begins to relax, though she keeps a tight grip on her weapon. “May … may we examine the body? To figure out what happened?”
Dolgrin likewise lowers his spear to be less threatening. Taking a cue from Ku'Hania's translation (quite the impressive elf, she was), he tries to puzzle out the message. "Who is he?"
It's more a question to Ku'Hania than the spirit, as he recognizes that the chance to parley may be broken if they ask too many questions.
The knocks continue after a few seconds of silence, as if it was listening to you talk.
"Yes...betrayed. My...friend."
At this point the knocks, which so far have been at a steady rate, change to be much more rapid.
"He. Killed. Me. Betrayed. Why. Why. Why." A quick glance around the chapel as these words are rapped out on the altar shows several different items around the building are shaking as the poltergeist rages on.
Breath catching in his throat as he begins to piece together a bit of the knocking pattern, Dolgrin looks nervous. "An who are you?"
"..Your friend betrayed you here? In the chapel?" Ku'Hania asks after waiting a moment for Dolgrin's question to register.
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Ankha looks at the knocking altar with a softening expression, her fear and confusion replaced by pity and understanding. “Poor fellow,” she murmurs to no one in particular, “that must have been horrible. To be murdered by your own friend …” Over shifting reasons, her complexion remains pallid: she has become accustomed to, or at least learned to tolerate, the stench, and the ghostly terror has subsided into sympathy, but the disturbing thought of betrayal still pales her.
She gazes around the trembling chapel, when Dolgrin’s questions spark an idea. Rummaging in her pack, she retrieves the colony charter that they had found in the rafters. “Here,” she presents the back of the parchment to the dwarf, covered with the colonists’ signatures, “maybe he can point to his name … somehow. Or …” She scrunches up her eyes and slowly begins reading out loud the few names that remain legible—the ones that haven’t been crossed out. “Eliza Haniver … Rayland Arkley … Silas Weatherbee … Barnabus Braeton … Edwin Fox …” Pausing after each name to give the spirit time to respond, she concludes with one of the crossed out names that they were able to decipher. “Una Hendrake.”
This Ms. Brushbender was sharper than Dolgrin had initially given her credit for. She might be a bit mad scientist for his tastes, but this trick.
Well, unless it backfired and made he ghost angrier.
Pulling the charter out doesn't seem to anger the spirit at first, but then you notice a trio of arrows have silently floated over from behind the altar towards the gathering around the paper. The force holding them flings them violently towards you but their target isn't any of you: it's the charter. The three arrows pierce through Rayland Arkley's name on the document.
"He...did...it. Why."
Moments after, a pile of ash from the scattered small braziers around the chapel swirls over to form a crude circle around Silas Weatherbee's name.
"Me."
"Silas. We are sorry this happened to you, Silas." Ku' Hania says clearly, giving voice to the fallen colonists, unable to move on. "Rayland Arkley is the one responsible for your death. We do not know why, but we will find out. Would you like us to bury your remains?"
The spirit, while justifiably enraged, seemed willing to communicate at least, which meant it was possible to reason with it.
Murdered by a friend. Well, what was already a dark tale--an entire colony disappeared with scant trace--had taken a grimmer turn. "Aye, that we will," he says with an oath. "By Torag's beard and Erastil's bow."
Truthfully, Dranngvit was the bitter goddess to which he'd swear this oath, but non-dwarves usually just assumed that dwarves only had one god. "Dranngvit's bile" tended to cause no small consternation, even among dwarves familiar with the Debt Minder.
Ankha gulps when the arrows pierce the charter with pinpoint accuracy. “I … I’ll just set this down then.” She gingerly lays the parchment down upon the ground while musing on the killer’s identity. “Definitely not a good sign when the leader of the colony turns out to be a traitor and a murderer. But is Arkley the cause, or a symptom of the colony’s disappearance?” It seems like every building they search just raises more questions.
Letting the shaman lead the conversation with the spirit, the alchemist simply nods along in agreement while setting her sights on solving this mystery. She moves systematically around the chapel, closely examining any items that were affected by the poltergeist. Perhaps one of them has a connection to the murder?
Braxton glances from where the poltergeist had disappeared, to Ku'Hania, back to the poltergeist, then Ankha, then Ku'Hania. He frowns and shakes his head. Sheathing his rapier, since he has no way to combat the specter either way, he leans against one of the pew and draws and lights his pipe. He takes a few puffs to clear his lungs and nose of the smell of corpse. "Murdered by the expedition leader." Braxton gestures with his pipe towards the pulpit. "I've heard of such things. An expedition or young colony, isolated from the rest of the world. Someone, usually the original leader, gets it into their head that they want to be king or... whatever. Get some lieutenants that agree, kill some dissenters to solidify control, and disappear into the wilderness."
Dolgrin nods. "Symptom or cause, it's not right. But the Company was rigorous with our screening. I can only imagine they were doubly so with the chosen leadership. So while Arkley could've hidden depravity until he got here, it could be mental tampering." At least he hopes. "Some native denizen, flesh or spirit, who didn't like the colonial efforts here."
The names not yet crossed off of the charter had been Eliza Haniver, Rayland Arkley, Silas Weatherbee, Barnabus Braeton, and Edwin Fox. There still wasn't an obvious reason for the crossing in spite of their speculation. And the only body they had found so far had been Silas', poor man. Then there had been the clockwork spy that they had trapped to prevent from going back to its builder. Missing or doctored records. Something potentially buried under a plum tree. An ankheg nest. Goblins. The ankhegs and goblins were probably opportunists, not causes of the disappearance.
Of course, as with their earlier postulations, it was all still just educated guesswork. It was difficult to tell, especially if Mr. Weatherbee himself didn't know, exactly what happened or why. "Not to cast aspersions, but I don't usually think goblins are too keen on enchantment magics."
"Rayland Arkley is the one responsible for your death. We do not know why, but we will find out. Would you like us to bury your remains?"
At Ku'Hania's words, a single word is tapped out in reply before the spirit falls and remains silent.
"Please."
You doubt that burying his remains will silence the spirit or end his harassment of any that enter the church, but it'll be a start at least.
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With a steady motion, Dolgrin reaches to the massive pack that has been so far hitched to his back and retrieves a shovel. "I'll get digging," he says, trading out his two-handed implements and walking out the door. He doesn't much expect the others to help with the digging, especially as he only has the one shovel. But he'll take as long as it needs to dig a hole six feet down in soil that will hold well enough.
When he's done, he invites the others to gather around the grave as they lower Silas Weatherbee's remains into the ground.
Dolgrin had been to enough funerals that, even as a layperson, he knew the sorts of things to say. Even if Weatherbee had been an Erastilian and Dolgrin was most familiar with the dwarven pantheon, he knew enough.
It's not the most inspiring speech, but it does the job enough.
"We are none of us guaranteed long lives, nor good ones. The world we live in is often harsh and unforgiving. The gods do not promise us ease, for they know better than to do so in these Lost Days. But they offer their wisdom that we may listen and hear. Erastil teaches his followers to care for their home and their family. To fulfill their duties. To protect their community. Community is sacred, for it is through the bonds we forge together that we stand against the trials of our world."
"This was Silas Weatherbee's community. We do not know exactly what happened here, but we know tragedy took Father Weatherbee from his community. In his death, we who come after seek to right the wrongs done. Let not the foundation he laid here be in vain, but rather let us build on his cornerstone, honoring the memory of all those gone too soon."
"Amen." Braxton mumbles. The experienced sailor has seen more than a few burials at sea. Everyone who came to the colony knew that they were risking their lives, but to be cut down by your own captain? Nigh unthinkable. The Caydenite pulls a silver flask from his inside his tunic, unstoppers it, and pours a small amount of it out near the fresh grave. He takes a swig of mead, then offers the flask to Ku'Hania.
Ankha helps carry the body out to the burial site. Though she still wrinkles her nose a bit at the smell, she doesn’t seem at all bothered to be handling a corpse. Indeed, after laying Weatherbee’s remains on the ground in a not ungentle manner, she conducts a clearly experienced examination of the body, carefully prodding and probing while the dwarf digs a grave. Throughout she hums in a low, quiet voice, a marked contrast from her usual cheerful demeanor, as if paying respect to the spirit that once occupied the body, or perhaps simply out of prudent caution—most corpses aren’t attached to a poltergeist that could skewer you with arrows for messing with its body.
Only after her investigation is complete does she retrieve a shovel of her own and help Dolgrin with the digging. It feels a bit odd—she usually digs to extract bodies, not inter them. After the eulogy, she simply nods and traces a solemn spiral over her heart. Of course, the alchemist doesn’t really believe in any of the Pharasmin rites, but she’s learned enough to play along. It’s a useful cover when one raids graveyards—for purely academic reasons, of course.
Ankha determines the man died from a few stab wounds to the chest and stomach, but the body isn't significantly mutilated or anything.
Beyond the magical longbow and the various religious articles such as holy texts of Erastil and other community focused books, the church doesn't have anything else of interest. Well, besides the poltergeist of course.
Resting on his shovel after filling the hole back up, Dolgrin wipes the accumulated sweat from his brow. "One more building here in this area: the big home between the chapel and the murderous captain's place. Let's look there before we explore the outlying fields."
He seems markedly less chatty than when the group first arrived.
With the body properly laid to rest, Ankha agrees with Dolgrin and heads towards the next building. In contrast with the dwarf, however, she becomes more cheerful and chatty the further they leave the poltergeist behind.
“At least there weren’t any signs of malicious intent—other than the murder, of course. Just enough stab wounds to the chest and stomach to kill the man, but nothing beyond that to desecrate the body. It was really a weird sensation to examine the body knowing that the spirit was watching—kind of spooky, actually. Much stranger than a usual autopsy, or even when you’re experimenting on a live specimen ... which kind of makes sense, I guess.”
Ku'Hania gives Ankha a dubious look but otherwise remains silent, contemplating the darker turn their investigation has taken.
This long, rectangular building appears to be a home, though larger than many beyond the palisade to the south. It has three windows, all covered with wooden shutters, and a single door facing northwest, which is unbarred and slightly ajar.
Pushing open the door reveals Simple wooden furniture is in disarray throughout this residence. Tables and chairs are knocked over and pushed aside, though none appear willfully broken. Articles of clothing and household items are scattered across the floor as if they were examined briefly and discarded. A large pallet bed is visible in a separate room through an open interior door. A third room with no windows is next to the bedroom but is completely empty.
Although the home has been ransacked, there is no evidence of foul play or personal violence. A casual search reveals any number of common domestic items, such as boots, spare cloaks hung on pegs, cookware, and plates and mugs—sundries that one might find in any dwelling.
Ankha pushes open the door with the head of her fauchard and enters the house. “Hmm … looks like someone was searching for something. I wonder if they found it? Or … if they missed it, maybe we can find it instead. Perhaps it’ll be a clue of some sort?” Unsure what to look for, she tries to help the other older and wiser members of the party perform a systematic search of the home.
"Odd. If this was the house of the expedition's leader, who would have been searching it since it seems he was the betrayer?" Ku Hania asks, beginning the process of searching meticulously around the ransacked home.
Ku’Hania’s sharp eyes are enough to uncover a handful of interesting things in this house, starting with a gold wedding band left on a windowsill in the main room. An engraving on it has the words “my dearest Livvy”.
In the second room, the group finds a few large circles on the floor where no dust has accumulated. The circles are about the size of an average wooden barrel, if set upright on one end. No barrels can be found inside the house, although there is a clear path to the door.
Finally, there’s a small metal chest shoved up against the wall under the bed, obviously an attempt at hiding it. It does appear to be locked.
“This place is certainly big enough to be the leader's house, but I think Arkley's house was the one with the sign out front,” Ankha corrects the half-elf. “You know, the place where we found the spellbook hidden under a mattress and the charter up in the rafters. Now that we know that Arkley's a traitor and a murderer, it makes you wonder what he was doing with the charter and Hendrake's spellbook. Did he steal them and then hide them for some reason?” She peers around the spacious interior. “And I wonder who was so important to live in this big old place? You don't think it was Silas, do you?”
She muses when the barrel-shaped circles are found. “Hmm ... the only barrels I remember are the ones in the storage shed, where the cockroaches were. I wonder what this could mean?”
Fortunately, the discovery of the chest presents a much more tangible mystery. “Aha! I wonder if this is what they were searching for ... whoever 'they' are. Let's take a peek inside, shall we?” She rummages through some drawers for some makeshift lockpicks and sets to work opening the chest.
The small chest contains five bags, each of which holds 5 pounds of powdered silver (worth 25 gp each), four blocks of incense (worth 25 gp each), and a pouch with 100 gp worth of diamond dust.
A quick think over your religious knowledge reveals these are the expensive material components neccessary to cast bless water, augury, and restoration, respectively. Perhaps a clue as to who occupied this house?
Ankha grins as she reveals the contents of the chest. “Not bad at all, though silver bars and diamond gems would be even better. That incense though … didn’t they use that in the chapel? I wonder if the priest lived here? Do you think Silas Weatherbee was the priest, and he was killed so that Arkley could search his house?”
While pondering this thought, she peers at the gold ring that Ku’Hania had found. “Livvy … hmm … you don’t think that’s a nickname for Eliza Haniver, do you? Was she married to Silas?” The alchemist resumes searching the house, looking for any paperwork that might name Silas or Eliza or, frankly, any of the colonists, to give an idea of their roles and relationships.
"I'm beginning to think we're not gonna find any answers here. I don't buy that they were taken by madness, even if they left everything valuable behind. They just... walked away. After murdering the priest. It's almost like a siren swam up to the beach and lured them away to the depths."
"Or Silas was killed because he could discover whatever turned or controlled Arkley, perhaps out of fear of divine magic." Ku'Hania surmises.
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The reduction in chattiness had continued during the investigation of the final ransacked house, with the exception of briefly correcting Ku'Hania about the possibly ownership of the house. He fishes out his crowbar as it looks like Ankha might need it before she ends up popping the chest open. All the while, he is looking around the house as the others discuss their theories, remembering the trials and travails of domesticity with a mixture of fond an bittersweet reminiscence. The other three were young. Almost certainly too young to have been married. No doubt that they had experienced loss, but...
"We should check the charter for any other names that are Livvy or could be abbreviated as such," he recommends after Anka brings up her theory. "It could be Eliza Haniver, but I'd suspect Lizzy sooner than Livvy there." Just based on the unusual human customs, such as they were.
It's also possible that Silas had come here without Livvy. Livvy might have died, and that could have driven Silas to seek out a new life far away from his memories of her. Dolgrin would understand that.
He also offers a gentle correction...no, it's just information. No reason for her to know these things as an alchemist. "These are spell components, Ms. Brushbender, typically used in divine practices. Powdered silver is typically used in the creation of holy water, but can also be used in more powerful rituals against fiends and undead, which can be performed by both arcane and divine practitioners." He shifts his attention next to the incense as his mind shifts blessedly away from morose reminiscence to helpful academic knowledge. "Incense is also frequently used in divinations such as augury. But there are many other magical uses." Then the diamond dust. He chuckles. "Take it from a dwarf, as well: beautiful as diamonds are, most people prefer cut gems to raw. There is extensive cast-off from even the best lapidarist, and such dust is used in all manner of healing and other useful spells. Why, for my gold, I would rather have diamond dust than diamonds. You might even find some use for some abjurative spells that I hear alchemists have learned to mimic with their chemicals. It's even possible to make certain spells permanent with large enough quantities of the stuff."
His chattiness having returned, Dolgrin smiles. "All that to say that this house could have very well been Silas's. Una Hendrake is another possibility, since most of these components could be used in arcane spells as well. Either way, whoever ransacked the house may have been looking for these items. Whether to destroy them or to use them, I do not know."
The magical supplies don't mean much to Braxton, but they will undoubtedly be useful. He suspects Dolgrin is right, and their 'Livvy' is not on the charter. "Onward."
"Looks like we found everything there is to find here." Ku'Hania adds in agreement.
“Ooh, I never realized diamond dust could be so useful. I wonder if they might help in some of my extracts? I’ll have to do some research into that. In the meantime, best if we bring all these components along, in case they prove useful.” Ankha stuffs the chest’s contents into her pack, while still marveling at Dolgrin’s learnedness. “How ever did you come to know so much?”
But with nothing more to glean from the house, she nods and follows Braxton out to their next destination.
Dolgrin smiles gently. "I'm nearly a hundred years older than you are," he declades. "If I hadn't come to know so much, I'd be disappointed in myself."
Ankha sighs in response, a longing sigh for her deepest desire.
“How is it that some races live for so long … like dwarves and elves … and others have the lifespans of flies by comparison? There’s very little difference anatomically, as far as I’ve been able to tell, though I’ve had only a very small sample of bodies to compare. Do you have any ideas why this might be? Is there anything in the dwarven literature on this subject?”
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Dolgrin tries to ignore Ankha's increasingly unsettling moments of discussing bodies as samples so cavalierly. Most physickers had to dissect corpses as part of their training to become well-versed in anatomy. Then again, most of them that he had met did not discuss such training so openly.
"Now there's a question for the ages, Ms. Brushbender. Evolution. Metabolism. Diet. Lifestyle. There are many theories. But I'll admit it's never been a topic of great interest to me. Dwarves and elves don't usually go for things like the Sun Orchid Elixir nearly as often as humans do. And truth be told, Ms. Brushbender, just because we can live for centuries doesn't mean that we do. We dwarves are a hardy, stubborn folk, and that leads us often to dangerous work. If there's little risk of death in a venture, many a dwarf will scoff at the notion."
On the way out of the large home, before you can head to the next destination in the search for what happened here, the group notices a set of tracks right outside the building. It appears to be about a week old, and contains two distinct trails: one trail is 3-1/2 feet wide, heavy and flat, and corresponds to no natural creature while the other is a set of odd, starfish-shaped footprints running down the center of the flattened trail.
You can surmise that something large and heavy was likely rolled away from the house, and that the footprints belong to whoever or whatever was pushing the object.
The two trails head northeast for a short time before heading through the gate, but you can't see where it goes after that from where you are.
Braxton kneels to examine the footprints, not that he has any expertise in such things. "Star-shaped footprints?" He stands and rubs his chin thoughtfully and grumbles. "I've head tales of creatures with star-shaped footprints but I..." The sailor shudders. "I would prefer not to think of such things." He shudders again and fans his hands, as if ridding them of invisible goo. "It may be in our best interest to follow this trail now. A storm could kick up at any moment and blow this trail away."
"If they're about a week old, we can probably finish clearing the settlement so the others can safely come ashore, before following it. I would rather not leave something dangerous at my back, and if we are gone too long, they may send others to shore before it is safe." Ku'Hania counters.
"Fair enough." Braxton is ready to move on once the more learned members of the party have examined the spooky tracks. "But if it's Elder Things I'm going back to Riddleport."
Though she doesn’t expect any miraculous revelation from Dolgrin, Ankha can’t help but look a little disappointed at the apparent vacuum in dwarven knowledge on the subject. But as usual, this is nothing more than a temporary dampening of her cheerful optimism. Like an academic being asked about her expertise, she brightens and responds eagerly. “I don’t know much about evolution—other than it being terribly slow, and in dire need of a helping hand to speed it up—but I have spent a lot of time studying the effects of diet and metabolism. You see, all creatures behave a little bit like fire—literally so, if you believe in the four-element earth-water-air-fire paradigm of the universe. We need to eat and breathe, just like fire needs fuel and air, but the very act of eating and breathing wears down the body, like the fuel for the fire, or like a machine being used over and over again. So a simple trick to prolong your life is to eat and breathe less! Don’t misunderstand me—you’ll die if you don’t eat or breathe at all—it’s all about quality over quantity. I can try to show you if you’d like?”
Indeed, now that she mentions it, the alchemist seems to breathe only a few times per minute; certainly her speech bubbles out in a breathless manner.
“I’ve heard of the Sun Orchid Elixir of course, but that’s not really a practical solution for ordinary folk like us. Of course I’d love to conduct experiments on a sun orchid if I was ever lucky enough to get my hands on one, but I’m sure there must be a more accessible answer, something that lies within us that just needs a little nudge. Something to bridge the gap between human and elf.” She looks thoughtfully at the half-elf, but the appearance of tracks interrupts her train of thought.
“I guess we now know where those missing barrels went,” she kneels down to feel the flattened trail, “and what the ransackers were looking for.” She thinks for a moment on the starfish-shaped footprints, then shrugs.
“I agree with Ku’Hania. This trail has remained for about a week; it’ll keep for a few hours more. Let’s continue our systematic investigation of the colony first.”
Seven canvas pavilion tents were set up here, all of which are large enough to shelter two to three people each. All but two tents have collapsed due to wind, rain, and lack of maintenance. The two that remain standing lean haphazardly and do not appear to have been entered for a long time. Grass has begun to grow around them.
Nothing seems to be moving here, besides the grass blowing in the gentle wind of the afternoon. With a quick search through of the tents, it appears as if six of them were temporary shelters for families as the construction of their houses took place. The seventh appears as if it was reserved for the work crew building the incomplete palisade, as it has a handful of tools scattered around. Oddly enough, many of the tents still have common mundane personal items in their folds, such as clothing, mementos, cooking pots, and waterskins. Some of these items are ruined, but much of the mundane gear can be cleaned or repaired.
Of more immediate interest, however, scattered throughout the seven tents are four potions and a particularly well-made shirt of light, gossamer-thin fabric embroidered with arrangements of winged feet.
Taking in the tracks, Dolgrin whistles. "Well, they're distinctive and no one was trying to cover their tracks. They likely didn't anticipate anyone else coming along."
He concurs with Ku'Hania and Ankha's judgment to leave the tracks until they've looked around the rest of the abandoned colony. Ankha's theories are interesting, and Dolgrin peppers her with clarifying questions and comments from his own broad reading while they examine the footprints...
Footprints, however, are not in Dolgrin's expansive wheelhouse, even with how unique they are. He was not much for tracking. Leave that to the woodsmen and such.
But potions? He knew exactly who could identify those. He hands them to Ankha while examining the shirt, humming his magic detection spell to his eyes.
Although their search reveals no more clues about the missing colonists, they do find a number of useful items, including a small vial of ink pocketed by Ankha.
She sets up her portable alchemist’s lab and accepts the proffered potions from Dolgrin, taking each in turn as she carefully examines them with an expert eye.
Braxton sips one of the potions. "I am something of a connoisseur... Hmm... Has sort of an oaky afterbirth."