Ruins of Azlant Gameplay I

”And is everyone who was impersonated identified at this point?” Kaimana asks.

"That's right," Ramona says with a nod. "You're welcome to take a look at my list of who's here, and who's missing." Ramona adds, withdrawing a journal, turning it to the right page, and offering it to anyone who wants to read it.

”Aisha, you wanna look?” Kaimana suggests. ”I think you’ll connect faster who we should talk to.”

Aisha scans through the list quickly, pulling noteworthy relationships and names from it. ”It could also be worth checking in with our local allies. The locathah and the strix could have seen something suspicious, and if not, putting them on alert couldn’t hurt.”

Once Aisha is done looking at the list, Jax grabs it, looking for names he recognized. "Knew something was wrong with Soren..." he mutters to himself. "I'll start looking at the houses of people who lived alone. The stalkers may have been more careless and left clues there."

"Searching all the houses might take too much time," Ramona notes. "I would start with the pretender Carver's body, and his belongings, and see if that turns up any leads."

Jax pauses, then nods. "Makes sense. We can save the houses for if there's no other clues."

Aisha and Kaimana head to gather some information about people who may have been close to one of the stalkers, eventually turning up the name of Colson Werton, who had been engaged in a budding romance with Sandra Ganis. They find him helping repair a damaged building, and Aisha calls out to him. ”Hey, Colson, can we have a minute?”

"Sure thing," Colson says, setting down a board, before turning to face the pair. "What can I help you with?"

”We’re tracking down the people who were abducted,” Aisha explains. ”We’d heard you were close with Sandra, and we were hoping that you could give us some useful clues. Did you notice any particular change in her in the last few weeks?”

“She was always such a sweet lady, but a few days ago she suddenly started asking me about meeting her alone in the strangest of places after sundown. I didn’t understand what was going on, and I had a lot of work to do, so I just said no each time. I didn’t want her to be cross with me, so I didn’t ask too many questions. I’m sorry. I should have known something was wrong,” Colson replies apologetically.

Aisha shakes her head. ”It’s not your fault at all, you had no way to know. It’s probably good you never accepted, or you’d likely have been taken as well. Where was she asking to meet you? That could give us some clue of where to look.”

"It was a different place around the colony each time... now that I think about it, they were all pretty isolated, not likely that anyone would be passing by any of them," Colson comments.

”I see. We’ll have to see if there’s any tracks or signs of abductions in those places then,” Aisha hums. ”You didn’t notice her going anywhere unusual herself often or anything, did you?”

"Let me think, let me think," Colson mumbles a few times, before looking up "The scent! I remember she smelled different two nights ago—like sea lavender.”

”That could be crucial, thank you, Colson. We’ll try to find the real Sandra and everyone else and bring them home,” Aisha promises.

"Thank you," Colson says earnestly. "I'll help make sure the colony is all fixed up for if you find them, and bring them back."

With the meeting with Ramona finished, Jax and Amissa leave to where the false Carver's body was. Once there, they started pouring over every detail of the corpse, its clothes, and the equipment it had on it.

The body has many small pockmarks from burns and blisters, indicating it had lived in a place that was either hot enough or radioactive enough to cause frequent burns. The body's flesh and cartilage also affords increased protection against blunt trauma, indicating an effective, if barbaric, way to identify a faceless stalker.
Another clue to the faceless stalker's location came from the corpse's boots, where several purple flower petals were stuck to the soles. Jax identified them as a species of flower that grew in patches along the beach.

Much of the equipment the creature wore came from the colonists it had helped replace. The breastplate, crossbow, backpack, waterskin, and belt pouch it wore all likely belonged to Carver, and the spyglass appeared to come from a high-ranking colonist from the Liberty's Herald, indicating a similar attack had targeted the first colonists. More interestingly, the creature had a small mirror on its person with markings that indicated it belonged to Saymor Landis, who was still in the colony. The pair also found several potions and magic dust in strange containers, which Amissa identified as oil of darkness, potions of cure moderate wounds, bottles of messages, and some dust of tracelessness.

After finishing pouring over the body, Jax stands. "It sounds like we've gotten what we can from him. I want to take the mirror back to Saymor, and the sword to someone more experienced with them to get more information on that."

Kaimana arrives just in time for Jax's and Amissa's conclusions, nodding. "Probably Luetin, right?" he comments about the sword while looking over the mirror with curiosity. "Colton told us that Sandra's imposter came back smelling like sea lavender one time, so I'm guessing that's what the petals you found were and what we need to track down on the beach later."

"We'll need more information before we can start looking, though. While it helps, the flowers grow in several different beaches across the island," Jax replies. "Let's see if we can meet with Luetin and Saymor; even if we don't get much more information, we should at least return the mirror."

The group finds Saymor Landis and shows him the mirror. When he sees it, he exclaims “Oh, that is mine! I thought I had dropped it somewhere and had already written it off as lost. I used to be a sailor, and mirrors like that one are handy at sea where you can see the signal flashes several miles away on a sunny day. You can keep it if you want it, I don’t have much use for it anymore here in the colony.”

Jax nods along to Saymor's explanation, "Then, was the faceless using that to signal the others?" he asks, mostly to himself. He then focuses back on Saymor, "Do you know of any areas near a beach that would be good for using this to signal someone?"

"No specific places, I'd imagine any place with a clear, straight view over the sea would do," Saymor explains.

"Good to know. We'll have to keep an eye out for those." Jax replies.

With that done, the party seeks out Luetin to ask him if he can discern anything more from Carver's sword. After looking over it, he shakes his head. "Can't tell you much more than that it's a well-made longsword. Don't see anything unusual about it."

The party then heads to Lyra to ask her opinion, but she has no information beyond what Luetin said.