Calliope quickly ascended the rope ladder. She had not been in the rigging nearly as much as Markus but she had made a point of climbing and descending to terrorise John with cryptic statements and sudden appearances. Some obscure instinct was irritated that she couldn’t simply fly though she dismissed the bizarre notion as the exhaustion that followed her spell. Any weather magic, even something as simple as slightly calming the waves was no trivial undertaking. As she emerged from the trapdoor the first raindrops of the storm began to fall to the flagstones. They were in a large circular courtyard perhaps a hundred feet across. Several dilapidated shacks stood in various stages of repair, in place of one or two of them were charged piles of blackened timbers, though the fires that consumed them hadn’t been recent. A circular stone wall enclosed the courtyard on three sides, the forth being made by another section of cliff. A small stone gatehouse allowed the area to be closed off though it was obvious that in case of real trouble the people living here would withdraw to the keep proper. The main keep lowered overhead, accessible by a steep cobblestone path that wound its way up the rocky outcropping. Like many structures of its day it had been built with the aid of elven mages, often times mages that had been enslaved or traded to humans for just such work. Hewing the keep out of the rock would have been a gargantuan undertaking for unaided human hands. In the other direction, the stairway extended down towards the main harbor where, according to the charts, a combination of headland and an ancient mole allowed two or three ships to dock in relative safety. Supplies then had to be hauled up to the keep via the stairs. It wasn’t an efficient way of doing business, but it certainly made for a secure one. It was probably possible to hoist supplies up via derricks that overhung the walls, though at the moment none of these were visible. The cobble stones were slick with algae, a testament to the weather and the lack of recent foot traffic. Sron wrinkled his nose. “I don’t smell the stink of other humans,” the Gnoll ground, his trade tongue sounding to Calliope like two strong men ripping canvas. She closed her eyes for a moment and opened them again, the shimmer of mage sight overlaying her normal vision. There were no illusions, wards or other spells worked here, it was just as it seemed, an abandoned village. “There are no ships in harbor,” Grimey reported, having scuttled over to the edge of the wall to look down at the bay. “I didn’t see a single soul,” she confessed, looking a little uneasy. Calliope pressed her lips together and squinted up into the rain. Though she could see the lofty parapet her magesight granted her no insight. There were no torches or watchmen visible. "You suppose they just packed up and left?" the Gnome asked, though she couldn't really have believe that was the case. “Well… I suppose we should go up and take a look…” she took several steps towards the stone cut steps and then paused. There was a trail leading up towards the keep. A trail of dark crimson blood, as though a badly bleeding man had been hauled up the stairs some time ago. Already water from the strengthening rain was beginning to wash the trail away, cascading slightly pinkish water down the stairs towards the harbor. “That is more blood than one person has in them,” Calliope stated uneasily. “We are just going to ignore exactly how you know that,” Grimey put in from her waist. “Well Captain, if we want guns we have to follow the blood trail to the keep…”