Sphletza

The area around Sphletza had been occupied long before its official naming. Earliest records of a settlement there dated back to the First Era, when it was owned by the Kunhuta Family, the regional rulers of the area. The area would be continually settled and abandoned, and resettled, and so on. This was due to the soil of the area being prone to nutrient loss resulting in low agricultural yields.   Sphletza received its most well known name in 7891, when a new group of farmers from nearby settlements moved to the area. The village was named for Sphletza Dreimen, the wife of its founder.   For forty-five years, the settlers prospered in their new home. They constructed several homesteads, shrines to the local deities, and even a small keep. Blue barley was grown on the location, as were stripegrass and ralvado apples. During the final years of Sphletza's existence, under the leadership of Helga Dreimen, the village's population had grown from its original fifty settlers to almost three hundred, and a local bathhouse and marketplace were being constructed.   An anomaly occurred in 7936 that virtually ended the village's existence. Tax collectors sent by the local rulers, the Menhard Family, arrived to the village to find it completely abandoned. There were no signs that anyone had tried to flee from the area, as each person's possessions remained in their homes in order. In addition, there was no evidence to suggest any sort of struggle had taken place in the vicinity. Apart from some of the houses being slightly overgrown, nothing besides the lack of inhabitants seemed amiss about the village.   The Menhard family launched an extensive search party and investigation upon Sphletza. While the search party largely failed, the investigation was able to propose several hypotheses regarding the villagers. One prominent theory was that something-- perhaps the magic of some sorcerer or a mythical beast-- had appeared in the village, and the villagers hastily made their way out, perhaps in the dark. If each of them was too frightened to return, it could explain why the village was abandoned so strangely. This theory seemed to be supported by a number of human remains found around two thousand meters northeast of the settlement; however, these remains were later found to be over a hundred years old, decreasing the popularity of this theory.   The investigation of Sphletza stalled for a couple years, and there were some talks of trying to resettle the area. In 7938, however, the entrance to a large cave system was found in a concealed spot in the woods outside of the village ruins. Investigators theorized that this cave had to be the location of the lost settlers, and quickly organized a spelunking expedition funded by the Menhard family. However, only two months after the beginning of this venture, the expedition was permanently cancelled by the Menhard family, and the investigation and any resettling efforts were suddenly called off entirely. The Menhards cited "logistic impossibilities as a reason for this cancellation."   Though several reports of the short-lived expedition were reportedly produced, only the first one was ever released to the public. This report detailed anomalies within the cave system, such as "rock formations that are not consistent with known geological patterns" and "strange noises... not explained by the usual sound dynamics of cave systems". The most famous passage of the report was a brief paragraph detailing "inhuman singing" heard at specific locations in the cave.   Later visitors to Sphletza were infrequent, but not entirely uncommon. Though the nearby caves were barred off by the local government, people entering the town itself sometimes reported hearing ghostly whispers and voices coming from the trees.