Simon being more of a sleuth than a historian will look through the bodies. 

Investigation: 24

Some of the dead look like they were tortured for at least several hours before their ultimate demise, which is disturbing enough, but something else catches you completely by surprise: several of the injuries appear to have been self-inflicted!

Snooping around a bit more, you find a room that contains several notebooks. Opening one of them gives you some rather unnerving new insights into what this place was... the expedition was searching for the resting place of Lord Tenibris, a warlord of legendary cruelty and power. Having found the notebooks, feel free to read my earlier spoiler for all the major information you gleaned...

Simon will communicate all of this in everyone's mind. "We need to be careful and not open anything unless we have a plan to counteract this self-induced madness. Have any of you seen this before?" 

Toa must certainly has not seen such things before.  Self-inflicted wounds?  His rune-engraved face contorts in disgust and incomprehension.

Ancient warlords he has heard of, even admired in some cases, but not like this... he and his echo remain quiet, maul still in hand, waiting.

Eppie, finally having gotten her Vox IV up on the wall, lags behind everyone else as she moves her grappling hook and rigging over to the wall side of the courtyard. Rather than lowering Vox IV over the side, she unceremoniously shoves it off the edge into the courtyard, where it sails down with its steel claws splayed before landing with a soft thump in a drift of snow. She then grips the rope still secured to the grappling hook and slides down into the courtyard, her boots landing with a thump in the snow. Pyx leaps off from where it was wrapped around her shoulders and scampers around through the drifts.

"Thanks for clearing this place out," the goblin says, looking around behind her goggles as she dusts snow off of her gloves. "That was a nasty critter. Good job scaring it off." She walks around, patting Toa, Adams, and Simon on the back. She gives a very calculating and curious stare to Pinion, but doesn't touch the construct. "Well, let's get started, shall we? What did you find, Simon?"

Listening to Simon's account of Lord Tenebris and his agents, and thumbing through some of the notebooks herself, Eppie frowns and mutters to herself. "So it is haunted," she finally says. "Well, don't you all worry." She licks one gloved thumb and flips a few more pages in one of the notebooks. "Look what it says right here. Magic has to have weak points. Same as if someone points a gun at you. A bullet might kill you in a hundred different places, but if you've got the right armor on to stop it, or you get out of the way, the bullet won't do any damage. Now, the big problem here is that magical technology and defenses are a completely lost art over the past several hundred years. So we might be completely unprepared." She tosses the notebook to the side, seemingly much too unconcerned about this. "I say we don't chase that beast underground. Let's set up a fortification, and a watch, right here, in the courtyard. Vox IV doesn't have a mind that could be driven mad or controlled, so I'll program it to follow a command string if I become incapacitated. I might be able to rig up some other contraptions, too, but it'll take me a few hours."

Arcana: 11
Does Eppie actually know anything about how magic works? You decide...

Quote from ConstancePhokas >>

Arcana: 11
Does Eppie actually know anything about how magic works? You decide...

As an Artificer, Eppie would know a little bit more about magic than most people, but with an 11 I don't think she can recall anything that would be particularly helpful in the given situation.

So, it sounds like the team has decided to let the Hunter get away for now (and now that you know what you're actually up against, perhaps thank your lucky stars that the first thing you encountered was the Hunter rather than one of the fanatics better equipped for open battle). What do you do next? Set up camp? Or perhaps explore the ruins a bit more?

Toa (of course) is ready to charge ahead into the ruined castle, and perhaps whatever lies below.  The eager anticipation seems to flow off him and his echo both, like waves of heat from the surface of conductive metal left in the sun.

Nevertheless, he knows enough of battle to recognize the importance of preparation and fortification.  He assists Eppie and any others as best he can.

Go ahead and please describe the fortifications that you set up.

Also, when you're ready to continue, here's a map of the ground-level of the caste. You are currently in the green courtyard area:

Eppie looks around, muttering to herself, gritting her teeth every once in a while. After a few minutes, she starts going around the edge of the courtyard, Vox IV trailing after her. She tries every door, window, or gate that leads into the courtyard. If they're locked or she's unable to open them, she gets out her carpenter's tools and starts to nail and hammer them all shut, or wedge them shut through the hinges if they're metal. She also looks for heavy items around the courtyard to blockade them with, pulling Toa with her to carry and drag heavy items, since he's clearly rippling with muscle, and she is only a scrawny, begoggled goblin. The feathered lizard-bird, Pyx, tries to help too, but mostly ends up just getting in the way and getting tripped over by Toa.

If she's able to open them, she looks to see what's behind them, trying to stay unobtrusive as she looks. (Stealth: 16). If she sees a single room not leading anywhere, she leaves them open or otherwise unbarred or fastened shut. If she sees a hallway or a larger space where enemies could be hiding, she fastens, bars, and blockades those doors too.

Based off the map, it looks like there are about seven rooms nearby (including the one you already searched), though almost all of them have additional doorways that would lead to other parts of the castle (and thus could be vulnerable to attack). Meanwhile, there is a single long hallway to the north of where you currently are which has several doors leading into it from the courtyard.

Adams and Ben (his Bear) walk around the outside of the castle looking for any ways he would find to enter or exploit. Finding any he would let the team know about them and propose any suggestions. He looks for stream running into or out of the castle. animal burrows near by the walls. He looks for any nearby trees that could serve as a jumping off point. Any hidden tunnels. He also asks some of the older residents if they know of any access tunnels leading out of the castle that need to be fortified.

Perception 23

Investigation: 18

Any 'older residents' have been dead for several thousand years.

The icy mountainside is mostly barren. It's as if all life, even the trees themselves, fear and loathe this cursed fortress. The outside of the fortress is almost entirely solid walls, excepting the three gates mentioned earlier and some arrow slits higher up the wall.

On the bright side, you don't find any traps on the outside of the castle, magical or otherwise.

While Eppie nails and blockades the doors shut, the feathered lizard bird Pyx snuffles around the entrances to the long hallway--sort of like a cloister?--that runs the length of the north side of the courtyard.

As the goblin finishes blockading the last door (or rather, overseeing Toa blockade the last door), she stands up straight, wiping her forehead and pushing her goggles up onto her hood for a moment to squint at Pyx. Her red-rimmed, bleary eyes indicate someone who spends far too much time staring at tiny details at close range in poor lighting. She looks back and forth along that north cloister, clicking her tongue. "It'll be too hard to board that one up," she says, and, replacing her goggles over her eyes, she walks over to stick her head into the hallway and look to each side to see what she can see. Sneakily, of course.

Eppie Stealth: 20
Pyx Stealth: 10

As Toa ambles along behind Eppie doing the heavy lifting for her, before barricading each door or gate, he takes the time to search for signs or scents of recent passage through any of the entrances.  Whether passage by a creature similar to whatever The Hunter was, or any other such possible adversary.  A snowbound mountaintop castle may be utterly foreign to him, but tracks, scents, traces and spoor are what they are, Toa knows well.

Toa's Survival:  22

In doing so, he surprises even himself in how quiet he manages to be, following the others' lead.  He grins.  Perhaps this is a sign from my honored ancestors that I must gain wisdom on how easy it was to stalk silently through such halls of cold stone without foliage to crunch underfoot...

Toa's Stealth:  26 (Nat. 20)

Even the heavy bars and barricades go into place without a sound or shake.

Eppie and Toa (somehow) manage to board up the various entrances to the courtyard in near-total silence.

Toa, being the expert survivalist he is, is able to quickly pick out a fair number of details... he can tell where bodies were dragged (some of them still living) into and out of the courtyard. And he can tell from the tracks that there were far more creatures in the slaughter than the ancient warlord and his five servants... after having seen the Hunter, it's easy enough to pick out his lion-paw tracks in the dried blood, and you also see several deep prints that look like they were made by individuals in heavy armor (possibly even the Dark Lord himself). But something else you notice... animal tracks. They look like wolf tracks, though they seem too large for ordinary wolves and yet not big enough for dire wolves. There are enough bloody paw prints to suggest that several of these beasts were part of the slaughter. It looks like what happened here took place a few days ago... if you are lucky, perhaps the dark forces responsible for the carnage have already moved on, though the Hunter's presence (and the fact that he seemingly believed the Brute to be nearby as well) makes this seem rather unlikely.

I'll go ahead and say that the party does have a radio that can be used to communicate with superiors regarding the findings. There is a great deal of interference, but you should be able to get the gist across and receive some additional orders.

Toa is almost certainly NOT the one with the radio, but he does speak in a low rumble once well away from the passageways, back with the group:

"I see on the snow and soil resting on the stone here the tracks of the lion-shaped hunter who sent arrows our way from hiding.  And others deep sunk, made by people even heavier than me, or maybe by those who wear heavy metal upon their bodies for protection."  Toa shakes his head at this folly (wearing heavy armor), knowing in his heart that the best protection is always the guardian spirits of one's ancestors.

Toa glances inadvertently down at the snuffling Pyx, then looks a little sheepish when his belly rumbles loudly in hunger.  Recovering himself, he adds:

"I also see tracks of many animals.  Meat-eating beasts, not normal prey.  A pack - like wolves, only the tracks are bigger than wolf tracks.  All from maybe two or three days ago?  None of them might be close any more.  Except for the Hunter-lion who we saw, and maybe the Brute he talked about."

(If he is being honest with himself, Toa kind of likes this Brute guy's style already!  Or at least what he assumes his style is, based on the name and implied ferocity.  Maybe if he could just talk to him.  Explain that not everything is for killing and eating and it's ok to be nice to people...)

(Someone please give me a general summary of the report you send back to your superiors so I can relay their new orders to you)

Eppie, shaking her head soberly, retrieves the radio that she had stuffed in Vox IV's pack, fiddles with it for a few minutes, and then clears her throat. "Come in, Command, this is EP EE TAX IS. Command, we have a Code Red, come in..."

Once she gets through to someone, Eppie drawls out what they've found, describing the Hunter, the tortured and dragged bodies, the pawprints, the documents they found about Tenebris and his agents, and their activities so far. "The only living creature we've seen yet is this Hunter, we flushed him out and he disappeared into a lower level. We did not pursue, we're fortifying the courtyard. Command, I think this place is haunted. What would you like us to do?"

"Copy," responds a worried female voice that you recognize as Zana, your contact. "Do a quick search of the building for any survivors, then get out of there. I will request an air strike as soon as I have the word that you are out."

The transmission is choppy and distorted by static, but still understandable.

Adams says "Let's get to searching then."

He turns to his bear companion and says "Ben, Seek out the survivors."

Perception: NAT 20 (26)