RP:Groundbreaking Evidence

Part of the Larketian Fault Lines Arc

Summary: Master Percival of Larket's Academy accompanies Mage's Guild terramancer Odhranos into the depths of the earth on a mission to uncover evidence that will prove conclusively whether the devastating Larketian earthquake was a malevolent arcane attack, or just a freak act of nature's wrath.

Percival NPC played by Macon

The Fog Forest, Eyrie Outpost Construction Site

Odhranos strode around the site slowly, inspecting the site with a pleasant and gentle smile upon his face. He greeted each of the workers by name as he came across them, giving them words of encouragement and even a helping hand if they seemed to be struggling. As hard working as the witches were, they were all beginning to show signs of fatigue and malnourisment, so the mage carried with him a large basket of sliced meat and bread which he passed out in plenty to anyone he came across, in the hopes of raising drooping spirits. It was a futile effort no doubt, but one that seemed appreciated amongst the witch population working on the site. He might not be able to help fix their situation, but gods be damned, he'd make it as livable as he realistically could. Upon finishing his round, the mage seated himself upon a pile of stonework, crossing his legs and chewing on a crust that had been left at the bottom of the basket, as he waited for the Crown's representative, Headmaster Percival, to arrive.

Percival arrives on foot to the construction site. The prodigious headmaster is heralded by an unnaturally cool breeze, likely welcome on such a hot day, making ‘Larket’s Howling Gale’, as he has been called, more of a walking air conditioner. Odhranos may not know the gifted wind mage by that nickname, as those in the guild tend to not use it in hopes that he one day becomes ‘Xalious’s Howling Gale’, but he perhaps has heard talk of the meteoric rise of this young half elf who, rumor has it, is able to -see- the ethereal threads that make up the arcane arts. The fair-haired, blue-eyed young man has left his extravagant headmaster’s robes back at the academy and instead sports some understated, light-looking, grey, wind mage robes that he wears a bit open at the top. He is known well enough among those here, though it would seem that none of his students at the academy have had to resort to joining the work camp. There are some rumors that he allowed special admission to the school of magic to a few people during the last few months that might have otherwise been fated to live as many witches have in today’s Larket. It only takes him a few passing questions to be directed towards where Odhranos sits. He opens with a wave whether the man notices him or not, and calls out, “I take it you are the stone mage I am looking for.” Introductions will follow as soon as Odhranos admits to being the rock guy, and lead into Percival asking, “So. Where are we going to start?”

Odhranos was wearing his standard fare of grey robes, hood thrown back against his shoulders and long wide-ended sleeves bunched up to the elbows. Upon hearing Percival's call, he turned and stepped down off of the pile of stone slabs, standing before the headmaster and bowing respectfully. "Odhranos, Eyrie Representative and Terramancer of the Mage's Guild of Xalious." He stated formally before dropping the rigid posture, and offering a hand to shake along with a friendly smile. "I take it you are Headmaster Percival then. Your name is whispered often, if a little enviously around the halls of The Mage's Tower. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. If you'll follow me, sir." The mage beckoned the headmaster to follow. As they travelled through the outer portions of the site, eyes followed the pair as they strode past; two mages, seemingly cut from the same cloth, grey-garbed and tall of stature, one a dark grey, eyes of slate and dark hair, the other a lighter grey, eyes of azure and fair hair, like two sides of a coin.

Percival puts on a polite smile as he is told of his name being on the lips of those at the Mage’s Tower, something he is very aware of, whether he’d like to be or not. “Indeed.” While he is silently not in favor of many of the things being forced upon Larketian witches, the headmaster is no great fan of Frostmaw and by extension the Eyrie that is so closely associated with the City of War. He lost many a student in the Siege of Larket, as The Battle for the Bridge is more commonly known in The Hard City, and has not forgotten. This perhaps makes him the perfect neutral party to accompany Odhranos on his investigatory trip underground, even without the prodigy’s unique gift in understanding the hidden workings of magic. They walk and the wind mage brings the cool air with him, contributing to the amount of looks that the pair of magicians get from the workers. Along the way Percival makes idle chit chat, asking Odhranos if he knows a few terramancers that work at the tower now, listing names one by one, some of them former students of his at the academy in Larket, and others previous classmates of the headmaster, given that it has not been very long since he himself was a student at the Larketian Academy prior to his rise to prominence.

Odhranos replied in kind, nodding at some names and shaking his head to others as the pair strolled towards the center of the site. Once they cross over the boundary that marks the footprint of the future outpost, they are greeted by a section of cleared forest, which will someday be the ground floor of the Eyrie's latest construction. Emerging from the earth at regular intervals are colossal mass pile foundations, cut from Cenrilian granite, a stone not much used for it's aesthetic quality, but for it's structural strength. Striding across to the first foundation column, the mage patted the roughly grained surface of the ponderous monolith before beckoning the headmaster over. "Our pretext to retain confidentiality is that you have come to inspect the foundations for their integrity due to the recent earthquake. So if you'd like to feign interest in these, it might add a convincing touch of realism for any potential audiences observing us." The terramancer raised a conspiratorial eyebrow before carrying on to the next column. After about six, Odhranos strode into the centre of the large circular space, flanked on all sides by towering stone columns. Waving Percival across, once the headmaster had strode over, the mage reached down and brushed loose dirt away from his feet, revealing a large circular flagstone, on which the two men stood. "I'd recommended sitting down if you don't trust your sense of balance. I'm sure the Queen wouldn't appreciate if I brought her representative back with a concussion." The mage smiled jokingly, before waiting the headmaster's reply. Once Percival had elected either to remain standing or sitting, Odhranos straightened, and holding his hands out before him, palms facing downwards. Extending his terramantic power into the ground at their feet, the large flagstone rumbled and shook before beginning to descend into the earth.

Percival plays his part well, nodding thoughtfully with his hand up at his chin while Odhranos explains the ruse behind them ‘examining’ the columns. “Yes. Of course,” he complies and points at something just to sell the act further. They move about the foundation while the headmaster speaks, “You'll have to forgive me. Much of the Academy knows why I am meeting you here today. Leaving them for a day without an excuse isn't so easy.” That last bit isn't true, officials at the Academy go out of their way to accommodate for the once in a lifetime mage, they have gone so far to throw the headmaster position at his feet in order to keep him from moving onto the bigger and better things he seems destined for. He takes the advice of the terramancer and drops easily into a seated position, legs folded beneath him as he watches the stone mage work, or more accurately he watches Odhranos’s magic work. The half-elf smiles contently while staring at things ordinary people simply can't see, downloading the workings of the earth magic into his already encyclopedic knowledge of the arcane. He probably could have remained standing if he wished, without danger of taking a tumble during the descent, but why waste energy worrying about balance when there is magic on display to watch?

Odhranos nodded at Percival's explanation. "Well, I suppose had there been issue, it coukdn't be helped now. If the Academy is anything akin to the Mage's Guild, then information will be coveted and fastidiously kept guarded. Not a practice I'd normally condone, but in this instance, it works in our favour." The mage half frowned, half shrugged. "And in any case it's only due to the king's request for confidentiality that we need keep this airtight. Which, if he releases the information, will be then a pointless exercise." For a brief moment, Odhranos extended his magic outward, like small esotiric feelers, building up a mental image of the surrounding rock. "There's a cave system about twenty kilometers down, if we reach it, it should give us any evidence we need based on the state of it."

Percival nods slowly. While he is no great fan of the ways the Royals have reacted to the Larketian Witch Problem, he at least understands where the king is coming from asking for an initial grace period before whatever they find down here is released to the public. The headmaster has remained skeptical, given his experience with the lack of magical skill he deems Larketian witchcraft users to have, that they could have orchestrated and executed the devastating earthquake that put a damper on the royal wedding. His blue eyes widen at the distance Odhranos means for them to travel underground. The deeper they travel, the less sunlight makes it down with the duo atop their sinking platform. As the light dims, the wind mage shows that he is no one trick pony, and, while still seated, opens his hand and extends his left arm to the side, away from his body. His fingertips begin to glow faintly, as if there is a light source beneath the half-elf’s skin. The glow grows brighter and expands so that soon his whole hand is just as brilliant as the tips of his fingers. With a quick, snapping motion, he pulls his arm back down to his side, however the light remains in place, a hand shaped lantern of sorts, hovering off the descending ground and lighting up the growing hole Odhranos is digging. “Excellent,” Percival says to the idea that they should be able to figure out what they came down here to once they reach the caverns below. “Can I be of any assistance?” He would very much like to give the magic Odhranos is employing right now a try, but won’t dare outright ask that.

It was a pity Percival didn't voice his skepticism, as it was for the exact same reason that Odhranos was willing to travel to such lengths for this evidence. It was simply too messy to be done by human-hands (or non-human hands, as the case may be). Why cause an earthquake when you can poison the King and Queen at one of the innumerable parties they seemed to be hosting? Make the King's body weak and frail with some occult voodoo magic, then have him assassinated. Or, Sven forbid, just storm the castle and be done with it! An earthquake was just far too collateral in it's indiscriminatory damage, not to mention would be obscenely hard to carry out by arcane means. Odhranos watched with interest as Percival creates a light in the shape of his hand, the mage was instantly bursting with questions. Is that illusionary, is it photomancy or something even more obscure? Was it simply for dramatic effect that it retained the shape of the hand or did it have some purpose? Etc. Nonetheless, Odhranos' inner monologue was interrupted by the headmaster's query. "Hmm? Oh, well, how much of a grasp do you have of terramancy?" He inquired, now intrigued.

While Percival is extremely skeptical of the Larketian (or any) witches’ ability to cause the earthquake, his doubt stops there. He had, prior to the earthquake uncovered the fact that King Macon, or rather his armor, had been hexed to sap his strength, and he has also beared witness to multiple other attempts made on the Royals’ well being perpetrated by witches. He can see the fault on both sides, to say the least, and knows that there are very few innocents in this struggle between the crown, witches, and the growing resistance to the monarchy. So he will do his duty as the silently observing third party, and only that here. It is perhaps best that Odhranos doesn’t ask about the hand lantern thing, because the headmaster has a habit of getting lost down the rabbit hole of discussing cool magic for as long as he is allowed. The only thing he enjoys more than talking about it it performing it. The half-elf hesitates when the terramancer asks about his grasp on the art of earthen magic. He has a hard time describing his incredible ability to visualize magic without sounding like he is bragging because of how it makes picking up new techniques, even those outside of his preferred air magic focus, excessively easy to handle. So he forgoes talking about ‘seeing’ magic altogether and simply states, “I wouldn’t go so far as to say I have any mastery over it, as you clearly have, but I have been known to dabble.” This is an understatement from an archmage in waiting, to say the least.

Perhaps it was for the best, as in that regard, Odhranos and Percival were kindred spirits, Odhranos had been known to talk the hind legs off a donkey when brought onto the subject of magic, it's vagaries and it's applications. It must be a mage-ly thing, comes with the robes. The mage cracked a grin as he slowed the stone slab to a halt. "When Larket's arcane protege "dabbles", I have a feeling that it is of somewhat different caliber to the sort of dabbling I might be doing. Fire away, by all means." The mage smiled, always eager to witness another magic-practitioner demonstrate their art. Settling into a crosslegged position, the mage settled his chin upon his steepled fingers and watched, intrigued. "I should explain what sort of stuff we're looking for while we have the time." The mage piped up when they got moving once more. "When the earthquake occured, sheets of stratum in the earth will have been disturbed. Unfortunately no one had thought to take a record of previous stratum position, so we don't have anything to go on there. However! If my assumptions are correct, we may still find proof." Odhranos smiled eagerly, "You are aware that a large amount of the Vibrance river drains underground shortly after it passes the bridge south of Larket? That water meanders through tunnels underground, cutting through solid rock. However, if the earthquake disturbs or disrupts these tunnels, the water cuts a new route, leaving the old tunnel. If we can find evidence of this recent changes in channelling, we have some pretty solid proof of a natural earthquake."

Percival’s cheeks flush when Odhranos preemptively praises his version of dabbling, but the reaction is hardly noticeable in the faint hand-lantern light. The headmaster remains seated and takes in a deep breath of stale underground air before placing both his hands on the temporarily stationary platform. “Is it something like…” the arcane light dims significantly as the mage prepares to spellcast again, “...this?” The platform lurches upward slightly before the burrowing begins once more and they are descending via the magic of the half-elf. Percival grins brightly at his success, though their pace is significantly slower than when the experienced terramancer was leading the way. Noticing this, the headmaster lifts one hand off of the moving ground and wiggles his fingers in a peculiar manner, and suddenly their progress downward quickens while a cold breeze seeps up from around the edges of the earthen platform. He is creating a thin vacuum just beneath it that sucks them towards the center of the earth, augmenting his obviously lacking terramancy skills. If you count the hand-lantern, which is more like a hand-firefly at this point in terms of brilliance, he is casting three spells at once. This requires more than an arbitrary amount of focus so he has some trouble following exactly what Odhranos is saying, but he makes an effort to respond still, “Indeed. Judging from the sinkhole that opened up after the quake, I believe there is a good possibility that is what we will find.”

Odhranos beams excitedly as the platform shudders and continues down. "Xalious bless my soul, I was told you were a quick study, but the stories don't do it justice. Correct me if I'm wrong, the Queen mentioned that you have the ability to see magic,is that correct? I knew a shaman, a wiseman back in my homeland who could see the magic in the world as skiens of light. I studied under him, and for a while I had the "sight", but without his training, the skill became lost to me in time. Did you develop it naturally, or was it a learned skill? That is, if you don't mind sharing, I understand if you'd prefer it remain a mystery." Odh cracked a grin as he leaned over to the side of the tunnel, letting the cool air breeze over his hand. "Combining naturally opposing magics for greater effect, impressive." The mage murmured appreciatively.

Percival finds himself charmed by the word ‘skiens’, having never described his ability to visualize magic at work in that way, but finding it to be a more apt description than anything he has used previously in his life. “Exactly! Skiens, yes!” He points at Odhranos with the hand that was manipulating the air beneath the platform and the descent slows considerably again. “I don't mind sharing,” the headmaster begins while starting to wriggle his fingers again, causing the breeze to return and their travel to speed up again. “I've been able to see them for as long as I can remember. It is not something I am able to turn off either.” He leaves out a fact that turns his anomalous existence into a perfect storm of magical ability, his proficiency in recreating what he sees, that is what truly makes the half-elf into the prodigy that he is. “It is refreshing to meet someone who has an understanding of what I can see. There aren't very many who have been able to do that here. None in the Academy beside myself, if I remember correctly.”

Odhranos smiles at the headmaster's reaction to the word. For the time that Odhranos had studied the technique, he had been able to observe the magic of the world and it had always seemed to him to flow like blood would through a body, in thin threads through plants and animals, or in vast arteries of magic through the gifted, suffusing their very bodies with it's ethereal glow, pulsing and rippling with colour as it responded to the user. "I ceased practicing the technique as my terramancy grew, as I found a rather different sight that suited my needs a bit more. I wonder... perhaps can you "see" the principle of it." The mage shuffled a little into a comfortable sitting position, and however Percival percieved Odhranos' magic, he would see Odh's terramantic sense disperse out from the mage like a wave of fine silver dust, before settling in stone and earth around them, near tenty feet deep within the walls of their tunnel. The headmaster would see the layout of the various cracks and cavities within the stone like a ghostly overlay, and the vibrations from their passage downwards rippled through the stone, the vibrations being picked up like Odhranos had a magical spider-web woven through the stone around them. (For reference, look up the game Scanner Sombre, specifically with regard to the LIDAR scanner)

Percival smiles faintly while watching the earthen sensory magic disperse around the tunnel. There is a certain beauty to it, at least from the perspective of someone with his magically discerning sight. They continue to descend as Odhranos does this, so it almost gives off the visual of flying through the stars, thanks to how dark it is in the faint hand-lantern light. Of course he has seen this type of magic before, but there are a few distinct differences from this and what is normally taught at the Academy and The Mages’ Tower. This technique is more elegant than what he is used to seeing, at least in the headmaster’s opinion. “Spectacular. This is what you'll be using to investigate the tunnels below?” He asks as they grow nearer to their destination.

Odhranos nodded. "Aye, it will help us locate what we need to locate with minimal tampering to the locale itself. Otherwise I'd be blindly knocking through walls and could destroy the very evidence we're looking for. This way we can find our proof and then figure out the best way to access it." Suddenly, below them, an absence of the starry pinpoints loomed out of the darkness beyond Odhranos' sensory range, a large open space. "Ahh, here's our stop. I'll take over here." The mage got to his feet again and waited for the headmaster to relinquish control of the stone plate before Odhranos placed his palms against it and they began descending again. The cavern rose towards them before, with a rasping crunch, the mage's tunnel punctured the ceiling. They slowly drifted down through the air, until the ground came up to meet them. The light from the hand-lantern extended out in a sphere of light on all sides, but the walls of the cave were too far away for the light to pick them out of the darkness. Odhranos lifted one hand and pressed two fingers to his temple, concentrating intently. When he did so, the area of his terramantic sight pulsed, then bloomed outwards, until the silver pinpoints illuminated the cracked and crazed surface of the cave wall, and the stalagmites and stalagtites extending out to one another from ceiling to floor.

Percival lifts his palm up from the platform and stops the cute aero-spellcasting with his other hand when Odhranos looks to take back control of their vertical travel. “Of course.” He smiles while slipping his left hand back into the hovering lantern of the same shape. Once more the source of the light appears to beneath the skin of the appendage, and it glows slightly brighter now that he isn’t multicasting and can focus only on this one technique and their surroundings. Once they have landed, so to speak, the headmaster gets to his feet and dims the hand lantern significantly when the Terramancer extends his sensory magic outward. The half-elf whistles in awe, the sound echoing through the cavern. Down here he’ll be deferring completely to Odhranos’s expertise. While the headmaster can see what the other mage sees, he doesn’t have the experience to understand what it is he is looking at. He is here to confirm or deny the existence of magics at work down here, and to make sure of no funny business in this investigation. Conveniently, that is the extent of what he can do down here.

Straightening, the mage stretched with an alarming series of bone-popping cracks. "Right! Down to business." He exclaimed brightly, stepping off the stone platform... and straight into a large puddle of water, which went up to his mid-calves, soaking the lower half of his robes. "Damn and blast it!" Odhranos cursed, amidst other less polite curses which cannot be reproduced here. When he had calmed himself and sat back up on the edge of the platform, he glanced back at Percival with a bashful grin. "Be careful stepping off, there's a lot of water down here. Small depressions litter the cave floor, and if this one is anything to go by, they're filled with water. I didn't notice as I can only detect the presence of terramantic materials with my sight. You may want to keep that light handy." Pun absolutely intended. Upon navigating a dry path around the pool, Odhranos picked his way carefully across to the nearest stalagmite. Running his hands along the surface of the stone, he paused at about five or six feet up the stalagmite before squinting at something a bit above him. "Bring that light over, we may have something." The mage waved Percival over, before reaching into one pocket and scattering some sand into the air before him, which hovered where it was scattered before solidifying into a long step, which Odhranos clambered up onto, reaching down to give Percival a hand up onto the narrow levitating ledge. When he had done so, the terramancer pointed out where he wanted the headmaster to shine his light. "Do you see that ridge, running parallel to the ground the whole way around the stalagmite?" He asked, to verify what he was seeing as well as explain what it was to the headmaster.

Percival isn’t about to get these shoes wet. They are Venturilii imports for Sven’s sake. He goes through the process of extending his hand and increasing the intensity of the light from it before separating the light from the appendage once again. The magic from the illumination spell dulls the view of the terramancy sense that Odhranos is producing, though likely only to Percival, as they two magics don’t actually interfere with each other, just in the eyes of the headmaster. The hand lantern hovers close to the half-elf, showing him where it is safe to dismount the platform he had ridden down so that he can avoid the same moist fate of the terramancer. Percival does as instructed and follows Odhranos to the spire of rock. He’s charmed once again by the manipulation of the sand into a step. This is an impractical technique for the air mage to copy given his own ability to fly and hover on the wind relatively easily, but still, it’s cool. He accepts the hand to pull him up and the light follows, shining on the target that Odhranos points to, moving away from the pair of mages a bit to rise higher and circle the stalagmite to show the entire ridge. “Yes. What does it mean?” Percival asks curiously, but with some hesitation, fearing slightly that they may have stumbled onto something neither of them were suspecting. The rock mage can’t answer quickly enough.

"These are calcite deposits, produced from waterdroplets bearing dissolved calcium carbonate dripping down from the ceiling. That's the basis of how stalagmites and stalactites are formed, simple geology. However!" The mage reached up and rapped his knuckles on the hard stone ridge. "They normally form rough, but generally smooth surfaces as the water runs down the surface of the existing feature and leaves behind it's cargo of calcite. However, this ridge shows that the water droplets were effected somehow. There was something at that level that caused more of the calcite to be deposited. The droplets encountered some force." The mage's smile was illuminated in the corona of light from Percival's lantern. "What it encountered was the surface tension of water. If we check all of the other stalagmites, we will find the exact same feature, at exactly the same height. We are currently standing below the water level of what was once an underground lake. Which "mysteriously" is no longer here. Which leads me to assume that the water that lead to this lake suddenly no longer lead here. and the large puddles would suggest it was a relatively recent event." The mage's eyebrows wiggled cheekily. "Methinks, we have our lead!"

Percival has his hand lantern rise slightly further to better illuminate the line that represents the previous water level. He takes in the sight and then peeks over a couple edges of the crafted step to look down at the cavern floor and the puddles scattered about it. “Fascinating,” The wind mage says, before curiosity has him questioning, “Where did it go then… the water?” Though he is unsure if that is the appropriate or poignant question to be asking here, so he isn’t about to start dictating the path of this investigation. He’ll continue to leave the agenda and leading the way to the terramancer.

"A good question. Presumeably this cave acted as a resevoir, water would collect here and then filter into other tunnels, before eventually reaching the water table and dispersing. However, a more poignant question, is where did the water come from and why is it no longer?" The mage hopped down off the sand-step, and when Percival did likewise, the mage dispersed the sand and it swirled back into his pocket. Circling the base of the stalagmite, the mage rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "See here, the way that the pillar is more eroded on this side? The water must have flowed in that direction, so that the flow was battering against this side. So there's our heading." Odhranos turned to face into the darkness and set off into the cave. As they progressed through the oppressive darkness, the mage rambled on about stratum and shear points and sinkholes, before pausing and cocking his head to the side. "Do you hear.... a waterfall?" He inquired of the headmaster.

Percival hops down from the step, watches it disperse and the material that makes it up return to its master, and walks around the stalagmite with light, quiet steps typically associated with the elven half of his heritage. He looks out in the direction Odhranos points out, where the water used to come from, and nods somewhat excitedly. It feels like they are getting somewhere. A whimsical wave of his hand sees his floating lantern become more brilliant so that they can see farther ahead of them as they traverse the cavern. During the lecture on underground geology, the headmaster makes the noises that someone listening and understanding (sort of) would make, ‘Ah.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘I see.’ Then he stops and listens to the roaring flow of water that comes with as cascade the likes of which they can hear. “I do.” Impatience and excitement have him moving forward before the terramancer does, following the echoing sound of the water.

Odhranos strides off after Percival, scanning the ground ahead of them so as not to fall into any water-filled potholes. All the while as they progressed onwards, the sound of the waterfall increases until it was a deafening roar. Suddenly, the ground ahead of them just stops. Outright. End of Roadway. Odhranos registers the sheer drop as it enters his field of view and he leaps forward to grab the headmaster's sleeve, to ensure he is made aware of it, and also so that Larket's finest doesn't end up taking a rather ungraceful dive off an underground cliff into fast moving water. That'd look really great in the field report. Once he has ensured his companions safety, Odhranos edges closer to the cliff edge. The myriad of silver points that make up his view are all shivering ever so little, although the disturbance increases the farther down the cliff he looks. "We've found our runaway river. Now, just one more thing to prove our hypothesis. The shearpoint." The mage sweeps out another plinth of sand, which stretches off into the gloom. "Shine your light back on that clifface, we need to take a better look at it."

Percival is grateful for the assist in keeping him from walking off the edge of an underground cliff. Indeed that would have been an awfully unceremonious way for a mage of his caliber to go. He gives a nod in thanks that might go unnoticed in the low light and waits while the new platform is created by Odhranos and sends off his lantern and its light in the direction requested by the terramancer. The face of the cliff is illuminated in the warm glow while the headmaster awaits what he expects to be the final verdict, his heart beating just a little bit quicker in somewhat fearful anticipation.

Odhranos paused, then lifted his arms up, as if in praise. A cloud of sensory points blew outwards and settled on the surface of the cliff ahead and blow them. All along the upper edge, small potholes and furrows that had been ground out by countless years of water passing over the river bed, all sheared neatly off as the cliff face has suddenly sprung upwards. The cliff face itself was magnificent, ragged, jagged, raw and fresh, a sure sign of recent geological activity; the pervading mist of the waterfall hadn't even begun to pick away at it's sharply faceted surface. "This, my friend, is what we came here for." The mage annouced proudly, a broad smile upon his face. Casting his senses downwards, the mage brought the river into silvery light. It gushed out of an opening in the wall, large enough to walk two mammoths through and not have them bump shoulders. The torrent of water roared out of this tunnel and arced gracefully through the air, before pummeling the bed of a sizeable plunge pool below. At the base of the new cliff, another large opening could be seen where the water gushed away. Presumeably under the pressure of trapped water, another passage had given way beneath what had once been the river's course, and the angry beast was now carving out a new cavern through which it would delve into the depths. Turning to the headmaster, Odhranos grinned proudly. "Something of this scale would be extremely difficult to replicate artificially, not to mention utterly pointless to anyone who wanted to simulate an earthquake on the surface. Plus, all of the natural details are there. There is no masterpiece as detailed as the work of Nature, and it would take a lifetime to make a fake that I couldn't see through. Master Percival, it is conclusive,The earthquake was natural. Now, shall we head back up? It's starting to get a bit chilly down here."