So many mysteries...

Kyren (having missed last session) is in the infirmary, recovering. She cunningly overhears some rumors about deja vu and other trippy occurances. Strange that so many would be happening all at once...

It's the end of the first Quarter! Wow, how time flies...

Oglet expresses curiosity about earthquakes, and how they're centered around the forest... Let's go camp in the woods this weekend!

We've been advised not to overnight down in the mists, but there are stilt-tents for borrow from the Tramping club, that pop up above the mists, along with a pack of survival type tools, including a seismograph with three needles - Past, Present, and Future - that each point to the relevant earthquakes.

Oglet makes a couple magical rice-cakes that can aid someone by flinging it toward them.

Emily tries to use the magical seismograph, but fails... dramatically, spending a day of our break.

Derek snacks on some "Lil' peckish" magical hopping birdseed.

Camped at the top of a little rise, up in the canopy, the team looks for cracks in the earth, trees knocked over... any signs of the earthquake. Emily finds trees leaning together! In sort of a rippling pattern... fanning back to a central pattern not too far away. The trees look like they're still moving... but *very* slowly.

After another half hour of hiking, the team finds a glade of ferns surrounded by trees. There's a depression in the middle, about 5' deep of crumbling earth. Derek boldly climbs up to the edge of it, to look and see if there's anything weird about it. It's crumbling... but in slow motion! It crunches down like crunchy ice. In the middle, in the bottom, there's a round pool, vibrating like the one we saw in the cabin, but much, much smaller, only ~2cm across.

Derek throws a dart toward toward the round pool, half expecting it to slow down... but the dart passes right through! It clatters, as though the hole below is a narrow channel downward. Oglet kicks a bunch of dirt down, to see what happens. The dirt she kicked tumbles down like normal dirt. Only the "still earth" is being affected by this pool. Pierre (rolling a 13!!!) jumps down into the hole with style. Right at the edge of the hole, he can see that the shimmering surface is just that - a surface. When he digs out from under it, you can see under it briefly, before things fall right down to fill in the space.

Derek and Pierre dig and shine a light down into it... Kyren decides to try to *PICK UP* the ... portal? pool? surface? what do we call this thing??? For a brief moment, her hand and the crumbling earth are in the same place! But it doesn't move. Her hand passes right through it.

About that time, the seismograph pings, indicating a weak future earthquake, in the direction of the cabin. Heading off that direction, the students arrive just before nightfall, about 30-40 minutes before sunset, and Emily "alohamora"s the door open a bit too forcefully, making it scrape while closing. There's evidence of our having been here... oops.

Inside, the "well" surface is hovering 6" below the floor, and about 6" above the stone. There's a chasm down - a tube of empty nothing - surrounded by a stone wall.

Oglet investigates, looking for clues... and finds a magazine, dog-eared to an article about the ban on aparition & bringing animals in (the... embargo?), and how and why it was set up 30 years ago.

Kyren looks for evidence of when someone was last here, aided by a flying rice-cake from Oglet, and finds a sign-out sheet for some of the sampling equipment. The most recent notes on it are from the spring of last term. ~March of last term.

With the sun going down, Derek the sneaky one, (rolling *another* 13!) watches the figures approach, and hears them converse about grades and scheduling and all the new books that the students are going to need... mostly normal teacher stuff... but it's the 3 smaller figures?? Speaking in English???

Oglet becomes the brave one, watching at the window. Two figures stand and look down at the well. The other has a seisomograph-like device, but *much* more advanced and complicated than the one the team borrowed from the Tramping club.

Derek sees the third figure on *top* of the cabin, looking out... in a direction that he might be able to see Derek or the other two! Oh no! He tries to use a "drowsy dart" out of his blow-gun to put the creature to sleep and... (rolls snake eyes!). The team is able to scurry away, without getting caught, but the curtains are drawn and the creature on the roof is on high alert.

Going to check with Professor Rachel Something, the team asks lots of questions, but doesn't get any solid answers... but they do each get an exploding potion! They mostly make a flash and a sound, but could still be useful...

Lesson learned: we know that the earthquakes are now connected to the mysterious wells...