Dive

Theresa looked back to the part of the lake where Indiana had pointed to earlier. That, by far, sounded like the worst place in the lake. She decided to have a look, she hated that something could ruin the lake so much "about here?" she asked Indiana as she swam over to where he had pointed.

"That's the location." Indiana replied. "If I'm mistaken on the power of the Exploding Snap cards, then that place probably experienced some other chaotic event that occurred some years earlier and what had happened recently could have escalated some of the existing damage during the landscape's recovery phase."

The youth then headed back into the water to search a new location.

Theresa nodded before she dived into the water. She swam lower and looked around for any signs of what Indiana had mentioned. She thought she saw the floor looking uneven so went to check it out. Her jaw almost dropped when she saw it. She clenched her teeth, she didn't want to swallow lake water. She swam through it and couldn't help but wonder what caused it.

Surveying the underwater terrain, Indiana swam about to a new location when he noticed a large crevice of sorts that he ventured to check it out.

'Nothing of interest here.' the youth thought, catching sight of nothing more than algae and some underwater plant life thriving in the deep crevices. He was about to turn back when he caught sight of something in the underwater flora. He slowly drew closer before his eyes widened. It was a broken skeleton belonging to one of the merpeople.

Shelby scanned the surface of the water, keeping a close eye on everyone as they came up for air. She marked the location where Resa dove under the water, then waited for her to pop back up to breathe and shouted to her.

"Resa, can you show me how big the damage zone is?" she asked, hoping to discover how much of that area was damaged.

Theresa took a big gulp of air before nodding. "Yeah, this part is about the centre of it" she said as she swam a little North. "It goes about half a mile in each direction!" she shouted to Shelby. "There is also one over there" she said, pointing west. "Not as big or as bad as this one but it is still pretty bad" she said.

Shelby nodded and marked it down, though she wasn't sure that there was anything that they would really be able to do anything to help that much damage. If the lake was that much of a disaster zone, there was no way that all of the damage was caused by the little experiment gone wrong by their fellow first years.

Indiana examined the skeleton and noticed significant damage to the skull and other areas, though he didn't know the cause. He speculated the cause to perhaps either the giant squid or the giant octopus but both creatures tend to completely devour their prey and spit out what whatever was inedible. If so, the merperson's skeleton would be in pieces rather than remain damaged but intact.

'Whatever the cause, it's likely that this one has been dead for a real long time.' Indiana thought before swimming to the surface.

Shelby sighed in relief when Indiana surfaced. He'd been down there a long time and Shelby was starting to worry that something had gone wrong and that she was going to have to send Resa after him or go get a teacher. "Anything?" she asked loudly, taking care that her voice would carry over to him from the shore.

Surfacing above the water, Indiana took a deep breath before hearing Shelby call out to him.

"Shelby, there's a crevice that goes deeper into the ground below the damaged surface and extends to the west. There's plant life still living in the deeper levels so I don't think they were affected by whatever had caused the craters." the youth replied. "But there's a skeleton of a merperson in a small algae bed. I think it's been dead some years ago so just avoid its resting place."

Indiana pointed the location out.

Shelby copied down his description and the location of the crevice and the skeleton. She felt sorry for the poor merperson who had perished down there, but she decided not to let it bother her too much- for all she knew, the merperson could have died due to natural causes.

She looked down at the parchment full of scribbles and notes. "There's no way that we're going to be able to fix all of this," she said to herself.

Theresa swam over to the edge of the lake. There was a lot of work that needed to be done but hopefully, they can at least help a bit. She climbed out of the lake and grabbed a towel from the pile. She walked over to the plimplies in the fish bowls and smiled as she looked closely at them. "Think Lauren might know a way to heal them?" she asked. True, Lauren knew about witch and wizard medicine but it didn't mean she couldn't do something for creatures.

Heading back into the water after taking a fresh and full intake of clean air, Indiana descended down to the bottom of the lake before heading to a new location to check out the terrain.

Seeing a bit of movement from his peripheral vision, Indiana spun and looked around to find nothing in sight except air bubbles floating to the surface.

'Probably nothing.' the youth thought before continuing on.

Shelby shrugged in response to Resa's question. She had no idea if Lauren had the ability to heal creatures like these. "Maybe when we're done we can just take them up to the Room of Requirement and then we can go to the library and find books about caring for injured creatures," she suggested.

She glanced down briefly at the poor little Plimpies, then back at the lake and scanned the water, mentally taking note of everyone who came back to the surface for air. She wasn't about to let anyone drown on her watch.

Theresa nodded "sounds good, they could stay in the room of requirements until they are healed" she said cheerfully. She looked back down at the fish bowl and frowned, she felt so sorry for the poor things. She watched one of them closely and wondered about how hard it all would be, at least they were helping even if it was just a little.

It had been mostly damaged terrain that he had found further on as Indiana resurfaced for air before descending back down to resume where he left off. Finding some steep decline in the ground's elevation, Indiana decided down further, examining the remnants of underwater flora that were still flourishing in varying degrees. It didn't look like whatever caused the damage had extended further to the east.

Memorizing the location in relative to the current location of his canoe, Indiana headed back to the surface.

Theresa looked back at the lake when she saw people resurvice and went back to the water. She walked into the water and swam to around where everyone else was. She dived under the water and watched as Indiana swam east. There was no point checking where someone was already checking so she swam North.

Alex sufaced and swam over to Shelby who was still standing on the shore "shelby" she said as she pulled herself out the water "I think I know who to help them. But i need to check it in the libary. I'll meet up with you guys later if I find how to help them" she said to her "will you guys be in the room of requirement?" she asked shelby. Barley waiting on an answer she grabbed her stuff and hurried off to the library.

Mary was swimming down in the lake, resurfacing every now and then and listening to the conversation. The thing about the skeleton really bothered her, she was convinced that a dead person was down there.
"Wait a second, guys. A skeleton? Who is it?" she asked panicking, wondering why nobody else is so freaked out that a dead body is down there.

Theresa turned to look at Marry "don't worry, it is a merperson, it could have died or a natural cause" she said calmly as she swam nearer to her so she didn't have to shout. "Did you find anything?" she asked as she looked around. She stopped when she was a few feet away from the girl.

"Oh." Mary said, relieved. She had no idea merpeople were in the lake.
"Uh, yes, the earth down here is damaged just as you and Indiana found out before. No injured animals, though." she reported to the nice Hufflepuff. "Come, I'll show you."
She dived once again and when she was under water turned around to see if Theresa was following. Mary swam down under, showing her friend the damage in the mould.

Theresa nodded before she took a deep breath of air and dived under the water. She continued to follow Mary as she showed her the area. She had to remember to thank everyone after this was over. The whole thing had gone a lot smoother then she thought it would, thanks to everyone who had resided to help her.

Mary pointed at the earth that seemed to be carved in with something. There were also some damaged seaweed there and no animals were wandering around.
When she made sure Theresa looked around, Mary swam back up to the surface and waited for her friend to come up for the air as well.
"How bad is it?" the black haired witch asked concerned when the Hufflepuff's head came out.

Theresa felt bad as she looked at all of the damage, including the plants. Once she had a good enough look at the need for air became to big, she swam back to the top of the lake. "Looks like we will need to plant some things for the animals to" she said when she heard Mary's question. "You know what types of plants?" she asked as she wondered what they would need.

Alex raced down to the lake she hadn't spent a long time in the library but it didn't take her long to find the three books he neede. She also brought a book on plants in lakes incase alot of the vegitation had been destoyed. Her main priority at the moment was to find Theresa and tell her what she had found out to save the plimplies and any other creatues they had found in her absence. She waited for Theresa to resurface to show her the three book she had brought. One was a book about healing animals and the differences and similarites between the different healing's. There was one on charms for animal and there was three chapter on healing. The other was using potions for healing on animals.