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Once when I was in the area, I heard shouts and calls coming from near the geyser, a commotion more in keeping with masons building a temple wall. Keeping hidden, I crept over the ridge to find a circle of men - mages, surely - standing around the vent. A large flat rock floated near the hole. They magically maneuvered the rock, which was just about the length of two men, directly over the hole. Then it was dropped into place. I found this behavior more than unusual, and wondered what their intentions were in conducting this experiment.
I made myself comfortable by taking the shape of a toad. I squeezed into a rocky crack and waited for the spectacle. The men, all dressed in similar blue-green robes, conferred for a time, and then they too sat back to wait.
I assume the geyser went off at its appointed time, although nothing happened to the rock. It didn't move an iota.
The men looked pleased with themselves and I was even more perplexed than I had been earlier. The men showed no signs of departing; if anything, they watched the stone even more intently. I decided to stay put for as long as the blue-robed mages did.
Although I was prepared for a week-long wait, we didn't wait nearly that long. Only an hour passed before a high-pitched hissing gradually became noticeable, then increasingly louder. All of the men glued their eyes to the rock. It started to move upward, riding a column of hissing steam. One of the men clapped ecstatically before the leader shushed him with a swift motion. When the rock reached a certain height, the head mage pointed at one of the men, who had been silently preparing a spell.
When he waved his hands, the rock shot off the geyser with the speed of an eagle.
Jubilation reigned. They jumped in the air and even the leader was clapping his hands. I returned to my own form, and walked across the rocks toward the joyous group.
"I couldn't help but hear all the commotion. Is there anything I can help you with? I saw a huge rock go flying overhead, and wondered whether I had a mage fight on my hands."
"No fighting going on here - just a successful experiment," replied the leader, smiling.
"My name is Tharnn Greenwinter," I said, introducing myself to the entire group. "I happened to be passing by. I don't mean to be nosy but I'm curious... What did you accomplish here today?"
The leader's smile widened. "I've always thought there must be a way to devise a catapult without using pulleys, levers, and all those other cumbersome, mundane things. I got the idea to somehow use steam and a feather fall spell together, but I never could find a sufficiently strong, concentrated eruption of steam to suit my purpose. At least, not until today. All those hours, days of research have paid off: I've shown it can be done! Wait until they hear about this back in Shadowdale!
"Now, we just have to find a way to create steam of such intensity as this geyser and make it portable," said the leader.
- Elminster's Ecologies Appendix One: The Hill of Lost Souls

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