The girl in the brown poncho giggled when the birds attacked the boy. She had to. It was the only thing she'd seen today that wasn't fog or the expression of fear and worry she saw mirrored in the face of every other kid on this barge, a welcome relief even. A few children around her were talking, in soft tones and far too many vowel for any decent language. Nothing that could interest her. Jasveer pushed aside a girl as gently as she could, with a nod and a smile in order to dissaude him from refusing, and walked a few paces until she was at arms length to the cliff edge. An arm peeked out from under the mass of furs, and touched the cliff. She rapped her knuckled against the edge, and felt the smoothness. The erratic sunlight was making the sediments hard to make out, it was too difficult. But this stuff right here was brown basalt. Was there lava around these parts? Must be. There's no other way so much cooled magma could've formed into a cliffside. But this would make her plan a lot easier. The layers here were reddish, and rust coloured. Finding a source of iron wouldn't be difficult, at least. Would there be soil around the crystal tower? Possibly. Not as likely. Soil needed a good farmer, and any decent farmer learnt to avoid students or magistry like the plauge. But no matter. Not important right now.
Jasveer blinked, fumbled in a pocket, and pulled out a small stick of off-white rock. She marked a little circle on the rock in chalk, and turned around like she'd not commited a petty act of vandalism. Thankfully, nobody seemed to notice the desert girl in all the commotion. Still, nobody was coming to get them. Worrying, that. Maybe this was a test, to see who passed through the trial of the seagulls? She wouldn't put it past wizards, they were known to be sneaky, like that.