Having stood off to the side for much of the... [i]Stupidity[/i] that was the last few minutes of chattering, Tiral turned his head towards the Cal as she both mentioned his name and the Mage College. Pairing that with what had been the focus of their discussions thus far, and...

Well, it seemed the cat was out of the bag now, wasn't it?

"Rather than that, Ms. Cal, I would say that your sources are correct," the mage said, dismounting from his horse and walking over to the group to join in the discussion. "You are, however, missing a few crucial details. I was technically under contract to not say any of this, but if things are developing any further in this direction, I shall break that right now. The investigation so far has erased a few missing links, and I am fairly certain this is the case."

Clearing his throat, the ice mage sighed and shook his head. This... This was going to be a hassle to explain.

"The Mage's College has actually had possession of that Shard for a while--at least a decade now, if my memory serves correctly. Someone--I cannot remember who--had delivered something only spoken of as 'highly volatile' for research purposes, and the other magi quickly got to work. They cordoned off the lowest floor and layered barrier after barrier on top of it, in an crude attempt to keep it contained. It went about as well as you'd expect," he began, piecing together the information in his head as he continued on. "Before I joined the Knights, some of the magi working on the project decided to bring me in to help research. Their goal, initially, was to destroy the Shard by less religious means, but that soon changed."

With a grim face, Tiral clenched his left hand into a fist before continuing.

"The power contained in that shard alone was enough to tempt some of the more ambitious among us. Rather than destroy it, they wanted to harness its power--turn it into a weapon to destroy anyone who wanted to cross them. It was at this point that a few colleagues of mine had noticed that the barriers were being corroded over time--it was slow at first, but the pace was rapidly increasing, to the point where there was a visible difference from one day to the next.

I left for the Knights soon after, still bound to secrecy about this entire ordeal. Neither side made much headway afterwards, at least; they always seemed to be butting heads. However, a few days ago I was called in to examine a small hole in the barriers that had penetrated through to the center of the sealing area. The shard then, at least, was still in place, though more temporary measures were used to seal it up until more powerful magic could be used in its stead. Needless to say, today's events prove they failed."

Turning his gaze towards the sky, Tiral took a deep breath before finishing his bit of exposition.

"Once this whole matter is resolved, those two sides are going to go back to fighting. I would recommend someone monitor the College in the near future to try and... Try to keep the civilians away for a while. There's going to be a lot of chaos in the near future."

If his guesses were correct, the culprit was likely on the side that wanted to turn this shard into a weapon... Which technically meant that this was an act of treason just as much as it was anything else. Or, at least, one of the culprits was. No person could execute something like this alone.