Earthquake of 97

While it is not unusual for a settlement to simply just disappear, the demise of the Ilat town was something extra. Usually, when some place disappears from the historical records completely, it's due to the same old things: raiders, looting, plague, maybe a flood - all of these events while unfortunate, were pretty common in the ancient times. Thanks to the impeccable work of Lauraine Osteon, a pioneer in the field of modern archaeology, we now know that the entire town and everyone inside its walls was swallowed by a giant sinkhole during an earthquake, never to be seen again. Until almost 2000 years later.
Sinkholes are a frequent problem here in the Bohemian republic. Many people assume this is due to all the demon business mostly, as the country does not lay nowhere near any borders of tectonic plates and other than this sinking problem, volcanic activity and earthquakes are quite rare.
The area where the town laid was known to be prone to landslides and avalanches during winter, but no one really suspected there lies an entire ancient town down there, being buried deeper and deeper. Lauraine was known for her somewhat unconventional tactics when it came to excavation and combining her passion for acrobatics and earth magic, the unstable terrain proved to be of little competition to her.
Ironically, she stumbled upon the site of the former town while trying to uncover a different mysterious disappearance - a colleague and a close friend of hers, Ren Wickens, who was more into stalagmites than old bones. Lauraine's able command of tree roots, and branches and other liana type things proved essential when she herself slid down a cave a lot faster and deeper than one would like. While she was unable to find her lost colleague she found things that were much older and surprisingly well preserved. Her discovery of Ilat town proved quite the sensation and because the treasure trade was quite unregulated back then, she became quite the rich archaeologist as no one else dared to risk their life and be buried in an instant. She used the money from the artefacts from Ilat to create a charity organisation in memory of her lost friend that raises awareness about the dangers of cave exploration, sinkholes and similar events.