The Shard Tank

The battle continues on. Early in, one of the chains holding onto Bahmut finally grips tightly around him, taking him down. RC resurrects him in his Black Dragon Form. We struggle taking her down, but manage to continuously hit her with hit after hit. She knows a few of unconscious during the battle, but we quickly revive ourselves. While invisible, Caulkin shoots one last fatal arrow through her neck. She runs over to her, bites her neck, and spits her own blood back on her face. 

• At this happens, the last two devilish chains fade out of existence.

As we catch our breath, a deep, booming voice echoes from the portal. Nothing emerges, but we hear laughter—wet with condensation and hellish in tone—emanating from Zariel.

• “It seems you have defeated the last of my generals. In exchange, I receive another fragment of Bahamut’s soul for myself and Loviatar in summoning Haephastus. We are one step closer to returning pain to the world. I now hold three pieces of your Haephastus offspring. But a bargain is a bargain. I offered you knowledge of the Shadow Shard in exchange for a piece of his soul, and a devil always keeps their word.”

• She continues, “The shard you seek lies beneath this island, deep within the pool before you. And, for a bargain well-struck, a parting gift.”

As the portal closes, storm clouds set in and ruins the once sunny day on the island. 

RC runs over the hugs Bahmut closely, examining the area of seared skin around his neck where the devilish chains once were. Bahmut states that he is sorry and that he feels his tether to RC is weakened after losing another piece of his soul. 

• They turn to Caulkin and acknowledge his powerful and killing blow to the Erinyes. 

• Caulkin and RC do a once-over around the pond, checking for traps or other enemies. Pearl and Glittr investigate where the Erinyes’ once was, and only find An Infernal Feather. Brylwynn readies Tiny Hut for the group before we take a short rest.

We take a look around and don’t see any other signs of life. As the rain starts falling around, it feels heavy. We realize quickly that it is acid rain. We take the risk to stand there for 1 minute as Brylwynn casts Tiny Hut. We get pelted with acidic rain from Avernus. 

• Inside the hut, we take a short rest. 

• While resting, we talk briefly about who is going to make the great sacrifice needed to deactivate the Shadow Shard at the bottom of the lake.

After our rest, we dash from Tiny Hut towards the water as we get hit by the acid rain one last time before diving underwater. Under the water, we have limited visibility. Glittr casts light on a coin and drops it down, illuminating the water beneath us. As the coin falls, we see a group of sea creatures swimming up at us and we re-enter combat.

• We take down the creatures relatively quickly with our first underwatch combat.

Looking down, we see the bottom of the lake have a conical shape as it goes downwards. We swim downwards and see the skeletal remains of a human. There is a magical longsword next to the body. At the bottom, we see two holes spanning off the bottom. One is about a basketball sized hole and the other side is a large cave about 20’ in diameter. This cavern appears to curve upwards towards an air pocket. Pearl detects that the magic on the sword is Transmutation. We use mage hand to pick up the sword so no one has to touch it until we are able to identify it later on. 

We move upwards into the air pocket. Outside of the water, we see an underwater cavern where we know Larael once traversed years ago.