Are You Telling Me You Don’t Have a PhD?

We find ourselves in the air pocket under the lake. We stand briefly trying to take in our surroundings and RC and Glittr hear dripping of the wet cave, and RC picks up on sounds consistent with a running steam. RC inspects the sand we stand on and sees some webbed feet that look like they’re from an amphibian-type creature.

We head south in the cavern and look around. To the west, we see a staircase headed down and a deeper chasm running throughout the room. We see another set of stairs. RC and Bahmut fly over towards the stairs and once they land, he sees two figures standing in water in the chasm. There is a mermaid and a merman swimming around. 

The siren speaks, “You have disturbed those who rest here.” She charms RC and he walks towards her, falling 15 feet into the pool as he falls. 

• Caulkin’s ring has a 2nd level misty step and a 3rd revivify.

We explore a bit more and Glittr is charmed by another pair of a siren and merman. Brylwynn uses Hold Person to keep him from going in the water. We heal up a bit and continue exploring south. After walking through the cave, we see a larger opening and the river which was the source of the running water we heard earlier. 

Pearl tunes into Thava’s vision and explores the room for us. In this large room, we see the river stemming from underneath a rock face. More downstream, the river seems to split away. Pearl flies on Bahmut to another pool. There, a siren taunts her but she is able to resist her charm. The siren states that three other mortals have tried to come to the shard deep in this cave [Larael, Blackstaff, and Caulkin’s mother Elena]. As Pearl resisted the enchantment, she sees that the siren disappears instead of swimming away.

We decide to all stay on the same side of the river for safety and we head into the cave. Further down, we hear more running water and what sounds like a waterfall ahead of us. 

• We decide to have Bahmut carry us down one at a time to the pool below. RC goes in first, followed by Caulkin, and both of them tread water.

We fight off the large shark and the few sariwang also in the water. We take them out quickly without any one in the party falling.

In the room, we see what looks like a large dome formation and water. 

We see a Shadow Shard and three creatures around a man. The Shard present is lit in the colors of Lliira. Glittr looks behind a waterfall and recognizes that this shard is already activated. Someone has already made the sacrifice needed to activate it. 

• We know Larael and the Blackstaff came down here. There would have to be a great sacrifice. From having activated shards before, we know that this shard appears to be already activated.