The party ventured to Daggerford, answering the call for help from the Order of the Gauntlet. They chartered a boat to make their travels up the coast more efficient. They met with Ostur of the Order, and discussed the previous attempts to gather information about the comet sighted last year, and its relationship to the Cult of Atropus. They were told that little was known about what the comet actually is, and they were being sent to a long-forgotten research facility North of Waterdeep to see if they could find any information about it. They headed North, into the Mere of Dead Men. They were set upon by all manner of foul creatures. Shine was pulled into the depths and replaced by a doppelganger. He awoke, shivering in a cave, while his party fended off the doppelganger and its allies. Jaqen was substantially weakened during the fight, brought to the brink of death. The party treaded forward with care, arriving just after nightfall at the point that they had been looking for. They stood inside the boundaries of the mere, though not too deep, and found the remaining spires of an ancient ruin. They cleared the main gate and ventured into its walls, the entrance sealing behind them. They investigated the left wing, a research and archival wing of the complex. They recovered a text detailing the jealousy of this institution's owner, Alkalis. He longed for a substantial astronomical program and equipment, and had great disdain and envy for the more well-equipped and funded programs nearby. He had been research comets and other cosmic figures, when he noticed the same one that the guild discovered last year, the Obsidian Phoenix, he named it. He noticed that it returned, according to historical records, only every 256 years, but for the three years he spent researching, it had begun to orbit. He said he was going to attempt to get a direct look by modifying his telescope, and seemed both excited and concerned about the matter. His notes end there. The party found his ruined cloak and staff in the main observatory hall, and they found Alkalis himself too, ruined. He had been driven beyond mortal sanity by whatever he learned in his gazing, and had been hideously transformed into the walking dead, an Allip. The party defeated him and the strange, otherworldly creatures with many limbs and eyes that accompanied him. They used his staff to open a secret exit, retrieved his personal journals, and left. The Order of the Gauntlet has said they will be using this intel to authorize further investigations into the Mere. Ancient, powerful information may lie in its depths, guarded by older, fouler beings.