Interlude: The Time Gem

Oh dear!

Energystar's stance noticeably changes for the stronger when the wave of magic flows over them from Damian's hands.

"Thanks. I guess I didn't realize how weak I actually was. We will see you soon Damian. Ready when you are."

Damian waves his hand and the portal collapses to a point as it falls to the floor, where is opens up again into a circle on the floor about 10 feet in diameter, bordered by a thin ribbon of low, flickering orange flames.

Cap looks at the others, shrugs, and jumps into the portal. A splash of ice cold brine erupts in his wake.

Following Cap into the watery portal, you find yourself aware of the extreme cold immediately surounding you, but thanks to Damian's spell, it has no effect.

Looking around in the dim light, you can see several intersting plants, animals, rocks...and other things you can't identify that probably fall into one of those three categories, as well as the rock outcropping and cave mouth you spied through Damian's 'looking glass'. It sits maybe twenty yards away.

Intuition checks, please.

Intuition

Benni looks at the others and shrugs her shoulders, holding her breath she jumps in after Cap, treading water as she looks around speculatively.

Intuition

"Finally a chance for me to really show my chops. Besides beating on teammates when mind-controlled...." Mantaman swam around effortlessly.
"Be careful guys, even when you can survive down here, it takes some getting used to. Its easy to lose your sense of direction and some powers are a little wackey underwater." The aquatic hero warned.

"Okay.. umm... does anyone know what stirred up the sediment. Looks like an awfully lot for just us?" Benni asks as she treads water slowly, looking down into the water. Benni is surprised by how much she is having to work to keep herself from sinking into the water. Doing quick mental calculations with the assumption that water is the same density here as in her world, she figures out how much she now weighs and the proportion of fat to muscle/bone density. "Daaanngggg.. I need to get to a lab! And find out just what all changed with me!"

Cap looks at the shield still attached to his arm, seemingly takes MantaMan's words to heart, and decides to stash the shield on his back.

Heading towards the dark cave mouth, the heroes find the inside oddly illuminated by the bioluminescent plant matter they saw before while peeing through Damian's looking glass.

A long narrow passage leads deep into the cave, with several smaller alcoves off the side. The odd box you saw in the looking glass apparently lies at the end of this passage.

Several violet and pink shrimp swim past you as you enter the chamber. The side passages dissolve into complete blackness, as the light-emitting plants seem to line the main passage only.

The hallway ends in a large chamber, where you can see a large pedestal of black (volcanic?) stone, upon which lies a shattered glass box, the approximate dimensions of what you saw earlier.

Without yet stepping further into the chamber, you can see that inside the box is the decaying corpse of a humanoid female, dressed in fine white cloth with bracers, breastplate, and belt of green scale mail and something resembling a royal tiara upon her head.

Someone's obviously been here already.

Benni swims towards the coffin slowly, looking around nervously, but wanting to get a closer look at the remains of the woman, trying to identify what era and society she comes from. "I wonder how she got down here."

Benni is also looking around for what disturbed the sediment before they got here.

observation

"I am still nervous about the blueness of limbo.. I mean when I imagine limbo, the color blue isn't what I think of. Hmmm.. how well do you know Dr Strange, Energystar? I mean, could someone pretend to be him and send us off to find these stones for him and once he has the stones.. booom.. reveals himself to be this Thanos guy.. now that is a bad thought"

It might have something to do with this guy...
Whom you saw arrive with Thanos back when you were in the warehouse. Now he's in this undersea chamber and was standing just out of sight range when you were out in the passage. He seems to have some sort of energy field rippling about him, apparently a force field which protects him from the effects of being undersea. Having swam into the main chamber, this guy and Benni are instantly aware of each other.

Could it be that Thanos sent him here to obtain the gem before you could? If the coffin held the gem, that might explain its current state...