Investigate the Beach

The beach holds a sinister secret.

Investigate the Beach is a quest in Act One of Baldur's Gate 3. It can be initiated by approaching the Secluded Cove at the north-eastern region of the Emerald Grove.

Objectives

Objectives and journal entries may vary pending player decisions and outcomes.

Investigate the music.

• We heard strange music on the beach. Where is it coming from?

Help the child.

• We discovered a tiefling child in a strange trance.

Defeat the harpies.

• Harpies appeared and attacked us.

Speak with the child.

• We rescued the child from the harpies. He is alive and well.

Find Doni.

• The child said we should pay a visit to Mol. We should tell a child named Doni that we want to see the 'Dragon's Lair'.

Find Mol.

• Doni revealed a hatch and opened it for us - the 'Dragon's Lair' must be below.
• Doni won't be able to show us how to get into the 'Dragon's Lair'. We'll need to find a way to Mol ourselves.
• Doni disappeared somewhere. We'll need to find another way to get to Mol - or maybe Doni will be back eventually?
• We know where Mol is hiding. Time to pay her a visit.

Quest Complete

• We found Mol. She was more than happy to meet us since we rescued one of her people.
• Safe from the harpies, the child left the area.
• The tiefling child died.
• We weren't able to investigate the beach.
• We heard strange music on the beach, but didn't investigate further.
• We left the region without discovering what happened to the child.
• We won't be having any conversations with Mol any time soon.
• The situation has changed in the grove. Mol is busy dealing with other matters.

Walkthrough

The Secluded Cove is north-east of the druidic ritual circle in the Emerald Grove. Upon approach, strange singing can be heard at X: 271 Y: 523. Near the water, a child Mirkon is enchanted by the singing of harpies X: 327 Y: 549. The party can try to focus on the singing or tell Mirkon to return to shore.

If focusing on the singing, the party may try to resist the song:

• [WISDOM] Struggle against the music's pull. (DC 5)
• [WISDOM] Struggle against the music's pull. (DC 5 ) (if passive DC 10 Nature roll passed)
• [DRACONIC BLOODLINE] [CHARISMA] Foul creatures - mere carrion birds compared to your bloodline. Focus the will of the dragon against their song. (DC 5)
• [SORCERER] [CHARISMA] Focus your will. Improvise a magical shell to dampen the music. (DC 5)
• [BARD] [PERFORMANCE] Focus by singing: 'There once was a lady who met with a merrow, and tried to disclose it to her foolish fellow...' (DC 5)

If successfully resisting the song, the party may attempt to overpower or distract Mirkon:

• [BARD] [PERFORMANCE] Focus by singing: 'There once was a lady who met with a merrow, and tried to disclose it to her foolish fellow...' (DC 5)
• [BARD] [PERFORMANCE]  '... Her man would not listen, he thought it tall tales, until he rubbed up against all of her scales!'  (DC 10 )
• [BERSERKER] [PERFORMANCE] ROAR. OVER. THE VOICE. (DC 10 )
• [BARBARIAN] [PERFORMANCE] Drown out the harpies with a ROAR. (DC 10 )

Regardless of what he is told, Mirkon attempts to move closer to the harpies.

The harpies utilize a combination of the terrain and their  Luring Song to bring Mirkon and the party into close range. One harpy always remains at a distance to perform the song, causing party members to waste their turns if they fail to resist. Meanwhile, the other harpies fly close to attack the party. Most attempts to approach distant harpies will be slowed because of the area's Difficult Terrain. However, pre-combat castings of  Enhanced Leap (in conjuntion with high Strength and  Feather Fall) as well as strategic high-ground positioning of melee characters may alleviate this issue. The harpies can  Fly over the distance and terrain, which allows them to easily  Multiattack.

Should melee combat be delayed or unavailable, ranged attacks and spell use on the singing harpy can also be used to break its Concentration. If broken, another harpy will likely sing once able, if not currently engaged in melee.

Additional preparation for combat may involve  blessing the party before speaking with Mirkon to improve resistance to Luring Song. Using gnomes, elves, or half-elf characters with Advantage on saves can improve the likelihood of resisting the song.

An aggressive yet viable strategy to protect Mirkon involves throwing or shoving him away from the shoreline and the harpies. Tossing him provides more distance from the enemies and may reduce his likelihood of being killed.

Casting  Calm Emotions will protect Mirkon and all party members within its radius from being affected by Luring Song, significantly reducing combat difficulty (the game log will still show a saving throw being rolled, but the characters are unaffected on failures).

Alternatively, the party can use  Silence and remain within the silenced area. In both cases, the party should be careful to prevent the caster's Concentration from being broken. If the party member casting Calm Emotions or Silence is a cleric, they may first cast  Sanctuary on themselves to prevent broken Concentration.

Be aware that casting Silence over Mirkon before speaking with him immediately triggers the fight, skipping all dialogue. If deciding on this strategy, it is advised to cast Silence over Mirkon and the entire party.

Once the harpies are defeated, Mirkon informs the party he needs to get back because Mol will be mad at him. Before leaving, he tells them to find Doni and tell him that they want to see the "Dragon's Lair".

If triggering this quest and then long resting, Mirkon dies. He also dies if  Save the Refugees is resolved by completing the Rite of Thorns or evading the goblin attack.

Quest rewards

• Entrance into the tiefling children's hideout, the "Dragon's Lair"

Notes

• This quest is triggered when crossing X: 299 Y: 542.
• Helping Mirkon is an easy way to gain favor with Mol and initiate  Steal the Sacred Idol.
• Saving Mirkon grants Slaying the Piper for the urchin background.
• If Mirkon is killed by a third party during the battle with the Harpies, the quest gets bugged oddly, both ending in success and teleporting a now-revived Mirkon away from the beach. This is easy to trigger by summoning Lump and his ogre band during the battle; they attack a Lured Mirkon, killing him, triggering the bug in the process.
• Although he has no notable possessions, pickpocketing Mirkon while he is entranced grants The Allure of Coin for the criminal background.
• Long rests do not fail the quest after discovery.
• Killing the three goblin leaders before completing this quest results in its failure.
• The bard's ability to use Performance against the harpies is a reference to the bard's ability in past editions called "Counter Song".
• While talking to Mirkon, using Improvised Melee Weapon with another character and moving him away from the beach actually breaks him from the harpies' trance and completes the quest without requiring to fight them. The harpies are be revealed in the map after that.