After about ten minutes of rolling around on the dry rock they were on, everyone in the team, apart from Gustav, managed to shapeshift! They had been in a sub-liquid-like form all this time, because that was the key part of the process, but this part didn't bother them whatsoever, because it wasn’t painful at all. Having sub-liquid bones and flesh for ten minutes was exceptionally painless, it was even therapeutic actually, because even their light joint pains disappeared during that period.
Anyway, once they shifted, they left their backpacks behind, and jumped in the water quite fearlessly! They didn't fear these ancient creatures of the deep, because if their understanding of this time period was correct, then the fish within the sea here didn't have any magical powers at their disposal. The fish were just big, and hungry, which was the main way for them to be threatening, but that was about it.