The Joy of Extradimensional Spaces - PCs

Introduction

M0. Meeting with Teles

• The party meets Fembris Larlancer, an Avowed Adjutant and the party's guide w/in Candlekeep, and Teles Ahvoste, one of the Great Readers. They learn that Teles is their patron at Candlekeep and had the idea of assembling a team of adventurers to be called upon to meet the library fortress' increasing need for "troubleshooting".
• Teles relates the disappearance of Matreous, a seeker tasked by Great Reader Sylvira Savikas, tiefling archmage and planar researcher, to delve into a recently discovered tome, The Joy of Extradimensional Spaces.

M0a. Matreous' Study

• They find the book, written in an arcane script, interpreted by Karras. The book was written by none other than Mordenkainen, the plane-hopping wizard extraordinaire. It contains many details on the planes and dimensional travel and manipulation.
• Fistandia's notes are written in Sylvan, read by Celeste. Fistandia has crafted a new version of Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, this one permanent, and used it to create for herself a place of study and shelter.
• Matreous' notes are written in Infernal, read by Creed. He has discovered something important and grappled with whether to inform Sylvira or explore further on his own. It seems his curiosity got the better of him!
• Matreous wrote a clue for Sylvira that was found in his personal effects by the door by Vanyel, who tries to stuff it in his pocket. Bunk notices and Vanyel hands it over. The meaning of life, the universe, and everything is 42! They flip to p42 in the book and find the letters R-E-T-P-E-C-S flipped backwards amongst Fistandia's notes on that page and quickly decipher that the keyword to open the portal is scepter.
• Vanyel also finds a recipe for a Potion of Climbing, which should come in handy at the shop.
• The party opens the portal and does an experiment to see if 1) they can open the portal again after it closes (they can), and 2) time passes the same inside and out (it seems to).
• They send for Moxie, who agrees to hold onto the book so that he can let them out again and keep the secret of the book safe from any passersby. Bunk proposes to Moxie the passphrase exchange of Don't you cry, don't you weep . . . we are the agents of Candlekeep! as a way to recognize that it's the party.
• The party valiantly enters the portal!

Mansion Location Notes

M1. Foyer and Hallway

• Matreous appears! He believes that he has only been in the mansion for two hours, rather than the sixteen reported by Teles. He becomes visibly agitated when he sees the portal doors begin to close and staggers through it.
• As he does so, a red light erupts from his chest, followed by a shadowy figure that Cornelius is fairly sure was a rather large imp. Screams are heard from Matreous and Moxie and the portal doors slam shut. The party is now apparently trapped inside, as they do not have the book and the keyword scepter does not work.
• Bunk notes an indigo miasma swirling outside the mansion.

M3. Library

• The party is ransacked by two animated book swarms, but some precise strikes expurgate them out of existence. Celeste was pinned beneath a toppled bookcase, but Bunk's crowbar came in handy in freeing her.
• Another Puzzle Book with the letter 'R' on the spine is discovered. Bunk attempts to locate a book that might provide a translation of the nonsense found within, but the closest that he can locate is a book of poetry written in an old dialect of Common.
• Vanyel finds a book called Lonely Planets containing details on various material planes, with a few chapters discussing methods to directly traverse them. Some are clearly theoretical, but there may be some that have been put into practice.
• Clint discovers a stash of smutty romance novels! A couple are pocketed, including Nights in the Swamp: the Hag Who Loved Me and Lady Chatterley's Halfling Lover.

M4. Exercise Room

• 4x dagger, 4x quarterstaff, and 20x darts in a bandolier are found on the weapons rack. All are of high quality and the daggers and darts are collected by the party for use as projectile weapons. I believe a staff or two was grabbed for ... investigating unknown objects.
• A number of interesting martial diagrams and an animated broom are also found in the room, but the party wisely (thanks to Cornelius, I think?) decides not to remove the broom, however useful it would be in the potion shop.
• Most of the party takes some shots at the training dummy. The shots are all returned by the feisty thing.

M5. Study

• Celeste locates a secret door by finding a well-used book on the back shelf. It leads to the lower level.
• Cornelius discovers a Puzzle Book that is a near replica of The Joy of Extradimensional Spaces, with a capital letter 'I' on the spine. The book's pages are filled with repetitive nonsense, written in the Common script, but apparently meaningless.
• Creed adopts a fluffy black cat, Moxie Jr., after "rescuing" it from Celeste's nat 1 on an Animal Handling check.

M6. Kitchen

• The party meets two interesting creatures, Cumin and Coriander, servants of Fistandia and her heretofore nameless paramour. Their masters haven't been here in quite a while, though they're hopeful of their eventual return. They have been keeping the mansion tidy and seem to have a supply of fresh food, which they are happy to prepare for the party.
• When asked about other inhabitants of the mansion, they mention the cats and ... dragons. The party is assured that they are not mansion-sized or particularly dangerous. There was also an off-hand comment made indicating that they did run into Matreous.
• Vanyel adopts a cat, Tylendel, after rolling a nat 20 on an Animal Handling check.

M8. Dining Room

• While preparing to enjoy a meal lovingly prepared by their miniature hosts, Cumin and Coriander, the mystery lantern shines a little light on what would become a sticky situation. One of the chairs has an odd look to it under the lantern's glow. Celeste gives it a poke with her staff, only to have it become adhered to the chair. With a little more provocation, the party finds itself in combat with what is clearly a monstrous faux chair. After the party gives it a mighty lashing, the doppel-chair seems to think better of the conflict and attempts to pretend that it is really just a useful piece of furniture. The party shows mercy and discovers that the thing is just hungry. With some food in its ... seat cushion? ... its disposition improves considerably. The party and their hosts consider the possibility that it escaped from the Preserved Menagerie.
• Creed pockets some of the silverware and puts it to good use. A couple of the silver spoons are flung at Bunk. Apparently, this is a little known tiefling custom for congratulating one on an impressive display of witty punmanship.

M9. Arboretum

• While the dinner party is going on inside, Celeste ventures out to peruse the vegetarian offerings outside. She finds four plants that appear to be souped up versions of the healing roots used in their potion crafting and is able to harvest some ingredients.
• During this plant hunt, Celeste begins to feel like she is not alone, with some unusual disturbances in the air around her and the sound of giggling. Bunk notices the goings on and joins her outside.
• While Celeste manages to avoid succumbing to the gas that was rudely sprayed into her face, Bunk is not so lucky and is frozen in place by a wave of paranoia.
• Creed manages to toss a cloak over one of the little dragons, but it suddenly grows in length, reaching all the way to the ground. This proves to be an illusion used to help the dragon escape.
• At some point, a glowing, loosely humanoid figure is introduced, which dances about a bit to little effect.
• Clint manages to catch one of the dragons with his soup bowl, which unleashes a torrent of awful language from the beast, which only Celeste can understand.
• Bunk dances like nobody's watching.

M10. Stairs

• A mostly decorative suit of armour sat at the top of the stairs, underneath a trap door. Clint claimed a very high quality, possibly enchanted Longsword, while the magnificent, ominous Helm was stashed away for later. Both items were inscribed in what appeared to be a derivation of the Dwarvish script, but the glyphs were illegible to the party.

M10a. Attic

• The party discovers 280 gp worth of coin in a small chest.
• Carvings adorn the rafters. It appears that the other mage referred to by the homumculi was named Freyot and he was Fistandia's paramour.
• Another small box is found, which contains some sort of new age self-help books and more smut. Fistandia appears to be ashamed of these guilty pleasures.
• A small amulet is found hanging on a nail in a rafter supporting an eave. It is adorned with a symbol of Mechanus, the plane of order. With his fancy new specs, Cornelius is able to observe that an intricately crafted door appears to cover some sort of active mechanism that is whirring inside.

M11. Laboratory

• The party discovers further evidence of the impressive breadth of Fistandia's research interests, with the room filled with myriad samples of natural creatures and materials, along with even more books on the natural sciences.
• Celeste collects a book on herbalism, Creed finds one on animals, and Bunk reviews a tome on astronomy to try to decipher the star map. The party realizes the map matches the sky from 1483 DR, the last year that they have evidence that Fistandia occupied the mansion.
• Cornelius picks up a pair of new glasses featuring crystal lenses and the ability to see things up close in incredible detail.
• Above the door leading to the next room, Creed reads a message in Infernal, "Speak friend and enter".
• Another Puzzle Book with the letter 'T' on the spine is discovered.

M12. Planetarium

• The party is quickly able to solve the puzzle of this bizarre recreation of an idyllic outdoor scene, featuring five telescopes, a crystal ball, and a convincing night sky from 14 years ago. They line up the telescopes with the five brightest stars, which illuminates the crystal ball. After doing so, a hidden door is revealed.

M13. The Chained Library

• What appears to be a benign, chained library turns out to be an overactive and malignant library from HELL! After retrieving the final puzzle book, the party lingers a bit too long and is attacked by numerous tomes. Two of them get grappled by the chains, but are freed with some excellent teamwork. In the end, two of the chained books are separated from the library proper.
• Post-separation, the chained books seem to have hardened with a metallic coating. The two tomes are Martial Attack Techniques, collected by Clint, and The Art of War, collected by Vanyel. Clint suggests that, if re-animated, they could serve as a nice "chain-chomp" style security system for Moxie's Mixes.
• Another Puzzle Book with the letter 'L' on the spine is discovered.

M14. Trophy Room

• A beautiful room with some frightening animal heads mounted on the wall held a few more secrets.
• Two flying swords danced a dangerous duel with our daring do-gooders, but they were definitely defeated despite their defiance.
• A false fire was seen through with investigation and lantern light and led to the discovery of a hidden room.
• Another Puzzle Book with the letter 'Y' on the spine is discovered.

M14a. Panic Room

• Creed bravely/foolishly plunges through the fireplace in the Trophy Room and discovers what appears to be Fistandia's panic room.
• 40x rations, 16x torches, 2x quarterstaves, 4x daggers, 20x darts, cartographer's kit, 2x bedrolls, and 2x leather bags are found in the cozy little room, along with some useful survival guides.
• 210 gp worth of coin was found in one of the leather bags. What an oddly round number for a party of seven.
• This is where the adventure left off after the 2022-01-23 session.

M15. Bedroom

• After some snooping behind an elegant tapestry and the discovery of a hollow sounding portion of the wall by Creed, Karras catapults a chair into the spot. After prying it open, the party discovers an unusual hunting horn, crafted of a steely black metal. The party takes turns playing it, but it seems like only the previous player of the horn can hear its next tone.
• Karras also pockets a couple of toothbrushes, which he will later use.
• After leaving, Bunk and Creed reach a truce regarding the reciprocal use of puns and spoons, which seems to hold.
• Another Puzzle Book with the letter 'E' on the spine is discovered.

M17. Alchemical Laboratory

• The party finds a Jug of a very unusual design, which they figure will at least be a nice decoration for the potion shop, if not something more.
• 50 gp of alchemical materials are collected.
• 4x clay figures in various states of completion used for creating homunculi are found on the table. The most complete is claimed by (Cornelius or Creed?), while the second most is claimed by Clint?
• 2x Potions of Healing are discovered. One is used shortly thereafter.
• Another Puzzle Book with the letter 'B' on the spine is discovered.

M18. Summoning Room

• Defeated two pesky quasits without much difficulty. The party harvests 4 vials of quasit blood for use in the potion shop.
• Vanyel stayed near the entrance of the mansion to see if the portal would open after about one hour, as was planned with Moxie prior to the imp attack. Sadly, it did not.
• This is where the adventure left off after the 2022-01-16 session.
• Before leaving the room, the party finds a unusual lantern that casts a light that seems to be able to illuminate things that are a bit unusual. Examples include the mimic chair found in the Dining Room and the fire in the Trophy Room that was concealing the Panic Room.

M19. Preserved Menagerie

• Defeated seven creepy crawling claws with a barrage of attacks.
• Most impressively, Celeste pulled off back to back nat 20s, the second of which she used to propel the claw victim into another one of its comrades, which killed it in the process. Two attacks, three claws defeated!

Conclusion

After obtaining the final puzzle book in the Chained Library, the party is easily able to identify the keyword to exit the mansion as 'liberty'. After wrapping up a few things, they return to the foyer, speak the word, and are able to peer through the portal and see the study where this mess all began. They get word from Teles that Moxie and Matreous were attacked by an imp that had emerged from a small figurine held by Matreous once he had left the mansion. Both of them were grievously wounded and were currently in the care of priests in the keep and expected to make a full recovery. The imp had been put down with extreme prejudice, but the state that the study was left in following the encounter made it extremely difficult to decipher any of Matreous' notes. With both Matreous and Moxie unconscious, the Avowed were doing their best to reconstruct any clues, but had no luck thus far.

Teles was eager to learn of some of their experiences in the mansion and is now eager to explore it further, hoping that a great many more works of useful knowledge could be added to Candlekeep's collection. She was able to provide information about the function of some of the wondrous items collected by the party during their time in the mansion. Following these discussions, the party visited Moxie once he regained consciousness, exchanged stories, and then returned to Beregost, where they await their next adventure.

An adventure for 1st-Level characters from Candlekeep Mysteries. Written by Michael Polkinghorn.

Completion Date
2022-01-30

Plot type

Adventure

Parent Plot

Candlekeep Mysteries - PCs

Related Characters

• Teles Ahvoste

Related Locations

• Candlekeep

Fistandia's Mansion

DM's Map (DDB)

Puzzle Book Inventory

• I - Study
• B - Alchemical Laboratory
• R - Library
• Y - Trophy Room
• E - Bedroom
• T - Laboratory
• L - The Chained Library

Treasure Inventory

• Total of 490 gp
• 4 daggers, 6 quarterstaves, 20 darts, 40 days of rations, 16 torches, 2 bedrolls, 2 leather bags, cartographer's kit, 6 silver spoons
• Recipe for a Potion of Climbing - Vanyel
• 4 servings of an enhanced healing root
• 2 domestic felines, Moxie Jr. - Creed, and Tylendel - Vanyel
• Moon-touched Longsword ("shirak" and "dulak" written in Giant on the cross-guard) - Clint
• Dread Helm ("sken" is written in Giant on it. When active, adds proficiency or expertise to Intimidation checks.) - Clint
• Amulet of unknown properties - Cornelius
• Eyeglasses that help you see in extreme detail up close - Cornelius
• 2 Book Flails +1 - Clint and Vanyel
• Horn of Silent Alarm - ????
• Alchemy Jug - party
• 50 gp of alchemical materials
• 1 clay figure used for creating homunculi - Cornelius
• 2 Potions of Healing - both were consumed, I believe
• Lantern of Revealing (additionally reveals "unusual" things, such as illusions and enchantments) - party