The party stands on the third floor landing outside Room 8C, where the cursed wizard Zala resides. Once a scholar of great promise, she bears the warping scars of the mansion itself—her spine wrought with spider-like segments, her feet clicking against stone with an awful insectile rhythm. Yet her mind remains sharp, and her knowledge proves invaluable.
Zala reveals critical truths: Markos Delphi is no true wizard at all, but a hemophiliac cursed with magical blood. Without his Codex, he bleeds profusely and remains vulnerable—a child playing with powers he barely understands. With the book, he becomes truly formidable. The entity that haunts the mansion—the source of the wild surges and warping—is given a nickname by the party: "Old Crow," so they don't refer to it by its true designation "Krokulmar." Speaking that true name is dangerous; it summons surges and shadow creatures of immense malevolence.
Zala confesses her own purpose: she performs ritual magic, work that appears immune to the mansion's wild surges. This labor alone has prevented dozens of surges from manifesting—without her constant vigil, the mansion would have collapsed into chaos weeks ago. She is exhausted, nearly depleted, but persists.
The wizard imparts strategic knowledge. There exists a safe room on the first floor—the eastern guest room, designed by its maker to repel the warping. The westernmost room, however, must never be opened. Behind that door lies a nether eldritch rift, a wound in the mansion's reality itself. Though that room also houses a curio closet filled with potions, the risk is unacceptable.
Zala grants the party her aid: she casts a scroll of healing upon Orimene, restoring the sorcerer to full vitality. She lends her spellbook—each spell within it bound to Zala's attunement, usable once per day—containing Arcane Lock, Detect Magic, Detect Thoughts, Knock, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Phantasmal Force, Shield, and Suggestion. She bestows a hooded lantern with a permanent flame, requiring only oil to maintain its light through any storm. She scatters black dust across their faces—a protective charm granting +1 AC for approximately one hour.
In exchange, she asks one thing: retrieve the Great Snake Constellation Map from the basement. This artifact is essential to breaking her curse and freeing her from the spider-warping that torments her body. Zala cannot retrieve it herself—the stairs are treacherous with her segmented spine, and her ritual work keeps her tethered to the third floor. The party agrees, and Zala retires to meditate, requesting silence while she works.
Zala mentions the safe room with casual certainty. The party, understanding the dire need for sanctuary, claps in unison. The ghost butler Winston manifests, slightly imperious, as if summoned by a bell in another realm.
Winston leads them downstairs to the first floor with a florid gesture, his spectral form gliding through walls where the living must walk. He stops before a door and waits, fading slightly as if his effort to maintain solidity is already waning. He confirms Zala's words: the western room opens a rift into eldritch nightmare. The eastern chamber, by contrast, was built with intention—a space of safety and respite.
The party notices something peculiar as they descend. From above comes sound: music and footsteps, ritualistic and ceremonial, growing louder on the second floor. Anar's keen senses (Perception 14) catch it first, and Puck's trained ear (Performance 24) identifies it as gospel hymn-work, the kind sung in formal rites. Yet the source remains invisible—this is not casual music-making.
They enter the eastern guest room. Winston fades away. The space is perfect: beds for each person, linens fresh and inviting, everything arranged with meticulous care. Yet there is something uncanny about it. The room seems to sense what its inhabitants desire, and a shelf materializes bearing bottles of the finest alcohol—top-shelf spirits that call to the weary.
Anar, drawn by thirst and exhaustion, reaches for a bottle. He claims it easily enough, but when he attempts to place it in his pack, it resists with impossible weight. He can hold it, yes—but it will not leave the room. His hand catches between bottle and doorframe as he tries to exit. With all his strength (Strength 17), he manages to shift his hand, but cannot release the bottle. The room will not permit its treasures to be taken.
Then: a sound like suction, wet and congested. The chandelier above shudders and drops with a terrible crash. From within its twisted brass emerges a creature of nightmare—a Gibbering Mouther, wild-eyed and frothing, its mouth a mass of snapping tentacles, saliva flying in thick strands. This is Jeremy, and he is in acute distress.
Winston's ghost appears in response to the chaos, passing through tentacles as if they were mist. "Jeremy, sit down, Jeremy," he commands, with the patience of a keeper addressing a suffering animal. Jeremy pays no heed. The door slams shut, tentacles holding it fast from within. Anar stands alone with the creature, the bottle still trapped in his grip.
Outside the door, the party hears tentacles thrashing against wood. The party acts with urgency—they throw their combined weight against the barrier. When the door bursts open, all four tumble through.
Anar stands firm within, still holding the cursed bottle. But Jeremy moves with terrible purpose, his mouth tentacles snapping and writhing. The ranger attempts to speak to the creature as he would a frightened beast: "Jeffrey... we're not gonna hurt you." Jeremy's eyes fix on him, wild and desperate.
Penelope and Orimene, moving as one, perform a hasty examination. Their combined medical knowledge (17 total) reveals the truth: Jeremy is not hostile by nature. He is suffering from a severe allergic reaction, his whole body in distress, his gibbering a manifestation of anguish rather than malevolence.
Puck, examining the pollen drifting through the air, makes a startling connection: it matches the pollen from outside the mansion's walls. The room, responding to the party's fearful thoughts about Jeremy's allergies, has manifested the very thing he cannot tolerate.
Puck calls out: "Stop thinking about what he's allergic to!" But the instruction comes too late—the very act of concentrating on the allergen feeds it. Yet the party adapts. They empty their minds, focusing instead on a single thought: the dust is gone, it does not exist, there is nothing here. The pollen fades like breath from glass. Jeremy's eyes clear. His writhing slows. His breathing steadies.
Then Jeremy speaks—a gibbering cascade of sounds that strike at the mind itself. Wisdom saves ripple across the party. Anar and Puck resist with ease, their minds steel. Penelope holds firm by the narrowest margin. But Orimene crumbles—psychic damage (5 HP) sears through her mind, and confusion takes hold. She walks toward the wall as if in a dream.
Anar moves without hesitation, hauling Orimene back with surprising gentleness (Athletics 16). The party retreats. The door closes. Through its thickness, Jeremy's sneezing and shuffling can be heard—his suffering beginning anew.
Winston reappears, his tone apologetic yet oddly fond. "He has allergies, you see. The pollen. I apologize for his behavior today. He is generally quite safe. I raised Jeremy from a tadpole myself." The ghost fades, leaving the party to understand the tragedy: a mouther, raised by a butler, forever victim to his own body's betrayals.
The party takes a brief respite, gathering their thoughts. The weight of the mansion presses upon them—its magic, its history, its trapped inhabitants. During this moment of quiet, Puck speaks of his past: a gnome of a clockmaker's family in the Dim Forest, where the sound of countless clocks—tick, tick, tick—drove him to madness. He fled toward music and open skies, away from the relentless mechanical heartbeat of home.
Anar shares his own story. He comes from a fallen civilization, a warm kingdom now lost to memory, its name erased from the maps. He has wandered the Flanaess for ten years, moving ever forward, always searching for something unnamed. This mansion, with its warping and its mysteries, feels like the culmination of his long journey.
The party realizes their paths converge. They are not strangers bound by chance, but travelers from the same fractured world, drawn together by forces neither fully understands. Chris, their Dungeon Master, mentions in passing that this published module serves only as a scaffold—the true story of the mansion and its mysteries will unfold through their collective will, adapted and evolved into something far greater than any written page.
Debating their next move, the party decides to explore further before confronting Markos Delphi. There may be items, knowledge, or allies waiting to be discovered. The ritualistic music from above has ceased, suggesting a window of opportunity.
They venture into an L-shaped hallway on the first floor, lined with portraits of the Delphi family—generations of faces staring down from the walls, watching, witnessing. Orimene, emboldened by her arcane knowledge, speaks the name fragment aloud: "Hralfrak." The word echoes strangely, and they sense a distant shift—somewhere far below, in the basement depths, a secret door responds. But nothing in this hallway moves.
The party searches methodically. Orimene and Penelope examine the portraits and sconces, finding nothing but dust and the ghosts of long-vanished meanings. Anar, however, presses his palms against the walls with practiced care. His sensitive touch detects what eyes cannot see: a hollow space behind one section of wall, near the dining room. Something waits there, hidden and patient.
As Orimene approaches the dining room with the hooded lantern, she sees something impossible: scratch arcs on the wall surrounding a mounted deer head, approximately five feet six inches high. The marks form a perfect circle—the signature of something large and blunt, striking repeatedly against stone.
Anar does not hesitate. He throws his net at the deer head, and the fibers wrap around it in a tangle. But the deer head reacts with terrible alacrity. Its mouth splits open—impossibly, wrongly—revealing a spiky tongue and a body of writhing chitin. It is a Mimic, and it has been waiting for prey to strike at.
The net tears in moments (5 HP consumed by the creature's savage strength). Initiative cracks like lightning. Penelope (19) reacts with the speed of a predator. Puck (12) draws his instrument and voice in preparation. Orimene (4) fumbles for her magic. Anar (1), in his panic, vomits wine upon himself and the Mimic—a natural 1 fumble that reduces him to helpless disgust.
The Mimic lashes out (14). Penelope and Orimene duck behind the dining room curtains, seeking cover. Anar, recovering his dignity and seizing a curtain rod ripped from the window, attempts to contain the creature through sheer will and improvisational combat (Acrobatics 15). He jams the rod into its mouth, steers the thrashing thing around the room like a grotesque game of hockey.
Orimene, examining the scratch marks on the wall (Arcana 14), suddenly understands: the deer head is not merely a trap—it is a mechanism, a lever built into the stone itself. A secret room lies beyond.
Penelope steps from behind the curtain, staff ready, and pushes the deer head/plaque with all her might. Stone grinds against stone. The wall slides inward, revealing a hidden chamber beyond.
On the next turn, Anar maneuvers with renewed purpose (Acrobatics 14). He steers the Mimic toward the kitchen door, and in the process, accidentally skewers the creature's tongue through both ends of the curtain rod. The Mimic cannot escape. The rod holds firm. The creature writhes, defeated.
Penelope, Orimene, and Puck enter the revealed chamber. Anar remains at the threshold, holding the impaled Mimic with the rod, a grim sentinel guarding the passage.
The secret room exhales age and sorcery. Dusty, dimly lit by candelabras bearing flames that flicker like dying fluorescent lights, the entire chamber is lined with bookshelves—hundreds of volumes, their spines worn but legible, their contents an archive of forbidden knowledge.
But the true focus of the room are the three magic circles inscribed upon the floor. They form an interlocking pattern, clearly designed to work in concert, their geometric complexity suggesting immense power. The circles lie dormant, waiting. This chamber has not been used in years, perhaps decades, though the workmanship suggests precision and purpose.
One wall bears a different kind of shelf: jars. Within them, preserved in something that smells of rubbing alcohol and death, are specimens that chill the blood. A head floats in one vessel. A hand rests in another. Four smaller jars contain tadpole-like creatures, their forms barely human, their movement suggesting a consciousness trapped in flesh not its own. Beside them, notes are written in Deep Speech, symbols that none of the party can decipher.
Orimene approaches the circles with arcane caution (Arcana 12). She senses something working within them—a magical current that suggests binding, summoning, or imprisonment. The circles are not dormant; they are waiting, as if for a key or a catalyst.
Penelope adds her own knowledge (Arcana 13, Lucky reroll). She recognizes the pattern as similar to binding circles, protective arrays designed to contain forces beyond mortal understanding.
Puck, reading the geometric subtleties with bardic perception (Arcana 18), identifies the circles' true purpose: a summoning spell, yes, but one that could equally serve as a banishing ritual. The power contained within could either pull something into this world or cast it out to the void.
Penelope, driven by curiosity or fate, steps onto the first circle. A tingling sensation erupts across her skin—static electricity made manifest. Her hair stands on end. The circle glows faintly beneath her feet.
Puck follows, placing his feet on the second circle. Both circles illuminate. The candles strengthen, their flames doubling in height.
Orimene joins them on the third circle. All three ignite at once. The candelabras blaze with forearm-length flames, the light filling the chamber with a brilliance that seems to pierce the veil between worlds. The circles hum—a frequency felt more than heard, vibrating in bone and blood.
And there, at the threshold, Anar holds the Mimic fast on its curtain rod, the door behind him closed, the mansion watching, waiting. The candles burn bright. The circles glow with unspent power. And somewhere in the darkness above, the entity known as Old Crow stirs, aware that something has shifted in the chambers below.