Arrival at the Palace
The means by which the characters travel to the palace determines where they arrive:
Characters who make the overland journey from Yon with Amidor cross a bridge that leads straight to the palace’s front gate (area P1).
Characters who ride on the backs of giant cranes from Motherhorn are deposited in the garden (area P2).
No matter how the characters arrive at the palace, describe it as follows:
A twilit palace emerges dreamlike from the clouds. A great marble tower ringed by delicate spires casts its shadow over the rooftops below. Another tower teeters nearby, torn from its foundations and held aloft by a coiled beanstalk. Monstrous vines cling to the palace walls and choke the promontory of rock on which it perches.
From the palace, the characters can gaze across the whole of Prismeer. You can now show your players the poster map of the domain. Once the characters view Prismeer from the palace, they can travel between Hither, Thither, or Yon without guides and can find their way to any location marked on the poster map.
As the characters survey their surroundings, the jabberwock returns from a hunt in Thither:
Hundreds of birds burst from the canopy of the ancient forest below you and scatter in all directions. Moments later, a much more fearsome creature erupts from the woods: a sinewy, pale-green dragon that takes to the sky and flies toward the palace. Its mighty wings carry it to great heights. Once above the palace, it drops like a stone and vanishes from sight behind the palace’s high walls.
The jabberwock has fed and is tired. It returns to its lair in the ballroom (area P22), entering the palace through a hole in the wall of the bathing room (area P25) and ignoring the characters.
Friends and Followers
In their travels through Hither, Thither, and Yon, the characters might have gained a follower or three. Likely companions include the three guides (Clapperclaw the scarecrow, Squirt the oilcan, and Amidor the dandelion), but others are possible. Running this chapter will be much easier if you encourage the player characters to explore the palace on their own, leaving any friends and followers outside the front gate or in the palace garden. These friends and followers, justifiably afraid that the palace will make mincemeat out of them, encourage the characters to explore the palace without them.
By the time the characters reach the palace, they might have learned one or more of the following facts, which you can gently reiterate to discourage the characters from allowing others to follow them into the palace:
Zybilna’s dragon (the jabberwock) haunts the palace. Only the bravest and hardiest adventurers stand a chance of surviving an encounter with it.
There are likely to be magical wards throughout the palace—some placed by Zybilna, others by the Hourglass Coven.
The League of Malevolence occupies the palace, and three of its members are still unaccounted for.
Two members of Valor’s Call are noteworthy exceptions. If Elkhorn and Molliver are with the party, they insist on accompanying the characters into the palace to make sure the other members of Valor’s Call are all right.