Propelled by magic, mine carts laden with fairgoers trundle into an opening carved like a dragon’s mouth. The carts reappear moments later on the far side of the attraction, with the passengers expressing a mixture of bewilderment, fear, and excitement.
Near the entrance, a male dwarf dressed like a wizard shouts, “Unlock the mysteries of your mind in the Mystery Mine!” He has bushy eyebrows, wears a pointy hat, and holds a large clockwork contraption shaped like a giant eye.
This ride costs 1 ticket punch.
The mine is the brainchild of an eccentric dwarf named Zephixo—the same individual standing outside it. He uses the mage stat block, with the following changes:
Zephixo (chaotic good) speaks Common, Dwarvish, Gnomish, and Sylvan.
He has darkvision out to a range of 60 feet, resistance to poison damage, and advantage on saving throws against poison.
Zephixo beckons visitors toward his “All-Seeing Eye” contraption. If the characters look into the eye, ask each player to write down their character’s name alongside the name of a creature the character fears. Collect their notes and refer to them during the ride. Characters who don’t gaze into the All-Seeing Eye can still enter the mine, at the cost of having a much less exhilarating experience.
Each mine cart holds up to eight Medium creatures. As the characters pass through the dragon’s mouth, the ride plunges them into an illusion-filled demiplane of undulating hills, corkscrewing trees, and prismatic skies.
As the characters’ cart hurtles along the track, refer to the players’ notes. Illusory forms of the characters’ worst fears launch themselves at the mine cart, and it’s up to you to describe how these fears manifest. The number of illusory forms equals the number of riders in the cart, and each character is confronted only once by their worst fear.
Each of the cart’s riders must make a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw as each illusion appears. If the illusion a character faces is their own fear, they have disadvantage on the saving throw. On a failed save, a character is compelled to scream as the illusion terrifies them to the core; on a successful save, the character laughs at the illusion as it rushes by harmlessly. Ask the players to keep track of how many of these saving throws their characters fail.
Any character who succeeds on all the saving throws gains advantage on all Charisma-based ability checks made at the carnival. This effect lasts until the crowning of the Witchlight Monarch (see “Timed Events” later in the chapter).
Any character who fails three or more of the ride’s saving throws is haunted by nightmares for 1d8 days. Until the nightmares end, the character must succeed on a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw after finishing a long rest or gain 1d3 levels of exhaustion. On the Story Tracker, record the character’s name and the number of days remaining until the nightmares cease, reducing that number by 1 after each long rest. Any spell that ends a curse rids the character of these nightmares but doesn’t remove levels of exhaustion gained as a result of them.