P26. Changing Room
The door to the adjoining hallway is sealed with a hart crown lock (see “Crown Locks” earlier in the chapter).
One wall of this chamber is lined with wooden cubicles, each containing a small bench and a hook for hanging clothes. Underfoot, a mosaic floor depicts images of demons.
Any creature that hangs an article of its clothing on one of the cubicle hooks receives the benefit of an invisibility spell that lasts for 1 hour or until the creature ends the effect on itself by attacking or casting a spell. After receiving this benefit, a creature cannot receive it again for 24 hours.
P27. Armory
The door to this room is sealed with a hart crown lock (see “Crown Locks” earlier in the chapter).
The room contains glass cabinets filled with a wide variety of weaponry. The weapons are so well constructed that it is difficult to tell if this display is an armory or a museum.
The glass cabinets are unlocked, and the weapons in them are spectacular in appearance. The cabinets contain one of each weapon listed on the Martial Melee Weapons and Martial Ranged Weapons tables in the Player’s Handbook. Being of particularly fine manufacture, they are worth twice the listed price. Each weapon is enchanted to shower its wielder with compliments. If complimented on its own form in return, a weapon glumly whispers, “Ah, but I’m not as fine as Snicker-Snack,” and then never speaks again.
P28. Library
The doors to the adjoining hallway are sealed with lion crown locks (see “Crown Locks” earlier in the chapter).
Leather-bound tomes fill the tall shelves of this grand library. Rolling ladders anchored to rails above the topmost shelves allow easy access to the higher books.
Appearing from behind a bookshelf is an elderly hunchbacked man carrying an open book. “This library is closed to visitors!” he says, snapping the book closed and making no effort to hide his surprise and his annoyance.
Zybilna keeps her most esoteric tomes in a separate library upstairs (area P38), but this room still contains a vast collection of books on all manner of subjects. It exists in a demiplane. Because of the library’s demiplanar nature, its occupants and contents were not frozen in time by Iggwilv’s Cauldron.
Shon and Gray. The librarian is a hunchbacked human mage (neutral) named Shon. He speaks Abyssal, Common, Elvish, and Sylvan, and he has a secret known only to himself, Zybilna, and her quasit, Iggrik: his “hump” is a giant wolf spider named Gray, which Shon hides under thick shawls. An awaken spell was cast on the spider, giving it an Intelligence of 10 and the ability to speak Elvish. Of the two, the spider knows the library better and is more adept at locating rare tomes. The spider defends Shon if the mage is attacked.
Shon confronts intruders and orders them to leave the library at once, claiming that no one may peruse the books without Zybilna’s consent. Zybilna has made no such declaration, but Shon doesn’t trust visitors not to steal the books. If necessary, he uses suggestion spells to force intruders to “get out and stay out!” If the characters stubbornly refuse to leave, Shon tells them that Zybilna keeps her most prized books in a smaller upstairs library and urges them to explore it instead. He even takes the time to write down a list of eight book titles found there that might interest them (see area P38).
When Zybilna and her court were frozen in time, Shon was shielded by the library’s demiplanar nature. He ventured forth to discover the League of Malevolence in charge. Shon is afraid of the league but has come to an agreement with its leader, Kelek: the league will allow Shon to remain at his post, and in exchange, Shon (and his spider) will use the library to research time-freezing magic, with the goal of helping the league break the spell on Ringlerun the wizard so that Kelek can obtain the wizard’s staff of power (in area P23). So far, Shon and Gray have found nothing helpful. Each of them can describe all five members of the league and knows that three of them—Kelek, Warduke, and Zargash—are in the palace.
Kelek has told Shon that Zybilna was betrayed by the Hourglass Coven, and that the hags have entrusted the League of Malevolence with protecting Iggwilv’s Cauldron. The conversations that Shon has had with Kelek suggest that the alliance between the league and the Hourglass Coven isn’t as strong as Kelek pretends it is. Gray overheard these conversations and knows this information as well.
If the characters tell Shon that they intend to free Zybilna and defeat the League of Malevolence, he shares the following information while showing them the door, determined to keep them from disturbing the books:
A jabberwock has made its lair in the ballroom. Kelek, the leader of the League of Malevolence, is terrified of it (“as he should be,” Shon adds).
Warduke, a helmed warrior with a flaming sword, acts as Kelek’s bodyguard, but not out of loyalty. He’s a cold-hearted mercenary who works for coin. The characters might be able to buy him off.
Shon can describe all the properties of a staff of power, having researched the subject recently.
Additional roleplaying notes can be found in the bio for Shon.
Shon’s Spellbook. Shon carries his spellbook, which is a leather-bound tome with a charcoal sketch of a wolf spider on the title page. This book contains the following spells: charm person, cone of cold, counterspell, darkvision, detect magic, fireball, fly, greater invisibility, ice storm, knock, mage armor, magic missile, misty step, polymorph, remove curse, shield, suggestion, and Tasha’s hideous laughter.
Unicorn Horn. If the Story Tracker indicates that the unicorn horn is here, Shon has it. He doesn’t want Kelek to get his hands on the staff of power, realizing the harm he would cause with it. Consequently, Shon has no intention of handing the staff over to the League of Malevolence. If, through good roleplaying, the characters convince Shon that they have Prismeer’s best interests at heart, he gives them the horn and tells them where to find Zybilna (area P22), warning them about the jabberwock if he hasn’t already done so.
P29. Rug of White Roses
The door to area P30 is sealed with a lion crown lock (see “Crown Locks” earlier in the chapter). The door on the opposite wall opens onto a balcony that overlooks the Court of Storms (area P13).
Running the length of this oblong room is a rug woven with images of thorny white roses. Each of the doors on the north and south walls has an alabaster pedestal standing inside the room beside it. Atop each pedestal is an alabaster vase that holds several long-stemmed white roses. Carved into the vase are the words “Take one” in Common.
A creature holding or carrying a white rose can pass through this hall safely. The rug is a 40-foot-long, 8-foot-wide rug of smothering with 60 hit points. If a creature not carrying a white rose ends its turn in the hall, the rug attacks it. The rug also attacks creatures that deal damage to it. Because of its length, the rug can smother up to four Medium or smaller creatures at once.