The sitting room had been designed to soothe anxious guests, which only made it more suspicious.

Soft couches stood around a polished table beneath the mellow glow of enchanted lamps. A brass-bound globe rested upon a pedestal in one corner, its painted seas gleaming darkly. Shelves and side tables displayed porcelain birds, silver animals, crystal flowers, and other costly ornaments chosen with such careful blandness that none seemed to have any purpose beyond reminding visitors that their host was wealthy, cultivated, and somewhere else. For the moment, the adventurers were alone.

They had crossed Veyr’s impossible hedge maze, survived its guardians, flown across perilous waters, chased gems that vanished from their hands, and deciphered a sundial whose shadow had pointed in every direction at once. At the maze’s heart they had found the tower, and at the tower’s door they had found an ogre who had taken their names, shut the door in their faces, and eventually admitted them. Now they waited.

Elora allowed her gaze to drift across the room, though little escaped the discipline behind her apparent idleness. The couches concealed no blades, the table no glyphs, the walls no hidden seams. Nothing suggested a trap ready to spring. Yet several of the ornaments troubled her.

A tiny ivory owl faced the couches at precisely the proper angle. A bronze flower had a dark, glassy center that caught no reflection. A silver beetle perched on a shelf with its wings half-open, though no craftsman would have chosen such an awkward pose without reason.

“They are watching us,” Elora said.

Thorn glanced toward the ivory owl. “Veyr?”

“Perhaps. Or his servants. The room is warded for observation.”

Maledurk leaned forward, bringing his broad brass-scaled face nearer to the bronze flower. “Can it hear us?”

“Probably.”

He cleared his throat and addressed the ornament. “We demand an audience.”

Tempest, slouched on the couch with the exhausted air of someone who had recently been struck by a furious dao, lifted one blue-scaled hand. “We already have an audience,” she said. “They are just very small and badly decorated.”

Nothing applauded.

The others exchanged looks. Their long journey had taught them to be wary of hospitality, particularly hospitality involving tea. Poison had worn many masks in their travels, and few were as convincing as porcelain cups, lace napkins, and a servant insisting that everything was perfectly safe. Still, there was little to do but wait.

The door opened before impatience won. The ogre returned carrying a silver tray that looked almost delicate in his enormous hands. Upon it sat a steaming teapot, five cups, and a plate piled with neatly cut cucumber sandwiches. He set the tray on the table with surprising care and poured for each of them.

“Master Veyr will be with you in a few moments,” he said. “Please enjoy yourselves.”

The scent of fresh bread, cucumber, herbs, and warm tea filled the room. Maledurk eyed the sandwiches with open longing. Thorn eyed them as if they might be disguised assassins. Elora looked at Tempest. Tempest looked at Elora.

“No,” Tempest said.

“You have not even been asked anything,” Thorn observed.

“You all have the same face.”

Maledurk nudged the plate toward her. “You are closest.”

“I am also the most injured.”

“That makes you the best judge of whether they restore health.”

Tempest sighed the long sigh of one unfairly burdened by the incompetence of friends. She picked up a sandwich, examined it, smelled it, and took a bite.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then her eyes widened. She toppled sideways and struck the couch cushions.

The ogre froze. The color seemed to drain from his broad face. He rushed toward her, nearly overturning the tea table in his alarm. “What is wrong?” he cried. “What has happened?”

Tempest sat upright. “I got you.”

Silence settled upon the room. She took another bite.

The ogre stared at her, then at the others, then back at her, as though trying to decide whether this was a custom among smaller folk or evidence of sudden madness.

“These people always make me try everything first,” Tempest explained. “I thought they deserved it.”

“You are unharmed?”

“The sandwich is excellent.” She drank from her cup and nodded solemnly. “The tea is also very nice.”

Relief passed over the ogre’s face, followed by confusion, then the weary acceptance of a servant who had encountered something he would later choose not to mention. He bowed and departed.

The others fell upon the food. Whatever suspicions remained were no match for hunger. The cucumber sandwiches were crisp and cool, spread with soft cheese and fragrant herbs. The tea carried a subtle sweetness and warmth that seeped through bruised flesh and wearied minds.

They ate until the tension of the maze began to loosen its hold. Tempest’s wounds faded and Maledurk’s battered muscles eased. Thorn felt the tightness behind his eyes diminish, while Elora sensed the frayed edges of her magic knitting themselves whole. For a little while, they were merely travelers at rest.

When the ogre returned, they were full, refreshed, and in Maledurk’s case, attempting to determine how many remaining sandwiches could be carried in his pockets without being crushed.

“Master Veyr will see you now,” the ogre announced.

“What about these?” Maledurk asked, indicating the plate.

“You may take them.”

Maledurk swept the remaining sandwiches into his pockets. The ogre watched him do it.

“I could have brought you more.”

“This is quicker.”

The ogre introduced himself as Gerald while leading them from the sitting room. The corridor curved gently along the tower’s circumference. Paintings hung at measured intervals along the walls, each depicting some lonely expanse of the natural world. Deserts stretched beneath white suns, forests gathered under mist, hills rolled beneath clouded skies, frozen wastes shimmered in blues and grays. There were no people in any of them, no beasts, no roads or cottages or ruins or ships. Only the world, emptied of everyone who lived there.

The paintings were strangely indistinct when viewed closely. Trees became strokes of dark pigment. Mountains dissolved into angular washes. Waves were nothing more than overlapping bands of color. Yet from a distance each scene had an uncanny depth, as though the image were less a painting than the memory of a place.

Gerald led them upward through several flights of stairs and into a broad chamber dominated by floor-to-ceiling windows. Beyond the glass lay the hedge maze. From above, it was vast beyond reason.

Its green walls extended mile after mile, folding and refolding into an intricate geometry. Elora moved nearer to the windows and searched the horizon. The town they had passed should have been visible, the mountains rising in the distance, the road cutting through the surrounding country. There was nothing. The maze simply continued, spreading outward beneath an empty sky until haze swallowed it.

“This is not where the tower stood,” Elora murmured.

Thorn joined her at the glass. “The exterior may only be an entrance.”

“Or the tower moves.”

“Or the land outside is false.”

Maledurk peered over their shoulders. “It is a very large maze.”

Tempest stared at it for a moment, then turned away. “I already disliked it when it was smaller.”

A man waited at the far end of the chamber behind a large table. He was short for a human, perhaps five feet in height, and had embraced every traditional symbol of wizardry with either absolute sincerity or magnificent stubbornness. His robes fell in layered folds embroidered with stars and planetary circles. A pointed hat rose from his head at an angle that suggested it had opinions of its own. He looked up as they entered.

“You are late.”

Elora stopped. “We were waiting in your sitting room.”

“You were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago.”

“We were served cucumber sandwiches,” Maledurk said.

Veyr’s gaze shifted to Gerald. “Gerald?”

The ogre lowered his head. “They looked hungry, sir.”

“They were,” Tempest said.

Veyr sighed as though the entire discipline of timekeeping had suffered an insult. “Sit down. Time is very important here.”

They gathered around the table. A piece of paper lay before Veyr, covered by three enormous words written in a heavy hand:

THE GOOD GUYS.

Veyr lifted the page. “An unusual name.”

“It describes all of us,” Elora said.

“A bold claim,” Veyr replied. “And a boring one.”

Maledurk frowned. “You live in a tower surrounded by an endless hedge.”

“My work is fascinating.”

“What do you do?” Thorn asked.

Veyr’s expression sharpened with interest. “I study the cosmos. The planes. Dimensions. The relationships between realities and the means by which one may travel among them.”

At last, they had reached the reason for their journey. Elora told him what had happened to them.

She spoke of being drawn again and again into events that seemed separate, yet carried the faint marks of a single design. She told him of Chult, of the Soulmonger, and of the race that had somehow opened into Barovia, and how they had spent days in that grim realm only to return to the precise instant from which they had departed. She described Strixhaven, the life they had seemingly lived as students, and Magraxor. She recounted awakening in the Underdark and facing Demogorgon. She spoke of Jareth, the talking tree, and the strange task that had sent them gathering impossible objects from impossible places, and of Nimu and her hidden forest beneath the earth.

Veyr listened with the patience of a scholar and the sympathy of a stone wall. When Elora finished, he tapped one finger against the table.

“Reality is threatened by creatures, catastrophes, and fools every day,” he said. “You will need to be more specific.”

“We believe these events are connected,” Thorn said. “Someone has been moving us. Testing us, perhaps. Using us.”

“And you want to know who.”

“We want to know what is happening,” Elora replied. “And how to stop it.”

Veyr studied her for a moment. “You are a wizard.”

“I was trained as one.”

“One of those traveling wizards,” he said with faint disapproval. “You should settle down and find proper work.”

“This is my work.”

“Yes. Disturbing.”

He stood abruptly. “Come with me.”

Veyr strode from the chamber at a pace that forced the others to hurry. He led them through another curved hallway overlooking the impossible maze, then into an interior room lined with bookshelves and worktables.

Loose papers covered nearly every surface. Quills rested in ink-stained cups. Brass instruments with rotating rings stood beside crystals, lenses, astrolabes, and devices whose purpose even Thorn could not immediately guess. More paintings hung on the walls: a desert, a tundra, a plain, a forest, a sea beneath a pale horizon.

Veyr moved to one of the tables and began searching through a book. Elora approached the forest painting.

It was no larger than a theatrical poster. Its frame was dark wood, plain and unmarked. The image showed a dense forest beneath green light, but the details seemed unwilling to settle beneath her gaze. She leaned closer.

“What are you doing?” Thorn asked.

“I think these might be portals.”

Veyr continued turning pages. Elora stepped back. Then she ran forward and leaped into the painting.

She struck it with a crash. The frame tore free of its hook. Elora fell backward, the painting landing across her face and chest.

For one solemn heartbeat, no one spoke. Veyr looked up from his book.

“Are you all right?”

Elora pushed the painting aside and sat up. “It is not a portal.”

“No,” Veyr said. “It is not.”

Tempest helped her rise, though her expression suggested that this was the finest thing she had witnessed all day. Elora rehung the painting.

“They are more than they appear,” Veyr added. “They are intended for viewing and study, not for hurling oneself against.”

“What do they show?” Thorn asked.

Veyr closed the book. “They allow me to observe other planes. More specifically, they allow me to examine the relationships between planes and the ways in which dimensional boundaries overlap.”

“You made them?” Elora asked.

“Of course.”

“How far has your research progressed?”

“Considerably. In another three or four centuries, I may have something worth showing.”

Maledurk blinked.

Veyr crossed the room and stood before the forest painting. “You say you have traveled between dimensions, perhaps without understanding how or why. If dimensional residue remains upon you, these paintings may allow us to determine where you have been.” He looked at Elora. “Place your hand upon the center.”

Elora did so. The painted forest felt cool beneath her palm.

“Think of the glen where you met the talking tree,” Veyr instructed. “Describe it to yourself. Fix it in your thoughts.”

Elora closed her eyes. She remembered the hush beneath the branches. She remembered Jareth’s presence, ancient and rooted, and the strange pressure upon the bag that had held the crown. She remembered the wards that prevented passage by teleportation and the feeling that the glen itself had resisted what they carried.

The surface beneath her hand trembled. A murmur came from behind her. Elora opened her eyes.

The forest had changed. The vague woodland scene had become familiar. The curve of the trees, the green light, the open space between the roots, all of it carried the unmistakable shape of Jareth’s glen.

Then the laboratory vanished. Elora stood beneath the forest canopy. Leaves stirred overhead. Soft light filtered through the branches. Jareth stood where Elora remembered her, silent and immense.

“Elora?” Thorn’s voice sounded distant, muffled by an impossible gulf. She turned, but the others were gone.

“Jareth,” Elora called. “Can you hear me?”

The ancient being did not respond. Elora moved nearer. Nothing in the glen acknowledged her presence. She could see the place, but she had no weight within it. No breath stirred the air. No footstep bent the grass. She was an observer inside a memory of distance.

Elora pulled her hand away. The glen collapsed like a reflection disturbed by rain. The laboratory returned around her. Her companions stood exactly where they had been, watching the painting.

Veyr was already writing. “What did you see?”

“Jareth’s glen. I called to her, but she could not hear me.”

“Would she normally respond?”

“Yes.”

“Important to establish,” Veyr said. “Some beings simply dislike conversation. It corrupts the data.”

He examined the altered painting. “This suggests the glen lies upon the Material Plane, but is protected by significant magical barriers. Those protections interfered with the observation.”

“Interfered?” Tempest asked. “We saw it clearly.”

Veyr drew himself up. “I am very talented.”

One by one, they used the paintings. They called to mind the places through which they had traveled, and the images shifted to answer them. Veyr questioned them relentlessly, noted every detail, and compared their experiences against whatever hidden measures his instruments revealed. Gradually, their journey separated into categories.

Chult had been real and firmly rooted in the Material Plane. Port Nyanzaru, the jungle, the Soulmonger, all had occurred in the world they knew. The Underdark had also been real. Demogorgon’s presence there, however, disturbed even Veyr. Demons did not simply cross into the Material Plane without cause. Someone had brought the creature there, deliberately or through catastrophic folly. Had the adventurers not destroyed it, the consequences would have spread far beyond them.

Barovia was another plane, and so was Strixhaven. The strange regions surrounding the lost works of Qualish had been a web of pocket dimensions. The drowned town beneath poisonous slime, the isolated bubbles reached by submarine, the glacier, the black salt waste, and Knogbrüth’s tomb had all existed outside ordinary reality. Nimu’s underground forest was another dimension as well.

At that, Veyr paused. His expression tightened with the particular pleasure of a scholar meeting a fact that refused to fit.

“You have crossed dimensional boundaries far more frequently than you realized,” he said.

Thorn regarded the paintings. “How can we know which places were real?”

“By what remains when you leave.”

Veyr explained that some dimensions were complete realities, whether naturally formed or shaped by immense power. Objects taken from such places could endure beyond their boundaries. The Sunsword had come out of Barovia. The crown had come out of Knogbrüth’s tomb. The black salt gathered during their search for Nimu had remained with them. Those objects proved that the places they came from had true substance.

The chambers within Veyr’s hedge maze were different. The gems they had found there vanished when carried beyond the rooms because those spaces had been constructs, temporary imitations of reality made for a limited purpose.

“I designed them that way so no one would steal the gems,” Veyr said.

“Then those dimensions were less real?” Maledurk asked.

“False, in a sense. Artificial. An amateur creates a place from which nothing can be removed.”

Veyr stopped. He frowned at the realization that he had just classified his own work as amateurish.

“I did it deliberately,” he added.

“Of course,” Thorn said.

Veyr’s explanation did little to reduce the strangeness of what they had experienced. If anything, it deepened it. Their lives had become a path crossing realities, dreams that were not dreams, memories that could hold swords, and worlds that existed only until one stepped through a door.

Yet one fact sharpened through the confusion: their movements had not been random. Someone, or something, had repeatedly placed them at the seams between worlds. Veyr seemed increasingly convinced of this, though the possible destruction of existence concerned him less than the elegance of the mystery.

“Dimensional travel is not merely movement through space,” he said. “Time is itself a dimension. To travel between realities is often to travel through time, whether one intends to or not.”

He pointed to their experience in Barovia. They had departed during a race, lived through days and dangers beneath Strahd’s shadow, and returned at the same instant they had vanished. To those watching in Chult, no time had passed. To the adventurers, a piece of their lives had unfolded.

“That was time travel,” Veyr said. “Not a metaphor. You traveled through time as surely as you traveled through space.”

Thorn had long suspected that the pattern surrounding them reached beyond any ordinary enemy. Elora had felt it in the way each new path opened beneath their feet before the last had fully closed. Tempest’s chaos had often made the world appear mutable, but this was something greater than wild magic. Maledurk, who preferred enemies that could be struck, found little comfort in the idea that their adversary might move through histories as easily as through doors.

“We need to know where this began,” Elora said.

“Yes,” Veyr replied. “If we can separate the mundane events from the truly unusual ones, we may identify a pattern. Connections between the places. Connections between the times. Perhaps even some indication of where you are meant to go next.”

“Can you sense a threat to the balance of the planes?” Thorn asked.

“Such threats exist.”

“Is one happening now?”

“Possibly. Sometimes such disturbances are caused by beings intent on conquest, destruction, enslavement, or similar dull ambitions. A substantial number are caused by wizards attempting something clever and failing.”

His gaze passed briefly over Thorn and Elora. “There are many fools among us.”

The testing continued until Veyr’s attention returned again and again to Nimu. The hidden forest did not fit neatly with the others. Its boundary had been subtle. The adventurers had crossed without the violent wrench of planar travel. It was concealed, almost secret.

Then there was the crown. They had kept it sealed inside a lead box, hidden within a portable hole carried in Elora’s pack. Both Maledurk and Thorn had worn it. Each had fallen into a state of near catatonia while experiencing vivid visions.

Nimu’s reaction had been different. When she placed the crown upon her head, she had remained standing. Her voice had changed. Her posture had changed. She had looked around the hidden forest as if seeing it through another’s eyes and said, “She would be here.” Then she had leaped through the window.

Once the crown was removed, Nimu had returned to herself. She remembered the compulsion to put it on. She remembered her own identity being pressed downward, forced away from the surface of her mind while another presence took control.

Veyr listened with complete attention. “I would like to examine it,” he said.

The room became still. Maledurk’s hand moved nearer to his weapon. Thorn watched the wizard’s face. Tempest studied the tables, perhaps calculating how many could be overturned if something went wrong.

Elora met Veyr’s gaze. “Can you do so safely?”

“As safely as anything involving an unknown interdimensional artifact containing a potentially hostile intelligence.”

“That is not very reassuring.”

“It is honest.”

Elora considered what she had seen of him. Veyr was vain, reclusive, dismissive, and wholly captivated by his own brilliance. He did not seem concerned whether the adventurers survived their struggle. He might not have cared whether the world survived it. But he cared about understanding the crown. His curiosity was genuine, and for the moment, their interests aligned.

“All right,” Elora said. “But it remains in our presence.”

“Acceptable.”

Veyr took a wand from one of the worktables. He stared at a blank wall, silently calculating, then traced a figure through the air. A door appeared. He opened it.

Beyond lay a vast gray chamber. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all the same dull color, which made distance difficult to judge. In the center stood a solitary stone plinth. Across the room was a low fortified shelter with a narrow viewing slit.

Veyr gestured toward it. “I liked your suggestion about observing from behind a barrier.”

Maledurk nodded. “It was a good suggestion.”

They entered. The door vanished when Veyr closed it.

Elora retrieved the portable hole, drew out the lead box, and handed it to him. Veyr carried it to the plinth and set it down. Then he joined the others in the shelter.

From thirty feet away, he conjured a spectral hand. The translucent fingers opened the box. Nothing happened. The crown lay within, dark and still. The spectral hand lifted it from the lead lining and placed it atop the box. Again, nothing happened.

They waited. The crown did not glow or whisper. No spectral figure emerged, no crack opened in reality. It sat beneath the flat gray light, looking almost ordinary.

“Does it generally do anything on its own?” Veyr asked.

“Not unless someone wears it,” Elora said.

“No juggling?” Tempest added.

“No juggling,” Maledurk confirmed.

Veyr watched it a little longer, then left the shelter. He approached the plinth cautiously, circling it several times. He cast spells toward the crown, studying the way each enchantment touched or failed to touch it. Some seemed to slide away. Others produced reactions too slight for anyone but Veyr to notice. He wrote notes after every attempt.

At last he extended his quill and poked the crown. Then he jumped backward. Nothing happened. He poked it again, held the feathered end against the metal, and waited. Still nothing.

Veyr returned to the shelter. “Direct contact appears necessary. More specifically, contact with living flesh. It resists several forms of magical examination, but I believe the object contains memories.”

“Whose?” Thorn asked.

“That,” Veyr said, “is the useful question.”

Maledurk remembered the visions that had seized him while wearing the crown. They had felt real. He had moved through them, acted within them, made choices. Or believed he had.

Veyr proposed a darker possibility. Perhaps the crown did not merely show memories. Perhaps it compelled the wearer to reenact them. The wearer might feel free, might believe each decision belonged to them, while in truth following a path already laid down by someone else.

“How much freedom does a person possess inside a memory?” Veyr asked. “You may think you are choosing. But perhaps you are only remembering someone else’s choice.”

No one answered. Even Tempest had grown quiet.

Veyr admitted that he had no intention of placing the crown upon his own head. For a fleeting moment he considered Gerald, then seemed to decide that sacrificing one’s ogre servant to scholarship might create domestic difficulties.

Elora suggested using a magical intermediary, something through whose senses they could observe without exposing a mind directly. The idea interested Veyr, though it did not resolve the central mystery. Nimu had not merely watched. Something had used her.

“Perhaps the crown was looking for her,” Veyr said.

If that was true, Nimu’s hidden forest might not have been a refuge chosen at random. She could have been hiding from the power within the crown, knowingly or otherwise. Or she might have been waiting in concealment until the crown found its way back to her.

“You brought it to her,” Veyr said.

Elora felt the weight of that truth. Nimu had seemed kind. Helpful. Odd, certainly, but no more than many beings they had met. She had fed them and guided them. Nothing in her manner had suggested that she was waiting to become a vessel for another will. Yet appearances had deceived them before.

“Do you think she is responsible for what is happening?” Thorn asked.

“If forced to guess, no,” Veyr replied. “But she may be connected to it in ways she does not understand.”

“Then we should return to her,” Elora said.

Veyr’s interest brightened. “I would prefer she come here.”

“You want us to bring Nimu through your maze?”

“Yes.”

“Can you not make the passage easier?”

“What good are defenses if one weakens them whenever guests complain?”

“You know us now.”

“I know you survived once. You also know the correct path. Simply avoid doing anything stupid.”

Maledurk began trying to remember the sequence of sundials. Thorn disagreed with his second turn. Tempest proposed walking through every hedge until one worked. Elora wondered whether Veyr’s maze might prove more dangerous the second time simply out of spite.

Their debate was interrupted by a voice inside Elora’s mind. “Excuse me. Is this Elora the Majestic?”

Elora stiffened. “Yes.”

The distant speaker sounded relieved. “Good. I reached three wrong people before you.”

The message came from Waterdeep, from those continuing the research Elora had begun before the party’s departure. They had uncovered information concerning Knogbrüth. Or rather, two pieces of information, both from sources considered reliable, both describing the same period of history.

In one account, Knogbrüth had been a terrible wizard who raised an army of the dead in the frozen north. His reign of terror had ended when Svensson the Bold defeated and slew him. In another account, Knogbrüth had been a human king ruling lands far to the east. The dates overlapped, and the distances were too great. By every ordinary measure, Knogbrüth could not have been both men.

Elora repeated the message aloud. The chamber seemed to contract around the words. A wizard in the north, a king in the east, two histories unfolding at the same time.

Veyr’s earlier lesson returned with sudden force. Dimensional travel was also travel through time. A traveler might leave one moment, spend years elsewhere, and return before the next heartbeat. A being who understood such movement might deliberately inhabit histories that contradicted one another.

Thorn’s eyes narrowed. Maledurk looked toward the crown on its distant plinth. Tempest, for once, did not offer a joke.

Knogbrüth’s tomb had existed in another dimension. His crown carried memories and a will capable of suppressing the mind of its wearer. Nimu had been hidden in yet another dimension and had reacted to the artifact as no one else had. Now history itself claimed Knogbrüth had lived two lives at once.

There was no alarm in Veyr’s expression, only fascination. “At last,” he said softly, “something interesting.”

Beyond the shelter, the crown waited in silence. It had survived the death of a necromancer, the end of a king, the crossing of dimensions, and the passage of centuries. Perhaps the histories were false. Perhaps one Knogbrüth had become two, a single mind moving between lives as easily as the adventurers had been moved between worlds.

Whatever the truth, a pattern was beginning to emerge. Their journeys had done more than carry them across distant lands; they had been threaded through realities, and each passage had left residue on their bodies and memories. Barovia, Strixhaven, the Underdark, Knogbrüth’s tomb, the hidden forest: all points on a design they could not yet see in full. At its center stood a crown filled with another life, and somewhere beyond it waited Nimu.

Across the divided pages of history, Knogbrüth had begun to exist twice.

Session Notes

  • The session opened with a recap of the party’s progress through Veyr’s magically defended hedge maze.

    • The party had solved several puzzles and encountered multiple hazards while attempting to reach the wizard’s tower.
    • They had fought a dao, flown across a pool to retrieve a gem, and confronted a sundial puzzle whose shadow pointed in every direction.
    • Elora ultimately discovered the solution to the final obstacle by walking directly into the hedge.
    • After reaching the tower, the party knocked on the door and was greeted by a large ogre.
    • The ogre took the party’s names, briefly left them waiting outside, and then admitted them into the tower.
    • He brought them to a sitting room and offered them tea and cucumber sandwiches.
    • The previous session had ended before the refreshments arrived.

  • The party waited alone in the tower’s sitting room.

    • The room was comfortably and tastefully furnished with several couches and a table.
    • A decorative globe and various knickknacks were placed around the room.
    • There were also several uninteresting books on the coffee table, including dense works about subjects such as insect migration patterns and plants of the frozen tundra.
    • The books appeared intended to occupy guests while they waited rather than provide useful information.

  • Thorn examined the room and made a Perception check, receiving a result of 25.

    • He found no visible traps, immediate dangers, or concealed weapons.
    • He did, however, notice that several of the decorative knickknacks appeared to be magically enchanted.
    • Based on his knowledge of magic, Thorn suspected that the enchanted objects were being used as scrying devices.
    • The devices appeared to function like magical surveillance equipment, allowing someone elsewhere in the tower to see or hear what occurred in the sitting room.
    • The party did not believe the devices had been placed specifically for them. They seemed to be permanent security measures used to monitor anyone waiting in the room.

  • The party debated how to respond to being watched and whether they should continue waiting.

    • One suggestion was to call out to whoever was monitoring them and demand an immediate audience.
    • The group joked that if they demanded an audience, a hundred servants might enter and applaud them.
    • Some members of the party wondered whether the ogre had gone to consult the tower’s master before allowing them inside.
    • Others considered the possibility that the ogre had merely followed standing instructions and had used the delay to prepare the monitored room.
    • The party discussed whether they should behave as polite guests and wait or leave the room and begin exploring the tower.
    • Elora appeared particularly ready to act and was already near the door.
    • Despite their suspicions, the party had no evidence that the room itself was dangerous.

  • Before the party decided whether to leave, the ogre returned with the promised refreshments.

    • He carried a tray containing a tea service and a plate piled with cucumber sandwiches.
    • He placed the tray on the coffee table and poured a cup of tea for each member of the party.
    • He informed them that Veyr, the wizard and master of the tower, would be with them in a few moments.
    • The party confirmed that Veyr was the wizard they had traveled to meet.

  • The party remained wary of the food because of their previous experience with poisoned tea.

    • Tempest, who was visibly injured from the party’s recent battle with the dao, was encouraged to test the refreshments first.
    • Tempest took one of the cucumber sandwiches, smelled it, and bit into it.
    • She announced that it tasted good and then abruptly fell sideways.
    • The ogre, who had been preparing to leave, saw her collapse and immediately looked panicked.
    • He rushed toward Tempest and asked what was wrong.
    • Tempest sat up and revealed that she had only been pretending to be poisoned.
    • She explained that the others always made her test things first, like a canary in a coal mine, so she had decided to frighten them.
    • She took another bite of the sandwich and assured the ogre that she was fine.
    • Tempest also drank some of the tea, told the ogre that it was very nice, and thanked him.
    • The ogre appeared confused but relieved.

  • Once Tempest demonstrated that the refreshments were safe, the rest of the party began eating.

    • They acknowledged that they had not eaten for some time and were still recovering from the dangers of the maze.
    • The party reasoned that they did not have a definite reason to consider Veyr an enemy.
    • They had been told that he was gruff, reclusive, and surrounded by elaborate defenses, but those traits were not unusual for a wizard devoted to private magical study.
    • Thorn recognized that many wizards eventually withdrew from society, built towers, surrounded themselves with defenses, and focused on their research.
    • The party ate the cucumber sandwiches, drank the tea, and rested.
    • The rest restored their hit points and left them feeling refreshed, full, and recovered from the physical and mental strain of the maze.

  • After some time, the ogre returned and announced that Veyr was ready to see them.

    • He politely asked the party to follow him.
    • The party was reluctant to abandon the remaining cucumber sandwiches.
    • The ogre told them that they could take the sandwiches with them and that he could provide more if necessary.
    • Maledurk gathered the remaining sandwiches and placed them in his pockets.

  • The ogre led the party through the interior of the tower.

    • The hallway curved gradually, suggesting that it followed the outer wall of the tower’s roughly circular structure.
    • There were relatively few doors along the corridor.
    • Numerous paintings hung on the walls.
    • Each painting depicted a natural landscape, including deserts, forests, rolling hills, plains, and other environments.
    • None of the paintings contained people, buildings, or animals.
    • The images were somewhat abstract when examined closely.
    • When viewed from a distance, however, each painting gave a much stronger impression of the landscape it represented.
    • The party noticed no exact duplicates among the paintings.

  • The ogre led the party up several flights of stairs and into a large upper room.

    • The chamber resembled a conference room or a spacious hotel lobby.
    • One entire wall consisted of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the hedge maze.
    • A large table stood in the room.
    • A short human man, approximately five feet tall, sat at the table.
    • He wore traditional wizard’s robes and a pointed hat.
    • Combined with his isolated tower, his clothing made him appear deliberately and stereotypically wizard-like.
    • The man was Veyr.

  • Veyr looked up as the party entered and immediately told them that they were late.

    • The party objected that they had been waiting and had been served cucumber sandwiches.
    • Veyr looked toward the ogre, whose name was revealed to be Gerald.
    • Gerald sheepishly explained that the party had looked hungry.
    • The party agreed that Gerald had been correct.
    • Veyr emphasized that time was very important in his tower.
    • Gerald apologized, and Veyr ordered the party to sit.

  • Veyr had the page on which Gerald had recorded the party’s name.

    • The words “The Good Guys” had been written in very large letters across the entire sheet.
    • Veyr asked whether “The Good Guys” referred to the entire group or only one of them.
    • The party explained that it was the name of the whole group.
    • Veyr described the name as both a bold claim and a boring one.
    • The party identified themselves as the good guys, although they acknowledged the description might only be mostly accurate.

  • The party attempted to begin explaining why they had come.

    • Veyr dismissed formalities and jokingly suggested that “Your Lordship” would be an adequate way to address him.
    • When asked what was happening, Veyr dryly replied that they were having a meeting and that, as he understood it, the party had eaten.
    • He asked them to be more specific.

  • The party explained that they needed information about a possible threat to the greater realm.

    • They had repeatedly been drawn into strange adventures and transported through unusual places.
    • They increasingly suspected that a hidden force or “puppet master” was arranging these events.
    • They believed the threat might endanger their world or even reality itself.
    • They had come seeking information and possible allies.
    • They hoped Veyr’s knowledge could help them understand what was happening and what they were expected to confront.

  • Veyr recognized Thorn as another practitioner of magic.

    • He asked whether Thorn studied magic and referred to him dismissively as one of the “traveling wizards.”
    • Veyr suggested that Thorn should settle down and obtain a real job.
    • Thorn replied that adventuring and practicing magic were his real work.
    • Veyr stated that his own work involved studying the cosmos, realms, planes, and dimensions.
    • He claimed that he probably had answers to the party’s questions but warned that he might choose not to give those answers to them.

  • The party gave Veyr an extensive account of their adventures.

    • They described their experiences in Chult and their conflict with the Soulmonger.
    • They described traveling to Barovia and confronting Strahd.
    • They told him about experiencing what appeared to be a life as students at Strixhaven and their encounter with Magraxor.
    • They explained that they later awakened in a cave, traveled through the Underdark, and fought Demogorgon.
    • They described returning to the surface and meeting the talking tree Jareth.
    • They told him about being sent to gather several unusual objects.
    • They also described meeting the gnome Nemu, who had made stew for them.
    • The party additionally mentioned their unpleasant experiences in sewage tunnels.
    • Veyr listened and considered the sequence of events.

  • Veyr said that reality was constantly threatened by creatures and catastrophes, but he found the party’s situation unusual.

    • He concluded that they appeared to have been deliberately drawn into something.
    • His interest increased as he considered the details.
    • He abruptly stood and told the party to walk with him.
    • He quickly left through another door, and the party followed.

  • Veyr led the party through another hallway with windows overlooking the hedge maze.

    • The party made Perception or Survival checks while looking outside.
    • Maledurk watched the surrounding landscape closely.
    • Elora received a result of 31 and noticed that the view was inconsistent with the tower’s physical location.
    • From the tower’s height, the nearby town should have been visible, but it was absent.
    • Distant mountains and other landmarks they had seen while approaching the maze were also missing.
    • The hedge maze appeared much larger from above than it had while they were traveling through it.
    • Beyond the maze, the landscape seemed to continue indefinitely.
    • The party concluded that the tower, or at least the view from within it, was no longer located in the same place they had approached from outside.

  • Veyr brought the party into an interior laboratory or research chamber.

    • The room had no windows.
    • Several tables served as workstations.
    • The tables were covered with tools, instruments, parchment, quills, notes, and other research materials.
    • Bookshelves filled with books covered the rear wall.
    • Additional abstract landscape paintings hung on the side walls.
    • The paintings resembled those in the hallways but were not exact copies.
    • The visible paintings included a desert, tundra, plains, a forest, and a seascape.

  • Elora suspected that the paintings might be portals.

    • She decided to test the forest painting by attempting to jump into it.
    • The painting was only approximately the size of a movie poster and showed no visible movement.
    • Elora ran or stepped toward the painting and tried to pass through it.
    • Instead, she struck the solid surface, fell to the floor, and pulled the painting from the wall.
    • The painting landed on top of her.
    • Veyr looked up from his work and asked whether she was all right.
    • Elora replaced the painting on its nail.

  • Veyr questioned Elora about what she had been trying to accomplish.

    • Elora explained that the party had been dealing with different planes and dimensions.
    • She had wondered whether the painting was a portal to another location.
    • Veyr told her that the paintings were more than they appeared to be, but they were intended for viewing and study rather than for physically smashing into them.
    • He admitted that he had enjoyed listening to the party speculate about their purpose.

  • Veyr reviewed the party’s history to confirm that he had understood it correctly.

    • He summarized their time in Chult, their encounter with Strahd in Barovia, their apparent experience as students, their conflict with Magraxor, their awakening in the Underdark, their battle against Demogorgon, their meeting with a talking tree, and their encounter with Nemu.
    • The party confirmed that his summary was accurate.
    • Veyr remarked that they had experienced an unusually eventful series of adventures.

  • Veyr explained the true purpose of the paintings.

    • He had created them himself.
    • They allowed him to look into other planes and examine the relationships between different planes and dimensions.
    • His principal area of study was planar and dimensional travel.
    • He described dimensional travel as unpredictable and dangerous.
    • He claimed to have made considerable progress in his research.
    • When asked when that research might be ready to present, he estimated that he needed only another three to four hundred years.

  • Veyr explained why he had brought the party to the laboratory.

    • He wanted to determine whether traces of dimensional residue remained on them.
    • By examining that residue through the paintings, he hoped to determine where they had traveled.
    • He suggested that the process might even reveal information about where they were likely to travel next.
    • The information would help separate the party’s ordinary travels from their genuinely unusual dimensional experiences.

  • Veyr instructed Elora to use the forest painting properly.

    • He asked her to place her hand in the center of the image.
    • He told her to think about the forest glen where the party had met Jareth.
    • Elora placed her hand on the painting and made a Wisdom check, receiving a result of 20.
    • She concentrated on the glen and recalled entering it.
    • She remembered that teleportation directly into or out of the glen had been prevented.
    • She also remembered feeling the bag containing the crown being pulled or resisted as she entered the protected area.

  • The forest painting transformed in response to Elora’s thoughts.

    • To the rest of the party, the formerly unfamiliar forest image changed into a recognizable representation of Jareth’s glen.
    • The image remained somewhat abstract but clearly evoked the place they had visited.
    • From Elora’s perspective, the laboratory disappeared and she found herself visually surrounded by the glen.
    • She could see the forest and Jareth as they had appeared during the party’s earlier visit.
    • Elora attempted to speak to Jareth and asked whether Jareth could see or hear her.
    • Jareth did not respond.
    • Elora realized she could observe the location but could not physically interact with it or communicate with anyone there.
    • When Elora removed her hand from the painting, the vision disappeared and she found herself back in Veyr’s laboratory.

  • Veyr questioned Elora about what she had experienced.

    • Elora told him that she had seen Jareth and the glen but had been unable to communicate.
    • Veyr asked whether Jareth would normally respond to her.
    • Elora confirmed that Jareth had spoken to the party during their actual visit.
    • Veyr carefully recorded the result.
    • He explained that the failed communication suggested two things.
    • First, Jareth and the glen were probably located on the Material Plane.
    • Second, the location was protected by strong magic designed to resist this kind of observation or contact.
    • Veyr was pleased that his own abilities had still allowed Elora to see the glen despite those protections.

  • The party experimented further with Veyr’s paintings.

    • They used the images while concentrating on the different places they had visited.
    • Veyr observed each attempt, asked questions, and took extensive notes.
    • The experiments allowed him to classify many of the party’s adventures according to whether they had occurred on the Material Plane or in separate dimensions.

  • Veyr concluded that the party’s experiences in Chult were genuine events on the Material Plane.

    • Port Nyanzaru, the dinosaur race, the jungle, and the conflict involving the Soulmonger had all occurred in the ordinary world.
    • Those events were unusual and dangerous but did not represent dimensional travel.

  • Veyr determined that Barovia was a separate dimension or plane of existence.

    • The party had spent days or weeks in Barovia.
    • When they left, however, they returned to the exact moment during the race in Chult from which they had vanished.
    • Veyr identified this as a clear example of dimensional travel affecting time.
    • From the party’s perspective, a substantial period passed.
    • From the perspective of anyone watching the race, almost no time passed at all.

  • Veyr explained that time itself should be understood as a dimension.

    • Traveling between dimensions could therefore alter not only a traveler’s location but also the time in which the traveler arrived.
    • A person could experience a long period elsewhere and return only moments after leaving.
    • This meant that planar and dimensional travel could also function as a form of time travel.
    • Veyr said that, from his perspective, reality was always in danger because he studied events across different dimensions and periods of time.

  • Veyr determined that the party’s apparent life at Strixhaven had also occurred in a different plane or dimension.

    • The experience had not simply been an ordinary dream.
    • The party had genuinely been transported into or connected with another reality during the events involving Magraxor.

  • Veyr concluded that the Underdark was part of the Material Plane.

    • The party’s experiences underground, including their confrontation with Demogorgon, had physically occurred in their own world.
    • Veyr found Demogorgon’s presence there highly unusual.
    • Demons of that magnitude did not normally enter the Material Plane so freely.
    • He believed someone must have deliberately brought Demogorgon into the world.
    • Veyr emphasized that destroying the demon had been important because its continued presence would have caused severe problems.

  • Veyr examined the party’s experiences connected with the Lost Laboratory of Kwalish and determined that several of those locations had been separate pocket dimensions.

    • The town that appeared submerged beneath poisonous ooze was located in another dimension.
    • The party’s travel in the submarine-like vessel and their passage through different bubbles had carried them into multiple distinct spaces.
    • Knogbrüth’s tomb had existed in its own separate dimension.
    • The glacier the party explored had also been located in another dimension.
    • The black-salt desert or plain, including the black salt storm, had been another separate dimensional location.
    • The underground forest containing Nemu’s cabin had likewise existed in a different dimension.
    • Veyr concluded that the party had been moving between planes and pocket dimensions more often than they had realized.

  • The party asked how they could distinguish a real dimension from a false or constructed one.

    • Veyr used the gems in his hedge maze as an example.
    • When the party removed a gem from one of the maze’s challenge rooms, the gem disappeared after they left that space.
    • The gems could not continue to exist outside their original environment because those challenge areas were artificial dimensional constructs.
    • Veyr explained that anything originating in such a false dimension would disappear when removed.
    • He had deliberately designed the maze that way to prevent visitors from stealing the gems.

  • Veyr contrasted the maze gems with objects the party had carried out of other dimensions.

    • The Sunsword obtained in Barovia remained with the party after they returned.
    • The crown associated with Knogbrüth also remained with them.
    • The black salt and other objects gathered during their travels likewise continued to exist.
    • Their continued existence proved that the dimensions from which they came were real places rather than dreams, illusions, or temporary magical simulations.
    • Veyr noted that these places might still have been created by powerful beings, but they possessed genuine independent reality.
    • He explained that an amateur might create a construct from which nothing could be removed.
    • Veyr then realized that his own maze used that same limitation and was displeased that he had nearly described himself as an amateur.

  • The party asked how Veyr’s findings would help them identify or stop the force behind their adventures.

    • Veyr said that the first step was separating mundane events from truly exceptional dimensional events.
    • By identifying which locations were connected to other planes, he could search for patterns among them.
    • Those patterns might reveal when the manipulation began, which locations were connected, and what force was arranging the transitions.
    • The party’s dimensional residue could potentially show both where they had been and where they might be taken next.

  • The party asked whether Veyr had detected a larger disturbance in the balance of reality.

    • Veyr said that he had not yet identified a single specific threat that he could point to.
    • He acknowledged that disruptions of this kind did occur.
    • Such events were sometimes cosmic coincidences or natural catastrophes.
    • More often, they were caused by a powerful being intent on destruction, enslavement, or some other harmful goal.
    • Veyr added that a significant number of dimensional disasters were caused by wizards attempting something ambitious and making a serious mistake.
    • He noted that wizards were curious and that many of them were fools.

  • As Veyr reviewed his observations, he became especially interested in Nemu’s underground forest.

    • He said that most of the party’s other destinations fit patterns he understood.
    • Nemu’s forest cavern was unusually difficult to explain.
    • It was a separate dimension that appeared to be subtly concealed.
    • The party had entered it without noticing an obvious dimensional transition.
    • Veyr believed that the hidden nature of Nemu’s home was significant.

  • Veyr asked the party about the crown.

    • The party had not initially mentioned that they still possessed it.
    • The crown was stored in a lead box.
    • The lead box was kept inside a portable hole carried in Elora’s backpack.
    • This arrangement was intended to shield the crown and reduce the possibility that it could influence anyone or be detected.

  • Veyr focused on the different reactions produced when the crown had been worn.

    • Maledurk and Thorn had each worn the crown.
    • Both had become unresponsive or catatonic.
    • While incapacitated, they experienced vivid visions.
    • They did not appear to become different people or physically act under another personality’s control.
    • Nemu’s reaction had been markedly different.
    • When Nemu placed the crown on her head, her personality and voice changed.
    • She remained physically active rather than becoming catatonic.
    • She looked around and said, “She would be here,” as though she recognized the location or expected to find someone there.
    • Nemu then jumped out of a window.
    • After the crown was removed, she appeared to return to her normal self.

  • The party clarified what Nemu remembered about the incident.

    • Nemu remembered feeling compelled to put the crown on.
    • Once she wore it, she felt her own identity being suppressed.
    • She described the sensation as though she were being pushed down or forced out of control of her own mind.
    • She remained partially aware that something else had taken control.
    • She did not fully understand what the controlling presence had done while using her body.
    • She did not report experiencing the same kind of visions seen by Maledurk and Thorn.

  • Veyr said Nemu’s reaction suggested that the crown’s effect might be personal rather than based on her species or magical abilities.

    • The party briefly considered whether the different reactions might be related to Maledurk being a dragonborn, Thorn being an elf and wizard, or Nemu being a gnome.
    • Veyr thought it was more likely that the crown had been looking specifically for Nemu.
    • The crown may have treated her as a suitable vessel, conduit, or intended host.
    • Nemu’s hidden dimensional home made this connection more suspicious.
    • She might have been hiding from the force connected to the crown without knowing that the crown itself was part of the danger.
    • Alternatively, she might have been waiting in hiding for the crown to return.
    • The party did not know whether Nemu had been honest with them or whether she understood her own connection to the object.
    • Veyr did not believe Nemu was necessarily the evil force responsible for their troubles.
    • He considered it likely that she was entangled in the situation in a way she did not understand.

  • Veyr asked whether the party would permit him to examine the crown.

    • He said he did not intend to keep it or remove it from their presence.
    • He acknowledged that it appeared dangerous and wanted to establish the safest possible conditions before opening its container.
    • The party considered whether they trusted him enough to allow the examination.

  • Elora made an Insight check to judge Veyr’s intentions and rolled a natural 20.

    • She concluded that Veyr was eccentric, arrogant, highly self-confident, and almost completely absorbed in his own area of study.
    • His dismissive manner and lack of emotional concern appeared genuine rather than deceptive.
    • He had become increasingly interested as the party revealed more about their dimensional experiences.
    • His curiosity about the mystery was sincere.
    • Elora did not believe he had malicious intentions toward the party or intended to steal the crown.
    • She also concluded that he was not motivated by concern for the party’s survival or the safety of the world.
    • Veyr wanted to help solve the problem because it was an intellectually compelling puzzle.
    • Whether the party ultimately succeeded or survived was much less important to him than discovering the answer.

  • The party agreed to let Veyr examine the crown under controlled conditions.

    • Elora intended to remain with him throughout the examination.
    • Veyr retrieved a wand from one of the worktables.
    • After making a brief mental calculation, he waved the wand at a blank wall.
    • A door appeared where no door had previously existed.
    • Veyr explained that the space beyond it should be as safe as possible for studying the crown.

  • Veyr and the party entered the magically created space.

    • The room was large, open, and featureless.
    • Its walls, floor, and ceiling were all the same gray color.
    • The surfaces blended together so completely that it was difficult to determine where one ended and another began.
    • A small plinth stood in the center of the room.
    • On the far side was a bunker-like shelter with a narrow viewing opening.
    • After everyone entered, Veyr closed the door.
    • The door disappeared, leaving no visible exit.

  • The lead box containing the crown was placed on the central plinth.

    • Veyr directed the party into the bunker so they could observe from a safer distance.
    • The box was approximately thirty feet away and visible through the bunker’s narrow opening.
    • Veyr approved of the party’s suggestion that they remain behind protective cover.

  • Veyr used Mage Hand to open the lead box remotely.

    • The box opened without any visible reaction.
    • He used the same magical hand to lift the crown out of the box.
    • The crown appeared exactly as it had before.
    • It produced no light, movement, sound, or other independent activity.
    • Veyr set it on top of the box and watched it for some time.
    • He asked whether it normally did anything by itself.
    • The party explained that it had never acted independently and generally produced an effect only when someone placed it on their head.

  • Veyr reconsidered the resistance the party had felt while carrying the crown into Jareth’s glen.

    • He suspected that the glen’s magical protections had been attempting to reject the crown.
    • He did not believe the pulling sensation had necessarily been caused by the crown itself.
    • The reaction provided further evidence that the glen had been warded against dangerous or intrusive magic.

  • After observing the crown from the bunker, Veyr decided the precautions might have been excessive.

    • He left the shelter and approached the plinth.
    • He carefully walked around the crown and examined it from several angles without touching it.
    • He cast a series of unidentified spells at the crown.
    • The party could not determine exactly which spells he used.
    • Veyr recorded the results of each test in his notes.
    • The crown appeared resistant to several forms of magical examination or manipulation.

  • Veyr eventually tested the crown with a quill.

    • He cautiously poked it and immediately stepped backward.
    • When nothing happened, he touched it again and held the quill against it for a longer period.
    • The indirect contact produced no harmful effect.
    • Veyr concluded that direct physical contact with a living creature was probably required before the crown could affect anyone.

  • Veyr determined that the crown was filled with memories.

    • He believed the visions experienced by Maledurk and Thorn were memories stored within the object.
    • The party noted that their experiences had seemed interactive because they believed they had made choices and taken actions within them.
    • Veyr questioned whether those choices had been genuine.
    • He suggested that they might have been reenacting actions originally performed by someone else.
    • The crown could have made them feel that they possessed free will while forcing them through a predetermined memory.
    • Veyr admitted that the visions might also have been genuinely interactive, but he could not determine which explanation was correct without further testing.
    • He refused to wear the crown himself to find out.

  • The party considered other possible ways to test the crown.

    • Veyr briefly appeared to consider asking Gerald to wear it but recognized that this might not be wise.
    • The party mentioned the possibility of using another creature, an avatar, or a magically linked intermediary.
    • They discussed whether someone could observe through a familiar or similar creature while it interacted with the crown.
    • No additional test was performed during the session.

  • Veyr returned to the question of why Nemu’s experience differed from the others.

    • Maledurk and Thorn had been drawn into the crown’s memories while their bodies became inert.
    • Nemu had instead been actively controlled by another personality.
    • Her first statement, “She would be here,” suggested that the controlling presence recognized Nemu’s location and expected to find a particular person there.
    • Veyr considered this evidence that the crown had connected Nemu to a specific identity or entity.
    • He remained highly interested in observing Nemu wear the crown under controlled conditions.

  • The party proposed returning to Nemu’s forest and asked whether Veyr would accompany them.

    • Veyr said he would prefer for Nemu to be brought to his tower.
    • His own facilities would allow him to control the conditions and observe the crown more safely.
    • The party asked whether they would be required to pass through the hedge maze again.
    • Veyr confirmed that they would.
    • He refused to disable his defenses merely to make their travel easier.
    • He argued that a defensive trap would be ineffective if it contained a convenient back entrance.
    • He reminded them that they already knew the maze’s correct route and therefore would not need to fight the guardians again.
    • His only advice was that they should avoid being stupid.
    • The party attempted to remember the exact sequence of sundial directions and turns but was not completely certain of the route.

  • While the party debated its next step, Elora received a magical message from the researchers in Waterdeep.

    • The speaker asked whether they had reached “Elora the Majestic.”
    • The researcher mentioned having accidentally contacted several similarly named individuals before reaching the correct Elora.
    • The message came from the people Elora had asked to continue investigating the party’s mysteries.
    • Vajra had believed their newest discovery would be relevant.

  • The Waterdeep researchers had found two conflicting histories concerning Knogbrüth.

    • Both histories came from sources the researchers considered reliable.
    • According to one account, Knogbrüth was a terrible wizard who raised an undead army in the frozen north.
    • That version of Knogbrüth was eventually slain by Svensson the Bold.
    • According to the second account, Knogbrüth was a human king who ruled in lands far to the east.
    • The two histories appeared to occur during approximately the same period.
    • The dates overlapped too extensively for Knogbrüth to have traveled normally between the distant locations.
    • The researchers could not explain how the same individual could have lived both lives simultaneously.

  • The party recognized that the contradictory histories fit Veyr’s explanation of dimensional and temporal travel.

    • Knogbrüth might have existed in different locations, planes, or periods at what appeared to be the same time.
    • His conflicting identities as an undead-raising wizard and a distant king could indicate another dimensional anomaly.
    • The new information strengthened the possibility that Knogbrüth was directly connected to the larger pattern affecting the party.
    • It also suggested that the party’s mystery involved not only travel between places and planes but potentially overlapping histories and altered timelines.

  • The session ended with the party having gained a broader understanding of its situation.

    • They now knew that many of their adventures had involved genuine planar or dimensional travel.
    • They understood that time could pass differently in separate dimensions.
    • They had learned that objects carried out of a dimension could help determine whether that place was real or merely an artificial construct.
    • Veyr’s experiments confirmed that the party had been transported through more planes and pocket dimensions than they had previously realized.
    • The presence of Demogorgon on the Material Plane appeared to have required deliberate intervention.
    • Nemu’s hidden dimensional home and unique reaction to the crown remained central mysteries.
    • The crown appeared to contain memories and might have been intended to find or control Nemu specifically.
    • Knogbrüth’s two contradictory histories introduced further evidence of dimensional or temporal manipulation.
    • The party still did not know the identity, purpose, or exact nature of the force behind their experiences.
    • They nevertheless had a clearer direction for their investigation and a potential next step: bring Nemu to Veyr’s tower for further examination of her connection to the crown.