Everybody Wants to Rule the World

1.1 The Song of the Morning

Ormlyr summons the party to the Song of the Morning. This scene establishes authority, reconstructs missed evidence, and gives the party a chance to set custody terms before the mission.

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Morning light cuts through the temple's high eastern windows and lays rose-colored bars across a long council table.

Captain Ormlyr stands at its head beside stacks of manifests, patrol reports, and blackened scraps sealed under glass. Magister Vestra sits to his right. A charcoal rubbing lies perfectly square before her.

Ormlyr rests both hands on the table. “Whatever Voss was, Mordas remains. This time, we know where to look.”

Setting

The council chamber is 40 feet long and 25 feet wide. Two guarded doors lead to the public temple and Ormlyr's records office. The documents on the table are available for inspection. Sergeant Brinna Vale attends if alive and willing. Ormlyr never conditions her place on Tessa's fate and never asks her to speak for her sister.

Ormlyr's report

Ormlyr gives the core facts without a check:

• Mordas directs several Circle cells and holds senior authority within the Zhentarim.
• Money from the thefts purchased excavation gear, alchemical reagents, rare metals, precision fittings, and copied arcane texts.
• Night carts and armed strangers now move around Ulcaster's hill.
• Temple shepherds have been driven off the eastern slope.
• Ormlyr wants Mordas alive if capture does not expose the party or Beregost to unreasonable danger.

Ormlyr offers a sealed writ authorizing the party to enter the ruins, seize Circle property, arrest Mordas and his agents, and accept surrenders. It does not transfer ownership of artifacts found at the site.

Evidence review

1.2 Vestra's demand

Vestra produces the Shoon rubbing whether the party recovered it or not. If they possess the original, hers is a copied fragment from a different source. This keeps the chapter independent of one prior clue.

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Vestra turns the rubbing toward you. Four triangular plates form a narrow diamond meant to guard the arm rather than the hand.

“Hilather made thirteen prisons in this shape. Each held a fiend and lent its defenses to the bearer.” Her finger stops at the central rivet. “Mordas has purchased everything required to imitate the shell.”

She folds her hands. “Bring me the shield intact.”

What Vestra says

Vestra accurately explains that Demonshields are prisons, that Hilather made thirteen, that Ulcaster studied his method, and that breaking a completed shield releases its captive. She refuses to explain who grants her claim.

• DC 14 Wisdom (Insight): Vestra's wording requires Mordas to lose possession and the shield to be recovered as evidence. She carefully avoids saying that his imitation can actually hold a fiend.
• DC 15 Intelligence (Religion): Active binding geometry may treat any nearby fiend as a valid subject, explaining why Vestra cannot safely enter it.
• DC 16 Charisma (Persuasion): Vestra agrees in writing that preserving mortal life takes priority over preserving the shield. She does not waive her claim.

1.3 Terms and contingencies

The party's standing

If the party ended Adventure 006 with strong proof, Ormlyr treats them as trusted agents. With partial proof, the writ requires Brinna to witness seized evidence. With failed proof or continued fugitive status, Vestra's infernal authority forces the mission, but Ormlyr limits the writ to Ulcaster and promises no pardon beyond the existing terms.

Voss outcomes

• Captured. Voss supplies the location and lens, then lies about opposing the weapon.
• Escaped. Ormlyr has the night-cart evidence. Voss may reappear only as a later consequence, not as a required encounter.
• Dead. His burned correspondence in the lower archive replaces his testimony.
• Allied or bargained with. Voss privately asks the party to retrieve the process for him. Accepting creates a second secret claimant.

If the party refuses

Ormlyr does not imprison a lawful party solely for refusing. Within hours, another conjuration pulse cracks temple windows and panics the sheep on Ulcaster's slopes. Thalantyr's messenger brings the independent High Hedge hook. A party under conditional service faces the legal consequence already written into its writ, but the adventure still proceeds through Thalantyr rather than forced obedience.

Brinna's role

Brinna, Tessa Vale's estranged sister, joins if the party wants a lawful witness or if the writ requires one. She uses the guard stat block if combat rules are needed. She refuses orders to execute prisoners, seize personal property unrelated to the case, or carry any suspected fiend-prison.

• Tessa captured: Brinna confirms that neutral officers hold her sister and declines to discuss the confession.
• Tessa escaped: Brinna warns that Tessa favors prepared horses, false manifests, and routes with multiple handoffs. This is context, not a new Ulcaster lead.
• Tessa dead: Brinna records the death and continues under the writ. She does not demand vengeance or pretend the loss means Tessa was innocent.

If Brinna recused herself from evidence duty in Adventure 006, she may remain a local guide while another named deputy serves as custodian. Preserve that choice here.

Transition

Ormlyr directs the party to High Hedge before the hill. If they skip it, they may proceed directly, but they do not receive the route survey, lens identification, or bronze chalk for disabling an anchor.

2.1 The guarded estate

At High Hedge, northwest of Beregost, Thalantyr has gathered old academy plans and copies of Ulcaster’s research. He has summoned Quentin to examine the magical disturbances coming from the hill. The meeting gives the party a route survey, an explanation of the danger, and a means of disabling one binding anchor. None of this requires a check or an agreement to surrender the recovered artifacts.

Two griffons guard the estate. They watch visitors but do not attack anyone admitted by Thalantyr. An invitation, Ormlyr’s writ, or news of the disturbances at Ulcaster is enough to gain entry.

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An iron gate opens onto a courtyard shaded by pines. A griffon watches from the roof of a dark stone house. Another lies beside a table covered with maps and loose pages.

An older man in dark robes holds a drawing flat with one hand. Across from him, a thin young man with wild bronze-colored hair searches through a pile of books.

“Put down whatever you brought,” the older man says. “Then tell me what you actually saw.”

Roleplaying the scholars

Thalantyr. He separates eyewitness accounts from guesses and corrects imprecise magical terms. He explains his conclusions when shown evidence. He asks the party to save the archive if possible, but warns that keeping a demon out of Beregost comes first.

Quentin. He speaks quickly, calls everyone “friend,” and treats the party’s help as already agreed. Questions about casualties receive a brief expression of sympathy followed by another question about the lens. If someone proposes destroying it, he insists on careful removal. He does not reveal his bronze-dragon identity here.

If the party visited Thalantyr in Adventure 006, he remembers the evidence they showed him. Summarize familiar history and move to the new conclusion: Mordas is building a shield, not searching for one. If the party brings no evidence, the scholars use Thalantyr’s surveys and observations of the disturbances. Their reconstruction remains a warning about a likely experiment, not an eyewitness account of the rooms below.

2.2 The Shoon legacy and Mordas’s experiment

A missing former apprentice

Thalantyr asks the party to look for Nimra Keld, a former apprentice who now surveys magical sites for a living. She accepted work inspecting an excavation at Ulcaster and missed her agreed return several days ago. Her last note mentioned newly fitted bronze channels beneath the old school. He describes her slate-blue coat, braided hair, and cracked brass compass. He suspects she is in trouble but has no proof of captivity.

He offers her shelter at High Hedge and will extend it to anyone threatened because of her work. If asked why he has not retrieved her himself, he explains that he cannot locate her precisely through the active wards and is preparing the outer containment with Quentin. He asks the party to bring back news of her as well as the research.

Thalantyr compares any recovered plates or the Shoon rubbing with his drawings. He explains the history below without a check. Give the party the essential distinction first: the original Demonshields imprisoned fiends. Copying their shape does not reproduce that prison.

Who were the Shoon?

The Shoon Imperium ruled Calimshan and Tethyr from Shoonach between 27 and 450 DR. Syl-Pasha Akkabar Shoon prepared his dynasty’s rise through political assassinations. His great-great-grandson Amahl Shoon III united the two realms and crowned himself qysar, or emperor, in 27 DR. Fourteen spellcasting rulers held the throne over the following four centuries. Slave labor, conquest, and dark magic sustained their rule.

In 128 DR, the Year of the Addled Arcanist, the court of Qysar Amahl Shoon IV hired Hilather, a Raurinese arcanist later known as Halaster Blackcloak. Working from an isolated tower in Torsil near Beregost, he bound fiends into thirteen diamond-shaped shields made with arjale and tantulhor. “Diamond” describes the outline, not a shield carved from a gemstone. Hilather delivered the shields, took his payment, and vanished.

Twelve shields went to the empire’s mameluks, military officers and slave-kings who used the imprisoned fiends as shock troops across the Calishar Emirates. The thirteenth, Kuraltaar, remained beneath the Imperial Mount of Shoonach for court mages to study.

Two different sets of shields

The church of Anachtyr, the god also known as Tyr, answered the fiendish raids by forging the three Demonsbane shields: Kimeltaar, Naelotaar, and Dizeltaar. Paladins carried them to slay fiends and protect commoners. These holy relics are not members of Hilather’s thirteen and contain no imprisoned fiends. Mordas is copying a Demonshield, not a Demonsbane shield.

What survived the empire?

In 371 DR, Qysara Shaani gave Kuraltaar to the blue dragon Iryklathagra, called Sharpfangs, as part of a century-tribute. In 450 DR, Prince Strohm I of Tethyr slew Emperor Amahl VII. The Great Fires of Shoonach destroyed the imperial court. Kuraltaar had already left the city and is believed to remain in the dragon’s mountain hoard. Neither scholar has it.

Thalantyr warns that the empire’s fall did not empty its magical prisons. Breaking a genuine Demonshield releases its captive. Mordas’s unfinished shield is different: it has never held a fiend. Removing it from his apparatus is a way to disrupt the experiment, not a way to release an existing prisoner.

Why Ulcaster matters

Ulcaster’s school stood above Hilather’s older foundations. Ulcaster and his senior apprentices tried to reconstruct the binding method before Calishite mages destroyed the academy in 1106 DR. Mordas has returned to those chambers with fragments of their work, a newly made shield, and a Netherese device that Quentin recognizes.

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Quentin finds a page in one of his books and turns it toward you. It shows a crystal mounted at the end of a wand.

“A Netherese spell-lens. Fit it to a wand and it strengthens the spell, though it uses more charges. Mordas means to use it on a summoning.”

He taps the crystal in the drawing. “You will recover it intact. Thank you, friend.”

What Mordas is trying to do

The scholars describe three parts of the apparatus:

1. The spell-lens strengthens the spell that opens a breach to the Abyss.
2. Three binding anchors hold the breach steady while the summoned creature takes physical form. Together they form one linked system.
3. The prepared shield is supposed to receive and imprison that creature. This is the step Mordas has not proved will work.

No surviving source shows that Hilather used a spell-lens to make his shields. Mordas has interpreted a damaged mark in Ulcaster’s binding research as an instruction to increase the summoning’s power. Thalantyr cannot verify that reading. Both scholars warn that bringing a demon into the chamber and trapping it inside a shield are separate problems.

Hilather’s Workbook contains the complete original method, but it is missing. Thalantyr believes it survives under a false binding in a royal Tethyrian library. He cannot locate and obtain it before this ritual. The records at Ulcaster are later reconstructions, not the workbook itself.

Questions the scholars can answer

• What creature is Mordas summoning? The disturbances suggest a glabrezu or another comparably powerful Abyssal fiend. This is an inference, not a confirmed sighting.
• How do we stop it? Disable two of the three core components: the lens, the shield, or the anchor system. Taking the shield off its mounting and removing the lens will suffice. Disrupting only one component may still leave enough power for the fiend to emerge.
• What does the counter-phrase do? It disables one anchor. It does not close the breach by itself. The party must also disable the lens or remove the shield to ensure the ritual collapses.
• Can we destroy the lens? Yes, but it stores magical energy. Breaking it releases a force blast. Quentin presses for removal instead; the exact checks and damage appear in Chapter 05.
• Can we keep the shield? Thalantyr wants it for study, but Ormlyr’s writ grants no ownership and Vestra has already claimed it. He cannot settle that dispute here.
• Why not enter the ruins yourselves? The scholars must establish and maintain the outer wards. If a demon emerges, someone outside must keep it from reaching Beregost. Quentin also refuses to risk himself in the lower chambers.

Research checks

Characters can study the plans while the scholars finish their preparations. Each character may attempt each check once. Failure loses only the additional information listed below; it does not withhold the survey, the warning, or the bronze chalk.

• DC 12 Intelligence (History): Compare the academy’s old walls with the survey to identify the stable approach used by the Shepherd’s Path. Mark that route for the party.
• DC 14 Intelligence (Arcana): Trace the connections between the three anchors and recognize that disabling any one breaks the linked system. All three anchors together count as one core component, not three.

The plans show an upper shield chamber and archive, each with a spiral stair down to the same lower hall. The focusing chamber adjoins that hall on its eastern side. Thalantyr points out this arrangement without a check. Neither stair is secret.

2.3 Preparing for the hill

Thalantyr gives the party the route survey and a stick of bronze chalk inscribed with an old dismissal phrase. A character adjacent to a binding anchor can use an action to expend the chalk and disable that anchor without a check. This breaks the linked anchor system and reduces the ritual clock by 1, subject to its minimum of 1 after planar contact. The chalk works once. It is an alternative to the one-use counter-phrase that can be recovered from the archive.

The scholars leave to establish a containment lattice, a connected set of wards around Ulcaster’s hill. Preparing it takes 1 hour, during which the party may take a short rest. Taking a long rest instead advances the ritual clock by 1.

The wards keep an escaped fiend on the hill and redirect Mordas’s magical escape toward Ormlyr and Vestra’s eastern cordon. They do not stop the summoning or make the lower chambers safe. If a demon emerges, the party must still activate the three emergency ward marks in the ritual chamber for the scholars to banish it, as described in Chapter 06.

Before the party leaves, record who carries the chalk, whether the Shepherd’s Path was identified, and any promises made about the lens, shield, or archive. Continue with Chapter 03 and let the party choose its approach.

If the party skipped High Hedge

The party receives neither the survey nor the bronze chalk. Nimra can explain the apparatus and its weak points without either scholar’s briefing; use her guidance in section 4.4 wherever the party first meets her. It can still discover the routes on the hill, follow either visible spiral stair to the lower hall, learn the counter-phrase from the archive or the shade, and disable the apparatus using the checks in Chapters 05 and 06.

When the ritual reaches stage 6, Quentin and Thalantyr arrive at opposite sides of the hill and raise emergency outer wards. The wards contain the danger but do not prevent manifestation; use the same emergency ward-mark procedure in Chapter 06. Afterward, Quentin appears near the lens’s final location and claims it or its surviving fragments in human form. Skipping this meeting does not change that outcome.

3.1 First sight of the ruins

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Black walls break the crest of the hill like burned teeth. Sheep tracks end below the final slope. Above them, cart ruts cut fresh lines through old ash and grass.

Blue light moves behind a window with no roof. A woman's voice whispers from the stone, then repeats the same three words in exactly the same breath.

Farther uphill, something answers in a voice that does not repeat.

Environment

The slope is open grass broken by stone, thorn, and old foundations. Dusk or darkness provides light obscurement beyond 60 feet. The Circle's ghost effects use shielded lanterns, pipes, alchemical fire, and minor illusion. The real magical disturbances do not repeat on a fixed interval.

For the chambers below the ruins, use the Beneath Ulcaster map in Chapter 05.

3.2 Choose an approach

The party chooses one primary route. Creative combinations work. Failure changes the alarm state rather than denying entry.

The Old School Road

A bandit captain and four bandits guard a wagon barrier 150 feet below the ruins. A character using the password “The lesson continues” and succeeding on a DC 14 Charisma (Deception) check gets the party through. Appropriate forged papers or evidence from Ormlyr's review grants advantage.

A bribe of 50 gp reduces the DC to 12. On a failure, the sentries pretend to accept the story while one moves toward the alarm gong. The party has 1 round to stop the runner before the alarm sounds.

Combat setup

The captain begins behind the wagon with two bandits. Two more watch from broken walls 40 feet uphill. The guards want to raise the alarm and withdraw, not die.

Battlefield features

The wagon provides three-quarters cover. The uphill track is difficult terrain for creatures moving south. A brass alarm gong stands 60 feet behind the barrier.

Enemy goals

One bandit runs for the gong. The captain holds the wagon long enough for the others to escape. Any guard reduced to half hit points surrenders if escape is blocked.

Enemy tactics

The bandit captain uses the wagon as cover and shoves enemies onto the slope. The bandits use crossbows until threatened in melee.

Adjusting the encounter

For three characters, remove two bandits. For six or seven characters, replace two bandits with one veteran. Do not add enemies if the goal is infiltration rather than a full surface fight.

Aftermath

If the alarm sounds, advance the ritual clock by 1 and move Nimra to the ritual chamber before the party reaches the archive. Captured sentries know the command-room location and that “the surveyor” is held inside.

The Shepherd's Path

The path threads through collapsed classrooms. Each character attempts a DC 13 Dexterity (Stealth) check. If at least half succeed, the party reaches the haunting works unseen. Otherwise, a sentry spots movement but investigates alone, giving the party a chance to silence, deceive, or capture the guard before the alarm.

One broken gallery crosses a 20-foot drop. A character who succeeds on a DC 12 Wisdom (Perception) check spots the cracked support before stepping onto it. Otherwise, the lead character must succeed on a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw or fall 15 feet, taking 5 (1d6 + 2) bludgeoning damage and making enough noise to draw two bandits.

The Conjuration Drain

The drain mouth lies behind thorn and burned stone. Finding it without Thalantyr's survey requires a DC 15 Wisdom (Survival) check and 20 minutes. On a failure, the party finds it after 40 minutes and the ritual clock advances by 1 only if it began this chapter at 3 or higher.

A rusted grate has AC 17, 20 hit points, and immunity to poison and psychic damage. A character can instead open it with a DC 15 Dexterity check using thieves' tools. Forcing the grate requires a separate DC 17 Strength (Athletics) check. Noise here draws the wizshade, not the sentries.

3.3 The ghost that is not a trick

The Ulcaster wizshade appears along any route after the party passes its first false haunting.

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A blue figure rises through the broken floor without disturbing the dust. For one breath it is an impossibly tall, bearded wizard. For the next it is only a battered hat turning in the air.

It points through the nearest wall.

Behind it, the false whisper repeats. The figure turns toward the hidden pipe and tears the sound apart with a word that leaves frost on the stone.

The shade does not attack unless a character targets it. A DC 13 Intelligence (Arcana) check identifies it as a magical remnant rather than a coherent undead spirit. A character who repeats “The lesson continues” receives a sharp correction: “The lesson ended.” The shade then points toward the lower stair.

If attacked, roll once on the following table at initiative count 20 for 3 rounds, then the manifestation vanishes.

Chapter payoff

The party reaches the False School through the sentry court, haunting works, or lower stair. Record whether the alarm sounded, whether the party learned the counter-phrase, and whether any sentry escaped.

4.1 The false haunting works

The Circle has turned a roofless lecture hall into a control room for lights, pipes, smoke, and minor illusions. The party can disable the system, redirect it, or leave it operating.

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Copper tubes run through holes drilled in the old lectern. Hooded lanterns hang behind scraps of blue glass. A bellows feeds smoke into a cracked wall, and waxed cords vanish through pulleys toward the windows.

Someone has labeled every lever in a careful hand: WAIL. CHILD. FIRE. FOOTSTEPS. HAT.

The lever marked HAT is bent upward as if struck from below.

Using the works

• DC 12 Intelligence (Investigation): Disable the alarm cords without revealing the sabotage.
• DC 13 Dexterity using thieves' tools: Redirect the effects toward the Old School Road, granting advantage on one group Dexterity (Stealth) check during withdrawal.
• DC 14 Intelligence (Arcana): Separate the illusion wiring from the genuine ward lines and identify the lower stair safely.

Failure makes noise and brings two bandits in 2 rounds. It does not prevent entry.

4.2 Mordas's command room

The command room establishes Mordas's actual rank and provides the page Nimra needs.

Setting

A surviving office is 30 feet square with one door, a shuttered window, and a locked iron document chest. A desk holds three current ledgers. The chest requires a DC 15 Dexterity check using thieves' tools or the key carried by the surface captain.

Automatic finds

• Orders to several Circle cells signed with Mordas's senior cipher.
• Buyer inquiries valuing a bound fiend by expected defensive benefit and resale price.
• Budgets for excavation, rare alloys, spell components, and “repeat trials.”
• Nimra’s family page: a folded surveillance report listing her sister’s Beregost home, work route, and an unsigned order to seize her if Nimra refuses work or escapes. A note reserves authorization to Mordas. This is his threat against a coerced worker, not evidence that the sister has already been taken.
• Fresh forge receipts matching the rejected triangular plates.
• An abbreviated copy of Mordas's Experiment Ledger, recording failed plate designs, lens settings, anchor angles, and corrections Mordas labels successful.

These records automatically prove that Mordas directs more than one cell, intends a repeatable Zhentarim program, and has preserved enough written work for another expert to repeat the experiment even if Mordas dies. They do not contain a working Demonshield method. A successor following them can reproduce the summoning and the same catastrophic phase rejection.

Additional finds

• DC 13 Intelligence (Investigation): Find a coded withdrawal order showing Mordas will save research before the lens, shield, or staff.
• DC 15 Intelligence (Investigation): Identify two Black Network buyers outside Beregost. Ormlyr can use the names later.
• DC 14 Wisdom (Insight): Reading Mordas's valuations reveals the correct leverage: he fears losing repeatability more than losing the prototype.

Taking or destroying the records

The complete chest weighs 80 pounds. Copying the key documents takes 10 minutes. Burning them denies the Zhentarim immediate recovery but weakens Ormlyr's case and Thalantyr's historical record. Taking or destroying the family page prevents another operative from simply collecting the written instructions. It does not erase the scouts’ knowledge or stop Mordas issuing new orders. Nimra also needs a plan to warn her sister and move her somewhere protected. Preserve the report privately as evidence if desired; there is no need to burn the other records.

4.3 The fabrication bay

A collapsed classroom now holds anvils, jigs, rivet punches, and rejected metalwork.

The party automatically finds rejected shield plates with fresh tool marks and numbered trials. A DC 12 Intelligence check using smith's tools establishes that the current shield was assembled within the last month. No result here suggests an ancient artifact was recovered.

Bay hazard

A violet residue coats the final jig. A creature touching it without gloves must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or take 7 (2d6) force damage and become unable to take reactions until the end of its next turn.

4.4 Nimra's survey room

If the alarm has not sounded, Nimra is locked here with measuring cords, a chalkboard, and two guards. If the alarm sounded, the room is empty and she waits in the ritual chamber under guard.

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A woman in a singed blue coat stands beside a chalkboard covered in three intersecting circles. She looks first at your weapons, then at the open door behind you.

“Are the guards outside dealt with? I need to get out of here. But first, someone has to warn my sister.”

Nimra accepted what she thought was a survey contract. When she discovered the intended summoning and refused further work, Mordas locked her up and showed her the report now kept in his command-room chest. She stayed alive by calibrating the anchors while concealing a fault in the western one. If the characters mention Thalantyr, she asks whether he received her last note. Knowing him is not required to earn her help.

Winning Nimra's help

Once Nimra can speak without a guard overhearing, she gives all the information below without a check. This includes parties who skipped High Hedge. She does not withhold instructions while a demon is being summoned.

To persuade her to approach the western anchor herself, the party must free her, deal with the guards along her route, and provide cover for her return. Recovering or destroying the family page and agreeing on a concrete safeguard for her sister earns her help automatically. Suitable safeguards include sending a named companion to warn and escort her sister to High Hedge, or arranging protection through Brinna or Ormlyr. Simply promising that everything will be fine is not enough.

If the page is unavailable, a character offering the same practical safeguard can make a DC 15 Charisma (Persuasion) check. On a failure, Nimra takes cover or leaves by the cleared route and tells the party how to proceed. Do not repeat the check for another speech. Evidence that her sister has been warned and placed under protection earns her help without the page or another check. Destroying the report alone never guarantees her sister’s safety.

What Nimra knows

Use plain terms first: “The crystal feeds the summoning. The three anchors hold it in place. The shield is where Mordas thinks the demon will go. Stop two of those systems and the opening will collapse.” Nimra can sketch their connections and the routes between the lower rooms.

• Three systems, not five. The lens, the shield, and the three anchors together are the core components. One disabled anchor breaks the entire anchor set. Disabling two different components collapses the breach at resolution. A character can attempt to close it sooner using the Chapter 06 action.
• The simplest interruption. Lift the shield off its armature with an action and no check. This disables the shield component and reduces the clock by 1. It is newly made and contains no captive fiend.
• The western anchor. She can disable its concealed fault with one action within reach and no check. This disables the anchor set and reduces the clock by 1. Her directions let a character use the normal DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) or Dexterity check using thieves’ tools; they do not grant her automatic success. Disabling a second anchor provides no further benefit.
• The lens. It remains mounted in the focusing chamber immediately east of the ritual hall, connected by a short passage and bronze channels. It can be released or destroyed using the Chapter 05 options. She warns that breaking it causes a burst of force.
• Finding the equipment. She knows the focusing chamber, shield chamber, archive, and ritual chamber. She explains that the shield chamber and archive are upstairs; each has a spiral stair down to the ritual hall’s western side. The lens is through the hall’s eastern doorway. Only the prepared shield is moved into the ritual hall for final alignment.
• The danger. Mordas is summoning a glabrezu. She has seen the shield reflect energy without containing it and fears the binding will fail. She cannot diagnose the missing prison-key or supply Hilather’s lost method.
• Other evidence. Voss funded the work and sent private instructions for a post-ritual diversion. His correspondence remains in the binding archive.

The guards

The two guards use bandit statistics. They surrender if one falls and the door is blocked. Killing surrendered or helpless guards in front of Nimra imposes disadvantage on a check to earn her direct help. Fighting guards who are still attacking does not. She still provides the essential ritual instructions.

Chapter payoff

The party now has direct proof that the shield is new and knows how the lower apparatus works. A short rest here is possible if the alarm remains silent. A long rest advances the clock by 1 and allows Mordas to move the prepared shield into the ritual chamber. The lens stays in the adjoining focusing chamber.

5.1 The buried foundations

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The academy stair ends at a narrow junction. The passage branches left and right between black stone walls. To the north, violet light spills across a doorway. From the south comes the smell of old paper and lamp oil.

Bronze lines run through the mortar. Their low hum rises from somewhere farther below.

Somewhere in the stone, a voice counts backward in Abyssal.

Environment

The entry passages are 5 feet wide and 8 feet high. Wall torches and work lamps light the occupied rooms; there is no natural light. Where a lamp has gone out, active bronze ward lines provide dim violet light within 5 feet at ritual stage 3 or higher. The routes shown on the map are fixed and require no navigation check. Ordinary movement covers them; do not charge 10 minutes merely to travel between adjacent rooms.

Objective order

At the foot of the entrance stair, the northern branch leads to the shield chamber and the southern branch to the binding archive. The space between these rooms is solid rock. The party can investigate either room first or descend immediately through it. An obvious eastern exit from each room leads to a spiral stair that descends 30 feet to a common north–south passage beside the ritual hall. The northern and southern ends of that passage open into the hall’s northwest and southwest sides. The focusing chamber is on the lower level, directly east of the ritual hall, reached through its eastern doorway.

If the alarm sounded, the first upper room visited contains two bandits. They retreat down that room’s spiral stair after 1 round. Begin Chapter 06 when a character enters the ritual hall through either western doorway. Reaching the focusing chamber requires crossing that encounter area; use its section 5.5 rules during the same encounter, without restarting the ritual clock.

5.2 The shield chamber

Racks hold several failed diamond-shaped shield assemblies, with warped plates, unfinished channels, and numbered test marks. These are modern prototypes, not recovered Demonshields. The one complete prepared shield rests on a bronze armature. If the surface alarm sounded or the party took a long rest, Mordas has moved that shield down to the ritual hall; the racks and empty armature remain. Otherwise it is still here, connected to the apparatus through the bronze channels.

Setting

The room is 40 feet square on the upper level. Its western entrance returns to the entry junction. The open eastern doorway leads to the northern spiral stair, which descends 30 feet to the passage outside the ritual hall’s northwest doorway. Both exits are visible without a check. Four triangular test plates hang beside the shield racks. There is no hidden passage behind them.

Shield options

Removing the prepared shield from its connected armature takes one action, requires no check, and reduces the clock by 1. The prepared shield functions as a normal shield. The failed assemblies on the racks are not connected; taking or breaking them has no effect on the clock and provides no additional disabled component. A character can dismantle it with smith's tools over 10 minutes, preventing Mordas from testing his theory and destroying much of the fabrication evidence.

A character who wears it during stages 3–5 sees a demonic silhouette around their arm but gains no defense. This is reflected resonance, not a forming prison. At stage 6, the transfer fails and the shield remains inert. The wearer must succeed on a DC 15 Charisma saving throw or become frightened until the end of their next turn as the rejected glabrezu's outline tears away from the plates.

5.3 The binding archive

The archive is a 40-foot-long, 35-foot-wide upper room filled with shelves and a central worktable. Its western entrance returns to the entry junction. The eastern doorway opens onto the southern spiral stair, which descends 30 feet to the passage outside the ritual hall’s southwest doorway. Both exits are visible. The archive contains damaged Ulcasterian notes, Mordas’s working copies, and Voss’s correspondence. Nimra remains in the surface survey room unless the alarm moved her directly to the ritual chamber.

Automatic finds

• An archive copy of Mordas's Experiment Ledger: Mordas's complete but fundamentally flawed ritual sequence, construction tolerances, lens calibrations, anchor geometry, failed trials, and the rule that two disabled components collapse the breach. Mordas carries the working master in his research case.
• Voss's private correspondence, showing he intended to steal the result.
• The old dismissal phrase. A character can copy it and use it once at an anchor as an action.
• Enough Black Network accounting to support Ormlyr's case even if the surface chest was destroyed.

Separate old work from new work

A character who spends 10 minutes and succeeds on a DC 13 Intelligence (Investigation) check separates original Ulcasterian fragments from Mordas's copies. On a failure, the core evidence is still recovered, but the mixed archive gives Thalantyr a stronger practical claim in the epilogue because only he can sort it safely.

Destroying the archive

Fire destroys the paper archive in 3 rounds. Doing so prevents the Zhentarim from recovering the archive copy of the experiment ledger and removes the counter-phrase unless already copied. It also erases proof of Voss's plan and weakens any attempt to prosecute Mordas beyond the immediate site. Unless the surface command-room chest was also destroyed, its abbreviated ledger survives: incomplete, but sufficient for a capable future researcher to reconstruct the failed experiment and endanger another site. No surviving copy contains the missing prison-key or a viable Demonshield process.

5.4 The descent to the ritual hall

When the first character starts down either spiral stair, Mordas speaks through the ward lines. Trigger this once, whether the party searched both upper rooms, searched only one, or went straight downstairs. He names the objects already removed and adjusts his offer accordingly. He bargains only if the shield, lens, and all three anchors remain intact and can be returned to service. If any required component was destroyed or carried beyond his reach, he offers nothing that buys time: he prepares to fight, recover the component, or escape with the experiment ledger.

Read AloudCopy

Mordas's voice travels through the bronze in the walls, close and level.

“Thalantyr wants the papers. Quentin wants the lens. Vestra wants the shield. Ormlyr wants me.”

The passage ahead brightens violet.

“Everyone came here to take something. Come down. We can decide what each appetite is worth.”

5.5 The focusing chamber

This 40-foot-square chamber is immediately east of the ritual hall on the same floor level. A straight passage 15 feet long and 10 feet wide connects them. The lens remains in a waist-high adjustable frame at the room’s center throughout the ritual, even after an alarm or rest. Bronze channels carry its amplified magic through the connecting passage to the anchors. The tall violet crystals around the central hall are anchor housings, not additional spell-lenses.

A character at the focusing chamber’s western doorway is 20 feet from the lens. Its collar can be reached from the floor. Removing or destroying it uses the options below and immediately affects the ritual in the next room. The lens blast is centered on the frame and does not ignore walls. Walking over the recessed channels or shutting a door does not disable a component.

A service hatch under the eastern workbench opens onto Mordas’s escape tunnel, which rises toward the eastern extraction point beyond the map. The hatch is unlocked and can be found by inspecting the bench without a check. It is an escape route, not another way to reach the lens from the upper archive or shield room.

Read AloudCopy

A violet crystal turns inside three bronze rings. Light enters through a wand socket no wand occupies, bends through the crystal, and casts a hard violet line along bronze channels running through the western doorway.

Every few breaths, the rings tighten by a fraction. The stone answers with a deeper hum.

Lens options

The lens has immunity to poison and psychic damage. A removed lens weighs 4 pounds and remains warm for 1 hour.

Resting below

A short rest is possible only after blocking a passage and costs no clock segment. A long rest advances the clock to at least 4, moves the prepared shield into the ritual hall if it remains available, and allows Mordas to ready the escape hatch in the focusing chamber. The lens stays mounted in that chamber.

6.1 Mordas's offer

On the party’s first entry into the lower ritual hall, set the clock to 2 and apply changes from earlier chapters, including any minimum imposed by a long rest. Do this only once. Moving between the hall and focusing chamber does not start a new encounter or reset the clock. Mordas remains beside his research case, even if the upper archive was destroyed. Use Mordas's offer only if every required component is intact and present or can be returned by the party. If a component was destroyed or carried beyond recovery, replace his final invitation below with: “You have broken the apparatus. You have not bought the work.” He makes no time-buying offer and prepares to fight or escape.

Read AloudCopy

The stair gives way to a hall whose ceiling rises three stories above the floor. Three bronze anchors surround a black circle cut into the stone. Violet light joins them above a breach no wider than a well.

Mordas stands beyond it with one hand resting on a case of papers. A bronze armature stands at the circle’s edge. Through the eastern doorway, violet light pours from a crystal turning in the next room.

Something with too many joints presses a shadow against the opening from below.

“Powerful people summon fiends every day,” Mordas says. “They bargain badly. They lose control. Hilather solved the problem. I made the solution available.”

He looks over each of you. “Name the part you want.”

If the prepared shield was moved downstairs, describe it mounted on the armature. Otherwise the armature is empty and the shield remains upstairs unless the party took it. If the lens has already been removed during this encounter, omit its light from the narration.

Mordas's bargains

Mordas begins with 2,000 gp for the party to give him 10 uninterrupted minutes. If refused, he offers the Netherese spell-lens after what he calls “the binding,” then names and influence within the Zhentarim. He never offers the shield or the complete research. A character who succeeds on a DC 14 Wisdom (Insight) check recognizes those as his nonnegotiable assets. If an intact component was removed, accepting the bargain includes returning it and allowing Mordas to reconnect it. A destroyed or irretrievably missing component makes the bargain unavailable.

At phase rejection, Mordas stares at the inert shield long enough to understand that he has purchased a summoning without a prison. He abandons the promised payment, seizes the master experiment ledger, and runs for the east passage. The party may stop him inside. If it does not, the outer cordon stops him outside. Quentin takes the spell-lens or its fragments during the crisis before anyone can collect it as payment.

Stalling

A character can keep Mordas talking with a DC 15 Charisma (Deception or Persuasion) check while another character moves no more than 15 feet or prepares one hidden action. Each later stall check increases the DC by 2. A failed check begins combat with Mordas unsurprised.

6.2 Objective-based combat

Combat setup

Mordas begins 30 feet from the breach beside the research case. One cult fanatic operates the southeastern anchor near the route to the focusing chamber. Two bandits guard Nimra if she was brought here; otherwise they protect the exits. Mordas is linked to his custom stat block in Appendix 2. Roll initiative.

Battlefield features

The ritual chamber is a 60-foot-wide hexagonal hall with a 30-foot ceiling, one open space three stories tall rather than three stacked floors. Its floor is 30 feet below the shield chamber and archive. Both spiral stairs discharge into the lower western passage, so characters enter through the northwest or southwest doorway at floor level. A 15-foot connecting passage on the east leads to the focusing chamber. The central breach is a 10-foot-diameter pit and difficult terrain within 5 feet. Falling into it before stage 6 deals 14 (4d6) psychic damage and deposits the creature prone in the nearest open space. Each anchor has AC 15, 20 hit points, resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks, and immunity to poison and psychic damage.

The lens remains at waist height in the focusing chamber to the east; no ladder or climb is needed to reach it. From the ritual hall’s eastern doorway, it is 35 feet away along the passage and into that room. Walls block sight and effects normally, while the open connecting passage allows a clear view along its axis. The shield is either on its upper armature, carried by a character, or on the hall’s waist-high armature if moved before entry. Removing it from either connected mounting disables the same component once.

Enemy goals

Mordas wants the research and what he believes will be a successful test. Once reduced to 30 hit points or fewer, he abandons the test and flees with the case. The fanatic wants completion. The bandits want a route out and surrender if Mordas abandons them. Any fleeing Mordas is intercepted by Ormlyr and Vestra at the outer cordon.

Enemy tactics

Mordas opens with hypnotic pattern if he can avoid catching an anchor operator, then uses Force Bolt and Command the Geometry. He uses his reaction to move an attacker toward the breach. The cult fanatic uses hold person on anyone approaching the lens or Nimra. The bandits use Help at anchors or attack isolated characters. If a character heads for the lens, a free bandit follows through the eastern passage rather than attacking through a wall. Use one initiative order and ritual clock for both rooms.

Ritual actions

If the party first meets Nimra here, she calls out: “Take the shield off its stand! Then break one of the anchors!” Give the rest of her section 4.4 guidance as conversation allows, without a check. Freeing her does not automatically settle the threat to her sister. Use the same agreement conditions as in the survey room. Her sabotage counts only once, and cannot reduce the clock below 1 after planar contact.

Clock effects

At initiative count 20, resolve the effect for the current stage, then advance the clock by 1.

Adjusting the encounter

For three characters, remove the cult fanatic and one bandit; Nimra begins unguarded. For six or seven characters, add one veteran at the research case. Do not increase the clock speed. A party that disabled two components before entry has earned a substantially easier finale.

Aftermath during combat

A surrendered operative can reveal Mordas's east passage. A character can use an action to secure the research case. Mordas’s eastward escape runs through the focusing chamber to the service hatch beneath its eastern workbench. He must actually cross the intervening spaces and reach that hatch. If he remains unrestrained there until the end of his next turn, he leaves the encounter through the rising tunnel with whatever he carries. This is not an escape from justice: the passage ends inside Ormlyr and Vestra's cordon. If Mordas uses dimension door, Quentin and Thalantyr's lattice bends the transit to the same warded extraction point. He is captured alive unless the party killed him first.

6.3 Resolution at stage 6

No core component disabled: phase rejection

Read AloudCopy

The violet lines converge on the shield. For one breath, its four plates shine like a single cut diamond.

Then the light strikes the central rivet and turns back.

The spell-lens screams inside its bronze rings. Every line gutters out. The shield falls from its armature with the flat sound of ordinary metal.

The thing in the breach does not follow it. Four massive arms grip the edge and pull upward.

If the shield is still upstairs, describe light racing up its connecting channels and the crash of metal overhead rather than a shield visible in the hall. The lens’s shriek comes from the eastern focusing chamber. Describe each object only where it currently stands.

The spell-lens has magnified the summoning but cannot reverse the glabrezu's planar resonance into a material prison. It goes dark and remains intact unless the characters previously damaged it. The shield remains permanently inert. A full glabrezu emerges. Mordas loses his next reaction as he realizes the method was never viable, then abandons everyone and flees with the research.

This is not intended as a simultaneous fair fight against Mordas and the demon. Use the containment procedure below. When the failure occurs, Quentin's voice travels through the outer lattice: “Wrong direction. A lens only magnifies what enters it.” Thalantyr answers through a second ward line: “The broken mark was an inversion key, not an amplifier.” No character without either scholar's specialized knowledge can fully diagnose the flaw in the moment.

One core component disabled: failed transfer

The disabled component distorts the manifestation but does not correct Mordas's missing prison-key. A full glabrezu emerges, disoriented until the end of its first turn. The shield remains inert. Mordas abandons everyone and flees with the research.

The characters can contain the glabrezu by surviving for 3 rounds while activating the three emergency ward marks around the chamber. Activating a mark requires an action and a DC 14 Intelligence (Arcana or Religion) check. Once all three are active, Quentin and Thalantyr's outer lattice banishes the demon at the next initiative count 20. A failed check deals 7 (2d6) psychic damage but can be repeated.

Two or more core components disabled: breach collapse

The outer lattice catches the collapsing geometry. The glabrezu's silhouette tears away, the breach seals, and every creature within 15 feet of the circle makes a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw, taking 10 (3d6) force damage on a failure or half as much on a success. The shield remains inert.

6.4 Other endings

Mordas attempts to flee

Mordas saves resources in this order: master experiment ledger, shield, lens, money. He sacrifices staff without hesitation. Record what he carries out of the ritual chamber, then place him at the eastern extraction point in the waiting arms of Ormlyr and Vestra. Mundane routes end at their cordon, and the outer lattice redirects his teleportation there. Ormlyr takes him into civic custody while Vestra seals his magic and seizes anything infernal he carried. Mordas never escapes Ulcaster alive.

Mordas dies

Mordas's death is a valid end to the confrontation. It ends his personal command and denies Ormlyr a living prisoner, but it does not erase the experiment. The master ledger in his research case and the abbreviated command-room copy remain evidence and a future danger unless the party deliberately secures or destroys both.

The party accepts the bargain

This remains an evil outcome even though the experiment is impossible. The party knowingly permits a full-strength fiend summoning for payment. The lens phase-rejects, the shield remains inert, and the glabrezu emerges. Brinna or another lawful witness records the choice. Ormlyr revokes the writ and withholds all payment. Vestra treats the party as having gambled mortal lives for Mordas's offer. Mordas reneges, attempts to flee with the master ledger, and is captured at the outer cordon if the party does not stop him first.

Quentin does not defend the party, condemn its choice, or dwell on casualties. He uses the containment crisis to take the spell-lens. If lives were lost, he offers a perfunctory condolence and calls the result an acceptable price for removing the Netherese device from circulation.

Quentin claims the spell-lens

Quentin ends the adventure with the spell-lens in every outcome. If it remains mounted, he mysteriously appears beside the frame and removes it. If a character carried or hid it, he appears along that character's route and takes it during the confusion after the breach closes. If it was broken, he gathers every recoverable crystal fragment, the focusing collar, and any fused residue from the apparatus. If Mordas removed it from the focusing chamber while fleeing, Quentin takes it at the outer cordon before Ormlyr closes the manacles. Do not make this a check or a negotiable custody result. Quentin's unexplained timing should preserve the mystery of how he arrived so precisely without revealing his true nature.

Immediate resolution

Once the breach closes or the demon is banished, Thalantyr enters from the nearest ward passage. Quentin appears wherever the spell-lens ended up rather than necessarily using the same route. Ormlyr and Vestra arrive from the eastern cordon with Mordas in custody if he attempted to flee. Brinna reports what she witnessed.

Read AloudCopy

The last violet line fades from the stone.

Thalantyr steps through a failing ward and stares at the ordinary shield. “It was never a vessel,” he says. “Mordas copied the opening and lost the lock.”

Quentin is suddenly beside the spell-lens. You did not see him enter. He frees the crystal from its collar—or gathers its broken pieces—with quick, proprietary hands.

Boots sound in the eastern passage. Captain Ormlyr returns with Mordas bound beside him and Magister Vestra at his shoulder.

Quentin slips the last violet fragment into his coat. “Unfortunate about the damage,” he says. “Still. This is where it belongs.”

The four claims

Vestra examines the shield and confirms that no infernal presence entered it. If the party preserved it, she says: “He made an imitation of a prison and opened a door beside it. The distinction will be entered into evidence.” If the party dismantled or destroyed it to stop the experiment, she accepts that result when mortal lives were at risk. She does not accept a bargain that knowingly allowed Mordas to complete the summoning.

Negotiating custody

The party decides what happens to the inert shield and surviving archive. Mordas belongs to Ormlyr if alive, and the spell-lens belongs to Quentin because he has already removed it. A DC 15 Charisma (Persuasion) check can secure one compromise from a reluctant claimant: joint study under Ormlyr's seal, a copied archive with the summoning sequence removed, or the inert shield being dismantled after examination. Strong evidence and a living Mordas in custody grant advantage.

Failure does not remove the party's choice. It means the offended claimant records the refusal and changes future cooperation.

Outcome ledger

Rewards

Ormlyr pays 1,000 gp to the party for ending the threat and returns any documented expenses up to 250 gp. Delivering Mordas alive into his custody adds 500 gp whether the party captured him below or the cordon caught his flight. Recovering enough records to expose the buyers earns formal commendation and advantage on one future Charisma check with Beregost's council. A party that accepted Mordas's bargain receives none of Ormlyr's payment, reimbursement, commendation, or legal protection.

The inert shield is a plot artifact, not automatic treasure. The spell-lens is never party treasure: Quentin removes it from the site in every condition.

Continuing the series

Quentin does not reveal his true nature. No Story Award is granted for meeting him or surrendering the lens because its acquisition is fixed. The next chapter can follow Mordas's buyers discovering that they funded an impossible weapon, Vestra's claim to the inert shield, Voss's surviving scheme, the casualties caused by the failed summoning, or a future cell repeating Mordas's dangerous error from a surviving ledger.

Mordas

Appearance. Mordas is a lean human man in severe black and dark-red traveling clothes cut for movement rather than ceremony. Ink stains mark two fingers. He keeps the research case within reach.

Roleplaying. He speaks like a negotiator pricing a difficult transaction. He never calls the glabrezu sacred or mighty. It is “inventory,” “the occupant,” or “the demonstration.”

Motivation. Preserve what he believes is a repeatable process. He values research above lens, shield, money, and staff.

What he knows. Mordas knows each claimant's public priority, the current state of every component, and the Black Network buyers. He does not know that his lens hypothesis is impossible until phase rejection at stage 6.

Tactics. Mordas controls movement, stalls for clock segments, and flees when the research is threatened. Any flight ends in Ormlyr and Vestra's outer cordon.

Nimra Keld

Appearance. Nimra wears a singed slate-blue survey coat. Chalk covers her left cuff. A cracked brass compass hangs at her belt.

Roleplaying. She asks concrete questions about routes, guards, and family before trusting promises.

Motivation. Get her sister warned and protected, survive, and leave the region.

What she knows. She knows the western anchor's fault, the component rule, and Voss's diversion plan.

Tactics. If she agrees to direct help under section 4.4, Nimra reaches the western anchor and uses an action to disable it, then seeks cover and an exit. Otherwise she gives instructions from safety. She does not remain to fight for any claimant.

Mordas, the False Student

Medium humanoid (human), lawful evil

Armor Class15 (mage armor)

Hit Points78 (12d8 + 24)

Speed30 ft.

STR9 (−1)

DEX14 (+2)

CON14 (+2)

INT18 (+4)

WIS14 (+2)

CHA16 (+3)

Saving Throws

Int +7, Wis +5

Skills

Arcana +7, Deception +6, Insight +5, Investigation +7, Persuasion +6

Senses

passive Perception 12

Languages

Common, Chondathan, Infernal, thieves' cant

Challenge

5 (1,800 XP)

Traits

Calculated Retreat

Mordas can take the Disengage action as a bonus action while he carries the research case or is within 10 feet of an exit.

Ritual Authority

Mordas has advantage on ability checks made to operate, repair, or redirect the binding apparatus.

Spellcasting

Mordas is a 9th-level spellcaster. He uses Intelligence for spellcasting (spell save DC 15, +7 to hit with spell attacks). He has the following wizard spells prepared: mage hand, minor illusion, ray of frost; mage armor, magic missile, shield; mirror image, misty step, suggestion; counterspell, hypnotic pattern; dimension door. Mordas has one 4th-level slot, three 3rd-level slots, three 2nd-level slots, and four 1st-level slots.

Actions

Force Bolt

Ranged Spell Attack: +7 to hit, range 120 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) force damage, and Mordas can move the target 5 feet toward or away from one anchor.

Command the Geometry (Recharge 5–6)

One creature Mordas can see within 60 feet must succeed on a DC 15 Intelligence saving throw or teleport to an unoccupied space Mordas can see within 15 feet of an active anchor. The target takes 7 (2d6) psychic damage after teleporting.

Bonus Actions

Price the Risk

Mordas chooses one creature within 60 feet that can hear him. Until the start of Mordas's next turn, the creature has disadvantage on the first attack roll it makes against Mordas unless it succeeds on a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw.

Reactions

Deflect Through the Lens

When Mordas is hit by an attack while the spell-lens is active, he adds 3 to his Armor Class against that attack, potentially causing it to miss. The ritual clock advances by 1 after the attack resolves. Mordas can use this reaction once per adventure.

Source: Quentin Lorekeeper Adventures project bestiary.