Session 29, Ghostwritten

The party gathered once more in the private office of Janussi, the Great Reader of Candlekeep, to finalize their preparations before descending into the library's deepest vaults. Janussi had already neutralized the magical virus hidden within the Book of Dead Schools, clamping it shut so it could not spread its recursive corruption through Candlekeep's vast collection. She reminded the adventurers that the Seal of Concordance awaited them in the subterranean levels below, and that they would need to retrieve it themselves. Rather than send the young tiefling Irony as their guide, Janussi summoned someone far more suited to the depths — a Drow woman named Yona, the attendant of the ghost dragon Miirym and the library's foremost expert on its underground passages.

Yona arrived not with the confident stride of a seasoned guide, but with wide, transfixed eyes drawn immediately to the towering windows of Janussi's office. She pressed her tiptoes against the glass, gazing down at the city streets and open sky far below as though she had never truly seen the surface world before — and in many ways, she hadn't. She had spent roughly fifty years in the subterranean vaults of Candlekeep, sustained by Miirym's blessing, which had freed her from the need to eat, drink, or sleep so that she could devote herself entirely to reading. The party watched her with a mixture of amusement and quiet sympathy before gently coaxing her back into the room.

Before the descent could begin, Janussi issued a stern warning: the ghost dragon Miirym was extraordinarily possessive of any written works that entered the lower levels. It did not matter who had brought them in — if Miirym saw a book or scroll being carried out, she would consider it theft. The party took the warning seriously, piling their spellbooks, letters, journals, and tomes onto a table in the office. Janussi sealed the collection beneath a shimmering protective force field, assuring them their texts would be well guarded until their return. With nothing written left on their persons, they followed Yona into the stairwells and began their descent.

The deeper they traveled, the more the architecture of Candlekeep gave way to raw stone. The orderly shelves and lantern-lit corridors of the upper library faded behind them, replaced by the vast, echoing darkness of natural caverns lined with countless tomes stretching as far as the eye could see. Along the way, Yona asked the adventurers about their lives and their reasons for seeking the seal, and the party shared stories of Baldur's Gate, the Feywild, and the strange, long lives that elves and tieflings led. Velessa mused aloud about what she had been doing when she was Yona's age — learning to cut gemstones and crafting butterfly ornaments, though she maintained that moths were far more interesting. The conversation wound through debates about underground psychology, the relative sanity of Drow versus Duergar, and the sacred animals of Eilistraee, until at last Yona guided them to the top of a stairwell that led down into the chamber where the Seal of Concordance was kept.

Their first encounter in the depths was not with a trap or a monster, but with Miirym herself. The ghost dragon materialized before them in the darkness — first a soft breeze, then a single enormous tooth, then the ghostly suggestion of a lower jaw, and finally the floating, spectral head of a silver dragon, her form fading into nothing below the neck. She turned her great head sideways like a curious dog and immediately began peppering the adventurers with questions, hungry for news and stories from the world above. Velessa told her that Baldur's Gate was being rebuilt and that there had been a recent explosion at the Waterdeep docks, while Taliya described the pleasures of the Feywild with cheerful irreverence. Miirym lamented that she missed drunkenness and orgies, and the party briefly considered whether ghost wine was a theoretical possibility before Yona stepped in and diplomatically persuaded her patron to let them pass, promising to relay all of their stories in full upon their return.

The chamber at the bottom of the stairwell was unlike anything else in Candlekeep. It was a natural cave, barely modified by human hands, and at its center stood a small island of stone with a podium — and surrounding that podium blazed a perfect ring of silver fire. Taliya reached out with her magical senses and was nearly overwhelmed by the sheer concentration of arcane energy in the room. Velessa and Taliya both recognized the flames for what they were: Silver Fire, a manifestation of the Weave itself, the kind of power that only a chosen of Mystra could have set in place. They knew instinctively that anything non-living that touched those flames would be utterly destroyed, and that even living creatures struck by them would suffer catastrophic damage. At the far end of the cavern, two massive ten-foot statues stood motionless — one gold, one silver — and Séantal recognized them as constructs from the lawful plane of Mechanus.

Séantal approached the guardians and attempted to negotiate, invoking the authority of Janussi and the ownership of Candlekeep, but the constructs — named Accord and Axiom — declared the authorization invalid. They stated flatly that the Seal of Concordance belonged to Mechanus, and that desire alone did not establish the right of possession. When Séantal summoned their small modron companion to help communicate, the modron confirmed that the constructs were formidable and almost certainly expected the party to already know the proper credentials. The constructs began to advance, and with no other option presenting itself, the party braced for a fight.

Séantal acted first, invoking a powerful banishment that ripped Axiom away from the material plane entirely, sending the silver construct back to Mechanus — where, Séantal imagined with some satisfaction, it was probably stuck in a very important meeting it couldn't escape. With one guardian gone, the party turned their full attention to Accord. Velessa activated her bladesong and fired her radiant flintlock at the golden construct, punching a glowing hole through its shoulder plate — only to watch the metal knit itself back together. Yona lashed the construct with crackling necrotic energy, and Taliya slowed its movements to a grinding crawl, though the magical effort triggered a surge of wild, uncontrolled magic that left her spellcasting dangerously unpredictable for the next several minutes.

Velessa, never one to play it entirely safe, stepped inside the ring of silver fire to test it, finding it strangely tingly but not immediately lethal. She then pulled a length of rope from her cleverly concealed bag of holding — worked into her brassiere and known affectionately among the party as the Tits of Holding — and conjured a magical pocket dimension fifteen feet above the cavern floor. She climbed up and vanished into the extradimensional space, which appeared from the inside as a giant cube of warm, yellowish parchment paper. Then she poked her head back out through the opening, hanging upside down in midair, and called down to her companions to join her — using herself as bait to lure the guardian closer. The image of a Drow wizard dangling from an invisible ceiling while firing a radiant flintlock at a mechanical giant was, by any measure, one of the more unusual tactical decisions the party had ever made.

The plan worked well enough until Taliya's wild magic surged again — this time filling the entire interior of the pocket dimension with a sudden, inexplicable flood of grease. Séantal and Taliya slid helplessly out of the opening and dropped back to the cavern floor in an undignified heap, the pocket dimension now entirely unusable as a hiding spot. The party scattered across the chamber, repositioning as best they could while Accord continued its slow, grinding advance. Velessa belly-flopped out of the dimension from fifteen feet up, cracked her knees on the stone floor, took a moment to collect herself, and then immediately started swinging her sword at the guardian as though nothing had happened.

Yona attempted to lift the construct off the ground with a burst of levitation magic to push it back into the silver circle, but the guardian's sheer mechanical constitution allowed it to resist the effect. Instead, the party fell back on sustained magical assault — Séantal firing crackling beams of force energy, Yona unleashing twin blasts of eldritch power enhanced by her hex, and Taliya battering the construct with thunderous strikes. The guardian's regenerative plating finally began to fail under the relentless pressure, cracks spreading across its golden carapace and gears grinding loose. Accord went down in a shower of dissolving metal, its form slowly fading into the cavern floor.

With Accord destroyed, Séantal deliberately ended the banishment holding Axiom on Mechanus, allowing the silver construct to reappear in the chamber. The party was ready. Velessa conjured a new pocket dimension twenty feet above the floor, Taliya's wild magic rendered Séantal, Yona, and herself invisible, and Velessa stood alone on the ground as bait, drawing the guardian toward the silver circle. The moment Axiom stepped into the ring of crackling fire, the hidden party members unleashed a coordinated barrage of readied magic — Séantal landing a devastating critical strike among the volley — that staggered the construct badly. Axiom retaliated by hammering Velessa with its mechanical fists, leaving her bloodied and reeling, but she drank a restorative potion and then channeled a powerful surge of healing magic through herself, recovering almost entirely in moments.

The final exchange was swift. Velessa, Yona, and Taliya poured everything they had into the silver construct as it struggled to remain upright, its plating cracking and its movements becoming erratic. Yona, her form wreathed in the terrifying aura of her dread aspect, delivered the killing blow — a pair of crackling eldritch beams that shattered Axiom completely, sending its dissolving remains scattering across the cavern floor. As the last of the construct faded, the ring of silver fire surrounding the central podium guttered and went dark. The chamber fell silent.

Taliya experienced one final surge of wild magic as the battle ended, causing her touch to ignite any non-magical flammable object she came into contact with — a deeply inconvenient development as she slid down Velessa's magical rope to reach the ground. The rope, fortunately, was magical, and survived the contact. The party retrieved the Seal of Concordance from where it had fallen to the ground during the chaos — a small, palm-sized disc etched with alchemical symbols along its edge, covered in dust but otherwise intact. With a little spit and a rub against a sleeve, it cleaned up nicely. The last piece of the ritual of the lawful draw was finally in their hands, and somewhere above them, Miirym was almost certainly waiting for Yona to come back and tell her everything.

Last we left off, our adventurers found themselves deep within the hallowed halls of Candlekeep, guests of the Great Reader Janussi, who had already taken steps to contain the magical corruption lurking within the Book of Dead Schools. With the threat neutralized and the Seal of Concordance waiting somewhere in the library's subterranean depths, the party prepared to descend — leaving behind their spellbooks, journals, and every written word they carried, lest the famously possessive ghost dragon Miirym take offense. Their guide for the journey was Yona, a Drow woman who had spent fifty years in the vaults below, sustained by Miirym's blessing, and who greeted the surface world's windows with the wide-eyed wonder of someone seeing the sky for the very first time.

The descent brought them face to face with Miirym herself — a spectral silver dragon's head floating in the darkness, more curious than threatening, hungry for gossip about the world above. After satisfying her appetite for stories and securing her blessing to pass, the party arrived at a natural cavern at the heart of the vaults, where a ring of blazing Silver Fire surrounded a stone podium — and two enormous constructs from the lawful plane of Mechanus stood sentinel. Named Accord and Axiom, the guardians refused all negotiation and advanced with mechanical certainty. What followed was a battle of attrition, wild magic surges, an extradimensional pocket filled inexplicably with grease, and at least one Drow wizard belly-flopping fifteen feet onto a stone floor before immediately resuming combat as though nothing had happened.

Now, with both constructs reduced to dissolving scrap, the silver fire extinguished, and the Seal of Concordance — a small, dust-covered disc of alchemical symbols — cleaned off and safely in hand, the party stands at the threshold of their next great challenge. The last piece of the ritual of the lawful draw is theirs. All that remains is the long climb back up... and the very certain knowledge that Miirym is waiting, and she expects a very thorough debrief.

The Great Reader sealed up the book with a clamp, Then sent Yona down into vaults cold and damp. She'd not seen the sky, So she pressed her face high To the glass — fifty years underground leaves a stamp!

They left every tome on the table upstairs, For Miirym the ghost dragon hoards without cares. She floated and spoke Of orgies and folk, Then let them pass on after trading their wares.

Two constructs from Mechanus blocked the way through, Named Accord and Axiom, lawful and true. Séantal banished one, The other came undone, While grease filled the pocket dimension on cue!

Velessa dropped fifteen feet, cracked both her knees, Then swung at the guardian with practiced-at ease. The Tits of Holding Kept ropes from unfolding, While wild magic coated the whole room in grease.

With Axiom shattered by Yona's last blast, The silver fire guttered — the battle had passed. A small dusty disc, Retrieved at great risk, Was wiped on a sleeve — the Seal found at last!

Hearke well, ye souls of curious mind, To tales of vaults beneath the stone; Where Candlekeep's great shelves are lined, And Janussi guards each tome alone.

She sealed the cursed booke with care, And bade them leave their writings here; For Miirym, dragon of the air, Would claim each page she held most dear.

Then Yona came, with wondering eyes, Who fifty years had dwelt below; She pressed her face to morning skies, As one who'd never seen their glow.

The dragon's head did float and speak, Of orgies missed and drunken nights; The party gave her tales to seek, And passed beyond her spectral sights.

Two guardians stood in silver flame, Accord and Axiom, cold and sure; But eldritch fire and bladesong came, And left them dust upon the floor!

So the party descended into the bowels of Candlekeep armed with absolutely zero books — because the ghost dragon who lives down there is a hoarder with boundary issues — guided by a Drow woman who had spent fifty years underground and reacted to a window like it had personally wronged her in a past life. After charming a spectral dragon head into letting them pass by promising her gossip about Waterdeep dock explosions and Feywild orgies, they found the Seal of Concordance guarded by two giant lawful-plane robots who were deeply unimpressed by name-dropping the head librarian.

The ensuing fight featured: one construct banished to Mechanus mid-meeting, a pocket dimension that got entirely flooded with grease thanks to wild magic, Velessa using her bra as a bag of holding and then belly-flopping from fifteen feet up before immediately going back to swinging her sword, and Yona — a woman who hadn't seen sunlight in half a century — absolutely murdering a mechanical giant with eldritch blasts while radiating terrifying dread energy. They won. The Seal is a dusty little disc that needed to be wiped on someone's sleeve. Truly, the treasures of the ancients.

Funny — Velessa

It's awful and sunny all the time, except for when it rains.

Context: Deadpan response when the lonely ghost dragon Miirym eagerly asked for news of the outside world

Funny

Taliya's wild magic surge fills the entire pocket dimension with grease, forcing Séantal and Taliya to slide out and drop back to the cavern floor mid-combat.

Context: A chaotic wild magic surge at the worst possible moment, turning the party's safe house into a slip-and-slide

Epic

Velessa hangs upside down from her magical pocket dimension fifteen feet in the air, firing her radiant flintlock at the mechanical guardian below while using her own head as bait.

Context: A creative and visually absurd tactical maneuver that also dealt the first lasting damage to the regenerating construct

Funny — Séantal

I didn't know you had such strong battle lust.

Context: Teasing Taliya after her wild magic surge filled their shared pocket dimension with grease

Funny

Séantal imagines that banishing Axiom was like a group of Modrons showing up to drag the construct away to a very important meeting on Mechanus, leaving it stuck there going 'this could have been a sending spell.'

Context: Séantal's humorous in-character justification for why the banishment spell worked so effectively on a lawful construct

Funny

Velessa belly-flops out of her pocket dimension from fifteen feet up, fails her acrobatics check, cracks her knees on the cavern floor, takes fall damage, and then immediately starts swinging her sword at the guardian.

Context: A dramatically ungraceful exit from the rope trick dimension that the party found hilarious

Dramatic

Yona, who has spent fifty years underground without ever needing to eat, drink, or sleep, is completely transfixed by the view of the sky and city streets from Janussi's office window, pressing her tiptoes against the glass.

Context: A poignant introduction to a character whose entire life has been spent in the dark, encountering the surface world for the first time in a meaningful way

Funny

For the next minute, any non-magical flammable object Taliya touches bursts into flame — just as she is sliding down Velessa's magical rope to exit the pocket dimension.

Context: A final wild magic surge that nearly destroyed the rope anchoring the party's safe house, only avoided because the rope happened to be magical

1. A New Guide for the Depths

The party meets with Janussi to discuss their descent into the Candlekeep vaults and is introduced to Yona.

Key events

• The GM recaps the party's discovery of a recursive magical virus hidden within the Book of Dead Schools provided by Szass Tam.
• Janussi, the Great Reader, explains that the party must recover the Seal of Concordance from the subterranean levels of Candlekeep themselves.
• The party is warned about Miirym, a ghost dragon who is extremely possessive of any written works brought into the lower levels.
• Velessa and Séantal discuss how to safeguard their spellbooks and tomes to avoid provoking the dragon.
• Janussi summons Yona, a young Drow woman and attendant to Miirym, to serve as the party's guide due to her expertise in the subterranean levels.
• Yona arrives and is immediately mesmerized by the view of the sky and the city from Janussi's office windows, having spent most of her life underground.
• The party discusses the psychological effects of living underground, comparing Drow, Dwarves, and Svirfneblin.

2. Preparations for the Descent

The party prepares to enter the subterranean levels of Candlekeep by surrendering their written works to avoid provoking Miirym.

Key events

• Yona warns the party that the ghost dragon Miirym is extremely possessive of books and scrolls.
• Velessa, Séantal, and Taliya leave their spellbooks, letters, and journals on a table to avoid provoking the dragon.
• Janussi casts a protective force field around the party's deposited books to keep them safe during their absence.
• Séantal dismisses their Book of Shadows rather than leaving it on the table.
• Yona leads the party away from the sunlit office and down into the dark, cavernous basement levels.

3. Audience with the Sentinel Wyrm

Deep beneath the library, the party encounters the spectral dragon Miirym and must navigate her intense curiosity to proceed.

Key events

• The ghostly form of Miirym materializes before the party, appearing initially as a floating set of jaws before more of her form becomes visible.
• Miirym expresses great interest in the adventurers, asking for news and stories from the outside world.
• Velessa shares news of the reconstruction of Baldur's Gate and a recent explosion at the Waterdeep docks.
• Taliya describes life in the Feywild, prompting Miirym to lament her inability to experience mortal pleasures like drunkenness.
• Yona successfully persuades Miirym to let the party pass by promising to recount their stories to the dragon later.
• Miirym warns the party that while they may take trinkets like the seal, they must not touch any of the books in her hoard.
• The group proceeds deeper into the vaults, with Yona asking the party about their origins and reasons for seeking the seal.

4. Subterranean Reflections

As they delve deeper into the caverns, the party and Yona share stories of their pasts and the strange nature of their long lives.

Key events

• Yona reveals she has spent fifty years in the vaults without needing to eat, drink, or sleep due to Miirym's blessing.
• Velessa and Séantal discuss the relative lifespans of elves and tieflings, noting that Yona is still quite young by elven standards.
• The party debates the aesthetic merits of moths versus butterflies, with Velessa defending moths as sacred animals of Eilistraee.
• Séantal's heritage is clarified — they are a tiefling born of a fiend mother and an elven father.
• The GM introduces the Campaign Companion interface to Yona, explaining the codex, maps, and conspiracy board features.
• Yona leads the group past the library shelves into the more dangerous, cavernous trinket and seal rooms.
• The party reaches a stairwell leading down to the chamber housing the Seal of Concordance.

5. The Chamber of Silver Fire

The party enters a deeply buried subterranean vault beneath Candlekeep, discovering a deadly ring of silver flames guarding their objective.

Key events

• Taliya employs a magical wand to sense the overwhelming presence of magic in the chamber ahead.
• Séantal uses a specialized wand to scan for traps and secret doors, finding the path clear of hidden hazards.
• The group enters the final chamber, discovering a podium surrounded by a blazing ring of silver fire.
• Velessa and Taliya succeed on an Arcana check and identify the flames as Silver Fire — a destructive manifestation of the Weave associated with the chosen of Mystra.
• The adventurers spot a pair of massive ten-foot statues named Accord and Axiom at the far end of the cavern, which Séantal recognizes as lawful constructs from the plane of Mechanus.
• Velessa reveals her customized bag of holding during a discussion about exploration gear, which she has worked into her brassiere.

6. Confrontation with the Guardians of Mechanus

The party attempts to negotiate with the mechanical guardians of the Seal of Concordance before combat erupts.

Key events

• Séantal approaches the guardians and attempts to authorize their presence by invoking the name of Janussi, the Head Reader of Candlekeep, but the guardians declare the authorization invalid.
• Séantal summons their modron assistant 7-42B to help communicate with the constructs, learning their names are Axiom and Accord.
• The guardians state that the Seal of Concordance rightfully belongs to Mechanus and prepare to defend it.
• Combat begins as the massive mechanical constructs take a ground-shaking step toward the party.
• Séantal successfully banishes Axiom, sending the silver construct back to the plane of Mechanus temporarily.
• Velessa activates her bladesong and fires a radiant flintlock shot at Accord, piercing its shoulder plate, though the metal quickly knits itself back together.
• Yona places a hex on Accord, attempting to wither its metal plates with necrotic energy, but the construct continues to reform.
• Taliya casts a spell to slow Accord's movements, but the magical strain triggers a wild magic surge, causing her magic to become unpredictable for the next minute.

7. The Battle of the Silver Fire

The party engages in a tactical battle against the mechanical guardian Accord, utilizing magical slowing effects and a pocket dimension for safety.

Key events

• Taliya's slow spell drastically reduces Accord's speed and combat effectiveness.
• Séantal's banishment keeps Axiom trapped on another plane, leaving only Accord to fight.
• Velessa tests the perimeter of the silver fire, finding it strangely tingly but not immediately harmful, then steps inside the ring.
• Velessa conjures a magical rope and creates a pocket dimension fifteen feet in the air, hiding inside and using her head as bait to lure the guardian.
• Yona manifests a spectral mage hand and carefully reaches into the ring of silver fire to grasp the Seal of Concordance from its podium.
• The party realizes the guardian possesses regenerative properties, as its metal carapace knits back together after being struck by spells and projectiles.
• Velessa hangs upside down from the pocket dimension to fire her radiant musket at the guardian, dealing damage that finally fails to regenerate.
• Yona attempts to move the Seal of Concordance with her mage hand to see if the ring of silver fire would follow, but the ring does not move with the object.

8. A Greasy Situation

Taliya's chaotic wild magic triggers an accidental grease explosion inside the pocket dimension, forcing the party to evacuate and reposition.

Key events

• Taliya experiences a wild magic surge that completely fills the pocket dimension with slick, slippery grease.
• Séantal and Taliya are forced to slide out of the greasy portal and drop back down to the cavern floor.
• The party scrambles to run and dash across the subterranean chamber to find safer tactical positions.
• Taliya triggers another surge of chaotic magic, allowing her to rapidly reposition across the cavern.
• The adventurers spread out and prepare for the inevitable return of the second banished guardian, Axiom.

9. The Fall of Accord

The party coordinates their attacks to destroy the mechanical guardian Accord, with Yona delivering the killing blow.

Key events

• Velessa falls ungracefully from her extra-dimensional hiding spot but manages to strike the construct with her sword after casting Spirit Shroud.
• Yona unleashes crackling beams of eldritch energy at the construct while shielding herself with a protective armor of frost.
• Taliya batters the automaton with thunderous magic before retreating back into the safety of the floating portal.
• The construct retaliates with a heavy slam against Velessa, grinding its gears as its armor begins to crack.
• Yona delivers a powerful critical blast of arcane energy that completely shatters the construct, causing it to dissolve into the floor.

10. The Bait and the Banishment

The party coordinates a tactical ambush against the remaining guardian, Axiom, while Taliya's wild magic continues to spiral.

Key events

• Taliya experiences a surge of wild magic, causing her spells to manifest with unnatural speed as bonus actions.
• Velessa prepares a new magical rope trick, creating an extradimensional hidey-hole twenty feet above the cavern floor.
• Taliya's wild magic surges again, turning herself, Séantal, and Yona invisible.
• Velessa positions herself as bait on the ground to lure the guardian into the silver circle while the rest of the party hides in the pocket dimension.
• Séantal ends the banishment spell on Axiom, causing the mechanical guardian to reappear in the cavern.
• Axiom charges toward Velessa and enters the silver circle, triggering a coordinated barrage of readied spells from the hidden party members.
• The guardian withstands the initial blast and strikes Velessa with powerful mechanical fists, leaving her bloodied.
• Velessa drinks a restorative potion to recover from the guardian's heavy blows.

11. The Fall of Axiom and Recovery of the Seal

The party concludes their battle against the final mechanical guardian and secures the Seal of Concordance.

Key events

• The party focuses their magical assaults on Axiom while it is trapped within the silver fire circle.
• Velessa uses a powerful upcast healing spell to rapidly restore her health after taking heavy damage.
• Yona assumes a terrifying dread form to bolster her resilience and attempts to levitate the guardian back into the circle, though the construct resists the magic.
• Taliya prepares a maximized magical strike and waits for the guardian to re-enter the silver circle, then unleashes it with devastating force.
• Séantal delivers a final blast of eldritch energy that shatters Axiom, causing its form to dissolve into the floor.
• Taliya experiences a final wild magic surge, causing her touch to ignite non-magical flammable objects, narrowly avoiding igniting Velessa's magical rope.
• The ring of silver fire surrounding the central podium vanishes once the guardians are defeated.
• The party retrieves the Seal of Concordance from the ground, finding it covered in dust but intact.
• The adventurers are awarded experience points and level up, with the GM asking them to handle leveling between sessions.

Janussi

The Great Reader of Candlekeep who negotiates with the party, warns them of the dangers in the vaults, assigns Yona as a guide, and casts a protective force field around their deposited books.

Miirym

The spectral guardian of Candlekeep, a ghost dragon who manifests primarily as a floating set of ghostly jaws. She is intensely possessive of books and written works but is deeply lonely and hungry for conversation and news from the outside world. She allowed the party to pass after Yona promised to relay their stories.

Accord

A ten-foot-tall golden mechanical guardian from the plane of Mechanus, tasked with protecting the Seal of Concordance from 'discordant hands.' Its carapace crackled with energy when standing within the silver fire circle and it possessed the ability to rapidly knit its armor back together after taking damage, until the party's sustained assault finally overcame its regeneration.

Axiom

A silver-colored mechanical construct and counterpart to Accord, also from the plane of Mechanus. It was temporarily banished to its home plane by Séantal early in the fight and returned only to be lured into a trap and destroyed by the party's coordinated assault.

Janussi's Office

The private living and working space of the Great Reader of Candlekeep, featuring large windows that offer a sprawling view of the library's exterior, city streets, and sky below — a sight that left Yona transfixed.

Candlekeep Basement Levels

A vast network of subterranean archives that transitions from organized, man-made library shelves filled with countless tomes to deep, natural caverns. The deepest reaches house the Seal of Concordance in a modified natural cave featuring a central podium surrounded by a lethal ring of silver fire, guarded by massive mechanical constructs from Mechanus.

The Rope Trick Dimension

A magical pocket dimension created by Velessa using a rope trick spell, appearing internally as a giant cube made of yellowish parchment or origami paper, floating fifteen to twenty feet above the cavern floor. It served as the party's tactical safe house during the battle.

Book of Dead Schools

A Thayan book provided by Szass Tam that contained a recursive magical virus designed to spread through and infect any library it was copied into. Janussi placed an anti-magic clamp on it to neutralize the threat before the session began.

Red Annals of the Zulkirate

A Thayan historical text provided by Szass Tam as payment for the party's admittance to Candlekeep. It was deemed safe, unlike the Book of Dead Schools.

Velessa's Spellbook

A wizard's tome containing Velessa's prepared rituals and spells, left behind in Janussi's office under a protective force field to avoid provoking Miirym's wrath.

Book of Shadows

Séantal's warlock tome, described as filled with dense legalese and technical breakdowns of spells. Séantal dismissed it rather than leaving it on the table before entering the vaults.

Taliya's Bucket List

An old-looking document detailing Taliya's personal goals, surrendered to the protective bubble in the Great Reader's office before the descent.

Velessa's Tits of Holding

Velessa's customized bag of holding, cleverly worked into her brassiere. She proudly revealed it during a discussion about missing exploration gear, pulling rope from it during the battle.

Séantal's Secret Wand

A magical wand used by Séantal to emit an instantaneous pulse that scans the surrounding area within sixty feet for hidden traps and secret doors. It found no traps in the vault.

Taliya's Wand

A wand used by Taliya to detect magical auras, which revealed an overwhelming concentration of magical power within the subterranean vault.

Seal of Concordance

The powerful artifact the party was sent to retrieve, found sitting on a podium in the center of the vault chamber, bathed in bright light beyond a protective ring of silver fire and guarded by the constructs Accord and Axiom. After the battle, it was recovered from the ground, covered in dust but intact, featuring alchemical symbols along its edge.

Velessa's Radiant Flintlock

A unique firearm obtained from a goblin artificer that fires musket balls which transform into light along their flight path, dealing radiant damage. Velessa used it to pierce the guardians' armor, including while hanging upside down from her magical rope.

Magical Rope

A versatile rope kept within Velessa's bag of holding that can be cut and fused back together through her magic. It served as the anchor for the rope trick pocket dimension used as a tactical safe house during the battle, and narrowly avoided being ignited by Taliya's final wild magic surge due to its magical nature.

Restorative Potion

A healing tonic consumed by Velessa to mend her wounds after being struck by the guardian's heavy mechanical fists.

Sending

Cast by Janussi to summon Yona from the subterranean levels to her office.

Detect Magic

Cast by Taliya to sense magical energies in the vault ahead, resulting in a nearly overwhelming sensation due to the sheer intensity of the Weave concentrated in the chamber.

Banishment

Cast by Séantal to temporarily remove Axiom from the battlefield, sending the silver construct back to its home plane of Mechanus. Séantal later ended the spell deliberately to bring Axiom back as part of the party's ambush plan.

Slow

Cast by Taliya to drastically reduce Accord's speed, armor class, and combat effectiveness, halving its movement and limiting it to a single attack or action per turn. Casting it triggered a wild magic surge.

Hex

Cast by Yona to weaken Accord and add necrotic damage to her eldritch blasts. She reapplied it to Axiom after Accord was destroyed.

Rope Trick

Cast by Velessa using a length of rope to create an extradimensional pocket dimension fifteen to twenty feet above the ground, providing the party with a tactical safe house and a vantage point for attacks. The interior appeared as a giant cube of yellowish parchment paper.

Mage Hand

Cast by Yona to safely interact with the Seal of Concordance from a distance, reaching into the ring of silver fire to grasp the disc from its podium. She also tested whether moving the seal would cause the ring of fire to follow, which it did not.

Eldritch Blast

Repeatedly used by both Séantal and Yona to fire beams of crackling force energy at the mechanical guardians. The constructs initially regenerated the damage, but sustained blasts eventually overcame their self-repair.

Armor of Agathys

Cast by Yona as a bonus action to surround herself with a protective ward of spectral frost, providing temporary hit points and retaliating with cold damage against attackers who struck her.

Spirit Shroud

Cast by Velessa as a bonus action after dropping from the pocket dimension, enhancing her melee sword strikes against the guardian.

Grease

Accidentally summoned by Taliya's wild magic surge, completely coating the interior of the rope trick pocket dimension in slick, slippery grease and forcing the party to evacuate.

Misty Step

Used by Taliya to rapidly teleport across the cavern floor to reposition during the chaotic skirmish.

Wither and Bloom

Cast by Taliya to simultaneously deal necrotic damage to the mechanical guardians and provide healing energy to her allies. She upcasted it at her highest spell slot for maximum effect during the final phase of the battle.

Cure Wounds

Cast by Velessa at a high level to rapidly restore a large amount of her health after taking heavy damage from the guardian's mechanical fists.

Levitate

Attempted by Yona to physically lift the heavy construct and reposition it into the silver circle, but the guardian's constitution allowed it to resist the effect.