THE Map

GE’S ACAD
MATT FORBECK
 Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2023 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/madmagesacademyO0O0O0Oforb
THE Map
MAGE’S
ACADEMY
 HALT, ADVENTURER, AND
READ THESE WORDS BEFORE
YOU PROCEED!
You are about to embark on a journey. To where, only you
could possibly say. It is not a journey like any you have been
on before, where you start at page one and continue on a
straight course until you reach the end. Instead, you will
be presented with many choices along the way. Each time
you are faced with one such choice, make your decision
from the options given and then follow the directions to
continue your adventure. Once your quest has come to an
end, either favorably or, as ’m afraid in some instances It is
foretold to, gruesomely, return to the beginning or the last
choice and try again.

This is not a journey for those who prefer to sit back and let
others make the tricky decisions. This is a journey for a leader,
a true hero. One who is not afraid to risk perilous traps, face
all-powerful wizards, or steal well-protected artifacts. If this
doesn’t sound like you, turn back now and forget you ever
came this way. But if this whiff of adventure has whet your
appetite, then forward with you, my friend. And good luck!

0)

CANDLEWICK
ENTERTAINMENT
 HE MAD
MAGE’S
ACADEMY
MATT FORBECK
ot an idiot.
Well, you’re a great thief —the kind of swashbuckling
rogue bards might someday sing epic ballads about—but
recent evidence points to the fact that you may not be as
sharp as even the knife in your belt.
Fact #1: You agreed to steal something from the Mad
Mage, Halaster, one of the most dangerous wizards ever to
darken the Sword Coast. Most thieves would have turned
down the gig at the first mention of Halaster’s name, but you
didn’t hesitate to accept your mission for even a second.
Fact #2: The thing you agreed to steal was Halaster’s
spell book. As powerful as the Mad Mage is, the theory goes,
his spell book must be crammed to bursting with pages filled
with notations and the secrets behind his most amazing spells.
Fact #3: According to the person who hired you to
steal that spell book, it’s safely hidden away in Dweomercore,
an academy the Mad Mage set up so he could train the next
generation of evil wizards to work for him.
Fact #4: The Mad Mage’s academy is located on the
ninth level of the massive dungeon known as Undermountain,
which ripples through Mount Waterdeep, all the way from
the magical metropolis of Waterdeep that sits atop it down
to the roots of the mountain itself.
That’s enough to convict you of being foolish for sure,
if not outright stupid.
Still, you took the job. Because you think you might
be able to pull it off. And if you do, you’ll make yourself a
legend throughout Waterdeep and beyond.

——————
 You came up with a plan so crazy it might just work.
You decided to sneak your way into Dweomercore by posing
as a wizard who’s interested in studying at Halaster’s academy.
Once you get through the door, you hope to find the spell
book, snatch it, and run off with it before anyone’s any the
wiser. With luck, you’ll be back in Waterdeep, rolling in gold
and glory, before the Mad Mage even knows his favorite spell
book has gone missing.
So far, so good. You started at a Waterdeep inn called
the Yawning Portal for the giant well in its basement that
leads straight into Undermountain. From there, you worked
your way down to the legendary dungeon’s ninth level,
doing your best to avoid any other sorts of entanglements,
no matter how tempting they might have been. And now
you find yourself standing outside the entrance to the Mad
Mage’s academy.
You walk down the hallway until it opens into a large
room with a high arched ceiling covered from one end to the
other with bright mosaics. You squint up at images of wand-
wielding wizards engaged in stunning magical duels.
A withered, disembodied hand—severed long ago
from its owner and now floating before you in midair—
points at you as you enter the room and motions for you to
stop. Not wanting to see what the hand might be able to do
to you, you comply.
A moment later, a man with a long mane of white
hair and an even longer and bushier white beard sweeps into
the room.

—— eee
 “Tm Halaster Blackcloak, master of Dweomercore,”
he says. “Welcome to my academy. What business might you
have here?” ‘
You point up at the hand still floating
in the middle of the room. “What’s the
story behind that?”
Halaster chuckles to himself.
“That belonged to a wizard named
Manshoon. He thought he was a
much better duelist than it turned
out was true. Now, answer my
question. Why are you here?”
“Isn't it obvious?” you
say with as much panache
as you can muster. “I’m a
young wizard-in-training,
and Pd like to apply to study
here at your academy.”
The mage narrows his eyes at you, madness dancing
in his pupils. “You don’t look much lke a wizard — whatever
that means. Are you absolutely sure about that?”

Charge into the school Turn to page Om

Attack Halaster! Turn to page Dies
Apply to the school Turn to page 1 og

ae
 ’m sorry,” you say with a frown. “’m not comfortable
wandering around Wormriddle’s quarters unannounced.”
Medley pokes her head back into the room——but
just her head, so it looks like it’s floating in midair out of
the smoke. “You already came this far. You didn’t seem that
concerned about it when you barged into her main hall,”
she says.
“Did I do something wrong by that? Spite led me here
and told me to go in.”
She gives you a suspicious glare. “Do you always do
what people you've just met tell you to do?”
You peer into the smoke behind Medley’s floating
head. “Where did you say Wormriddle is again?”
“T didn’t.” She gives you a wicked smile. ‘Then her
entire head changes, becoming much larger, older, and bluer.
When her transformation is complete, she steps
forward out of the smoke, revealing herself to be a night
hag. You immediately realize that you’ve been talking to
Wormriddle the entire time.
“Tm so sorry,” you tell her as you back away. “I didn’t
meanto bother you.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she says with a vicious cackle.
Her voice has echoes of Medley’s, but it’s much lower and
meaner. Murderous even. “That’s exactly what you came
here for—or at least why Spite sent you here. Don’t try to
deny it!”
You give her a helpless shrug. There’s really nothing
you could say that might placate her.

— ee
 “Halaster may like to let the applicants wander about
the place, but Pve warned him about this. You’re lucky I
don’t skin you alive and make use of your best parts in my
golem laboratory,” says Wormriddle.
You don’t like the way this is going and cast an eye
around for a way out. With all the smoke filling the room,
you suspect that you could easily make a run for it.
“T can see what you're thinking,” the hag croons. “And
I can assure you that it'll do you no good. You already made
a big mistake by coming here uninvited. Don’t be so stupid
as to make another.”
The tone of her voice suggests that it doesn’t really
matter what you do now; you’re done for. Logic says why
not try for the door anyway? So you do. You drop to the
floor where the smoke 1s at its thickest and scuttle for the
exit as fast as you can. But you’re not quick enough. A few
mumbled words from Wormriddle, and your body goes stiff
and lifts above the cover of the smoke. She grins down at
you, cackling maniacally, and you know you’re not getting
out of here alive.

THE END

:
 pplying to study at the school seems like a lot of
work, and honestly, you just can’t be bothered with that
right now. This is supposed to be a burglary, after all, not
a new career.
It would be simplest just to attack Halaster and take
the spell book from him, but the way that floating hand
hovers over his shoulder, you figure he’s too smart to let you
have any actual chance of hurting him. You’re better off
dashing past him, finding the spell book, and doing a smash-
and-grab on it instead.
So that’s what you do. Halaster entered the room by a
stout wooden door to the east, and he didn’t bother to close
it behind him. There are other ways out of the room, but
that seems like your best bet. Without another word, you
charge straight past Halaster and race through it.
Halaster flinches as you pass him, perhaps thinking
you were going to attack him. When he sees that you’re
running straight into the academy instead, though, he just
throws back his head and laughs.
“Pve rarely seen someone so eager to join our ranks!”
he calls after you. “But if you think you’re fooling anyone,
my speedy thief, you should quit fooling yourself.”
You wince at the fact that the wizard saw through you
so quickly, but you realize you shouldn’t be surprised. It’s
hard to fool anyone that smart—which is exactly why you
decided to charge into this place, right?
You reach an intersection just beyond the door. The
well-lit hallway continues straight on to the east, and you

—e
can see various passageways on either side. A light blazes in
a distant room at the far end.
‘Lo the south, the passageway seems to open up for
a moment before continuing. You think you see a statue of
some sort in a room at the end of the hall, but it’s hard to tell
what it might be from here.

Turn south. Turn to page 12.7.

Continue east. Turn to page 14. .+
ANIA
qu
 s Halaster awaits your reply, you suddenly rethink
your whole plan. Sure, it might have seemed like a
good idea to worm your way into the academy by lying
about your plans to study here, but a mage like Halaster is
sure to see through you sooner or later, right?
Better if you just drop all the pretenses right now
and take your best shot at the man. At least it’s cleaner that
way. If you’re going to live or die here, why bother with all
the lying and hiding and scuttling about? Better to find out
sooner rather than later what your fate might be.
Or so you think.
You draw your sword, fast as a flash, and put the blade
to Halaster’s throat. Before the mage can react, you have
him at your mercy. All it would take is a flick of your wrist,
and you'd have him bleeding to death on the floor.
“Pm here for your spell book,” you tell the surprised
man. “Take me straight to it, and you might yet survive this.”
Halaster stares at you, his eyes wide in shock, and for
a moment you think this new, faster plan of yours might go
well. Then the man starts laughing.
What are you supposed to make of this? He doesn’t
seem scared at all. When he gives you a pitiful shake of his
head, you realize you’re the one in deep trouble.
Still, you press the blade to his throat, just hard enough
to draw a crimson line of blood across it. ‘The shallow cut
doesn’t stop the man from laughing.
“I'd rather not kill you, but I won’t hesitate if I have
to,” you Say.

a
 “You think you’re the first fool to come here and try to
rob Halaster?” the man says. “You’re not even the first one
this week!”
Unnerved, you grab the man by the hair on the back
of his head and shove your blade into his throat. You expect
him to fall over and die in your arms, but your sword doesn’t
sink into his flesh. It just slides off it as if his skin were made
of impervious armor.
Halaster disappears then, right before your eyes. You
realize that you’re no longer holding the head of a man
but that of a red-furred fox. You look down and see that
his exposed hands and feet are now fur-covered paws, and a
long, bushy tail snakes out of the rear of his robes.
“What in all the gods’ names?” you say as you leap
backward from the creature.
“Tm not even Halaster,” the monster says through
rows of vicious teeth. “He’s too busy to be bothered running
a school like this. ’m a demon disguised as him.”
Yow’re terrified, but you’ve gone too far to turn
back now.
“T don’t suppose we could come to some sort of deal?”
‘The fox-faced demon laughs even harder than before.
“There’s nothing you could offer me that could possibly
make me betray the real Halaster. In fact, let me make a
suggestion for you... .”
With that, he pulls something oily from a pocket in his
wizardly robes and waves it in your direction as he chants a
few words in a language that hurts your ears. Then the world

——
begins to seem fuzzier and simpler than you ever remember.
Through the cloud that settles over your brain, you hear the
demon speak. ;
“There are many monsters in this land _ less
fortunate than an adventurer like you. Go as far into the
Undermountain as you can and give one of them your
sword. For keeps.”
You want to argue with the fox-man—to tell him
that his suggestion seems unwise — but you can’t muster the
strength of will. Instead, you find yourself turning around
and trudging away. As you trundle into the darkness, echoes
of the demon’s laughter chase you down the passageway,
and you wonder if that’ll be the last thing you hear.
The moment you leave the academy behind,
though, you realize you don’t know how to get deeper into
Undermountain from here. Your only option is to head
toward Waterdeep. On your way back upward, you spy a
pack of goblins. You sneak up and throw your sword at them.
“Keep it!” you shout at the startled monsters as you
sprint away at top speed . . . before one of them has the idea
to plant the blade in your back.

THE END
Y= figure that heading toward a statue is probably a
better bet than charging into a well-lit room that might
be packed with people. As you sprint to the south, hoping
to outrun whatever sorts of spells Halaster might hurl after
you, you pass a set of eight portraits, each depicting a
staff-wielding wizard representing one of the eight different
schools of magic.
You know there are eight schools of magic, but you
couldn’t rattle them off in a list, not even with a wand to
your head. That’s part of why you chose to ditch the whole
“pretend to be a wizard” scheme. You probably wouldn’t
have gotten very far with it anyhow.
You begin to rethink your decision, though, when
you realize that the statue you’re heading toward is that of a
snake-haired woman: a medusa!
At least you hope it’s a statue. The figure is holding
a longbow with an arrow notched against its string, but it
hasn’t moved a muscle the whole time
youve been looking at it.
The irony of a creature that ga
can turn victims to stone with a
glance being carved out of stone
isn’t lost on you. You just hope
its gaze doesn’t work... .

Turn to page LD...

Yu can’t let this tiefling slow you down. You draw your
rapier and stab at her.
The young wizard leaps behind her desk, putting it
between you and her. As she goes, she fishes a bit of glass
from her pocket and crushes it on the back of the desk. She
spits out a word you can’t understand, but the moment it
leaves her lips, a cloud of daggers surrounds you, the blades
swirling and spinning.
You do your best to parry as many of them as you
can, but the ones you miss stab and slash at you time and
again. One of them catches you in the throat, and you go
down, clutching at the wound.
You roll onto your back, unable even to gasp for help.
From the look cn the tiefling’s face, she wouldn’t have given
it to you anyhow.
“T’ll have to have a talk with Halaster about the
kinds of visitors he allows in the school,” she says with a
disappointed grimace as the darkness takes you. “We can’t
just have people coming in to stab us hike this.”

THE END

i
B etter to race toward an empty room rather than toward
one with someone—or something— standing in it, or
so you hope. You charge straight down the hallway, blasting
past several other doors and passages. Once you reach the
room at the end of the hall, though, you find that it isn’t as
empty as you had hoped.
To the northeast, there’s a door with a plaque on it
that reads “Headmaster’s Office — Knock Please.” But that’s
not all.
A young woman sitting at a desk in the room leaps to
her feet as you enter, her robes whirling about her. She has
purplish skin, red eyes, and sharp horns that arc backward
from the center of her forehead to wrap around her long
blue hair. You recognize her as a tiefling, a humanoid people
descended from otherworldly demons.
The woman has been reading a scorched spell
book—probably not the one you're searching for, by the
looks of it, as it’s rather new and thin.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” she
asks, baring her sharp, pointed teeth.
Those are fair questions, you realize. Given the
circumstances, there are really only two ways to answer
them.

Ask her for help. Turn to pase IO

Attack her! Turn to pageloe

LL
—————
N ormally, you might haul up short rather than charging
straight toward a statue of a medusa, but the fact that
Halaster is somewhere behind you spurs you forward. The
closer you get, the surer you become that the figure before
you ls a statue.
Then you feel something . . . odd. You realize you’ve
somehow triggered a magical trap, and you wish that you’d
bothered to study some actual magic after all.
‘The statue standing before you springs to life. At least
it’s still just a statue, you tell yourself. If it had transformed
into an actual medusa, you’d probably be a statue already
yourself, 7
Instead of petrifying you with its gaze, the medusa
aims its bow at you and lets the arrow in it fly. You try
to throw yourself to the side, but the arrow strikes you
in the arm.
“Abbh!” you scream in pain. You’ve been shot before,
and this hurts much worse than it should. You pull the
arrow from the wound, and you see that it’s dripping with
a greenish-black fluid—poison! That’s when you realize
you're in real trouble.
You feel the need to sit down, and the hallway around
you begins to fade to black. You think maybe the statue 1s
laughing at you, but just before you expire, you see that
the voice is that of Halaster—who looms and cackles over
you— instead.

THE END

SO ————
 f course I’m sure!” you say. “What young wizard
wouldn’t want to study under the legendary Halaster
Blackcloak? I consider it aa honor that you didn’t vaporize
me the moment I crossed the threshold to your school.”
Halaster strokes his beard, amused. “The day is still
young.”
You laugh off the implied threat and hope you don’t
sound as nervous as you are. “So, what do I need to do to
get started?” you ask. “Cast a spell? Kill a monster? Go ona
quest?”
“We don’t bother with such things here,” Halaster
says. “We simply administer a test to see if you’re good
material for our academy.”
You nod, hoping that you can somehow skip that part,
as you don’t know how well you’re going to be able to fake
being an actual wizard. If you’re going to bluff your way
through this, though, you can’t show an instant’s hesitation.
“When do we get started?” you ask.
Halaster waves, and the hand floating above him
retreats to a distant corner of the room.
“T’m sure you've had a long journey and would like to
freshen up. We want to make sure you’re rested and sharp
before we administer the exam. You wouldn’t believe how
many people fail after insisting that they’re absolutely fine
and ready to start right away. Do yourself a favor and accept
our hospitality. It’s freely offered and given with no strings
attached.”
The wizard’s tone tells you he won't allow you to say

ae
no, despite how much you’d rather not get settled in. If you
unpack your things, then you’ll have to gather them up again
before you leave — or just abandon them, which you'd rather
not do. Despite that, you give him a grateful nod and gesture )
for him to lead the way into the school.
“If you insist,” you say.
Halaster snorts and then turns to usher you back
through the door via which he entered. You emerge into
a long hallway that leads straight off to the east. Another
hallway spurs off to the south, but he leads you past that to
take the next turn to the right, into another long hallway.
This one is lined with three doors on either side and
comes to a dead end. Halaster takes you halfway down the
hall and opens the door on the right, then motions for you to
enter the small room beyond.
“This hall features one of our two student
dormitories,” he tells you. “Conveniently, this room 1s empty
at the moment, so you can rest here. In fact, if you make
it into the school, this room will be yours. Feel free to
take as long as you like.”
“Tm sure [’ll be ready to go soon,” you say as you slide
past Halaster and into the room.
It’s a decent size and contains a bed, dresser, and chest,
along with a desk and chair. Everything you’d need for your
studies, if you happened to be an actual wizard.
An ever-burning torch flickers above the desk, and a
row of five tubes lines the wall nearest the door. Halaster
notices you examining them.

—
 “Those are part of our pneumatic tube messaging
system. You can put notes in the proper tubes, and air
elementals carry them where they’re needed. The one
labeled ‘Headmaster’s Office’ goes right to me. When you’re
ready to get started, just let me know.”
“Thank you for your hospitality,” you say as you stifle
a fake yawn. “I suppose the trip here really has tired me
oe)
out.
 Halaster laughs. “You’re wise to take my advice,” he
says before bustling from the room and closing the door
behind him.
You hustle over to the thick door and put your ear
to it so you can listen to him leave. When you’re confident
that he’s gone, you walk over to the bed and sit on it for a
moment to contemplate your options.
Halaster wasn’t wrong—you are tired—but you
have a job to do. The question 1s, how should you do it?
Should you take a nap and wait for him to return to ask
after you? Or should you take advantage of the fact that
Halaster doesn’t seem to be watching you right now, so you
can wander around the academy without worrying about
him looking over your shoulder?
You stare at the door for a moment as you make up
your mind.

Wander around. Turn to page 26...

Wait. Turn to page ee.
M y name’s Nylas Jowd,” the Red Wizard says. “And I
have a proposition for you.”
You step back and gesture for the man to enter the
room so you can speak privately, but he holds up a hand to
refuse the kindness.
“We can surmise that you want to attend the academy?”
“That’s a fair assumption,” you grant with a nod.
“Unfortunately, the classes are full at the moment,”
Nylas says with a scowl. “Full of horrible people. People who
shouldn’t be here at all.”
“What do you mean?”
Nylas glances around before leaning forward and
speaking in a conspiratorial whisper. “Most of the students
aren’t even, well...” He looks at you and realizes you might
not sympathize with what he’s about to say. “The point is
that the only way for you to gain admittance to the school
would be for at least one of them to disappear. I can help you
make that happen.”
You don’t want to get involved in such drama, but if
it helps you to find the spell book you’re after, you’ll give
it a shot.
“Tm listening,” you encourage.
“There are two girls here: twins. Tieflings—
half-demonic things. They don’t even want to be here. Get
rid of them, and a spot should open up for you.”

Play along with the plot... for now. Turn fo page 3/...
Refuse to help. Turn to page 35...
Attack Nylas. Turn to page BO... :
\ suppose I have to agree with that,” you say.
It’s best for the academy. Cephalossk stares at you with his
unblinking black eyes, and you wonder if he’s thinking about
how your brain might taste.
You clear your throat. “So, why did you bring me
ere?”
The mind flayer closes the door to the room, and the
place suddenly seems a lot smaller. You notice the stench
now. It smells like an underground sea.
I need your help, and you need mine.
“How do you mean?” you ask, suspicious.
I have read your mind. You’re here to steal Halaster’s spell book.
I can help you with that.
You glance at the door, wondering if you should make
a break for it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Deny it out loud. Smart. But we both know the truth.
Exasperated at having been found out so soon, you
decide to be direct.
“What do you want?”
There’s another who wishes to enroll at the school. His name’s
Spite Harrowdale, and he can’t be allowed to remain here.
“Why don’t you take care of that yourself?”
Spite has a bodyguard with him at all tumes. A half-ogre brute
named Dumara. She's incredibly strong and wary of me to the point
where I can’t get past her without causing a scene. Worse, both of their
minds have proven impervious to my attempts to probe them, and if I
use my magic against them, it'll be obvious who took him out. And that
I can’t afford to have known.

—————
 “So why me?”
You are a newcomer—a stranger—so Spite and Dumara
won't be as wary ofyou. They'll letyou in closer, And anyway, I know
Falaster, and by eliminating another student, you'll rise in his esteem
and increase your chances of admittance to the school.
“You realize I don’t actually want to attend classes
here, nght?”
The mind flayer chortles, sending his facial tentacles
quaking. Of course! I forgot that you’re sure to leave
as soon as you get what you’re after. Even better!
Tf you help me, Pil show you where
: Falaster keeps his spell book and
, i\ then assist you in your escape.

ny
y= Refuse. Turn to page ile
Play along tor now, Turn
to page 40...
You turn and close the door behind you.
“Look,” you say, attempting to step around the
half-ogre who’s cautiously moved to stand between you and
the boy. “I have reason to believe your life is in danger. You
need to leave this place.”
The boy looks at you with alarm, but whatever
he’s feeling is rivaled by the shock that runs through you
as Dumara starts to shudder and transform before your
eyes. She grows larger and bluer, grunting in pain at the
transformation. Her bared teeth have turned to razor-sharp
points, and black claws the size of a bear’s spring from her
fingertips. She can be only one thing: an oni.
“Who are you? Who sent you?” she roars, taking a
step toward you.
You retreat shakily until you stand with your back
pressed against the door and reach for the handle.
“Wait!” you cry in desperation. “I came in here to
warn you. That mind flayer down the hall? Cephalossk, is
that his name? He wants you gone, and he’s willing to kill
you to get the job done.”
The oni stops in her advance and considers you.

Turn to page 3) Goa

FS
er can’t just sit around in this room waiting for Halaster
to come fetch you. The longer you wait, the better chance
someone has of uncovering you as a magic-less fraud.
You listen again to see if there’s anyone moving in the
hallway outside. Believing yourself to be alone, you open the
door and are shocked to find a squid-faced human standing
there, stock-still. Only its tentacles move, silently writhing
at the bottom of its cephalopod face, right where its mouth
should be.
I am the mind flayer Cephalossk, a voice that isn’t your
own says in your head. I’m a student here at Dweomercore.
It takes you but a moment to recover from your
surprise. You give the tall, pale-skinned creature a shallow
bow in response. “Good to meet you. ’m applying —”
Your purpose here 1s self-evident. ‘The mind flayer glances
in both directions. Accompany me to my quarters so that we might
speak n prwate.
It doesn’t seem worth it to point out that Cephalossk is
speaking in a way that’s impossible to overhear—or so you
think. Instead, you follow the creature across the hallway to
his own room.
The room is a mirror image of your own, although it’s
clearly more lived in. There’s a bed in one corner that has
no pillow, and an overflowing desk has been jammed against
the other wall. The walls are damp with moisture, as slick as
Cephalossk’s skin. And they’re lined with shelves of books,
scrolls, and jars filled with a thick, translucent liquid, in some
of which float perfectly preserved brains.

ee
 hoses are 5fore” me.
Cephalossk points at the
brains. Everyone asks about them.
“Why are you studying
them?” you ask, curious.
The “minds flayer’s
facial tentacles quiver with
silent laughter. Oh, I don’t study
them. I eat them.
You do your best to
suppress your revulsion at
that mental image, but you're
sure you fail badly. “They
permit that here?”
They prefer me eating these
preserved brains to dining on fresh
ones, I’m sure.

Turn to page 27
rye decide that Halaster was right. You’ve had a
long-enough day. Reaching the ninth level of
Undermountain was a tremendous task all by itself, and
youre beat.
On top of that, it’s not worth pushing your luck by
exploring the academy on your own. Halaster might have
a guard posted somewhere outside your room—or maybe
even some kind of magical monitor—and you don’t need to
let him know that you’re not who you seem to be.
At least not yet. You’ll have other chances to look
around, you tell yourself. All in good time.
You take your boots off and lie down on the bed. It’s
almost as comfortable as the rocky shelf you had to sleep on
last night, but itll do. After all, you’re only going to shut your
eyes for a few moments, right?
It turns out you’re a lot more tired than you think. . . .

You have no idea how much later it is when you awaken to a

gentle knock on the door.
“Just a moment,” you say as you shove your feet back
into your boots.
Grumbling silently to yourself; you scurry over to
the door and throw it open. You fully expect Halaster to be
standing there, ready to escort you away to take the entrance
exam. Instead, you find a shaven-headed man dressed in a
long red robe, staring at you with dark, sunken eyes.
While you’ve never met one of the Red Wizards
before, you’ve heard all sorts of horrible stories about both

ee
them and the dangerous land of ‘Thay from which they hail.
The people of ‘Uhay live under the rule of a powerful group
of wizards overseen by the evil necromancer Szass ‘Tam. It
only makes sense that one of them might wind up here to
study under the Mad Mage.
The man regards you with an unforgiving stare, sizing
you up as if you were nothing more to him than cattle.
“Can [help you?” you ask.
He purses his lips and nods. “That really is the
question, isn’t 1t?”

Turn to page 21...

ye haul Nylas’s unconscious form into your room and
start trying to stuff him under the bed. With luck, he
won’t wake up until long after you’re gone, or so you hope.
It’s not quite as easy as you'd like, though, and soon
there’s another knock at the door. You leap to your feet to
answer it, hoping to keep whoever it is from entering. Before
you can even reach the door, though, Halaster barges in.
You freeze for a moment, unsure what to do.
Remembering the cosh you put back into your pocket, you
feel around for it.
Halaster peers around you and spots Nylas’s feet
barely sticking out from under the bed. “Ooh!”
Backing away, you let the wizard push past you. Before
you can attack, Halaster spins about and shakes your hand.
“Well done, young wizard!” he says with delight. “Well
done!”
You goggle at him, confused.
He smiles at you. “You passed the test!”
“What?”
“The entrance exam. It’s to see how you work with
other students. ‘lo see if you’re hard-edged enough to handle
it here. You passed!”
You return the handshake, relieved and still a little
confused. “Thanks.”
“Allow me personally to offer you a coveted position
at the Mad Mage’s academy,” he says. “Congratulations!”

Decline. Turn to page 50...

Accept. Turn to pace
 hat sounds hike a fine plan,” you say to Nylas. “But what’s
in it for you?”
Nylas smiles, impressed by your suspicions. “Those
two tieflings have been a thorn in my side ever since they
arrived. If you take them out, you'll be making this a much
pleasanter place for me to study.”
“And if I fail?”
Nylas shrugs. “Then I pin your demise on them and
try to get them expelled for that.”
“So it works out for you either way. But it might go
poorly for me.”
“That’s the chance you took when you came down
here to apply to the academy. You should be happy that I
decided to take you under my wing.”
The man turns and walks down the hallway, back
the way you originally came. Following him, you come to
a T junction at which he leads you to the right and escorts
you toward a well-lit room at the end of the hall. As you
creep closer, you see a young tiefling—a person of demonic
descent —hunched over a desk, copying lines from a book.

Turn to page G4 ss

— na
—————
 Yu frown at the mind flayer, unsure as to what he’s
actually asking you to do here.
“T suppose you'd eat his brains after I take him down?”
Tt would be a waste to let a perfectly good brain just rot away.
You shudder in revulsion. “Forget it. P’ll do what I
have to on my own.”
I’m delighted to hear that.
You freeze. “Why would that make you happy?”
Twas hoping youd help me, but ifyou find that impossible, then
you're of no use to me i that way.
“Fine,” you say as you move toward the door. “Then
Pll be going.”
Cephalossk blocks you.
There’s ancther way in which you can be of use to me. A very
delicious way.
You reach for your sword, but before you can draw it,
the mind flayer’s face darts forward, and his tentacles wrap
themselves around your head.
You try to scream, but one of the tentacles snakes
around your throat, cutting off your cry. Others hold you so
tight you can’t pull yourself free. You try to reach for your
sword, but Cephalossk shouts into your brain, BE STILL.
And so you are. Right up until the end.

THE END
INP gives you a wink. “T’ll leave you to your work,” he
whispers. Then he walks away.
You creep up behind the tiefling, who doesn’t appear
to notice you at all. All those years working as a thief in
Waterdeep serve you well when it comes to padding silently
across a floor.
It would be simple to just slip the point of your blade
between the young wizard’s ribs. She’d be dead in an instant.
But needless killing has never really been your style, and
frankly, you’d rather avoid it if you can.
After all, what if Nylas is setting you up to fail? If you
kill the tiefling, will Halaster hold that against you? Might he
not kick you out of the academy?
As you hesitate, the tiefling puts down her writing quill
and squirms in her chair, restless.
“Well?” she says aloud. “Are you going to try to kill me
or not?”
Maybe you’re not quite as quiet as you think.
“How long have you known I was here?”
“You're actually a pretty good sneak,” the tiefling says.
“But Nylas tromps about here like an elephant.”
“Otherwise he’d probably have killed you himself,
right?”
The tiefling turns and glares at you with bright-red
eyes. “So,” she says. “What’s it going to be?”

Get rid of her. Turn to page 38...

Talk to her. Turn to piles

eee
 his sounds like a bad idea all around.
“T really don’t want to get involved in this kind of
drama,” you tell Nylas. +
He nods in understanding. “I see.”
You're not sure that he does, but you don’t much care.
You try to shut the door to the room to end the conversation,
but he thrusts his booted foot in the way.
That’s when you realize that you’re in trouble.
Before you can breathe, Nylas waves in your direction,
and something swooshes through the open bit of doorway
and knocks you backward. Whatever it was, you didn’t even
see 1t coming, and— worse yet— you still can’t see it now.
“You made a terrible mistake,” Nylas says as he swings
the door fully open. “My deadly and invisible friends will see
that you pay for it.”
“T just didn’t want to get involved!” you say as
excruciating pain strikes you again.
Nylas laughs. “No, your mistake was thinking that
you weren’t involved already. I can’t have you blabbing
about my plans. It’s better, I think, that you’re no longer
hereat ali
The pain strikes you again and again — until there’s
no more pain at all.

THE END
nee know for a fact that you can’t trust Nylas. If he’s
willing to betray his classmates to someone he’s never
met, he’s sure to sell you out even faster. On top of that,
if he’s actually a Red Wizard and not just some pretender
wearing their colors, they have an unmatched reputation for
evil and cruelty.
You’re pretty sure that if you agreed to help the man,
he’d zap you dead the first chance he got— right after he got
what he wanted from you. You suspect the same would be
true if you turned him down flat. There’s only one option
left.
“Thank you,” you say, putting on your most innocent
face. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you helping out
a newcomer like myself. That’s awfully kind of you.”
“Tm Just trying to help out the entire institution,” the
man says, visibly relieved that you’ve decided to see things
his way. Or at least that he won’t have to kill you on the spot
before you can rat him out about his plotting. “Those two
tieflings are a threat to everything Halaster has built here
over so many years. With them out of the way, this'll be a
better academy for us all.”
“And the fact that it helps both of us out?”
He flashes a savage, toothy smile at you. “That’s a
happy coincidence, to be sure.”
He turns and gestures toward the hallway beyond.
“Shall we get to work?”
“Of course,” you respond.
As he turns his back to you, you reach into the pocket

ee
where you keep your cosh—a leather bag filled with heavy
balls of lead. It served you well on the streets of Waterdeep
whenever you needed to take someone out quickly and
quietly, whether for a mugging or something more serious,
and you hope it’ll do the same for you here. The moment
Nylas turns his back, you pull out the weapon and whack
him on the head with it.
The man keels over without even a sound of protest,
and you can’t help but smile at how well that went. In your
experience, it’s always best to take out a wizard as fast as
possible, before they can even mutter a single syllable of a
spell. Otherwise, you’re just asking for trouble—and such
trouble rarely comes with a second chance.
You glance down the hallway and breathe a sigh of
relief when you don’t see any witnesses to your assault. As
quickly as you can, you reach down and grab Nylas by the
ankles and start hauling him into your room.

Turn to page 30...

lis you start to explain. “I’m
really sorry, but I don’t have much
of a choice here. Your life is in danger,
and I’m not talking about from me.
Someone here wants you gone. It’d be
easier if you were to leave peaceably.”
The tiefling listens with her head
to one side and a wry smile on her face.
“And if I don’t?” she repliessiien
hand going to her wand.
You realize then that you don’t have
much choice. If she’s given the opportunity
to pull that wand on you, you won’t stand
a chance of escaping here alive, let alone
retrieving the book. You snap your blade
from its scabbard, striking faster than a snake.
The tip of it catches the tiefling’s neck, and
she falls to the ground, reeling in shock at the
speed of your attack. She drops her wand and
clutches at her nicked throat.
“I don’t want to kill you,” you tell her.
“But P’'m not about to let you work your magic
On ime:
“You'll pay for that,” she growls, her eyes flashing with
hate. “You strike me down, and I promise T’ll come back to
haunt you for the rest of the few days you’ll have left.”
That’s a hard promise for anyone to keep, but looking
at the tiefling, you don’t doubt she could pull it off. Despite

—
that, you keep the point of your sword on her.
“What sort of choice are you leaving me?”
She snarls at you, dashing your hopes. “It doesn’t
matter. You’re already dead no matter what you do. You just
don’t know it.”
With that, she leaps up and starts to spit a spell at you.
You don’t recognize what she’s saying, but you can already
feel her magic starting to reach into your mind. If you let her
finish, she’ll kill you for sure. |
You don’t want to kill anyone, but you don’t want to
die yourself, so you run her through, and she dies at your
feet, the last bit of her spell frozen on her lips. Shaking, you
wipe your blade clean and sheathe it once more.
Was Nylas lying to you? Have you made a place for
yourself in the school? Or have you just committed a crime
for which yow’re doomed to die?
Now that the deed is done, are you supposed to head
back to your room and wait for Halaster to find you so you
can report what you’ve done? Or is that just the best way
to ensure the wizard destroys you for harming one of his
students?
You decide to hunt down Nylas, so you head back to
the dormitory hallway, hoping to find him in his room. As
you slip into the hallway, though, a wild woman leaps out of
one of the other rooms, screaming at you at the top of her
lungs.

Turn to page 44...

—
\ ephalossk creeps you out, and the thought of lining
up the mind flayer’s next couple of meals disturbs you.
But at least the creature won’t be feeding on you.
I sense your hesitation. It isn’t unwarranted. But if u's the
thought of killing that’s causing you to pause, then be assured I'd be
happy whatever way you manage to get them away from the school.
He pauses and watches you intently as you continue
to consider his offer, all the more tempting now that you
know you have options other than to murder the prospective
student.
I sense your decision. It’s good to be working with you. Let’s get
started right away.
‘The mind flayer opens the door to his room and
ushers you into the hallway beyond.
“No time like the present,” you say. You wipe your
brow in relief. The room was somehow stifling and chilly at
the same time, and you’re glad to be free of it.
Cephalossk points to a door up the hallway. That’s
Spite’s room. You should start looking for him there.
“And where are you going to be?”
Pll remain in my room and await the result of your attempt
to eliminate him. If you succeed, I'll aid you in your quest to find
Halaster’s spell book.
“You could help me first instead.”
You'd flee the first chance you had.
“Fine,” you concede. “Go hide in your room until
Pm done.”
The mind flayer slips back into his room and silently

ee
closes the door behind him. You take a deep breath and then
saunter casually over to the door Cephalossk pointed at. It’s
closed, but you can hear twe people inside, chatting.
You knock on the door, and a half-ogre, whose head
scrapes against the top of the frame, opens it.
“Yes?” she says in a low voice.
“Pm applying to be a student here,” you say. “I thought
I should introduce myself to the others.”
“Let them in!” a voice says from behind Dumara, who
makes a fine door all by herself.
She moves aside grudgingly, and you squeeze past her
into the room beyond.
It’s the same size and shape as the room Halaster
put you in. There’s an additional oversize bed shoved into
a corner, which makes things a bit tighter, and a rolltop desk
stuffed between the beds.
A boy just on the edge of adolescence bounds over
from where he’s been sitting, surrounded by books.
“T’m Spite!” he says with wild cheer. “So glad to meet
1>?

you! You’re here to register as a student too?”

Dumara grunts at the boy for his unbridled
enthusiasm. You just nod at the kid. “Maybe. I hear good
things about the school.”
“Tt’s all right, but there are all sorts of other cool things
here too. I can’t wait to see them!” says Spite.
“Like what?”
“Halaster’s spell book!” he says with unrestrained glee.
“It’s a real legend around these parts. I mean, all wizards

————_—————
have spell books. I have one of my own, and I’m sure you
do too. But just imagine how many spells such an ancient
and powerful wizard must have stuffed away in his spell
book. It'd be enough to fill an entire library!”
“T hadn’t thought of it that way,” you admit.
“Well, I want to get my hands on it, even if only to
flip through its pages for a bit. Can you help me?” Spite
looks up at you with hopeful eyes.
“And how would I do that?”
You can’t believe your luck. If you can help Spite
steal the spell book, then you can just turn around and
swipe it from him.
“He keeps it in a secret room, very well guarded. ‘To
get to it, I need someone to distract Wormriddle — she’s
the night hag who helps run the school. If you can do
that for me, I’ll do whatever I can to help you get into the
school. Then we’ll be best friends too!”
Dumara looms over you while Spite awaits
your reply.

Try to convince Spite to leave. Turn to page 2a

Work with Spite. Turn to page D2 6...

ee
 he screaming woman looks exactly like the woman you
killed, right down to the color of her horns!
“Murderer!” she shouts at you. “I know what you did,
and you're not going to get away with it.”
She waves her hands, and a wall of flame erupts all
around you. Your clothing catches fire instantly, and the
blaze envelops you 1n horrifying pain.
You fall to the ground and try to beat out the fire, but
no matter how hard you smack at the flames, the bits that are
left burn hotter, faster, and hungrier. Soon, the fight goes out
of you, and you find yourself a smoking mess of agony.
As you breathe your last, the woman looms over you,
still seething with fury at you. Nylas joins her.
“Pm so sorry for your loss, my dear Turbulence,” he
says as he puts a hand on her shoulder. “But at least you
avenged the death of your twin sister.”
She smacks his hand away. “Don’t you dare touch me.
I know you had something to do with this. You’re lucky I
don’t kill you too.”

THE END

—_—_——_——
 hanks for your help,” you say to Violence as you stuff the
spel! book into a large pocket inside your coat. “We'd
better get going.”
“What about my sister?” she asks. “We can’t just walk
out of here without her.”
“Of course not. I'll go back to the entrance and make
sure the way out is clear. I’ll wait for you both there.”
Violence considers this for a moment and decides to
go along with your plan. She heads for a doorway to the
south and disappears through it. You chase off down the
hallway to the right, back toward the entrance.
When you reach it, you keep right on walking, heading
into the rest of Undermountain. It’s a long way back to the
surface, and your client in Waterdeep. You want to get there
as fast as you can manage.
Just as you think you’ve put Dweomercore behind
you, though, you hear Violence shout, “Hold it nght there!”
You try to run, but you realize that your feet are stuck
to the ground. There’s nothing sticky on them, but you can’t
seem to make them move.
You turn around and try to draw your blade, but
Violence snaps at you. “Stop!”
Now you can’t move at all.
“You really think you could get away with betraying
me?” Violence says as she walks closer. “Pm a wizard too,
you know.” She stands behind you and whispers in your ear.
“You’re going to go back inside the academy and light a
candle. Then you’re going to walk through the place and set

—$—$—————$<$___—_—__—_<«-
everything flammable that you can find on fire.”
You find that you can’t resist the compulsion to do
exactly as she says.
“Please, no!” you beg her even as you begin walking
back toward the school. |
“T need a distraction to get my sister |
free,” she says. “And if you’re not going to
help me honorably, you’ll help me this way
instead.”
You scream in protest right up until
Halaster finds you and lances you through
with a lightning bolt. Before you can even
try to explain, the shock fries you dead.

THE END
 ll right,” you tell Violence as you stuff the spell book into
a large pocket in your coat. “I need a spell or something
to distract Halaster while you go and get your sister.”
“Take this.” She pushes a crystal into your hands.
Then she leans in and whispers a short incantation in
your ear. You quickly commit it to memory.
“What'll it do?” you ask.
She simply smiles knowingly at you, then slips off
down the hall. Realizing that there’s little else for you to do
at this point, you head toward the school’s entrance, hoping
that your presumed attempt at leaving will draw Halaster to
you. Your instincts couldn’t be more right.
“My apologies,” he says as he rushes to meet you at
the door. “I didn’t realize you’d be so impatient.”
“Not at all,” you assure him. “I was just coming to
find you. I wanted to show you what I can do.”
“So eager,” the Mad Mage responds with an amused
smile. “Please, go ahead.”
With that, you hold the crystal out in front of you
and chant the magic words. The crystal starts to thrum in
your hand and lets out a musical note you think sounds
quite pretty. But as you finish, Halaster’s face drops, and
he moves to take the crystal from you. Too late. The quite
beautiful musical note has turned to a piercing, high-pitched
cacophony that makes you cover your ears. In doing so you
drop the crystal, and the noise stops.

Turn to page Cll

HS
 ee pursue Medley into the smoke, following her by the
sound of her cackles.
“Right this way!” she says.
When you emerge from the smoke, you find yourself
_ina laboratory of horrors. Four humanoid bodies lie under
stained and dirty sheets, and a fifth sits off to the side in
pieces, with only a single leg fully stitched together. Other
bodies in various states of dismemberment hang from hooks
along the far wall.
As you gag on the stench and gape at the horror of it
all, Medley slams the door behind you and shouts, “Get him,
my pretties!”
‘The creatures under the sheets rise and come at
you— dead bodies torn apart and stitched back together into
horrible mockeries of actual people. They have no weapons,
but they look strong enough to not need to worry about
such things.
You draw your blade and leap at the closest one,
cutting, stabbing, and slashing as best you can.
While you might never have had a chance to prevail
against so many creatures much less Medley, whoever she
really is—at least you go down fighting. As you breathe your
last, you tell yourself that’ll have to be enough.

THE END

ee
 hile your chent may have offered you a good deal
of money to steal Halaster’s spell book, no amount
of money is worth risking your life among such a cutthroat
bunch of students. If you stay here any longer, you might
not survive to enjoy that reward.
You offer the man a regretful frown. “Pd love to join
you here,” you tell Halaster, “but I’ve taken a vow against
violence. I only harmed this man in self-defense. If I have to
manage that every day that I’m here...”
Halaster gives you an appraising look, unsure of what
to make of you. He’s clearly not used to having anyone turn
down such an offer.
“You handle yourself pretty well for someone who’s
renounced violence.”
“That’s one of the things I hate most about myself,”
you lie.
“Fair enough,” Halaster says as he gives Nylas’s
| unconscious form a halfhearted kick. “Too bad we’ll be stuck
with him instead, though.”
The Mad Mage ushers you out of the academy,
leaving you to your long journey back to Waterdeep. You
wonder how you’re going to explain this to your client, but
at least you’ll have the chance.

THE END

ae
9
 fter several weeks at thé school, you make a series of
unbelievable discoveries that cause you to change your
plans entirely. At one point, you walk into the headmaster’s
office and discover him talking to himself.
In this case, it’s not just Halaster muttering under
his breath or speaking to a mirror. Instead, it’s
Halaster chatting with a whole other Halaster sitting
across from him at the desk. You freeze and hope that you
might be able to slink away without them noticing you,
but the way they both turn and glare at you dashes that
hope instantly.
“Come on in,” the Halaster behind the desk says to
you. “Convince us that we shouldn’t kill you.”
You do as ordered and stand before them, trying not
to break down in fear. “Because I’m your best student. And
you can’t maintain this charade forever.”
The Halaster sitting in front of the desk laughs at your
bravado. “Go on.”
You point at the man sitting behind the desk. “The real
Halaster must be too busy to bother with drilling stubborn
young wizards on how to cast his favorite cantrips.” You
point at the other man. “You, on the other hand, clearly
aren’t the real Halaster but someone who’s posing as him to
get wizards to study at this school.”
“I told you he was smart,” the imposter says to the
other wizard. “Maybe too smart.”
The real Halaster laughs out loud. “I’m not afraid
of smart people. Isn’t that why we started this school after
all? To find the smartest upcoming wizards in the world
and indoctrinate them onto our side?”
“That’s kind of brilliant,” you say with a nod. “The
only people who have a real chance of taking you down and
destroying everything you’ve built here are wizards, right? So
keep them as close to you as you can.” You gesture toward
the imposter. “Without doing any of the work yourself.”
The imposter drops his disguise, transforming into a
humanoid creature who looks like a man-sized fox.
“It’s a reasonable arrangement for a demon like me.
I get to mold the minds of the next generation of wizards,
and I can call on the greatest wizard of the age for help
whenever I need it.”
“And you never get tired of that?” you ask, sensing a
potential opportunity. “How long /
have you been doing
this?” pe ™
The imposter gives ie
Halaster a sidelong glance. =
“It’s not a burden.”
“But maybe there are
times when you'd like a
break? A chance to wander
the world and do something
different.”
‘The imposter squirms
in his chair. “Most days here
are pretty good.”
 Halaster narrows his eyes at you. “What are you
suggesting?” :
You give him a nonchalant shrug, as if the idea just
occurred to you. “If you have one person impersonating you
here, why can’t you have two?”
Halaster and the imposter give each other meaningful
looks, then the Mad Mage nods at you. “How can we trust
you to keep our secret?” .
“T assume youllmurder me and everyone I told.”
“See?” Halaster says. “You are smart.”

After that fateful meeting, you work even harder on your

studies. Eventually, Halaster allows you to step in for the
demonic imposter from time to time. One day, the demon
doesn’t bother to return.
Now that you’re in the fold, you discover that Halaster
has several spell books, and the one that he keeps at the
academy is the least of them, a decoy left as a lure for thieves.
You wonder if you should take revenge on the person who
sent you here to steal it, risking your life for something
worthless. Then you realize that they did you the greatest
favor of your life. Without them, you might have died trying
to explore Undermountain with a team of underpowered
adventurers. Instead, you now run the best wizards’ academy
in the world.
Not bad for a thief from Waterdeep. Not bad at all.

THE END
 hat other choice do you have? After all, getting into
the school—weird as it might be—is exactly why
you came here, isn’t 1t?
“T accept,” you say, still unsure that you’re doing the
right thing.
Halaster gives you a smile you can only interpret as
hungry. No matter how uncomfortable it makes you, though,
you realize that you’re committed to this course of action.
“Excellent. Welcome to my academy. I hope you'll be
with us for a long time.”
You glance down at Nylas, who’s still unconscious on
the floor.
Halaster chuckles. “Longer than him, at least.”

You settle into the life of a student after that, constantly on

the lookout for a way to find and steal Halaster’s spell book.
The entire time, Halaster, the rest of the academy’s staff,
and the other students all watch you like hawks, giving you
zero Chance to accomplish your mission. Rather than expose
yourself as a fraud, you throw yourself into your studies,
biding your time.
To your own disbelief, you discover you have some
talent for magic. You think you might actually have a career
ahead of you as a wizard.

Turn to Age Oe
SP: the boy demands. Except, when you look around
the oni at him, he’s no longer a boy but a white-bearded
man. “I think it’s the truth.”
“Do you think we’ve been found out?” Dumara asks
him over her shoulder. “If so, we need to get out of here.”
“Not yet. Not until we get what we came for,” Spite
replies. “But what to do with this one in the meantime?”
Dumara raises a clawed hand and cocks an eyebrow
in question. Spite studies you further as you quiver against
the door.
“Tf it’s the spell book you're after, I could help you steal
it,” you offer, though you’re unsure what you could bring to
the party that neither of these can already offer. Or, for that
matter, how you'd get the book off them later to deliver to
your employer.
Spite considers your quivering form and sighs. “Just
go,” he says. “You should probably get out of here before
you get yourself in more trouble than you can handle.”
You don’t need to be told twice. ‘Twisting the handle,
you pull the heavy door open and sprint from the room.
Straight into the waiting tentacles of Cephalossk.
“Thought you could double-cross me, eh?” he says as
he squeezes you, blocking off your air supply. “No worries; at
least I can have a fresh dinner tonight.”

THE END

——
 f Halaster’s spell book is behind that door, then I don’t
need your help to find it,” you tell Violence, who gawks at
your bold betrayal.
Your conscience nags at you, but not badly enough
to make you change your mind. You have a job to do, and
helping a couple of young wizards to escape from someone
only marginally more evil than them isn’t part of it.
“Good luck to you and your sister, but you’re on
your own.”
You push past the shocked tiefling, and she doesn’t
raise a finger to stop you. You glance around to make sure
no one else is looking. ‘Then you crack open the thick oaken
door and slip through into the room beyond.
This puts you in an entryway that faces onto a round
room with a high ceiling. A set of pneumatic tubes stands
against the left wall, and a wide desk stretches across the far
side of the room. A life-size statue of Halaster looms over a
tall, ornately carved chair sitting behind the desk.
Before you even have a chance to start looking for
the spell book, the door slams behind you, making a sound
as loud as a crack of thunder. You spin around, realizing
you've made a terrible mistake. There aren’t any other exits
from the room, and you just left an angry tiefling outside
the only door.
“Mess with me, will you?” Violence shouts through
the door. “You think you can get away without paying a
price? How about you pay this price!”
“Wait!” you say, hoping you can talk her out of

————— ee
whatever she has planned—which you’re sure won’t end
well for you. ‘
She ignores you and starts screaming at the top of
her lungs. “Help! Help! There’s an intruder here, and he’s
broken into the headmaster’s office!”
You try the door, but she’s jammed it from the other
side. It doesn’t budge.
There has to be another way out of the place. As
you move into the round room, you see that the chair is
covered with screaming faces, and they somehow launch
into an unholy choir of agony that sounds even worse than
Violence’s incessant screeching.
You fall to your knees, trying to block out the noise,
but it seems to go right through the hands covering your
ears. here’s no escaping it. Not until Halaster flings the
door open and finds you in his office.
“T thought I told you to wait for your entrance exam,”
the Mad Mage says as he storms into the room. You realize
that you can hear him, which means all the screaming has
somehow stopped.
“That tiefling tricked me,” you tell him, hoping you
can lie your way out of this. “She shoved me in here and
started screaming about me trying to rob you!”
Halaster arches a doubtful eyebrow at you. “A tiefling,
you say? Do you know which one?”
“Violence. She said her name was Violence.”
The man frowns as he escorts you out of his office
and sits you down at the desk where Violence once sat. A
wizened old woman with dark-blue skin and sharp, vicious
teeth dashes in, the mummified skull of a cat dangling from
the end of her necklace. A night hag if ever you’ve seen one.
“Pm taking a head count,” she says, throwing her
hands into the air. “I’m missing two of our students.”
“Turbulence and Violence?” Halaster asks in a
disappointed tone.
“Just the ones! ‘They’ve been eyeing the exits for weeks.
I think they might have taken advantage of this’”— she points
at you, flustered —“distraction and fled!”
“So does that mean there’s room for me here, then?”
you ask, trying to put a brave spin on it.
The night hag rubs her hands together and bares her
teeth at you. “Yes, but ’m afraid not as a student. You'll be
a lot more useful in my laboratory. I always need another
warm body.”
“To help run your experiments?” you say with a
nervous swallow.
So. =She Siakeseteeeencad. “As one of my
subjects. as 9)

THE END

ee
 a: Spite, and Dumara walk along the hallway and reach
a room where there’s a door marked “Headmaster’s
Office — Knock Please.” You wonder if the spell book you're
after might be in there, but Spite leads you straight past it.
The door to the room is ajar, and you pause just for
a moment to peer through it. You see Halaster himself
sitting at a large desk, scribbling something on a scroll with a
long-feathered quill. He pauses in his work for a moment,
and you hurry on before he looks up to see you.
“All right, here’s the plan,” Spite says as he leads you
through a set of doors and then straight through a wall that
gives way in front of you as if it’s not even there. “’m going
to take you straight to Wormriddle’s private chambers. All
you have to do is go in there, find her, and keep her occupied
for a bit.”
“You don’t think Halaster’s going to stop you if you
march into his office and try to take his book?”
Spite snorts. “He has a spell book in his office, but
that’s just a decoy. Pm after the real thing. He keeps that in a
far more secret place.”
You walk right through another wall and find yourself
in a wide hall. At the end of it, you can see a ghostly figure
that looks as if it’s searching for something on the far wall.
“Ignore it,” Spite says without breaking stride. “It’s
another illusion.”
He leads you right up to the image, and the ghost
doesn’t seem to notice you at all. She just continues examining
the wall.

——_—_——_—_—
=
 Spite turns to the right and spreads his arms toward a
set of doors. “This is Wormriddle’s place. You keep her busy,
and Dumara and I’ll take care of the rest. Good luck!”
The boy and his half-ogre friend hustle back down the
hallway and disappear into a passageway on the left.

Sneak after Spite. Turn to page /ae.

Enter Wormriddle’s quarters. Turn to page 68...
 hat’s the most ridiculous deal I’ve ever been offered,”
you say with a sad shake of your head. “And I let
someone hire me to come here and steal the Mad Mage’s
spell book.”
Violence goggles at you. “You don’t believe me?”
“Not any more than I believed Nylas when he told me
I should kill you so I could have your spot in the school. You
should be grateful ’'m such a skeptic.”
The tiefling crosses her arms over her chest and
frowns. “The difference is that ’m not lying.”
“So you say, but I haven’t lived this long by trusting
people who tell me I can trust them.”
She glares at you. “And if I start screaming for help?”
“Now, why would you want to do that? Just let me be
on my way. Maybe [ll get into enough trouble on my own to
provide a distraction you and your sister can use to escape.”
She gives you a dubious shrug but then steps aside.
“Fine,” she says. “I hope you get into a fatal amount of
trouble.”
“It’s been a pleasure meeting you too.”
You open the doors behind her and slip through them,
leaving Violence to mutter angrily at your dismissal. Finally
free from anyone watching over your shoulder, you set to
finding Halaster’s spell book as fast as you can. If anyone
else spots you, you can just claim that you’re lost — or so you
hope.
The hallway beyond stretches into the darkness, its
high ceiling held up by thick columns of carved stone. As

See
you reach the doors at the end of the hall, you hear the
sound ot a fight on the other side. You crack the doors open,
and beyond you see Violence fighting three other wizards,
including Halaster himself!
You glance backward, wondering how she could have
possibly gotten past you,
much less how she
could already be
losing a spell battle
like this. ‘Then you
notice that she’s
somehow switched
her robes tear
entirely different
color.
This can’t be
Violence. It must be
the twin sister she
was taking about,
Turbulence.

Turn to page Pte:

 ll right,” you tell Violence. “You have a deal. Help me
get that spell book, and I'll help you and your sister get
out of here, in whatever way I can.”
“You're smarter than you look,” the tiefling says with
a smile.
Before you can figure out just how insulted you
should be, she turns toward the door marked “Headmaster’s
Office — Knock Please.” “Follow me,” she says.
You don’t want to start a fight with your new partner
in crime, so you do as she orders. She steps up to the door
while you check the corridor to make sure no one’s watching,
Apparently satisfied that the way is clear, she opens the door
and pulls you inside after her.
You find yourself in a round room with a tall vaulted
ceiling. A set of fifteen pneumatic tubes lines the left-hand
wall. Across from you sits a wide desk with a tall chair behind
it. A statue of Halaster looms behind that, looking down at
you with a stern glare.
As you move into the room, you see that the chair is
covered with carvings of mouths flung open and screaming.
You start to hear them screeching in your ears, but Violence
silences them with a sharp word and a flick of her wand.
“There,” she says. “That'll keep that nasty thing
quiet, but we’ll have to move fast. My spell will only last for
a minute.”
“T’ve robbed a noble’s villa in less time than that,” you
say as you start searching the room.
As is your way, you carefully rifle through the desk,

=
but there’s nothing like a spell book there. However, the wall
opposite the pneumatic tubes is suspiciously bare.
You move over to inspect it and find a hidden catch.
As you pull on it, a section of the wall swivels away, revealing
a smaller round room. Overstuffed bookshelves line its walls
all the way to the ceiling.
Violence gasps in surprise and delight. When she tries
to rush into the room, you block her way with your arm.
“We’re in a hurry!” she says.
“We need to be careful,” you point out. “You really
think that chair out there is Halaster’s only protection for
something as valuable as his spell book?”
“Good point.” Violence waves her wand, and the
floor of the room in front of you—which is mostly covered
with a rug— begins to glow.
“That looks bad,” you say. “But we can work our way
around it.”
You reach out and grab the edge of a bookshelf. From
there, you swing yourself into the room and place your feet
on a lower shelf, keeping yourself off the floor as if it were
made of lava.
“Oh!” Violence says. She waves her wand over the
bookshelves, and one particular volume on the other side of
the room begins to glow. “That must be it!”
With your goal in sight, you move faster, crawling
across the bookshelves like a gigantic spider. When you reach
the book, you snatch it up, then rush back toward the door.
As you near it, you can hear the chair begin to screech again.

——————e
 “Quickly!” Violence says as she ushers you toward
the door. :
You don’t need her to rush you away. The screeching
chair is doing a fine job of that.
Once yow’re outside, Violence slams the door behind
the two of you, and the chair—having accomplished its
mission — shuts up.
You lean against a wall so that you don’t collapse in
relief, then open the book to see what you found.
The pages are blank.
“Ts this a trick?” you ask Violence, wondering if she’s
betrayed you.
“Yes,” she says with a chuckle. “But it’s one Halaster
likes to play. He writes in invisible ink. Your client will have
to reveal it with magic.”
You shoot her a dubious look, still unsure if you can
trust her. If you bring this book to your client and it’s useless,
you'll be lucky if you’re only laughed out of Waterdeep.

Leave without helping Violence. Turn to page 4... 5

Live up to your end of the bargain. Turn to page 4 jes

ee
jee Spite scampers off, you decide to go along with his plan
for now. Let him deal with the risks of robbing Halaster
himself. You can always steal the spell book from the young
wizard later.
As you throw open the doors to Wormriddle’s
chamber, you plan to announce yourself loudly so that she
can’t possibly ignore you. You expect to see someone’s living
quarters beyond, or perhaps an office crammed full of books
and papers. Instead, all you see is a wall of smoke or mist so
thick and cloying that you can’t peer beyond the doorway.
Oddly, none of the befouled air seems to curl beyond the
threshold of the chambers to spill into the hallway where
you stand.
“Hello?” you call tentatively.
You wait a moment for an answer, but it doesn’t come.
‘The smoke trapped inside the room seems harmless— or at
least not toxic—so you plunge in.
Inside the swirling smoke, you can just see past the
ends of your outstretched arms but no farther. You wander
around, blindly reaching out with your fingers, hoping that
this behavior keeps you from running into a trap or whatever
kind of fire might be causing all the smoke. Fortunately, the
smoke doesn’t seem to make you cough, although your eyes
water.
“Wormriddle?” you finally say. “I’m looking for
someone named Wormriddle. Are you here?”
“Who’s asking?” a voice calls through the smoke.
You're so excited to hear someone else’s voice that you

ee
nearly charge straight after the sound, but caution grabs
you first and slows you down.
“Lm a new student here at the academy,” you
say. “Well, at least I hope to be. And I thought I should
introduce myself to the people running the place.”
You spy the bright silhouette of an open
doorway in front of you, and you steer your way
toward it.
“Come in! Come in!” the voice says, and
|?

you follow it through the doorway.

Amazingly, the smoke stops at the threshold
of this door as well. As you enter, tiny bones
crunch under your feet. ‘They cover the floor of
the wide room from one side to the other, and
there’s no way to avoid them.
A large four-poster bed sits to your
right as you enter. Mummified cats line the
edges of the canopy that hangs over the
filthy, moldy pillows and blankets.
On the wall above the bed,
a line of crudely made dolls sits on a
shelf. One of them looks an awful lot
like Spite.
There’s a young halfling with
curly black hair sweeping the room.
She greets you with a wide and
eager smile.
“Why, hello, new student!” she

——=—$—=——
says with a gentle curtsy. “My name’s Medley. What can I do
to you? For you!”
“I’m looking for someone named Wormriddle,” you
say as you peer around the oddly furnished room. “Pve never
met her before, but Spite Harrowdale suggested I introduce
myself to her before I take my entrance exam for the school.”
Medley raises her eyebrows in surprise. “He did,
did he? That Spite is quite the tricky one, he is. I suppose I
shouldn’t be surprised about that. Not at all.”
“Can you help me find her?” you ask, suddenly uneasy.
You're not sure if your unease 1s because of how oddly
the halfling is looking at you or because you're afraid that if
you don’t find Wormriddle soon, the night hag will discover
Spite’s plot. If that happens, the whole plan is shot.
“Why, I'd be delighted!” Medley says as she leans
her broom against a wall and dusts off her hands. “Just
follow me.”
She steps into the smoke-filled chamber again. You
can't see her, but she’s cackling loudly enough that you’re
sure you can find her by the unsettling sound.

Retuse Medley’s offer. Turn to page 4...

Follow Medley. Turn to pagea ees
| surrender!” ‘Turbulence shouts, raising her hands above
her head. :
As soon as she does, Halaster and the other two
wizards stop dead in their tracks. They each move into a
separate alcove at the edge of the room and stand atop a
short pedestal, where they turn into statues.
Smiling at your luck, you slip silently into the room.
Hurt and panting as hard as she is, Turbulence doesn’t hear
you. You spot an open archway leading into a hall to your
right and duck into it fast.
Stalking quietly through the hallways and rooms, you
hunt for anything that might resemble a powerful wizard’s
spell book, but you come up empty. One wildly impossible
room you pass through seems to be part of a noble’s villa
basking under the warm Waterdeep sun, but you know
better than to be fooled by such illusions.
Eventually, you come to a room that’s occupied by
a creature you can’t Just sneak past. You recognize it as a
nothic, a gray-skinned, long-armed, ridge-backed creature
with a massive single eye in the center of its face. It’s chained
to the floor, and it’s wearing a helmet studded with large blue
and red crystals.
It looks up as you crack open the door and softly
squeaks, “Help?”

Free the nothic. Turn to page YOu:

Slip past the nothic. Turn to page SAPs

ee
———————
iD eae with Wormriddle seems like a bad idea. If
she were that easy to distract, Spite would have had
Dumara handle the task instead. Besides, you’re not here to
get into the school. You want that spell book!
You pad down the hallway after Spite and Dumara,
moving as silently as you can and taking care to remain out
of their sight. You follow them through a series of classrooms
and then a supply room guarded by a couple of spectators:
large floating eyeballs with four prehensile stalks that end
in smaller eyes. A sign on the shelves reads, “Don’t remove
supplies without Headmaster Blackcloak’s written consent.”
The spectators watch you closely but don’t move
against you as you leave. You find yourself in a long, bent
hallway, and follow it to the right until you come to a door.
Beyond that is a large room, 1n the center of which 1s a well
that, as far as you can tell, leads down to the next level of
Undermountain. On the other side there’s another hallway,
where you hear Spite’s footsteps stop.
You peer around the corner and see both Spite and
Dumara duck into an alcove toward the end of the hall. A
moment later, Dumara emerges with Halaster right behind
her. The two of them head for a door at the end of the hall
and disappear through it.
Suspicious, you pad up to the door and listen at it for
a moment. Clearly, that wasn’t Halaster you saw. It had to be
Spite in disguise. But why would he have to masquerade as
the headmaster?
Is there something in the next room that would attack

ee
anyone who wasn’t there with Halaster? Should you disguise
yourself as Halaster too? You don’t have the magic for that,
but you’re pretty handy with more mundane means of
masquerade.
But if you show up as Halaster and Spite shows up as
Halaster, 1s that going to confuse things and cause problems
instead? You’re not sure what to do. You only know that
Spite and Dumara are getting farther away by the second.

Disguise yourself as Halaster. Turn to page 82...

Don't bother with a disguise. Turn to page 86...
yu fellow student Nylas brought me here to kill you,”
you tell the tiefling. “He says it’s the only way to open a
space for me at this school. But ’m willing to entertain the
idea that he might have been lying.”
The tiefling spits on the ground in disgust. “And they
say that my people are fiends. Nylas has done more harm to
people here in the few weeks Pve known him than my twin
sister and I have done in our entire lives.”
“Is what he said true?”
She glares at you. “And what if it is? Does that mean
you're actually going to try to kill me now?”
“Would I really have a chance?”
“Let’s not find out.” She shakes her head at you.
“Nylas isn’t entirely wrong. He’s pulled this stunt before,
and it worked out just like he said. Halaster likes to pit the
students against one another.”
You glance around the room. “Why?”
“He says he does it to make us tougher. ‘To transform
us into the kinds of wizards who have a chance to survive
out there in the real world.”
“But you don’t believe that.” You can tell from her
tone. |
“T think Halaster set up this school as a kind of fly trap
for wizards. He tells you that he’s going to make you into one
of the greatest wizards of all time, but instead he uses this
place to distract us from real studies, the kinds of things that
might make us a challenge to him.”
“You think this whole place is just a scam?” A part

=
of you is impressed that someone as powerful as the Mad
Mage would go to such elaborate lengths to sucker people
into studying with him.
But doesn’t that make more sense than the idea that
an all-powerful wizard who controls Undermountain would
take the time to set up a school of wizardry? Out of the
goodness of his heart?
“T just want to leave and bring my sister with me.” She
lets loose a sigh so deep, her shoulders slouch from the effort.
“But Halaster isn’t about to let that happen. Not without a
fight— and that’s a fight we can’t win.”
“T don’t want to be a student here either,” you tell her.
“Maybe we can help each other out.”
“How do you mean?” she asks, both suspicious and
hopeful at the same time.
You hesitate, weighing what it would mean to bring
someone in on the real purpose of your presence here.
Maybe she could help, but maybe she’d just stab you in the
back and take the book for herself. You decide to risk it.
“Pm here to steal Halaster’s spell book.”
“You're not a wizard?” she asks, surprised.
You shake your head. “I’m a thief. Someone hired me
to steal the book. I just need to find it and get out of here.”
“Would you be willing to take my sister Turbulence
and me with you?”
“Your sister’s name is Turbulence?” you ask. “What
is yours?”
“Violence,” she answers. You’re not sure what to make
of that. They sound dangerous, but what else can you do?
“TZ you can help me, then I don’t see why not. Though
I’m not sure what I can offer that the two of you couldn’t do
for yourselves.”
She considers this for a moment before giving you a
serious nod. “All right,” she says. “Let’s do it. We can worry
about the logistics of getting out of here later.”
“Okay,” you concede. “Where to?”
Violence points at the door in a corner of the room.
“That’s. Halaster’s quarters. His spell book has to be hidden
in there.”
“If you say so.” ‘This seems a little too easy to you.
Violence senses your hesitation and frowns at you.
“You swear to me that you'll help us get out of here? You
have to give me your word.”
“You'd take the word of a thief you just met?”
“At this point, I don’t see how we have much choice.”
If the spell book’s right here, you’re not sure you need
Violence’s help. On top of that, there’s always the chance
she might be lying to you. Maybe the spell book’s not there
at all. Or maybe she'll try to take it for herself.

Push past Violence into Halaster’s quarters. Turn to page JO,

Ignore Violence and move on. Turn to page 6? a
Accept Violence’s deal Turn to page bo...
yen can’t stand to see anything enslaved, even something
as disturbing as a nothic. Legend has it that nothics come
into being when wizards delve too deep into arcane studies
and become irrevocably twisted by their own ambitions. You
wonder if that’s how this particular creature came to its fate.
Was it one of Halaster’s own students?
You put up your hands to show that
you wish the creature no ill as you step into
the room. It allows you to approach, and
you see that the chain is attached to a collar
around its neck. You pull out your thieves’
tools and have the lock picked open in no
time.
The nothic pulls off its helmet and
smiles up at you with its long, sharp rows
of teeth.
“Thank you,” the creature says as
it rubs the long-chafed skin on its neck. “I’m
Halaster’s secretary. He keeps me trapped here to
handle the messages other wizards send him telepathically.”
“That sounds horrible.”
The nothic nods at you. “I read your mind, by the
way. I know why you're here.”
You brace yourself for the creature to attack you or
start screaming for help. Instead, it frowns at you.
“Unfortunately, the Halaster who runs this school is
an imposter. ‘The real Halaster doesn’t keep his best spell
book anywhere near here.”
 You gape at the nothic. “You have to be kidding!”
“Many people have tried to steal Halaster’s spell books
over the years. They all failed, but they keep trying. You were
probably sent here as a ploy.”
“How do you mean?” you ask, confused.
“T imagine your attempt is supposed to draw the real
Halaster to the academy so that someone else can try to steal
his real spell book while he’s not in his real home.”
You clench your fists in fury. All the effort you went
through to get here, all the dangers you faced — was that just
so your chent could sacrifice you like a pawn?
“We should leave now,” the nothic says. “Halaster’ll
come to check on me soon.”
“T’m going back to Waterdeep,”
you tell the creature. “As dangerous
as that might be.”
“Then why are you going
back?” it asks.
You flash a dangerous
smile. “Revenge.

THEEND “Yap?
Yu look up sheepishly at Halaster.
“For you to fumble on such a simple spell, I think it’s
quite clear that there’s no place for you here.” He scowls.
“My academy is for the best of the best, and this only goes
to show that you don’t fit that caliber.”
You never wanted to join the school, and yet his
scolding strangely hurts you. Slumping your shoulders, you
leave without a word, bolstered only by the fact that you do
so with the book in your pocket.
You're already halfway back to Waterdeep when
Violence and her sister ‘Turbulence catch up to you.
“You got away that easily?” you ask.
Violence nods. “That spell broke every piece of glass in
the entire academy. It’s a lot easier to slip out when everyone
is busy worrying about what might explode next.”
Turbulence smiles. “Perhaps we’ll see you around.”
“Perhaps.”
You manage to get back to the surface and head to the
Yawning Portal. Your client arrives soon after, finding you
already finishing up the best meal you’ve had in wecks. She
inspects the book carefully.
After a nervous moment, she nods. “I’d be surprised if
this was Halaster’s primary spell book, but it’s certainly one
of his.” She throws a large purse full of coins on the table.
“All right,” you say to the rest of the adventurers in
the Yawning Portal. “The fun tonight is on me!”

THE END

I
 f Spite went to the trouble to look like Halaster, then
ee you should do the same. Fortunately, in the course
of your career, you’ve become a decent disguise artist in your
own right. It’s a lot easier to walk into a place in a mask than
it is to climb in through a window, after all.
You dig through your pack and find a white wig and
a beard and slip them on. It’s a good thing so many male
wizards stick with that kind of look as they get older.
The hair alone won’t be enough to fool anyone,
though, so you also don a mask to cover your skin to make
you look more like Halaster: old and wizened by years. It
takes longer than you'd like, but eventually you feel you’ve
done the best you can.
In an effort to catch up with Spite and Dumara, you
bolt through the doors at the end of the hall and discover
another hall that turns to the rnght. You follow it into a
large square room with a statue of Halaster standing in
each corner. If the statues bear a passable resemblance to
Halaster, then it seems your own efforts are at least not likely
to embarrass you. Even if Halaster’s best friend were to
discover you looking like this, you feel you might be able to
fool him — at least on a dark, moonless night.
You glance around but don’t see Spite or Dumara
anywhere. ‘There’s only one other way out of the room,
through a passage just to the right of the one by which you
entered. Unless there’s a secret exit elsewhere, that must be
how they left.
Worried that you might have already lost the pair of

—————— ee
them for good, you decide to chance the passageway, and
you slink up it quietly as it winds off to the right. Moving
faster, you turn a corner just in time to see Halaster — Spite
in disguise, for sure— follow Dumara through a door into a
well-lit room. ‘The door closes behind them, and you sidle up
to it and wait.
At least they haven’t gotten entirely away from you,
but chasing them straight into the room would only ensure
that they catch you following them. Forcing yourself to be
patient, you start counting to one hundred to give them
a moment to move on or——if they're stopping there—to
become engrossed in whatever it is they've found. ‘Then you
plan to peek through the door and see what’s happening,
hopefully without giving them a chance to spot you in the
act.
That’s when you hear someone inside the room start
to scream, and all your plans get tossed away.
You consider waiting until the screaming stops, at
which point you could enter the room and maybe just pick
through the mess and move on. But your curiosity gets the
better of you.

Turn to page Eo
| t’s awful to see anything enslaved like this nothic, but you
don’t have time to lend it a hand right now. You need to
press on.
With a cautious narrowing of your eyes, you give the
chain holding the creature’s collar a good, hard look. You
might be able to squeeze past the nothic if you press your
back flat against the wall. As you make your way toward
the door on the opposite end of the room, though, you
discover that you forgot to consider the reach of the nothic’s
abnormally long arms!
It grabs you in a steely grip and pulls you close to
its wide-open jaws. Before it can clamp its pointy teeth into
your flesh, though, you manage to draw your blade and run
the creature straight through.
‘The nothic screeches in agony, then slumps over as
you withdraw your sword.
“[m sorry,” you say as it crumples to the ground in
front of you. “You didn’t give me any choice.”
The creature rolls over onto its back and stares up at
you with its one huge eye. It begins to shudder softly, and
you almost start to feel bad for it, when you realize that it’s
laughing.
“What’s so funny?” you ask as a shiver lances straight
down your spine like cold silver.
“You think you didn’t help me, but you did,” it says.
“I wanted to be free of this place, and now I finally am. Free
in death! But soon, soon you'll join me there.”
The creature points to its ridiculous helmet. “I’m in

——
constant telepathic contact with Halaster. And I just let him
know you killed his favorite servant.”
Dismayed, you gape down at the creature as it draws
its last cursed breath. You need to get out of here. Now!
Desperate, you push your way out of the room, going
back the way you came. While you were wandering around,
you thought you saw a garbage chute down to the next level.
As you sprint toward it, though, there’s a blinding flash of
light, and then someone bellows at you in cold fury.
“How dare you!”

Turn to page O35. .

 here’s not enough time to throw on a proper disguise, or
at least that’s what you tell yourself. You open the door
and move down a hallway that leads to the right. At the end
of it, you find a large square room with a statue of Halaster
standing in each corner. A single other passageway leads out
of the room, through the same wall by which you entered.
You don’t see a disguised Spite or Dumara anywhere,
but you think you hear their footsteps up that other passageway.
You’re about to follow them at a safe distance when you're
attacked.
Two human-sized creatures leap through the wall to
your right as if it weren’t even there. Another leaps through
the wall to your left.
The ones on your right have thick gray carapaces,
covered with ridges of spikes. They have large insect-like eyes,
and their pincers snap and clack together over their hungry
mouths. Each of the monsters carries a trident in the lower set
of its four arms. :
The creature ong
left has green. Siam
long horns sprouting
from its forehead,
and a pair of ¢@
leathery wings
spreading from
its back. It hoists
a notched battle-ax as
it approaches you. None
of the creatures seems interested in
conversation.
Now, turn to lce, but
suddenly all the lights in the
room go out. This has to be the
effect of some sort of magical
darkness, which means even
if you could light a torch, it
wouldn’t do you any good.
Instead, you duck and
dodge and try to sneak your
way out of the room, but when
one of the tridents stabs
you in the side, you realize
that the creatures attacking
you can see in the dark just
fine — even magical darkness.
If that’s true, you’re doomed. Despite that, you draw
your blade and try to put up a fight, slashing out at unseen
horrors in the darkness. When you strike something fleshy
and elicit a bellow of pain, you smile, but your pleasure is
short-lived. —
The creatures soon knock you flat. As you lie dying,
you realize that Spite got past them because he looked like
Halaster, and you wonder if that would have saved you too.

THE END
Dae throw open the door and see that the screams are
coming from Spite, who’s being pulled up into the air
and then slammed down onto the hard stone floor by an
invisible force. It seems to be directed by a giant skull with
blazing eyes set into a door on the far side of the room. Your
first instinct is to charge in and attack the skull while it’s busy
with Spite.
Before you can manage that, though,,a rough-hewn
statue of iron steps in front of the door and reaches out to
slam it shut in your face. A large blue-skinned creature — who
oddly shouts in Dumara’s voice — smashes into the moving
statue, clawing at the metal thing with long and vicious black
talons.
“Help us!” Spite shouts as he sees you.
You wonder for an instant if he thinks you’re the
school’s headmaster, but he shatters that by telling you,
“That’s the worst disguise Pve ever seen! How did you get
past the yugoloths?”
You have no idea what yugoloths are, but perhaps it’s
better that way. Right now you have a decision to make. If
you call for help, the whole caper is blown; if you don’t, Spite
might die. But maybe that’s okay. . . .

Call for help! durn to page 7).

Wait to see what happens. Turn to page HOS oo:
Save Spite! Turn to page 98...

ee
Ya: look like someone who hates
it here, right?” you say to the
tiefling with the most charming
smile you can muster. “I’m here to
rob Halaster. Lend me a hand?”
She glances over your
shoulder, and you look back
in that direction as well. If
Halaster’s chasing you, he’s
taking his time.
“This way,’ she says
furtively as she moves toward
the door to the headmaster’s
office and cracks it open.
“Quickly! And be careful in
there!”
Without hesitation, you
obey and slip past her into the
room beyond. ‘There’s a short
entryway, and beyond that it’s
round, with a domed ceiling high
above. The left wall is lined with
a strange set of tubes that lead into
the ceiling and floor, and there’s a desk
on the far side of the room. A life-size statue of
Halaster stands behind it, dressed in a long robe covered
with dozens of eyes. It holds a staff atop which a heatless
flame burns like a magical torch.
 As you slink into the room to search for Halaster’s
spell book, the chair behind the desk begins to scream.
It’s impossible to tell exactly where the sound is coming
from— the chair doesn’t have a mouth anywhere on it— but
the noise is enough to make you cover your ears and wince
in pain. You cast about for the book for a moment, but you
don’t see it anywhere.
The chair must be some kind of magical alarm. You
need to get out, fast!
When you emerge from the room, the tiefling tackles
you to the ground.
“T’ve got the thief!” she shouts. “Help!”
You try to squirm away, but when you see Halaster
storming down the hallway, you begin to panic.
“T tried to help you,” the tiefling whispers, “but P?m
not going to take the blame for you being a lousy thief!”
You squirm out of her grasp and stand up. As you do,
you realize you’ve made another mistake. Now the wizard
coming your way has a clear shot at you.
“Get away from my student!” Halaster says as he flicks
his wand at you.
A bolt of lightning shoots right through you, frying
you dead.

THE END

EY
\ ‘d be happy to help you out,” you tell Spite. “Going on a
spell book hunt sounds like a lot of fun.”
“Oh, it'll be more than that,” Spite says. “Just think of
the things we’ll learn!”
“But I’m not sure I have the time for it right now.”
You give Spite a reluctant shrug. “I mean, I’m supposed to
be waiting to take the school’s entrance exam.”
Spite and Dumara look at each other and then break
out laughing.
“Don’t worry,’ Dumara says in a booming voice.
“There 7s no entrance exam,” Spite says with a grin.
“Halaster just waits for you to sneak out of your room and
interact with the other students — which can be fatal. If you
survive, you're in!”
That may be the craziest thing you’ve ever heard
about any kind of school, but somehow you’re not all that
surprised. “All right, then,” you say to Spite. “I’m in!”
“Excellent!” Spite trundles out the door with Dumara
in his wake.
“Off we go on a grand adventure!” Spite says.
“Grand adventure!” echoes Dumara.

Turn to page 60...

yu charge along at top speed, determined to outrun and
outlast the master wizard. When you reach the entrance
to the school, though, Halaster is there waiting for you.
“You can’t outrun magic!” the man snarls.
“JT didn’t mean to hurt anyone!” you say.
“Oh, don’t worry. ’m not going to hurt you.” Halaster
gestures at you with his wand. “TIl leave that to every other
creature you have the misfortune of coming across, of which
I suspect there will be many!”
A bolt flashes from the tip of the wand, and suddenly
everything around you is much larger. It takes you a moment
to realize that you’ve been shrunk to the size of a rat.
Halaster throws back his head to start laughing, and
you use that instant to make your break.
As you race past the wizard and into the darkness, he
calls after you. “Run, for all the good it'll do you! You won’t
get far.”
You do your best to prove him wrong. It’s a long trip
back to Waterdeep, but most of the monsters don’t even
notice you sneaking past them. When you finally reach the
city, though, it’s the rats that finally spot you and put an end
to you. There are just too many of them, after all.

THE END
Heer You turn and shout. “Help!”
“No, wait!” Spite calls through the still-open door as
you race back down the hallway. “Don’t leave us here.”
The metal creature slams the door shut behind you,
cutting off Spite’s screams and Dumara’s ferocious roars.
“Help!” You scream so loud you feel like you’re
shredding your throat raw.
When you reach the room with the statues of Halaster,
you realize that no matter who you alert, it’s probably going
to be too late to help Spite and Dumara. Despite that, you
keep running and shouting, trying to retrace your steps
without getting lost. -
At least you have the presence of mind to remove your
disguise and stuff it back into your jacket. You hate to think
how Halaster might react seeing you in it.
When it dawns on you that you’ve made a wrong turn
in your panic, you double back to where you were before. At
that point, you run—almost literally—into Halaster.
“My good fellow,” he says, concern wrinkling his aged
brow. “Whatever is the matter?”
“Spite! And Dumara! They’re being killed!”
“By whom?”
You hesitate for an instant, knowing you might get
in trouble for following Spite to the room where he was
attacked. There’s no way to change that now, though, and
Halaster’s bound to find out sooner or later anyhow.
“He was acting suspicious, and I followed him to a
room where there was a giant metal creature and a skull on
a door that seemed to be slamming him around.”
Halaster grimaces as he nods. “The sanctuary. ‘They'll
be dead already.”
“We have to do something!” You grab Halaster by the
arm and pull him back toward the room. “Maybe there’s still
a chance.”
Halaster lets you lead him along. When you reach the
room with the statues of him in it, he frowns. “You got this
far before? And you didn’t see any yugoloths?”
Still unclear about what a yugoloth might be, you
shrug helplessly. Halaster continues without pursuing the
question further.
When you reach the door the metal creature slammed
shut, Halaster opens it carefully. Cautiously, you peer over
his shoulder to gaze into the room.
Everything seems _ perfectly calm. Both
Spite and Dumara lie on the floor, dead. The skull on
the door across the way seems perfectly normal—for a
skull hanging on a door. Just a decoration. You crane
your neck and spot the metal creature standing next to
you, now still as a statue. It doesn’t even move enough to
look your way.
Halaster sighs and shuts the door. “We’ll get that
cleaned up later. I warn people time and again about
entering private rooms like that, but every so often we run
into someone who just can’t be bothered to listen. And for
that they pay the ultimate price.”
He gives you a kindly look. “You’re probably

See
wondering just how this tragedy affects you and your
application to study at the academy.”
“Honestly, it was the furthest thing from my mind,”
you respond.
Halaster begins to lead you back toward the main
part of the school. “Well, in this case, Spite’s horrible loss
is your gain. His removal from our roster means that there’s
a brand-new opening for a promising student, and it seems
clear by your actions that you’d be an excellent candidate.”
You wince at this. While you certainly wanted to
weasel your way into the school, it turns your stomach to
think that someone had to die to make it happen.
Halaster senses your hesitation. “If you don’t take the
spot, it’s not like we’re going to hold it open in honor of
Spite. It’s just going to go to someone else eventually. What
do you say?”

Take it. Turn to page 100...

Politely decline. Turn to page 105...
Jee foolish as it might be to stay, you can’t just abandon
Spite and Dumara to die. If you run for help, there’s
no way to get back to them in time either. There has to be
something you can do to save them, here and now.
On an impulse you hope to live to regret, you slip
into the room—just before the metal monster slams the
door shut behind you. Now you’re trapped in there with the
others whether you lke it or not.
The monster comes straight for you and swings a fist
the size of a war hammer at your head. You dodge beneath
it and scramble out of the way as fast as you can.
Dumara takes advantage of the monster’s distraction
and leaps onto its back, attempting to dismantle it. She tears
at its shoulders, peeling plates off it with her bared claws.
She even manages to rip off an arm and tosses it aside to
clatter across the dungeon’s stone floor.
‘The metal monster reaches back and grabs Dumara
with its remaining arm, pulling her over its shoulder. It
smashes her to the ground and begins to pound her. /
Spurred into action, you leap at the
monster from behind and shove your blade
between two of the metal plates
that cover its back. Rather
than trying to stab it
over and over again— which would seem like a useless way
to attack a beast with no flesh—you use the blade as a lever
and start trying to pry pieces of the creature away from its
body. You wrestle off part of its side and then finally manage
to wrench away its head, which bounces away from you with
a series of hollow clangs.
‘This finally causes the creature to collapse into a pile
of wreckage. Unfortunately, it crumbles to pieces right on
top of Dumara, who wasn’t doing all that well to begin with.
“Save Spite,” Dumara says to you with her final
breath.
You spin about and dive toward the boy just as he’s
about to crash into the floor again. On your knees, you catch
him in your arms and cradle him there, giving him a chance
to catch his breath.
Rather than take the time to thank you, Spite scrambles
out of your arms and casts a spell on the skull, one that he’s
been trying to complete the entire time the thing has been
battering him about. The skull goes dark and slack, and Spite
nearly falls over in relief.

Turn to page 102...

SS
S tuck for a better solution than just walking away from
the academy, you stick out your hand and tell Halaster,
“I’d be honored to accept a position as a student here at
your academy, and I look forward to studying the arcane arts
under your guidance.”
This is the furthest thing from the truth, of course,
but in your mind it increases the chances of you walking
out of the academy alive. After witnessing what happened
to Spite and Dumara, that’s the only thing you care about at
the moment. Escaping with Halaster’s spell book has fallen
far down your list.
Halaster shakes your hand with a gentle smile. “Then
some good has come out of this horror after all. I'll speak
with Wormriddle and have you registered immediately.
In the meantime, you can consider the dormitory room I
showed you earlier your permanent quarters. Welcome to
Dweomercore!”
The wizard doesn’t seem all that dismayed by the
fact that a boy has just been killed by a security system
he supposedly set up himself. This alone you find rather
disturbing. Add the fact that you could expect similar care
about your own fate as one of his students, and it’s downright
terrifying.
Halaster guides you back to your room, calm as can
be. “Just to make sure you don’t somehow get lost again.”
Given the circumstances, you interpret that as “to
make sure you don’t rob the school on your way out.”
He leaves you at the door and tells you to get settled in

——————
the room, which is now officially your new home.
“Get some rest,” Halaster says. “We’ll have a little
ceremony at dinner tonight‘to welcome you to the academy
and introduce you to your fellow students.”
You thank him for his kindness and hospitality with as
much gratitude as you can muster. Once he’s gone, you shut
the door behind him, then sit on the bed with your head in
your hands as you contemplate your fate.
You’re not sure exactly how you could have made a
bigger mess of this. If Halaster thinks about it much longer,
he’s going to wonder how you could have made it through
that room with the yugoloths—or whatever they
were— without a disguise. And he might even come to
believe that you set up Spite and Dumara to be killed.
Maybe that’s not the kind of thing that Halaster
discourages in this awful school of his, but either way, this 1s
not the sort of place where you want to spend all that much
time. You need to get out of here as fast as you can.
You wonder if you could somehow manage to get past
the crazy skull and the metal monster that killed Spite and
Dumara. If those two couldn’t handle them, though, there’s
little chance you could deal with such creatures on your own.
And even then, you’re still not sure exactly where Halaster’s
legendary spell book might be. It’s probably beyond that
door in the room, but just getting through the door doesn’t
mean you could survive whatever else might be inside.

Turn to page Les

1
 Ne time to chat,” Spite says. “We need to get that door
open before the skull powers up again.”
“Tm on it,” you say.
You reach the door and see that it has nine separate
locks. You examine them, hoping to pick the locks, but none
of them feature a keyhole.
“They’re magically locked,” you say. “Each one of
them requires a spell to open it.”
“Step back!” Spite says as he points his wand at the
door. He then rattles off a series of spells, each of which
produces a knocking sound so loud you wonder if Halaster
might be able to hear it in his quarters.
As the ninth spell sounds, you grab the door and haul
it open. There’s only a single desk and chair in the room
beyond, both bare.
Spite pushes past you and rips open the desk’s single
drawer. “Found it!” he crows with glee.
As crazy as it might sound, this all seems too easy to
you. Halaster wouldn't let just anyone pick up his spell book,
right? But if you let Spite have it now, you might never be
able to take it for yourself.

Let Spite have the spell book . .. for now. Turn to page 8...
Grab the spell book. Turn to page 121...

Oe
 he horror of the scene overwhelms you for a moment,
and you become paralyzed with indecision about what
to do. If you call for help now, you might be in serious trouble
for allowing Spite and Dumara to die— no matter how sure
you are that you couldn’t have done anything to prevent it.
After pondering the situation for a bit, you realize that
you really have only two choices. You can enter the room and
try to steal the spell book, or you can leave Dweomercore
immediately and return to Waterdeep empty-handed.
You don’t like the idea of failing at your mission, but
on the other hand, you absolutely hate the idea of being
killed. If the things in that room could handle both Spite
and Dumara, what chance do you realistically have against
them alone?
Stull, heading back to Waterdeep without anything to
show for it? You’ve never suffered such a resounding defeat
in your entire life. You’re not sure you could bear it.
It’s then that a third option dawns on you. You’re in
a magic school, surrounded by magical items and magical
people. Surely there must be something or someone here
that could help you find out what’s behind that door. But
then you might have to fight to keep possession of the book.
Or worse, share your payment.

Look for something or someone to help. Turn to page Hos

Enter the room. Turn to page He.

————
12) eclining Halaster’s offer seems like the wise thing to do,
but you hesitate, unsure how the mighty wizard will
take to you turning him down. You're sure there are other
wizards out there who'd literally kill to be his student.
“Tm sorry,” you say, cringing as you speak. “But
I can’t. Pm sure you have lots of wonderful teachers and
students here, and under other circumstances I’d be happy
to join you. Accepting a position here because of the death
of someone else, though, seems like a bad omen at the very
least.”
Halaster stares at you for a long moment, and you
wonder if he’s about to berate you for being an incredible
idiot who’s willing to insult one of the most powerful mages
of the age. ‘Then he breaks into a wide smile.
“You're a wise person,” he says as he claps you on the
shoulder. “I can’t tell you how many others have accepted
a position at this school and come to regret it in the worst
possible ways.”
You gogele at that. “Is it really that terrible here?”
Halaster shrugs, then motions for you to follow him
back toward the school’s entrance.
“The staff and I do our best to teach the students here
what they need to know to survive in the outside world, but
we don’t do anything to protect them from one another.”
“Phat seems... .- cruel.’ You cant*find a. better
word for it.
“Perhaps it is,’ Halaster says with a chuckle. “But it’s
part of how we prepare them for the outside world. If they
can’t survive their rivalries within the school, there’s a very
good chance they’d fail just as miserably in the wider world.”
You shake your head. You can’t agree with such a
philosophy, but it makes your decision to leave a lot clearer.
You walk in silence for a while. As you near the
entrance, Halaster looks at you.
“Do you know what Spite was doing in that room?”
You were afraid the Mad Mage might ask you that
question. Worried that he might see through an outright lie,
you offer up a half-truth.
“He mentioned something about an all-powerful spell
books... @
Halaster snickers at that. “he little fool. To think he
lost his life over something like that. And the life of his friend
as well.”
“You mean there’s no such spell book here? With a
wizard as powerful as you on the premises?”
Halaster grunts. “I’m an old
man. Older than you could
possibly grasp. I have
spell books scattered
all over the place, most
of them locked up in
safe places, deep in the
heart of Undermountain.
Well, not so safe for anyone
who doesn’t happen to be
Halaster.”
 “And the ones you have here?”
Halaster favors you with a wan smile. “Not the best
of the bunch by a long, long way. Between you, me, and the
perpetual torches, they’re not worth dying over.”
When you reach the entrance to the school, Halaster
bids you farewell and wishes you a safe journey back to the
surface.
“Td offer you an escort back, but that seems like it
would be a waste of time for whoever I sent with you. If you
made it this far down into Undermountain on your own, Pm
sure you can survive the journey back.”
As you depart Dweomercore and head for Waterdeep
once more, you reflect upon this. Your client appears to have
sent you on a dangerous quest for little in the way of reward.
Were they expecting you to be killed in the process? If so,
you might want to start plotting your revenge.

THE END
M uch as you hate yourself for it, you don’t think you
can do much to save Spite and Dumara at this point.
You hesitate just long enough for the metal creature to slam
the door right in your face.
Maybe you could find someone to help, but you’re
pretty sure that Spite and Dumara would be long dead by the
time you managed to locate anyone, much less bring them
back here to do something about it. It’s possible that when
Spite entered the room he triggered some kind of alarm,
in which case someone should be along shortly to stop the
violence.
That doesn’t happen. Instead, Spite keeps screaming
until he falls utterly, horribly silent. Dumara roars in protest,
but eventually that stops too.
Still no one has come. You cock your head and listen
carefully. Not able to hear much, you step forward and press
your ear to the door.
Somewhere in the room, you hear the sound of metal
squeaking and scraping against metal as the creature moves
across the floor to your left. There, it seems to hesitate for a
moment as it settles into place. ‘Then that sound stops too.
‘To be cautious, you wait a few minutes longer, just to
make sure. Nothing happens. No one moves. No one besides
you even breathes.
You try the latch. It moves easily, and you give the door
a gentle push on its well-oiled hinges. It swings into the room.
Spite and Dumara lie spread out on the floor, beaten
and mangled. They don’t move a muscle.
 The giant skull attached to the door on the opposite
side of the room seems lifeless once more. Its jaw remains
still, and there’s no glow to its eyes.
Watching it carefully, you edge up to the doorway,
making sure not to cross the threshold. Leaning into the
room, you crane your neck to spy the metal creature standing
there like a statue, guarding the door.

Turn to page 103...

Wie you. were mistaken about
the skull and what it was doing to
Spite. If you move fast, you think you
might be able to handle the metal creature. All
you have to do is stay out of its reach, and
you’ve proven pretty good at doing that with
other foes over the years.
Steeling yourself, you draw your
sword and flex your fingers around its hilt
for a moment. Then you take a deep
breath and charge into the room,
heading straight for the door across
the way.
As you pass the metal
creature, it creaks to life. Rather
than chasing after you, though, it
moves toward the door you came
through.
You get about halfway across
the room when something in the
skull on the door blazes, and you
find yourself hoisted off your feet
by an invisible force.
Unable to progress, you
scream in terror and slash about in
the air with your blade, but there’s
nothing close enough for you to hit.
You consider throwing your sword
at the skull, but you hear the metal creature lumbering up
behind you.
Flailing about, you try to turn to face the oncoming
monster, but that’s when the invisible force throws you to
the ground. It slams you into the stone floor hard enough to
knock the breath from your lungs. You’re still gasping for air
when the metal monster kicks you in the ribs.
Before you can recover, the invisible force hauls you
high up into the air again, too high for the metal creature
to grab you. That doesn’t save you, though, since the force
slams you down again a few seconds later. ‘The monster gives
you another kick, starting the torturous cycle all over again.
Someone begins laughing from the doorway, and you
manage to wriggle around enough to spot Halaster standing
there, watching the monster and skull beat you to death.
“Help!” you scream.
“Sorry,” Halaster says. “I can’t.”

Turn to page oS.

 f you're being honest with yourself, it looks like this entire
mission is a bust. Unless you dedicate yourself to the study
of magic long enough to figure out how to get past the
defenses Halaster’s set up around his spell book, it would be
certain death to try to steal the thing. And is the payoff really
worth so many weeks of your life?
You don’t bother unpacking your gear. Instead, you
head straight for the entrance to Dweomercore.
This whole trip doesn’t have to be a complete loss,
though, right? After all, you have to make your way back
through eight levels of Undermountain before you reach
Waterdeep, and you bypassed all sorts of interesting things
on your path here. There has to be something worth stealing
along the way. There might even be an adventuring party
down here that needs the services of a skilled thief... . .

THE END
Yo kneel next to Spite and gingerly take the spell book
from his grasp. As you stuff it into a large pocket on the
inside of your jacket for safekeeping, Spite’s eyes fly open,
and he reaches out to grab you by the wrist.
He tries to say something but just coughs instead.
“T’m sure someone will be here to help you soon,” you
tell him. “We made a lot of noise.”
“Get out of here before the skull comes back to life,
you idiot,” Spite wheezes.
You leap to your feet. “Good luck,” you say to him.
“T’m done for either way,” he says. “I'd ask you to kill
me on your way out if 1t wouldn’t take too long.”
He has a point, and you don’t have any desire to hurt
him. He’s done enough of that to himself. You head for the
door, racing past both Dumara and the broken remains of
the metal monster scattered all over her.
“It’s not fair,” Spite calls as you leave him and the
room behind.
You can’t help but agree with him about that,
but you’ve had plenty of bad luck in your life too.
Youre not about to argue when some good luck comes
your way instead.
Quick as you can, you creep back to the hallway.
Footsteps thunder toward you, so you duck into one of the
niches there and hunker down in the shadows.
“This way,” Halaster shouts after he passes you. “The
master’s going to be furious!”
You don’t know what he means by that, but you’re not

AN
es
going to stop him to ask. Once he and the others have gone,
you head for the entrance to the academy. You make it there
without incident and bid Dweomercore goodbye.
Now you just needeto get back to Waterdeep and
collect your fee. When word of this gets out, your legend will
surely grow!

THE END
 here’s no way you could face the threats in that room
on your own. The metal monster would be enough
to destroy you, even if it didn’t have that crazy telekinetic
skull on its side. The only thing to do is find something or
someone to help. Turning your back on the room, you go in
search of an ally.
When you emerge from the hallway into the room
with the four statues of Halaster in the corners, though, you
find the real Mad Mage standing there waiting for you.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he says, peering
at you with steely eyes. “And just who do you think you are,
thief?”
You put your hand to your mouth to gasp in horror,
and you feel an unfamiliar beard there. You realize that
you forgot to remove your Halaster disguise before you got
moving.
“T know this looks bad,” you start.
“Tt looks like you were trying to break into the sanctuary
to steal the spell book of Halaster Blackcloak. That’s not
just bad. It’s outright stupid.”
“I was just following Spite and Dumara here,” you
protest. “I didn’t know what they were up to.”
Halaster sneers at you. “That doesn’t explain your
ridiculous look. Are you supposed to be me? Did something
that pathetic really fool my guards?”
You pull the mask and beard off and goggle at the
wizard. “I saw Spite disguise himself. . . .”
“So you figured it was the right thing to do?” He

——
reaches into a pouch at his belt with one hand and points his
wand at you with the other.
Desperate, you draw your sword and attack, slashing
at the wizard’s outstretched hand. He dodges you easily and
then holds his other hand open. You see a bit of wet dirt
there, along with a piece of a lime. He spits out a word you
don’t recognize, and the stuff in his hand vaporizes.
From that moment, you can’t move. You’re frozen so
solid you can’t even breathe. Just as everything goes black,
you hear Halaster laugh.
“Welcome to life as a statue guarding the sanctuary.
Hopefully, you can at least serve as a warning for the next
fools.”

THE END
NG: decide to let Spite test your suspicions for you. As he
reaches into the desk drawer to pick up the spell book,
you step out of the room, just in case.
“Tt’s mine!” Spite says. “Halaster’s precious spell book
is finally all mine.”
There’s a loud WHOOMPF from inside the room that
shakes the walls and knocks the door off one of its hinges.
Despite being braced and ready, you still flinch at the noise.
After waiting for a full five seconds, you peer around
the broken door and into the room. Spite is lying sprawled
across the floor, the spell book in his right hand. Blood trickles
from his nose and ears.
As carefully as you can, you creep into the room, still
on the lookout for traps. If the past few minutes have taught
you anything, it’s that Halaster is incredibly protective of his
valuables, and you don’t want to wind up like Spite.
Despite checking the floor, walls, and ceiling for traps,
you don’t find anything suspicious. If you pick up the spell
book, it might hurt you the way it did Spite, but in your
experience, such spell traps have to be reset first.
It’s probably safe to pick it up.

Turn to page lite

——————
 lease!” you shout as you’re yanked into the air once
again. “You’re my only hope!”
“Then youre out of luck,” Halaster says. “This is
the entrance to Halaster’s*sanctuary, and only the actual
Halaster can enter it safely.”
You bogele at that. “Isn’t that you?”
As you slam into the floor once more, you blink, and
Halaster becomes a humanoid fox-man.
“Tm afraid not. ’'m an arcanaloth who works for
Halaster. I impersonate him so I can run the school, but I’m
not nearly as powerful as the real thing.”
You want to weep in frustration and horror, but the
metal monster takes that moment to kick you in the head.
Knocked senseless, you can’t see straight until you’re hauled
up toward the ceiling again.
“By the gods, no!” you say in a hoarse, beaten voice you
barely recognize as your own. “How long will this go on?”
The fox-man gives you a sympathetic shrug. “Only as
long as youre still breathing.”
You hit the stone floor again and gasp in pain.
“From the look of you, that shouldn’t be too much
longer.”

THE END
W. ait!” you shout at Spite. “That spell book’s mine!”
The boy turns on you, snarling in disbelief. “Are you
insane? After all Pve done to get here and grab this? After
losing Dumara to that iron ‘monster out there? I’m not going
to let you betray me now!’
Your blade appears in your hand. “Speak so much as
one word of a spell, and [ll cut out your tongue,” you warn.
Spite scowls at you and lets an illusion that he’s been
holding up the entire time you’ve known him drop. This
reveals him to be an old man with long white hair swept
back from his wizened face.
“You think you can trifle with me, boy?” Spite —or
whatever his real name might be —says. “I’m not just some
child you can push around. I’m one of the greatest wizards
of this age.”
“Except Halaster,” you say, finally understanding
what the old man has done. “You actually disguised yourself
as a child to sneak in here and steal your rival’s spell book?”
The idea is so funny that you can’t help but smile.
‘The man had to pretend to be a boy to weasel his way into a
school. That doesn’t sound much like the work of a mighty
wizard to you.
“There was no other way!” Spite thunders at you,
bb)

irritated by your reaction. “And you're not going to stop me

now that I’m so close.”
No matter how hilarious you might find his protests,
you’re not going to let him get in your way. You circle around
toward the desk, forcing Spite away from it by brandishing

SS
 the tip of your sword at him. You take the book from him
with your spare hand.
A magical rune flashes before your eyes as you raise
the book to look at it. You don’t have any time to react, but
Spite spots it before you do and manages to throw himself to
the floor.
Triggered by your action, the rune goes off, and there’s
a horrible WHOOMPF noise that blasts you flat onto your
back. You can feel yourself going into shock, the life draining
out of you as Spite pushes himself to his feet, chuckling the
whole time.
“How perfect,” he says, savoring the fact that he’s the
one laughing now. “Halaster’s last trap takes out the one
person who could have stopped me from stealing his spell
book. And now it’s mine!”
You try to stop him from taking the book from you,
but you can’t get your fingers to work. The last thing you
hear is him cackling in triumph as he dashes from the room.

THE END

————_—_—_—_—_—_—_
‘The images in this book were created by Allen Douglas, Andrew Mar, Bryan Syme, Chris
Seaman, Christopher Moeller, Clint Cearley, Conceptopolis, Cynthia Sheppard, Cyril Van
Der Haegen, David Palumbo, David Vargo, Emily Fiegenschuh, Eric Belisle, Ilya Shipkin,
Jason Juta, Jim Pavelec, John Stanko, Kieran Yanner, Kurt Huggins and Zelda Devon,
Michael Berube, Olga Drebas, Scott Murphy, Sidharth Chaturvedi, and Wayne England.

The cover illustrations were created by Cynthia Sheppard, Jesper Ejsing, and Titus Lunter.

q
CANDLEWICK
ENTERTAINMENT

Copyright © 2019 by Wizards of the Coast LLC

Written by Matt Forbeck
Designed by Wendy Bartlett
Edited by Kirsty Walters
Published in the U.K. 2019 by Studio Press Books,
part of Bonnier Books U.K.
All rights reserved.

First US. edition 2019

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2019938948
ISBN 978-1-5362-0924-2 (hardcover) 978-1-5362-0925-9 (paperback)
19 20 21 22 23 24 WKT 10987654321
Printed in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
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You have been tasked with stealing the spell book of Halaster,
the Mad Mage who controls Undermountain. In order to wrestle
it from where it is hidden inside Dweomercore, the secret academy
on level nine, you must navigate your way in by posing as a new
_ student. From there, locate the spell book, steal it, and get away,
"all before the Mad Mage can get Reihis hands on you. ...

A DEADLY HEIST OFKNOWLEDGE!

COLLECT
THEM ALL

<
ra } 3 % 4" y NI
TO_CATCH Ory ESCAPE FROM ESCAPE THE
A THIEF tg TROUBLE CASTLE RAVENLOFT UNDERDARK

In the Forgotten Realms® Endless Quest® books, you don’t jus ~

read a fantastic tale set in the most popular Dungeons & Dragon
world of all time. You become the hero! Answer the call
to adventure, and choose your own fate!
Ages 8-12
0919 U.S. $8.99 / $10.99 CAN
Cover illustrations by Jesper Hjsing, Titus Lunter, ISBN 978-1-5362-0925-9
and Cynthia Sheppard
© by Wizards of the Coast LLC

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