Hidden House

The Hidden House was an expansive, labyrinthine safehold accessible from Eveningstar.
==Description==
The place was everchanging, and thus forcefully unmapped.
The arrival point from Tessaril's Tower was an eight-walled hall, with dark wooden walls, on which hung oval mirrors that did not reflect the viewer. Tessaril had placed several banners of the Purple Dragon, locked cabinets, and a glowing sword there. A long, dark hallway led out from the room, opposite the portal; a small flight of steps stood between the room and it. The hallway had a distant light on the other end, and numerous illuminated squares along the way, which held paintings of people; one of the paintings was fully covered with some sort of white, filamentous mold, save for two piercing, large dark eyes. The one after that was blank save for a gash, from which inky blackness flowed down to the ground.
During Shandril Shessair's exploration in , the light was a yellow radiance that appeared to have no source, but which filled the other end of the hallway; at its end were three doors made of dark wood. The left door opened into a space too dark to see; the right door opened into what appeared to be a vaulted room full of crates, and the center door opened on what appeared to be the edge of a cliff overlooking a village. The hallway itself changed while she was there, creating the illusion of a solid wall and a lion's statue a few steps away from her, blocking off passage; she confirmed it was an illusion by throwing a coin at it. However, opening the right door a second time, she instead found a marble hall, brilliantly lit, with a ceiling lost in darkness far above; its dimensions were far greater than those of Mourngrym Amcathra's dining hall in Shadowdale. Across the hall from the door, there was a set of stairs leading up to a dais and a dark door. The room, during her exploration, began to generate strange music; when she was near the other end of the room, the end she'd come in through transformed into stone archways lit by torches, with at least four passages heading out at various angles.
The door opened noisily into a low-ceilinged long room in darkness, with a golden sphere inside; the room surrounded people with an eerie, faint purple glow, which revealed the shapes of cabinets and other furniture in the room; the outlines were unclear and seemed to shift. One of the doors opened into a cubicle lit by red light that was full of snakes; upon closing that door, she found other doors that weren't there before. The one she went into had green carpet and a small table; through it she came to another eight-sided room with eight doors, one of which led to a lake, from which she heard an ululating cry. Closing that one caused another to open; she took a different door. The door she took brought her to a long hallway, at the end of which lay a helmed horror, visible in moonlight streaming in from an unknown direction. Another room had a fiery chamber, and yet another was bare, with only a stool and a door across.
From there, she came into a six-sided room, from which one door opened into an arctic scene with a dead orc, which still wielded a black scimitar; something growled there. The next door she tried opened into a room with banners, one of which had a black wyvern on purple silk that had faded almost to pink, and one of which had three crowns on a blue field. Beyond the banners was another door, which led to a featureless hall; across was another door. On entering the hall, the room of banners reverted to cobwebs and dust. That last hallway led back unto Shandril's starting point.
Tessaril also related that there were gowns stored in the place. Mirt mentioned a room with loose bones and open graves. Shandril adopted a room with tapestries. One of those windows could be used for scrying, but defaulted to showing another world entirely, an image of winter in a crossroads with a stone marker that gave the impression of looking back at people who looked at it. Another room had a fireplace.
==Geography==
The Hidden House was reached through a portal on the top level of Tessaril's Tower in Eveningstar, under the building's cupola; the lofty landing room had its portal close to the stairs. Simply crossing its threshold was enough to deposit one in the plane.
There were many portals out of the Hidden House.
==Defenses==
Access was extremely difficult, as opening the portal on the lofty landing room required a special gesture known only to Tessaril; she was to step on a spot, and stroke the inside of her left hand with one of its own fingers, pushing into the skin. Due to a quirk of the Weave, a "slapback" effect local to the room, the portal reflected magic when it was hidden. Even when activated, it took a special sensitivity to magic to be able to coax it into visibility.
Depending on how the door was opened, it opened into different places: it could be opened on its right side, its left side, by pulling, and by pushing, as it had handles on both sides. Only one method reached the Hidden House: three other structures linked to it. One was an unknown building elsewhere in Eveningstar, another was a one-way portal to a small glade in the King's Forest, a short way west of the Way of the Dragon, just south of Waymoot; the arrival point was surrounded by boggy ground, with a game trail leading north to Waymoot. The last location was another one-way portal to the rooftop of a rental-apartment building in western Suzail, in a then seedy district (as of ). War wizards were only aware of the first three portals.
Some creatures there responded to the presence of Vangerdahast, necessitating him to move sneakily. Per Tessaril, some gates in the House led outside Eveningstar, to dangerous places.
Tessaril Winter had the power to prompt some hallways to shift, and to feel intruders throughout the House.
==History==
The Hidden House had been created by Phaeryl, a Netherese sorceress. It was her home, and later became a state secret of Cormyr, though it had since served as all of a hiding place, a hunting ground and the scenario of deadly chases. A Harper warrior and friend of Tessaril's had been the one to discover the entrance, and Tessaril explored the Hidden House together with her back when they were young, but the secret of the entrance was only revealed to Tessaril when she became Lord of Eveningstar. She knew Phaeryl had used the place, but not that she created it.
In late , Tessaril Winter pushed Shandril Shessair, then her guest, into the portal to the Hidden House to protect her from Beliarge, a Zhentarim wizard that attacked her home looking for Shandril. Shandril, while inside, was able to ambush and kill Beliarge personally. She made a small exploration of the Hidden House afterwards, until she came across Torm and Rathan Thentraver, then in pursuit of a malaugrym shapeshifter, Magusta, who was too trying to capture Shandril. She fled from their fight, forewarned by Rathan that the way to safety lay in finding the room with banners. After going through the room with banners, she came to Tessaril, who convinced her it was safest in the hidden house.
Shandril remained at the Hidden House for the rest of her Eveningstar stay. She was visited by Vangerdahast on the last day she spent there.
==Inhabitants==
Per Tessaril Winter, there were ghosts in the place.
==Rumors & Legends==
Per Volothamp Geddarm, the Hidden House was actually a safehold of the Sword Heralds. Per Tessaril Winter, Azuth had created it in some accounts.
The War Wizards of Cormyr deliberately seeded wild rumors about the Hidden House to minimize receptiveness to any information on the subject.
==Appendix==
===Appearances===
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