What was once a one-off cool artifact to generate a contained dungeon crawl has now turned into an honest-to-Ioun key plot item with much wider ramifications for the Mighty Nein’s adventures. As is our typical M.O., we’ve compiled a summary of everything we know about the Heirloom Sphere and its creator, Halas, along with a compendium of quotes about them.
The Age of Arcanum came about after the gods taught their followers arcane magic that pulled from the creation of the universe, rather than from their divine power. Emboldened by their new power and independence, some arcanists rejected the gods, seeing arcane magic as proof that the gods were irrelevant. These mortals pushed the boundaries of magic, and some attempted to master the magic to control the spark of life and the continuation of it.
Halas was such a mage that pushed the boundaries of what was possible during the Age of Arcanum. According to Yussa, his exploits were well documented, though he disappeared some time ago. His young blue dragon within the sphere said that it had been an “age” since he had seen Halas, and this was within the time-dilation of the sphere, so who knows how long it has been on the Material Plane (at least 800-ish years). Yussa intimated that Halas wasn’t exactly a good person, though the morality lines get a little blurred when you reach a certain level of arcane practice.
At some point, Halas created his Folding Halls and created a special key called the Heirloom Sphere, whose ever-changing clockwork puzzles serve as the key to entering the Halls. The Sphere has also been not-so-lovingly nicknamed the Archmage Bane for its abilities to confound his assumed competition that would seek to rob him or learn the secrets contained within it.
A man named Sir Cadigan imprisoned Twiggy and kept her locked away in the dark for a long time, and would stick his hands (with his noticeable green ring) through the bars to scare her. She managed to escape by using her Arcane Trickster magic. At some time after this, Twiggy was in Port Damali and noticed that Sir Cadigan was interested in the Heirloom Sphere, so she stole it and went on the run. She nicknamed it the Happy Fun Ball and had discovered its ability to release gold by the time she ran into the Mighty Nein.
It’s unclear exactly where Twiggy found the sphere (beyond simply Port Damali), though it is possible it was the Exalted Collection Auction House. It’s also unclear how exactly the Heirloom Sphere found its way to that pedestal with a card in front of it, and whether or not Sir Cadigan knew exactly what he was looking at.
Between Yussa, Twiggy, Allura, and the Mighty Nein, we’ve learned a fair bit about the Heirloom Sphere and the Folding Halls of Halas. The Halls have a hundred or so rooms in its extraplanar space, including two entrance chambers: the tapestry room they entered the first time, and the room the Nein entered this time with two doors and the weird tree/golem statues on the ceiling. There is also a study, a dining hall, guest quarters, a tower, a jungle, crystal mines, a dragon lair, golem workshop, fleshmending facility, dreadnought, carving farm (?!), a prison of soot (?!?!), a heart study, and permaheart chamber. Each room serves an actual purpose, but is also filled with traps laid by Halas in anticipation of someone trying to safely get through the rooms (archmages are a paranoid bunch). The passageways between rooms aren’t like hallways; they function akin to mini teleportation circles.
The Nein’s first journey through the sphere was fairly rushed due to Fjord’s desire to press shiny red buttons (and a young blue dragon), but presumably they missed several doors along their route that Yussa later discovered. The Nein themselves discovered a door back into the study after defeating the froghemoth protecting the jungle garden, so there seem to be many different routes to get to any one of the hundred rooms within the Halls.
The second time that the Mighty Nein visited Yussa, they mentioned the Laughing Hand, and Yussa agreed to research it. From Beau’s natural 20 investigation check, we know he was particularly interested in the permaheart chamber, but we don’t know why. It’s possible he recognized that the heart could be used to combat the danger the Laughing Hand represents, or he decided it was a powerful enough artifact that he wanted it. In his own words, “at a certain level of arcane practitioning, morality becomes a bit ambiguous.” From what we’ve seen of Yussa, he’s certainly a powerful enough caster to where this might apply. The fact that he’s seemingly friendly with Allura is a point in his favor, but he’s tempted enough by power to willingly tamper with something called The Archmage’s Bane, so we’ll have to wait and see.
We also don’t know exactly what he’s gotten himself into. We do know he’s alive, because Jester’s Sending connected, but he was seemingly unable to answer her, which would seem to imply he is very seriously incapacitated. Allura mentioned that, as the sphere’s less-friendly nickname implies, many of the Halls’ defenses are specifically designed to counter powerful spellcasters. As a group of primarily spellcasters (though only two arcane casters), the Nein should tread carefully.
