The Fey Mansion is an optional, non-repeatable dungeon available later in the game. To unlock the dungeon the player must first have talked to Vini in the Library and three Cores stolen by Yoshida. After this, Vini will appear in the Cafeteria. Speak to her there and it is shown that she has been feeling unwell since she recently blacked out at the Harpy Peak. Poke around in the caves of Harpy Peak, and in the northwest corner of one of them that was formerly a dead end you will find a Fairy who mentions having recently met Vini. An entrance will appear to the Fey Mansion through which she leaves. Be sure you are ready before entering as you cannot leave to return later.
IMPORTANT WARNING: Make sure that you create and keep a save file prior to entering the Fey Mansion. Once inside the mansion, the door will close behind you so you must defeat the final boss to leave, as any losses will result in a bad end. As an optional dungeon the boss is also incredibly difficult, and can be made even more so by decisions taken within the dungeon. Thus if you are not prepared for the fight against the boss, or cripple yourself too badly inside the dungeon, it is possible to lock yourself in here if you save inside and overwrite your only save file.
Layout
The Fey Mansion is divided into four floors and a mountain peak where the boss awaits. There are two different ways to navigate your way through each floor.
The most direct and obvious way of advancing through the floors is talking to the butlers present on each floor. Each of the butlers will say that the Cutie Knights are not yet sufficiently dressed to meet with their Lady and offer you an accessory for this purpose. If you accept a given offer, the party will get to move to the next floor, but the offered accessory will also show its cursed properties, a variety of drastic penalties.
The slower but far more preferable method of making your way through the mansion is to find the secret passage on each floor. Every floor contains a puzzle that can be solved, allowing access to a hidden stairwell that allows the party to bypass the floor's butler and therefore the cursed item. Without taking on cursed items and their penalties, it is far easier to defeat the boss of this dungeon.
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Random Editor's Notes: I lack the expertise and eloquence to properly edit this page, but I will give a pre-5.0 alpha-d update:
The butlers have been rearranged so now floor 1 is the weapons-removing bracelets, floor 2 is necklaces which remove the ability to wear necklaces (no longer cores), floor 3 removes both panties and also cores at the same time (guess if you want those special panties afterwards you need to fight without both panties and cores), and floor 4 is the high heels which debuff the party.
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First Floor
The most obvious feature of this first floor is the abundance of chests here. As you open them though, it also immediately becomes clear that the vast majority of them are filled with literal Garbage. However, a single one of these eleven chests actually contains a Key Item, the Ice Mallet. Unfortunately, the chests on this floor are randomised, so the mallet could be located in any one of them. Keep opening them until you find it.
This floor, and the two following, have a variety of paintings that can be examined for dialogues, potentially shedding some lights on the inhabitants of the mansion. The name "Anathema" comes up several times, always in paintings featuring a red-headed, pale-skinned woman in a variety of dresses and situations. Other paintings tend to revolve around fey culture, such as using corgis as war hounds.
The secret passage for this floor is actually quite straightforward compared to the later floors. The Ice Mallet is not actually used here but later on. Go to the northeastern room and interact with the middle mirror to reveal the passage.
If you choose not to use the secret passage, the Butler will grant the party a set of heeled crystal shoes that transform until the heels become unreasonably high. This gives all party members a penalty of -30 AGI (-15 AGI for Eric(a) if they have any level of the High Heels Transformation.)
Second Floor
The second floor also features a number of chests spread around. This time they are simply normal chests and unrelated to any secrets; feel free to loot them first.
The secret passage of this floor is hidden behind a fairly visible puzzle featured on the east side of the middle area, consisting of a set of torches with three toggleable flame colours. The hint for this puzzle is the equally obvious set of pillows laid out in the same layout on the west side of this area that sport the same colours. The solution to the puzzle is to reflect the colours of the pillows with the torches. That is to say, mirrored along the vertical axis and not merely copied over directly. The left column from top to bottom should be: purple, blue, and green. The right column from top to bottom should be: blue, green, and purple. Once the puzzle is set correctly you should be able to proceed into the secret passageway through the portrait directly north of the torches.
If you choose not to use the secret passage, the Butler here will grant the party a set of ornate jeweled necklaces that transform into heavy golden collars. These collars will seal the use of the Core slot and give a -20 MAT penalty to all party members.
Third Floor
The third floor has a slightly more complicated layout than the former two. Three rooms are connected to each other in a circular fashion alongside a small corridor, and various smaller rooms are adjacent in some manner to any one of them. As with the former two, the paintings can be interacted with; one in particular is actually a trap involving 6 fey slaves (4 Fey Heralds, as well as a Fey Battle Thrall and Fey Hex Bearer each) which the Cutie Knights cannot escape from. Beating them resolves the issue, but losing causes the Fey Hound Game Over as with any regular encounter in this dungeon.
If entered by secret passage from the second floor, one would first be in the northwestern room with two bookshelves, otherwise in a mostly empty room closer to the middle. Going west into the corridor and then south leads to an indoor fountain where the Cutie Knights can fill a bottle with Icy Water. In the western-most annex is a chest containing Shadow-thread Gloves.
To advance, one can talk to the butler in the northern-most section. This one offers collection of bracelets which turn into cursed manacles - wearing these prevents the Cutie Knights from holding weapons or using any form of basic attack at all. Alternatively, in the eastern wing is a fireplace with a bizarrely cold flame. Pouring the Icy Water into the fire freezes it into a large ice column, which in turn can be smashed to pieces with the Ice Mallet from the first floor. Caution though, using the Ice Mallet first simply melts it. The correct use of the mallet accidentally destroys a part of the fireplace, revealing a hidden button which opens the final secret passage.
Inside this passage is another chest, but this one does not offer any treasure for once. Rather, it contains a variety of rejected paintings in various states of completeness and damage; presumably Anathema did not appreciate them. One is even completely burned out, only the frame remaining.
Fourth Floor
The final floor is a very strange one because the room actually loops around. Coming from the regular door or the secret passage does not make much of a difference though. The hallways are fairly small and crawling with enemies, so being extra careful when moving is recommended.
The only item to be gained in this area is the Illusionary Dagger, a key item needed to kill the (also illusionary) butler to proceed as part of this floor's puzzle. However, to even be able to grab it, one of the Cutie Knights needs to equip the Shadow-thread Gloves. Using Eric(a) is recommended because they need to wear the gloves anyway later to be able to use the dagger on the butler. Note that this changes the equipment of both them and Veronica due to the following scene. Otherwise, as with the other floors it is possible to accept the butler's gift - cursed panties that transform into chastity belts - to proceed. They cause all TP gain to be halved in addition to blocking the accessories slot and a significant -10 stat debuff to all stats for everyone except Natalie who "only" receives -5 to her stats. Interestingly, they are also the only one of the four curses that can have a benefit: if the Cursed Fairy Panties are worn while the boss is defeated, Natalie actually keeps hers, now called Demongirl's First. Stat-wise they are not a complete downgrade anymore, but remain a double-edged sword.
Peak
No matter which path the Cutie Knights took, eventually they should arrive here. For some reason it is already night outside, prompting Alice to declare that there's no point to think about logic in this place. Soon enough a woman's voice calls the party to come toward her and after a quick back and forth, she reveals herself to be Anathema IV, an Unseelie fairy princess. She was the one who started changing Vini. She also reveals that she and her followers consider the current situation of fey folk and mortals cooperating to be aberrant, yearning for the old days when the former extorted and terrorised the latter for the sake of amusement.
If the Cutie Knights accepted all four cursed fairy gifts, Princess Anathema notes that they cannot possibly win against her in a straight fight. As such, she instead offers a deal, a game so to say where Eric(a) has to find a key for the way out. Naturally, this is a trap and promptly leads to the Perverted Flower Game Over. Fighting her instead is the correct answer, but the fight itself is one of the hardest in the game due to Princess Anathema being very powerful on her own as well as able to raise any defeated Cutie Knight - as a fairy on her side. Losing this battle results in the Fairy Princess Servants Game Over, in which the Cutie Knights swear eternal loyalty to Princess Anathema. Winning, on the other hand, has her backed into a corner and unable to do anything but follow the demands of the victorious Cutie Knights. Veronica proceeds to ransom a couple potentially-useful equipment as well as having Anathema task one of her servants to get Vini cured. Afterward, she is let go, hopefully to never be seen again.
It is then possible to examine the area a little, although it does not contain many things of note. If Eric(a) has the Cutie Magic Transformation, a power cloud will be visible in the mushroom ring Anathema and her entourage used to leave. On the other side of the peak is a large table with a fairy banquet. One of the items, a skull, oddly sticks out; this is actually Cool'man's Skull, a unique and much stronger variant of the Haunted Skull.
Once everything has been collected, it is finally possible to leave via a magical archway, the Cutie Knights happy to have won against such a powerful and nefarious opponent. Talking to Vini after this has her safe and sound once more, happy and thankful for all the help Eric(a) and co provided.
Enemies
- Fey Herald, can be turned into:
- Nightcaller
- Winter Sprite
- Princess Anathema IV
- Boss enemy. Not a Magico.
- Any party member that is defeated during this battle will be taken over by the unseelie and raised to fight on Princess Anathema's side. The resulting possible enemies are:
- Losing results in the Fairy Princess Servants Game Over.
- Winning provides the Silver Mace, Golden Circlet, and Pixie Choker in the after-battle cutscene.
Treasure
First Floor
- Garbage? x10 - Ten of the chests in the room at random.
- Ice Mallet - One of the chests in the room at random.
Secret Stairwell between First and Second Floors
Second Floor
- 800 lumes - Chest on the east side of the lower area.
- 800 lumes - Chest on the west side of the lower area.
- Lume Elixir - Chest in the northeast corner.
- Lume Elixir - Chest in the northwest corner.
- Night-thread Corset - Chest on the south end of the middle area.
- Seal of Focus - Chest on the east side of the middle area.
- Seal of Focus - Chest on the west side of the middle area.
Secret Stairwell between Second and Third Floors
Third Floor
- 750 lumes - Chest in the southeast room
- Cracked Mana Orb - Left chest in the northwest room
- Fairy's Nectar - Right chest in the southmost room.
- Ghostly Residue - Left chest in the southmost room.
- Icy Water - Gathered from the fountain in the southmost room.
- Shadow-thread Gloves - Chest in the southwest room.
- Siren's Feather - Right chest in the northwest room.
Fourth Floor
- Illusionary Dagger - Sparkling item on a table between two suits of armour. The Shadow-thread Gloves must be equipped to a party member to get this item.
Peak
- Cool'man's Skull - On the table.