In "No Tears Over Spilled Coffee," the players' characters are new hires at Strixhaven University's famed Firejolt Café. When their manager suddenly grows ill, it's up to the party to keep the business running! This free D&D adventure is intended for a group of three to four 1st-level characters. It can be completed in about two hours and includes a free map from Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos!

Adventure summary

The adventure takes place over the course of the characters' first day of work at the Firejolt Café. Their manager, Ellina Tanglewood, scheduled the group for training but quickly falls ill. She trusts the characters to work together to run the café as she recovers.

Player objectives

• Clean the coffee machine.
• Successfully fulfill drink orders during the morning rush.
• Save customers from the monster hidden in the newsstand.
• Work together to complete a complex drink order.

Character creation

In this adventure, the players act as 1st-level characters attending Strixhaven University. They are first-year students beginning their first day of work at the Firejolt Café.

Choose a job position

Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos offers mechanics for extracurricular activities and jobs. Characters working at the Firejolt Café can choose from the following positions: barista, cashier, cleanup crew member, and server. Holding a job offers two key benefits to characters:

• A weekly wage of 5 gp
• Improve or damage a relationship with one NPC they regularly work with

As this adventure takes place over the course of a single day, you may reward the characters with 1 gp in wages plus tips at the end of the workday. If you plan to run the adventures found in Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos, keep tabs on how the characters interact with NPCs. Relationships are an important element in the book.

Adventure start

The Firejolt Café is a hot spot of activity on Strixhaven campus, particularly for first-year students. If you're not studying in the Biblioplex next door, you're likely here poring over tomes at its study tables or dozing off in the lounge. Well-lit, clean, and with no bounds on the selection of coffee and tea beverages offered, the café draws in customers at every time of day.

For your first day of work, your manager, a female elf named Ellina Tanglewood, has asked you to come before opening to the Firejolt Café. The sun is just rising over Strixhaven University when she unlocks the front doors for you.

Ellina Tanglewood is a sprightly elven woman in a bright uniform adorned with colorful pins. By the time the characters arrive, she has drunk two coffees and is bouncing with energy. She plans to train the new hires all at once, as her regular rotation of employees has taken the week off of work for a surprise expedition held by Lorehold College. Unfortunately, Ellina has come down with a cold and will soon rely on her new hires to keep the Firejolt Café running for the day.

"Good morning, my fiery recruits! My name's Ellina, I oversee the Firejolt Café. This prestidigous establishment is hands-down the most important building on campus, and it is paramount it runs as well as an infernal warmachine tearing its way through the Nine Hells! We've got a lot to cover this morning, so I hope you got a good night's rest! Now before we jump in, I've got to gather materials for the morning rush! In the meantime, introduce yourselves — we are a family, after all!"

As the characters get to know one another, Ellina prepares the barista station (see area F3). She discovers that the closing shift didn't do much cleaning the night before and hurries to tidy up. As she does, she begins to cough and sneeze.

When the characters finish their introductions, read the below:

Over the following 10 minutes, Ellina enthusastically walks you through the basics of making coffee and tea, assuring you that most customers' orders are simple. She hands you the Firejolt Café Employees' Handbook and walks you through basic safety instructions. As she does, you notice her movements growing sluggish and she coughs and sneezes more and more often.

The Firejolt Café Employees' Handbook is a trove of knowledge for the new baristas. It contains coffee and tea recipes, safety protocols, and general instructions for running the café. A character who spends 1 minute consulting the handbook gains a 1d4 bonus to ability checks made to complete a task while at work.

By the end of the safety training, Ellina is leaning heavily on a counter and struggling to stay awake. A DC 8 Wisdom (Medicine) check reveals that Ellina is battling the common cold and needs rest to recover. Ellina is unwilling to close the Firejolt Café as exams are approaching and students need a place to study and relax. If the characters suggest she sit on the sidelines for the day, she argues against it even as she retires to the seating area (see area F2). Otherwise, Ellina continues her training for another 10 minutes before giving up and falling asleep on the floor in the employee break area found at the barista station (see area F3).

When Ellina finally gives up on work, she leaves with a parting speech:

Before nodding off, Ellina has one last burst of energy. "My fiery recruits, I'm going down, and I'm going down fast. I NEED you to drive this ship. It's going to be choppy waters, but you must see that the coffee machine is cleaned and ready, and that the students and faculty are content! Without the Firejolt Café, there is no Strixhaven. WE MUST FIGHT TO PRESERVE IT."

With a cough and a sneeze, Ellina drops her head and dozes off.

Ellina will remain asleep through the rest of the adventure. If awakened, the elf offers little help but reminds the characters that the Firejolt Café Employees' Handbook has everything they need to survive the workday. 

Firejolt Café

The Firejolt Café gets its name from Ellina's trademark beverage, though most customers know the café for the animated artwork decorating its interior walls. Among the best-known scenes are a joyful frog sporting a wizard's hat and stirring a cauldron, and a dancing group of three cheery-faced lightning bolts.

Whether customers want a quiet place to study, somewhere to catch up with friends, or even just grab the latest copy of the magazine Spells and Caster, the Firejolt Café is the best spot on campus for it — or at least that's when Ellina says.

Features

• Ceilings. The café's ceilings are 20 feet high.
• Doors. At night, each of the café's exterior doors is protected by an arcane lock spell. Picking the lock on any of the exterior doors requires a successful DC 25 Dexterity check using thieves' tools (DC 35 while the arcane lock is in effect). Ellina Tanglewood and choice other faculty members know the arcane lock's password.
• Wall Decor. Cartoonish scenes crafted from illusion magic play out along the walls.
• Magic Steps. The café's steps can move and change shape to provide full accessibility to customers.
• Customers. Faculty and students of all ages and years visit the café, but it is most popular among first-year students. 

View Player Version

F1. Study tables

Magical steps lead up to two tiers of long benches that overlook the seating area. The benches are magical and are warm during the colder months and cooler during the hotter months. The closing shift failed to clean up this area, so tables are littered with discarded notes, used cups, and other trash.

On a typical day, roughly 30 students can be found studying in this area.

F2. Seating Area

This area of the Firejolt Café is populated by large tables and chairs and is commonly used by folks looking to socialize. The surface of each table is enchanted with illusion magic to display animated battles between the colleges' mascots. Although this area is tidier than the study tables, cleaning supplies has been left out from the previous shift.

Characters can expect to find about 50 students in the seating area during regular hours. When the queue to make a drink order gets long, customers will form a line down the center of this area.

F3. Barista station

The barista station is your battlefield. The front counter has a magical tip jar that tracks the amount of money in it. Here, the cashier will take drink orders from customers. The back counter is stacked with magical equipment that helps baristas prepare drinks.

Saloon doors on either side of the back counter lead to a small break room for employees and has shelves with café and cleaning supplies.

The café sells cups of coffee and tea for 1 cp. More complicated orders might cost 2 cp. The café's signature drink, the firejolt latte, costs a whopping 10 gp but confers resistance to fire for 1 minute after drinking it. A firejolt latte can typically only be brewed by Ellina using her fire magic, but a character who has access to café supplies and succeeds on a DC 15 Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check can replicate the beverage, though it does not provide resistance to fire.

F4. Newsstand

A small store on the northwestern part of the Firejolt Café sells magazines, knicknacks, and other such items. The magazines here are all magic-themed, with popular titles including Mages Monthly to Potions! Potions! Potions! and Spells and Caster. 

Characters working in the café will need to take turns working in this area. During busier hours, the newsstand will close as staff must work together to keep pace with drink orders. Most items here cost 1 cp, though prices may be higher for higher-end items. For ideas on in-stock items, roll on the trinkets table found in the basic rules.

On a typical day, one to two customers can be found perusing items in the newsstand at a time.

F5. Fireside lounge

Sofas, armchairs, and a series of fireplaces make this lounge a comfortable spot. Customers can be found here reading magazines, napping, or just watching the flames. The table near the center of the room is often occupied by upperclassmen poring over high-level spell scrolls and other advanced magic.

The fireplaces can be found in the northern corners of the area and are lit by continual flame spells. Roughly 20 students can be found here on a typical day.  

F6. Quiet room

A magical field dampens sound in each of these rooms, making them ideal for students looking to focus on their studies. You can often find students working on group projects here.

While in one of these rooms, a creature that speaks at a normal volume sounds as though they are whispering. Each room can be reserved for up to 10 students at the barista station (see area F3). 

Clean up, clean up!

With Ellina asleep, the characters must work quickly to prepare the Firejolt Café for customers. Although various areas of the café are dirty — the night shift having shirked their duties — the coffee machine is the only real priority. If left dirty, it will produce bad-tasting coffee, and customers will ask for drinks to be remade and refuse to leave tips.

Mephits in the machine. Cleaning the coffee machine requires that it be opened and either have prestidigitation cast inside of it or that a character spend 1d4 minutes using cleaning supplies on it. When the coffee machine is opened,  two magma mephits can be found feasting on the previous night's coffee. Disturbed in the middle of their caffeine binge, the magma mephits attack.

 When the magma mephits have been destroyed, the coffee machine can be cleaned in time for the day's first customers.

The morning rush

A dozen customers enter the Firejolt Café and line up in front of the barista station (see area F3) to place drink orders and make other requests. In addition to making and serving drinks, the characters will need to complete other tasks around the café, such as cleaning up the trash found on the study tables (see area F1).

Consult the table below for ideas on skill checks the characters will need to make to survive the morning rush:

The standard DC for a task is 8 but increases based on complexity. When a character successfully completes a task on the first try, they might earn a tip (usually 1 to 2 cp). Failure to complete a task on the first try can result in lost tips, annoyed customers, or create hazards around the Firejolt Café.

Breaking news. As the morning rush winds down, screams can be heard from the newsstand (see area F4). A gnome Silverquill student was riffling through a magazine before discovering it was a sleeping adolescent mimic in disguise. Cranky at being woken up, the mimic attacked the gnome, knocking them unconscious, and is now attacking other customers.

The mimic is Small, has 29 hit points, and continues attacking customers until it is reduced to 5 hit points or less, at which point it flees. The mimic can alternatively be subdued with a lullaby requiring a successful DC 13 Charisma (Performance) check.

An impossible drink order

Unbeknownst to the characters, Ellina's least favorite customer arrives at the Firejolt Café each day in the late afternoon. The pompous first-year Prismari student, named Quentillius Antiphiun Melentor III, enters with a flourish and puts in a challenging drink order:

Throwing open the doors of the Firejolt Café is a red-haired first-year student with a perfect jawline and sapphire-blue eyes. His Prismari uniform is tailored and cinched, and his coattails dance with each step. He saunters over to the front counter of the barista station and makes his drink order: "I'll have my usual. You know, a large cold-whipped half half-and-half, half warm milk, double-shot longstrider with a low-fat caramel glaze, three pumps vanilla-banana cream, iced but warm, in a medium cup with extra room." 

Quentillius knows that the concoction costs 15 gp and is happy to flaunt his fat coin purse. The characters can charge as much as 20 gp with a successful DC 11 Charisma (Deception) check, but Quentillius will seek out Ellina and complain to her if he suspects that he's being swindled.

All hands on deck. The characters will need to work together to successfully create the drink. To complete the task, the party must succeed on at least three of the following five skill checks. The DC for any given skill check is 11. A character with proficiency in brewer's supplies can add their proficiency bonus to a roll.

• Project manager: Wisdom (Perception)
• Ingredient measurer: Dexterity (Sleight of Hand)
• Foam artist: Charisma (Performance)
• Taste-tester: Intelligence (Investigation)
• Cleaner-upper: Dexterity (Acrobatics)

If the characters succeed, Quentillius will tip each of them 1 gp. On a failure, he takes one sip of the drink before throwing it in the trash and refuses to leave a tip. Quentillius doesn't permit a redo, explaining that he's already late to his History of Magic and Art class.

Closing time

After Quentillius leaves the Firejolt Café, the rest of the day passes without issue. By closing time, Ellina has woken up and is feeling better:

Ellina emerges with a stuffy nose but appears to be her usual energetic self. "A success! A success! Was it a success? Nevermind that, I'm sure you've done everything in your power to save the day. And saved it, you did! As thanks, I'll double the tips you made and, hey, if you want to leave early, I'll handle cleaning up around here and locking up. It's the least I can do!"

Ellina proceeds to rush around the Firejolt Café, tying up any loose ends and kindly but assertively getting customers out the door. The characters are free to make themselves beverages before departing the Firejolt Café.

In the proceeding days, their fellow students act differently based on how well the party performed during the workday.

A fiery success. If the characters did well on their first day at work, fellow students and faculty recognize them around campus and compliment them on their work. If the characters' adventures will continue, consider giving your players inspiration as a reward.

A cold brew failure. If the characters failed at their tasks, Ellina fires the crew and they hear rumors that service at the Firejolt Café has tanked recently. If the characters' adventures continue, Ellina is uncomfortable being seen around the characters, believing them to be bad for business. 

Michael Galvis (@michaelgalvis) is a tabletop content producer for D&D Beyond. He is a longtime Dungeon Master who enjoys horror films and all things fantasy and sci-fi. When he isn’t in the DM’s seat or rolling dice as his anxious halfling sorcerer, he’s playing League of Legends and Magic: The Gathering with his husband. They live together in Los Angeles with their adorable dog, Quentin.