Editing The Third Eye (section)

====Emporium of Marvelous Rarities====
With the Master Key in hand, their next task was to get the cataclysmic artifact out of their Chest of Magic Nullification. Ricio told them that  The only place they could safely do that was in a hidden cavern accessed via a teleportation circle in the Emporium of Magical Rarities... The same place the chest had been stolen from years earlier, by Ricio Tane's wife. Ricio told how years ago, a beautiful half-elven wizard named Avrathia Silverstar entered the Lucky Leap, and immediately stole his heart. They got married, and were involved in many questionable missions together, before they laid eyes on Master Bertio Ranberd's treasures at his Emporium of Marvelous Rarities, and decided to steal them. Master Ranberd took on a small number of apprentices, who also worked the shop. Avrathia posed as a student and was accepted; she hid her true skill, which was nearly equal to Ranberd's. For a year she studied and worked there, all the while uncovering and reverse-engineering the various protective systems of the vault. Her feigned quick and significant magical progress impressed Master Ranberd, allowing her to get closer to him and his secrets during a number of private lessons. And then, one day, she appeared at the Lucky Leap looking more terrified than Ricio had ever seen her. She thrust the chest at him, along with her notes on the Emporium's security, and explained that she had tried and failed to rob it alone. Not wanting to draw Master Ranberd's ire upon her husband, she kissed him goodbye and fled into the night with magical speed. Though Ricio searched for her, he never found her, and eventually came to believe that Master Ranberd killed her.

He shared his wife's maps and notes with the adventurers. The teleportation circle was in the emporium's inner vault. Both the inner and outer vault doors were keyed, and Ricio Tane had copies of those keys. However, there were four other locks on the vault doors. These locks could only be undone by pressing hidden switches throughout the rest of the building, and would only remain unlocked for ten minutes, so the whole thing would have to be done quickly. On top of that, every window, and the main door, and a number of interior doors, were set with alarm spells that would mentally alert both Master Bertio Ranberd and his apprentices/employees. Also, the main corridors and the stairwell were subject to a permanent warding spell and the entire building was under a permanent private sanctum effect. Fortunately, Avrathia's map showed which doors were alarmed and where the hidden switches were, but getting in and out undetected would still be a challenge. To aid them, he gave them a magical cologne of dispelling. He also warned them about what Avrathia said she had found in the cavern on the other side of the teleportation circle: an enormous crystal whose very presence assaulted her mind with crushing psychic force. She had also told them that Master Ranberd had been there, and was seemingly able to use magic despite the anti-magic field, which she attributed at the time to the green crystal embedded in his forehead.

Sylas's first plan was to strike up a conversation with the person manning the store, invite him out for drinks, and then cast Suggestion on him and get him to lead them to the switches and then the vault. The man was decidedly uninterested, however, especially once it became clear they did not intend to purchase anything, and then became suspicious and asked them to leave. Thus, the group moved on to their second plan: wait until nightfall, then break in and hope they could successfully dispel everything. After dispelling the alarm on the front door, they used the Master Key to unlock it, but encountered what seemed like an invisible metal grate. Casting dispel magic revealed an ordinary, now-visible metal grate. Thinking outside the box, Leon shapeshifted into a spider, crawled through the grate, turned back, and opened it from the inside.

Following the map, they went through the first door, into the lavatory, and triggered the first switch: a single tile on the wall that looked exactly like every other tile but could be pushed in. As they were told, there was no visual or auditory cue that they had triggered anything. The tile just pushed in, and then back out. With the first switch pressed, the ten-minute timer had started. After disarming the door into the main hallway, they successfully dispelled the warding effect on the corridor. The next switch was through the lecture hall, where they encountered an apprentice cleaning up. Sylas cast his Suggestion spell, but when the apprentice was unaffected Ilara elected to bash her over the head instead. After hiding the unconscious apprentice under a desk, Ililen used his own firbolg magic to disguise himself as her. They then passed into the alchemical lab in the next room, where an innocuous-looking valve could be turned to activate the second switch.

With both switches on the ground floor triggered, they hurried upstairs. Ililen took the lead and entered the library, only to find Master Bertio Ranberd was sitting in a chair, reading. He looked up and said, "Ah, Enixea, what of the intruders?" Unfortunately, Ililen realized that while he looked like Enixea, he didn't sound like Enixea, and when he spoke Ranberd immediately realized what had happened. Ranberd started to call him out on the deception, so Ililen rushed him with his quarterstaff, but the wizard simply teleported away. Realizing they'd been made, they quickly triggered the next switch by setting the hands on a painted clocktower in the library and hurried on. They dispelled the alarm on the next door, and opened it to find Master Ranberd's bedroom. Ililen stepped in, and set off a magical glyph that he hadn't seen, placing him under Ranberd's magical telepathic control. The master wizard asked what Ililen was doing in the Emporium, so Ililen explained that they needed to use the teleportation circle in the basement to safely deposit a dangerous artifact in the vault. When Ranberd asked how the monk even knew about the teleportation circle in the first place, Ililen related the entire story given by Ricio Tane. Ranberd thanked Ililen for the information and told the monk to walk out to the balcony.

Meanwhile, Ililien's companions watched him into the room, suddenly go still, and then start walking towards the balcony door, which they knew to be alarmed. Ilara grabbed him and held on until the dominating magic wore off, while Sylas dispelled, unlocked, and opened the secret door leading to a hidden room with the final switch. Inside that hidden room they found a table with vials of blood and preserved female body parts. And, sitting in a chair at the far end, a woman in a red and yellow dress with a patchwork face. She looked up, expressed surprise at having visitors, and quite earnestly asked who they were and what they were doing. Sylas again attempted a Suggestion spell, and when it failed she frowned and asked what spell he tried to cast, as it must be one she didn't know. Since she seemed friendly, Leon told her, and then asked who she was. She said her name was Avra, and that Master Ranberd had created her, but reminded Sylas that she asked first and he hadn't answered. Sylas apologized and introduced himself and his friends, explaining that they had to dispose of a dangerous magic item. She accepted this answer, and they asked if she could come with them; she'd never been outside Master Ranberd's room before, and was curious to see what else there was. After rotating the wall sconce to trigger the final lock, they rushed downstairs with Avra, who kept gazing in wonder at everything they passed along the way.

Below the Emporium, at the vault's antechamber, they were confronted by another apprentice and an animated suit of armor with a finely-crafted greatsword. Unfortunately, Ililen triggered a second unseen warding glyph and found himself trapped in a magical sphere of force. Isabelle immediately dispelled it but the apprentice, already on alert when he saw the warding magic vanish from the stairs, attacked along with the animated armor. Ililen quickly knocked him out with his staff, then joined Ilara in dispatching the armor; the barbarian took up its sword as Sylas opened the door to the outer vault. The vault was filled with books, potions, and scrolls, and while Sylas rushed to open the inner vault door Leon tried to snag some. When he found they were held in place by magic, he regrettably left them behind, knowing they had little time. The inner vault was filled with much more valuable magic items, but suspecting they were likewise held firm they hurried past them and into the teleportation circle.

The Third Eye appeared in a cavern containing several large iron chests and a very large green crystal formation. Standing in front of the crystals was Master Bertio Ranberd, who looked at them, almost curiously, before Isabelle and Sylas immediately grabbed their heads, screamed, and collapsed. As Ilara grabbed their bodies and dove back through the teleportation circle with Avra, Leon quickly opened the Chest of Magic Nullifcation, removed the demonic idol, and hurled it into the cave. Ililen meanwhile, throw a dart at Master Ranberd. The wizard easily dodged it, and then transformed into a massive feathered serpent shortly before Ililen and Leon, too, were dropped by the crystal's mind-crushing aura. While Avra began to freak out over what she had seen in the cave, and how terrible it had felt in her mind, and what Master Ranberd was even doing in such, a place, Ilara downed a healing potion and then charged back in to retrieve Ililen and Leon. Reviving her companions with enchanted berries provided by Leon for emergencies, they managed to calm Avra down enough to flee, escaping down the street and disappearing around the corner just as they heard the city watch arriving from the other direction. When told about Ranberd turning into a feathered serpent, Isabelle recognized it as a couatl, a magical creature often found guarding powerful magic items.

Victorious, but thoroughly spent from their harrowing ordeal with the crystal, they staggered back into the Lucky Leap. Ricio began welcoming back, but stopped when he saw Avra, his eyes widening as one word escaped his lips: "Avrathia?" Avra replied, somewhat cheerfully, that Avrathia was who Master Ranberd created her to look like. As Ricio began to freak out a bit himself, the adventurers decided to go to sleep and let him deal with this himself. Avrathia told Ricio what Ranberd had told her: that the wizard had caught up with Avrathia only a few days after she fled into the night, whereupon he promptly disintegrated her. However, he soon began to feel guilty about it, having fallen in love with the woman he felt had been his intellectual equal. And so he created a flesh golem in her image, named her Avra, and eventually began teaching her magic. Periodically he would bring new parts to "improve" her, though she was unaware of where he obtained them. Having never known anything else she believed Ranberd to be a kind man who cared for her, but after what she had seen and heard that night, she was beginning to have doubts. Though she was not truly his wife, Ricio still invited her to stay at the Lucky Leap, an offer she accepted.