Editing The Third Eye (section)

====Hunt for the Royal Architect====
With the Master Key acquired, and the Chest of Magic Nullification emptied, all that remained was to find the Royal Architect, Nandor Tyk, to learn the location of the hidden tunnel into the palace. They first went to Nandor's apartment and knocked on the door. There was no answer, but an old lady down the hall cracked her door and peeked out. When they asked if she knew Nandor, she said no and slammed the door. Ilara bust down Nandor's door to find his apartment empty. Nothing appeared amiss, but Sylas found a smudge of poop on the floor, like it had been tracked in on a boot. Ililen identified it as being from a large reptilian herbivore, and Isabelle knew that there was only one place in the city that might possibly have such a creature: the Royal Menagerie, which had a pair of triceratops. On their way out they knocked on the old lady's door, but she told them to go away or she would call the guards. When she tried to close the door Sylas stuck his foot in to keep it open, and she made good on her threat and became screaming and yelling for the guards; the group beat a hasty exit and made for the Royal Menagerie.

While normally open to the public, the menagerie was now closed and the gates were chained. While walking there, the group noticed that throughout the city there were more weeds than usual, in places where they should have been removed before getting so big; many of the weeds also looked unnatural and dangerous. Additionally, a great deal of moss and lichen had appeared in the almost perpetual rain. They unlocked the gates of the Royal Menagerie with the Master Key, and noted that there was a lot more algae in the fountain than just a few days of neglect would account for. Then they unlocked the gift shop, where Ilara took a stuffed griffon and left 6 silver on the counter (Leon swiped the money when no one was looking).

At the center of the menagerie was a small lake, with a sign stating it was home to a number of crocodiles, including a big one called Old Gnarly. Looking into the lake, which was starting to overflow from all the rain, they saw it was filled with the mangled bodies of crocodiles and at least one keeper. Sylas spotted the big one swimming under the surface. As they looped around to the triceratops pen, they saw a wooden platform next to the stands; though they would normally be above the lake, they were now partly submerged in it. Attached to the platform was a wooden crane arm with a cage on the end, and a body inside. Trying to get to it, Ilara ended up stepping in not one but two bear traps. Iilen looked for more, and not finding any stepped up on the platform... At which point Old Gnarly burst out of the water, climbed up onto the stands, and said "Are you feed, or do you bring meat?" It was not mollified by Ilara saying "We have mead!"

After killing Old Gnarly, they looked around for more traps. Behind the stands was a dead triceratops, clearly killed by the giant crocodile. Its horns were oddly spiraled, like a unicorn's. They could see the other triceratops, also with spiraled horns, looking at them through a giant hole in the fence around its pen. Since there was another trap in front of the hole, Ilara picked up a stick and safely set it off from a distance. And then the other triceratops teleported across to attack her as thorns burst out of the ground under their feet and a keeper leapt out of the bushes, telling them not to struggle because Old Gnarly liked his meat intact. Ilara knocked the triceratops unconscious, and Ililen did the same to the keeper before tying him up. After they woke him up, he panicked because if he didn't feed Old Gnarly, the crocodile would eat his father. After showing him that Old Gnarly was dead, and rescuing his father from the cage, the keeper had an emotional breakdown at everything he had endured. His father explained that he was the head caretaker of the menagerie, and that after the storm started the animals got... Strange. They started acting smarter, and meaner. And then Old Gnarly started talking. It kept him alive only because he had fed it good cuts of meat, but was also using him as a hostage to get his son to feed it more meat. The group offered to let the keepers escape to safety at the Lucky Leap, but they insisted on staying and caring for the remaining animals as best they could.

Nearby was a set of two cages with iron bars. One was filled with a variety of objects, including a barrel, a trough, a chest, and an armchair, but no animals. The bars in one corner had corroded away, and it was partially flooded by the overflowing lake.  The cage next to it had an inner layer of wooden bars a few feet from the iron ones, and a sign inviting visitors to see "the iron eaters of the Thundering Mountains." On the far side of the cage they could see a dead body wearing underarmor padding, but no armor over it. Ililen walked over to check out the body and saw an enormous rust monster eating the remnants of its armor. It then immediately turned toward and made a beeline for him and his adamantine staff, along with the smaller one behind it. Leon conjured vines to entangle them and kill them from a distance, but Ilara noticed when she shot the big one with a crossbow bolt, it ate the bolt head to heal its wounds, an unusual trait for a rust monster. With the creatures slain, they identified the corpses as members of the Royal Swords and one of the queen's witchservant cultists. Ililen and Sylas checked in the other cage, and the trough opened its mouth and spat adhesive goo at them; they dodged, then killed it, and found the half-eaten body of a keeper clutching a potion labeled "Invisibility - For Emergency Use Only."

Both cages were attached to a small building with sliding metal doors; Ilara opened one, surprised a cultist inside who had barricaded the exterior door, and killed him. Inside was a cage full of rabbits, trays of rotting vegetables and meat, and a crate of iron ingots: food for the various animals of the menagerie. The other cage attached to the feeding shed, which did not have its bars partially rusted away, contained a dirty and very hungry owlbear; Leon threw it a rabbit, which it snapped up immediately.

The next three enclosures were a set of identical rocky bowls surrounded by iron bars. The first had a sign pronouncing it held gricks. Some of the bars were dissolved by acid, and next to a dead grick. The second had a sign that said, "Beware Deathsting! The tail that stings, the claws that catch!" Some of its bars were also dissolved by acid. The third visibly held a pair of griffons. The bars on its enclosure were much higher, supporting a net over the top, and had not yet been dissolved. Looking back into Deathsting's enclosure, they saw a number of canvas bags scattered about in one corner, and when Sylas looked closer he spotted a hatch in the ground designed to blend in with the rock. In fact, having spotted it, he now saw that all three enclosures had such a hatch. That's when Deathsting, a giant scorpion with acid dripping from its jaws, appeared from the bushes and stung Sylas, nearly killing him with its venom before Ilara and Ililen killed it. Ilara, still enraged and having only hit a single thing, jumped down into the grick enclosure to fight them as well.

Once the gricks were dead they entered the trap door, which led to the feeding chambers. They had been taken over by the Uncanny Vagabonds, a traveling band of entertainers and outlaws.After explaining that they were looking for a way to get rid of the queen, the Vagabonds' elder, Taris, admitted that Nandor was his cousin, and was staying with them. He was even willing to let them speak with the architect for only a hundred gold, a price which included everyone involved promising not to tell anyone else about each other. Nandor, who had holed up with the Vagabonds as soon as the trouble started, was happy to furnish them with the location of the hidden tunnel, as well as a map of the palace itself. He told them about an abandoned royal villa, used occasionally when the monarch needed to meet someone in secret, or who they didn't want to allow in the palace. In the wine cellar, one of the large kegs was actually a secret door leading to a staircase down into a hidden tunnel, which connected directly to the royal quarters in the palace. The tunnel contained a gate, however, that featured the most complicated locking mechanism Nandor had ever seen. It wasn't just a physical gate, either; it also included an invisible wall of force. The late king had the key, but Nandor didn't know who held it now and and couldn't promise the queen was unaware of the tunnel, or that it would be unguarded. Still, he conceded it was a better option than the front door.