Editing The Third Eye (section)

====Under the Shadowdome====
Over the course of the next week, it became clear that the shadowdome formed a solid barrier through which no living being could pass. Various magics confirmed that it existed in all coterminous planes, and could neither be dispelled nor bypassed with teleportation magic. Further testing revealed that the dome's source was somewhere within the [[Shadowfell]]. During this time, the High Speaker explicitly named each member of the party, except Avra, as an enemy of the crown, wanted for stealing from the royal palace, with a reward of 1000g for information or 2000g for each of their heads. As detailed descriptions of them had been circulated as well, they spent most of their time hiding out in the Royal Menagerie with the Uncanny Vagabonds. And, despite a great number of attempts, had failed at destroying the crown. Until, finally, Elder Taris came to them with a plan. He had a contact inside the palace, who said that in the morning, the Queen would open a hole in the shadowdome to allow a group of soldiers to leave the city. The contact also sent along Royal Sword uniforms and false papers designating them as new recruits. Taris asked only that they take with them his cousin Gren - who the Vagabonds believed to be the bastard son of the late King Waldrann - who would make contact with their allies outside the city.

They seized on the opportunity, and the next morning they went to the Crown Gate in disguise. The guard captain chewed them out for being late, then ordered them into an armored troop carriage with a number of other soldiers. Soon after they boarded, Queen Aphinah arrived on a palanquin, seemingly wearing the very crown they had stolen. She announced that she had come to see off the brave soldiers of Hargram on their journey...

...Which would end right now. She cackled as the transport doors slammed shut, and moments later a cloud of necrotic gas appeared within, causing all of the soldiers with them to die and promptly rise again as zombies. Isabelle, Leon, and Sylas all teleported out to the nearby rooftops, where they were met with attacks from archers on the ramparts and the witchservant cultists surrounding the queen. Meanwhile, half a dozen guards and a pair of werehellhounds waited in the street in case the others broke down the door, which Ililen and Ilara eventually did.  After Isabelle hurled a fireball at Aphinah, she teleported away, displaying spellcasting abilities they'd never known her to have in the past. Leon summoned a herd of draft horses to provide cover, and after a long battle they eventually made their escape.

As they ran down an alleyway, a man stepped out of the shadows and into their path, wearing a fine silk robe with one shoulder bared to display a large tattoo of a tiger. He introduced himself as Samsadur, leader of the Golden Masks, emphasizing that he hoped his identity would lend weight to his words. He explained that he had the ability to send them into the Shadowfell to bring down the shadowdome, and then bring them back afterwards. In exchange, he merely wanted them to escort him to a business associate in the Shadowfell outside the city. As they'd exhausted all other ideas for breaching the dome and had been unable to destroy the crown themselves, they accepted the offer. Samsadur told them he had an associate in the Shadowfell with a counterpart on the Material Plane, and that the two were able to communicate with each other and, subsequently, him.

This associate, a gnome named Zurafkina Shoemaker, had discovered that the shadowdome was being generated from the Shadow Ziggurat, a structure occupying the same location as the palace, which had been the seat of power for a fallen angel for millennia. Additionally, once the dome appeared, a dark song of despair could be heard throughout the Shadowfell version of the city, sapping all positive emotions from everyone who heard it. She also reported that a small tribe of shadow giants, led by a night hag, had made camp at the Shadow Ziggurat and were known to have brought many prisoners to the Shadowfell version of the dungeons over the last several years. Since the dome went up, a faint cloud of shadow could be seen moving from the dungeons to the ziggurat. She knew of only one place in the city where the song could not be heard: the Shadowfell version of the Eyrie of the Fabled, a well-known theater with soundproof walls, but when she went there she saw a haunting phantasmal play on stage that drove her to flee. Despite the dangers, Samsadur felt confident that the Third Eye would be able to find a way to remove the shadowdome. Gren, meanwhile, elected to return to his people and find out why they had been sent into an ambush.

Samsadur allowed them to spend the night in a Golden Mask safehouse, where he showed them a pair of heavy chests bound with solid padlocks that would be transported to his business associate once the dome was down. He warned that they were protected with deadly traps, and advised them not to open them. When asked what they contained, he replied only that their contents were of great importance to his business associate. The next morning, he plane shifted them into the Shadowfell.