Imperial Palace of the Aligorian Empire

This would include the nature of the compound, its construction and history, its current lineage an doccupancy, and its secrets as well.
The Imperial Palace, first built as a fairly modest castle complex high on a hill above Tellarus (Tellarus, General Document) , has been expanded layer by layer throughout the centuries, now to be a sprawling collection of castles, courtyards, gardens and walls. To find one's way to one end from the other would be a mind-boggling undertaking. Most of denizens of the palace could not do so, even after a decade of service to the Empress.
Strikingly, most of the palace, especially the more recent additions, are built in great masses of pink sandstone, pain-stakingly traded from down the coast. It is an incredibly ostentatious display of wealth and opulence on the part of the Empress, as the blocks of stone need be taken to the docks in Forth, then shipped north along the coast, unloaded, and hauled up an enormous hill--analogous to a small mountain--to be used in construction. For the stone merchants in Forth, it is a dream come true.
The palace has housed many different Imperial families, the most recent being the Strignarios, whose daughter was crowned 25 years eariler (in her childhood) as High Empress of the Aligorian Empire. Darnova Strignario has proven an astutde ruler in her own right, despite attempts at undermining or even assassination. She is a spellbinding, persuasive, powerful speaker and politician, and almost everyone she meets is intimidated in one way or another. Her rule is told by historians (and not just because she told them to) as the strongest grip on the Aligorian Empire ever witnessed.
Of course there may be plots afoot to usurp or bypass her power, and some of them may be edging toward success... see Imperial Corruption and Plot Against the Narra Indeed, the Palace is in a state of high tension. The Empress herself is even rumored to privately crack. She knows things are being withheld from her, but she knows not by whom or how. Two of her spies have mysteriously disappeared. (And as she hosts banquets and balls every week, rubbing shoulders with ministers, emissaries, and senators, bands and pockets of resistance gather in out-of-the-way and underground places, or in hidden rooms of the palace itself...)
Plants Cultivated at the Palace "Goblin Fuzz"--a solid-structure bright green moss, shaped in gardens as a topiary, or subtly in a bonsai-like art form Yellowleaf aspen trees (named for their fall colors are cultivated in groves around the outside the palace, but also in courtyards within the wall... They keep their leaves late, and their quaking has decorated many poems throughout the centuries, all the way back to the Wyranians 900 years ago

Her Imperial Highness, Darnova Strignario, Great Empress of the Aligorian Empire

DEEP IN THE PALACE: HERE THERE BE DEMONS

Deep within the palace, in places that existed long, long before the building began, strange things happen.  There are portals down there, and imperial wizards--some of them unknown even to the long-time residents of the palace--that summon and commune with demons from varying levels of the Abyss itself.  "The Hole" is far, far down into the complex, through a series of staircases, illusions, false doors, and portals.  It is a place of utmost secrecy, where a group of conjurers (ostensibly loyal to the empire) conspire for a very different kind of Imperial takeover.
The deep space itself has been around for thousands of years.  Here mortals have met with different demonic creatures from different levels of the Abyss, to make deals or plot plots.  Never have these portals allowed for a full invasion, or anything close, but the Imperial Wizards are working on opening, and stretching, with the help of the Vrolikai.
Working specifically (although not at all exclusively) with the Vrolikai of Abyssal level 624, a tribe of demons that rule an area of vast terror and inky black darkness.  There is a deal in the makes, and has been for more than a century, by which the entire city, or even the world of Summer's Tale will be given over to the Vrolikai, in exchange for multiversal powers for the Imperial Conjurers (and ostensibly the empire itself?  Motivations differ among the mages...).

The Vrolikai of Level 624 or the Abyss
This wheeling and dealing has been in the works for a very long time.  Some of the wizards here have been birthed and raised without ever seeing the regions above.  The group of magic users working on this deal follows an obsession that does not necessarily show loyalty to the Striganario or any other Imperial Family.
There is an exception to the Deep Place's secrecy.  The Gnomes have known about the portals for long since any humans even walked the Earth.  It is known to many of them, and to many of these it causes some concern.  Mostly though (as is a gnomish thing) they take the long view, and they realize the futility, at least in the very long run, of the Imperials' efforts.

Even so, some of the gnomish servants in the palace are working to undermine the wizards' efforts.  Over the years they have dug secret passages that lead to the bottom.  They are thieves and sneaks, and they have methodes to undermine.  They have been working to do so for hundreds of years.  It isn't an easy task...