---

On stepping forth from the Avernus, the company immediately knew something was wrong. The Wizards Three looked solemn and concerned: even Ikasa refused to rise from skulking on his couch.

---

Alustriel stood and approached. “I trust you mission was a success? You retrieved the penultimate Part of the Rod?”

“We did,” Idris nodded, displaying the all but complete Artefact.

“Not a moment too soon, praise Mystral,” she smiled tiredly.

“And the Hand? What of the Hand?” Mordenkainen said with some urgency.

“The Hand is here,” Three said patting the pouch attached to his belt, “I have it controlled.”

“Finally some good news. Give it to me.”

“Sorry…why?” Three said noting Alustriel dropping her head (and Tasha raising an eyebrow).

“I will put it to good use, unlike you and your earlier mistake,” Mordenkainen snapped. “Or do you plan to give the Dark One His Hand and his Eye?”

Three snorted. “Are you talking about an issue when we did not know what was happening? About fifteen years ago compared to where we now stand?”

“That is precisely what I am talking about.”

“I am the only person who prepared, researched, and created a device to hold the Hand in safety so that it wouldn’t taint everyone,” Three growled. “I have been able to control it and we have travelled with it without corruption. And now you’re asking for it? Pretty suspiciously, Mordenkainen. You obviously have other machinations at work, so I will follow what my companions say.”

Mordenkainen waved a dismissive hand. “You ‘prepared’ which is no more than—”

“Hand aside,” Idris interrupted, turning his attention to Alustriel and Tasha, “Perhaps you should let us know what has occurred—your countenance seems dire.”

“You are right,” Alustriel said quietly, ignoring Mordenkainen seething behind her. “The reason for our dourness is that…it has begun. The Lich King is weaving the Ritual of Unmaking, the unravelling of the multiverse. We have very little time to stop it. I will show you.”

Alustriel whispered and a softly glowing white sphere appeared, slowly rotating. “This is the multiverse,” she said, caressing the cloudy globe. As she moved her hands tiny pinpoints of purple light started to puncture the warmth. They grew rapidly as the sphere rotated, expanding like a disease into great stains of sickly burgundy that rent the manifestation. “This…is the Ritual. The Dark One’s influence is becoming insurmountable, despite our unwavering attentions.” Fully one third of the multiversal image now laboured under the seeping darkness.

“Do we know how fast this is spreading?” Three asked softly.

“We had our first warning months ago. But the spread now is accelerating daily. Faerûn suffers, Oerth, Eberron, every corner of the multiverse. The dead are rising in untold numbers and the skies above every world portend the end time.”

“Then why are we talking?” Three said. “We just need one last piece of the Rod.”

“Exactly,” Tasha grunted. “And you need to do it now. As we predicted, Kas has travelled to Pandesmos, tracking the Lich if we are correct. We don’t know what he plans with the Rod Part, if he is using it for his own purposes, or if he is using it as a lure to draw your forth—which is my belief. Whatever it is you need to get after him.”

“We need to rest,” Three appealed, “We were under incredible duress in Avernus.”

Alustriel nodded. “There is that time. It is our belief he is trying to draw you and the other six Parts of the Rod to wherever he is. Maybe that is so he can access the Lich King, or maybe he has some other plan. In any case there is time for a brief respite if we are right: he needs you as much as we need him—or at least what he has.”

Three rubbed his hairless head. “So we go to him. He has the last piece—we defeat him and take it, complete the Rod of Seven Parts. Then what?”

“Once the Rod is together, what can that achieve?” Eli asked slyly.

“Power,” Mordenkainen said, still simmering. “It is the Rod of Law, used to imprison Miska the Wolfspider in times long past. That is no small feat—perhaps it can be used to trap the Dark One, perhaps it has some other use we are not aware of.”

“Do we know how it was used to trap this ‘wolfspider’?”

“The focal magic it channelled to trap Miska destroyed the Rod in the process, splitting it into the Parts you have so cleverly recovered.”

“So if we were to try and use the same technique to trap the Dark One, would it be obvious to us? How would we go about it?”

Mordenkainen shrugged. “You would have to have a spell powerful enough to do so.”

“Is that the power of the complete Rod?” Three asked. “Is that what you are implying?”

“The Rod has been in Seven Parts for so long it is not clear, even to us, what will happen when it is reforged. But is our assumption that once it is it provides that power that was used to trap Miska.”

“You three who are so clearly above us,” Sifer said, “Haven’t divined a spell through which to use that focus?”

Mordenkainen sighed. “We believe the Rod itself becomes empowered with what you channel. But as for what that might be we do not know.”

Sifer looked less than pleased with this answer and Eli agreed. “So you’ll come with us?”

Alustriel moved her hand around the floating sphere. “If we come with you His curse will overwhelm all. As we have explained we are stopping that. You cannot, so you must go forth alone.”

“Mordenkainen doesn’t look like he’s concentrating very much on anything,” Eli scoffed.

Mordenkainen strode forward. “Very well! I’ll come with you if you like—give me the Hand,” he glared at Three, then turned his gaze to Uthar. “And give me the Sword, for I see you have not bothered to whet Kas’s blade. You waste the great power you have: give me both and I will travel with you!”

Uthar and Three exchanged worried glances. Mordenkainen may have always been crafty and thirsty for power, but there was a new intensity. Or was it simply urgency, just as Alustriel and Tasha felt? Uthar glanced at Sifer, who gave a subtle shrug. Mordenkainen’s hunger for the artefacts was great…but he wasn’t behaving out of character. He’d seen creatures of power before and Mordenkainen definitely qualified. It was difficult to work out if that was good or bad, but his character remained constant. He turned to Mordenkainen. “Tell us how to use Hand and we’ll go do this job.”

Mordenkainen held his hands aloft. “I have both mine and I’m not ready to lose one. How did Arkhan wield it?”

“He was corrupted by it,” Sifer said warily.

“And it was attached to him,” Three added.

“Well then. That is how you use it,” Mordenkainen smirked.

“And this is what you desire?” Sifer said incredulously.

“No! I simply want it. It is the Hand of one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse. And you have it lying in a bag! You have the sword of another of the most powerful beings strapped to your back unused!”

“If you don’t want to strap the Hand to your stump, what do you intend to do with it?”

“Explore it of course! How often do you have an artefact of that power in your grasp? Perhaps I can turn that power to good? Perhaps I can use it to craft a new spell of untold brilliance?”

Three rolled his eyes. “Weren’t we supposed to use this as a lure to get Kas?”

“Just so,” Idris said tiredly. “As my learned colleague Three, who is doing a good job of Hand custodian, has said, I believe we had a discussion in the past that the Sword, and/or the Hand, would be best used as bargaining chips if Kas does indeed have the final Part.”

Mordenkainen waved this away. “I see no reason Kas would want the Hand. He has already possessed it once. His Sword on the other hand…that was the entire reason for retrieving it.”

“He would want the Hand to destroy it,” Idris said. “Because it would bring anguish to its previous owner.”

“There is, as far as we know,” Tasha interjected, “No way to destroy the Hand. Both the Hand and the Eye have proved indestructible, reforming after any attempt in one of His hidden vaults waiting to be rediscovered.”

“By foolish adventurers,” Mordenkainen muttered.

Uthar quietly sent out his divine tendrils, still concerned about Mordenkainen. The Hand and Sword reeked of foul, uncontrolled evil, but nothing else did. Alustriel shone with light; Tasha wavered between warm and cold; Mordenkainen was a grey blur…but not evil. Uthar had met people like this: their methods could be overwhelming and tread a line hard to judge, but it did not mean they had evil intent. The Archmage was very frustrated, particularly about the Sword, but Uthar was sure of one thing: no-one else should bear the weight of denying what the Sword demanded.

“So Mordenkainen,” Idris said, “You are not required for maintaining or staving back the collapse of the multiverse? Your power is in fact not part of this at all?”

“I lend my power as needed,” Mordenkainen smiled, “But I am more of an ideas man. A chaotic element that brings the unexpected into play. My friends here give me free reign in order to come up with things like the idea of finding the Rod. That was my idea if you recall.”

“What have you done since then?” Sifer snorted.

“What have I…well I travelled to Tovag on your behalf when you refused—”

“No you didn’t!” Eli yelled. “You didn’t go anywhere on our behalf! We have been to multiple worlds on your behalf—you just did one yourself!”

“Which revealed the critical knowledge that Kas was gone—”

“Your problem, Mordenkein, is that you think that someone else’s evil makes you good,” Eli pointed accusingly.

Mordenkeinan raised a finger to his chin as he considered this for a moment then grinned. “Is that not true? The lesser evil, etc?”

“You are a wicked individual,” Eli snarled, “And your protestation toward not being so makes you more so. The sooner you are out of my sight the sooner I will be happy!”

“Well, Eli, the sooner you leave the sooner I will be out of your sight,” Mordenkeinan smirked, turning to Uthar. “Am I wicked?”

“…No. I don’t believe so,” Uthar said quietly after a pause, glancing to Three.

“There you have it, Eli! From your very own trusted friend!”

Eli stormed off, dark clouds hovering over his head.

“Though Uthar can detect goodness, he cannot detect raw ambition, lust, and gluttony for power,” Three said, “And I do not need divine senses to know that you reek of it right now, Mordenkainen. You are very close to stopping us from doing the very thing you brought us here to do.”

Tasha stepped up. “You speak very well, Three, and there is some truth to what you say. Though I do not think Mordenkainen is standing in your way, he is merely trying to shape events in a way that he believes most fruitful. He is right that leaving the Hand with us is likely the best way to keep it safe. But it is also true that giving it to Mordenkainen could be a terrible mistake.”

“Pfft,” Mordenkainen snorted.

“It does seem to me that these artefacts are going to be useful counters where we are going,” Three considered. “And it is also true that they are terrifying in terms of their power.”

“I will admit that…I am on your side when it comes to this question,” Alustriel said, somewhat to the company’s surprise. “You have done and achieved so much and likely have a better inkling for what is required than what we do. You have faced it head-on, where we, as young Eli has noted, are rather isolated in these ivory towers. So if it is your belief that you need the Hand, and the Sword, then it is perhaps best that we trust you with both.”

Three nodded slowly. “The problem is it is not even that we necessarily think that. It’s that things have been so chaotic and we, as a group, have just used our with and our strengths and our power, and, may I say,” he said looking at Uthar and Eli’s vacant spot, “Just extreme goodness to guide us through this maze. But now…it just seems like all this is meant to be. That we are meant to have the Hand. That we are meant to have the Sword and six Parts of the Rod. That the universe has done this, just as your Wish brought us here. This is all, somehow, ordained.”

Tasha and Alustriel nodded solemnly, and even Mordenkeinen looked on with what could, maybe, be stony faced agreement.

“I now know with a certainty that it was no coincidence that you answered our Wish,” Alustriel said softly. “The multiverse wants what it wants, and perhaps what it wants is you to hold these items and use them to the best of your ability. If we lock them up here perhaps that means you lose the key that unlocks this puzzle.”

“One fear I have is that if He is reunited with both His Hand and His Eye he becomes impossible to overcome,” Tasha said, “But I still side with Alustriel. You must keep them.”

“He is already on the precipice of eternal power,” Three shrugged.

“Perhaps the Hand and Eye are what he needs to complete the Ritual,” Mordenkainen muttered. “Perhaps it is the Rod…”

“Unfortunately there is nothing we can do to know the answer,” Alustriel declared. “We must trust you because you are closest to this. You have had a link to the Dark Lord for all of this time. He chose you as much as we did, and only one of us can be right.”

Sifer nodded firmly. “The Hand is a sweetener, the Sword is our possession. We go to get the final piece and save that orb in front of you.”

“I could wish nothing more,” Alustriel nodded.

“Alustriel is right,” Tasha added.

“We were the Wish,” Idris said firmly. “We will take the Sword. And we will take the Hand. Mordenkainen if you wish to assist us, all well and good, but we are going to succeed on our own or we are not.”

The wind seemed to have gone out of Mordenkainen’s sails. He slumped against a pillar and sighed. “Ohhh, there are six of your already, I do not wish to make an uncomfortable seventh.”

“It’s hard having spells named after you,” Idris smirked to Uthar.

---

Session played October 12, 2026