“Kos, any ideas for repairing the lantern?” Sparhawk examines it trying to determine if other non suggested methods such as healing or lay on hands could repair it.

"I was considering casting Tiny Servant to temporarily change it into a living thing but that would only last for a while and isn't a permanent solution, plus it won't work on things of a magical nature."

Kos begins pacing to help himself think, occasionally looking back and forth between the lantern and others, hoping someone has a better idea than he did.

Sparhawk will pray to Marduk for aid and insight

(OOC: He is considering casting heal or lay on hands on the lantern. Perhaps with godlike intervention, his idea might work. Mend is a simple cantrip, we don't have a cleric or caster with that ability. We could do a long rest and change out some spells, but I don't think the situation will allow that. Do we have a "Wish" from the Genie, Kasdu'ul we encountered earlier, I can't remember.)

<Did you want to taxkle one kf the other items first? There wrre 2 other things to do.>

"...Second, a functional conduit: The homunculus was the activator. Without it, the lenses won’t respond properly. You’ll need a new conduit—something with a soul, or a shard of one. A familiar. A summoned spirit. Even a willing creature. And third, you must focus the intent; the Lanthorn doesn’t just cast spells, it channels purpose. You’ll need to imbue it woth prupose, bind it to a cause. That means one of you must attune to it, not just hold it. And that will change you.”

Just saw #3174.  I do t k kw id you a wish. I wouldnt think so, but maybe

The paladin reflects for a few moments, and then says,

"I am not certain how to repair the item yet, but I do have a solution to the two other conditions."

"I do have one idea, if the shield is down right now, I can try to summon my horse here. Perhaps, he would be willing to be the conduit."

As for the third condition, I am willing to bind to the lantern through magical attunement, and feel it would be my duty to do so, both if I am to have my horse do so, and to protect both of you."

<Creatures won't summon. You've tried it like 3 times.  So, are you attuning to the lantern, then? Valid option.>

(ooc: for the 2nd part... can it be any living thing with a soul? if so Kos volunteers.)

(not sure if the same person can perform the 2nd and 3rd step... so if you want Kos can do the 2nd and Sparhawk can do the 3rd?)

(or vise versa.)

"It seems one of us might need to be the soul that binds. I can attune and swear to do all in my power to only use the artifact for our stated goals, to seal the rifts and establish stability in our lands."

Tasha gravely notes, “The Lanthorn is not just light—it is a lock. It holds Drelnza’s hunger, and it holds the rift that once swallowed Tsojcanth. Take it, and you may save your world. But you will break the seal here. Leave it, and you keep the lock shut—but your world burns. There is no path without cost. Choose what you will save.”

Quote from shimshon123 >>

"It seems one of us might need to be the soul that binds. I can attune and swear to do all in my power to only use the artifact for our stated goals, to seal the rifts and establish stability in our lands."

“When the seal here is broken, what will happen?”

Tasha doesn’t flinch. Her voice is quiet, clinical. “When the seal breaks, Drelnza unravels. The hunger takes her. The sanctum collapses. And Iggwilv comes to finish what she started.” She looks toward the cracked dais. “This place was built to hold a monster. Break the seal, and you fight it. Or you flee.”

<ooc:  im just teyi g to give yoi somwthing rondo so its not such a ghost train.   More 'this happens, so that happens...' less 'thjs happens and then that happens...' but really, this is transparently a next phase combat, but with only two PCs left, it seems, this might be a bad time to drop in another combatant, which was the plan.  So i wanted to shift the focus more to just the decision you can make and what its impacts wo8ld be.  Faerun is being consumed by darkness as an elder evil stirs, the sun itself doomed to be swallowed by the the night serpent, the lanthorn, yoir opnky hope to fight baxk the darkness. Therea a bunch of deep lore on who Tsojcanth was and who Daoud was but the main point is theres a rift to the abyss 7nder you and if you tske it you'll tear that open probably doom Oerth (where you are now, buy that's a bit fuzzy, its more like an overlap if both worlds).

So, what do you want to do?

(OOC: looks like Sparhawk will bind to the Lantern, Kos will serve as the soul, not sure we have much other choices right now.)

The Lanthorn thrums beneath the cracked dais, a rectangle of cold light sitting in a bowl of floating stone. The homunculus is a collapsed lattice of glass and gears; its gem blinks once, then goes dark. Drelnza crouches nearby, Heretic limp in her hand, breath ragged, eyes darting between the lantern and the people who have come for it. Tasha stands a half-step behind her, expression measured, hand lifted like a scientist pausing a dangerous experiment.

The paladin moves first. He does not shout. He does not call for swords. He crosses the room as if walking down a familiar corridor of iron and frost, and kneels at the edge of the dais. The light of the Lanthorn washes his face and the scarred, inhuman lines stand out; what imprisonment and the Feywild did to him written in muscle and fur. He reaches out. When his fingers touch the stone, the Lanthorn answers. It is not a gentle thing. The lenses flare, a chorus of tones rings like glass, and the air tastes of old iron and far seas. The paladin’s eyes close and he takes a breath that is not his alone. He murmurs the vow Tasha told them would be required, not a litany of gods, but a binding of purpose. The light reaches into him and he does not pull away. He speaks once, voice steady and small: “For those I broke, and for those I failed. Take me as the lock.” The Lanthorn flares brighter. The hair on everyone’s arms lifts. Tasha’s face goes unreadable; Drelnza’s mouth opens and closes like a drowned thing trying to find air. Something old in the room—threads of spellwork woven when the world was younger—stitches around the paladin like a hand closing.

It should have been a private, terrible sanctification. It is not. The sanctum shudders, and the thing the paladin’s sacrifice pulled at answers.

Reality cracks, a jagged absence where light and sound fall away. It is not a neat doorway. Rather, it is a jagged absence of everything around it. The air frays like ribbon, and out of that frayed silence steps a woman who has worn empires like garments. She does not step through as an arrival—she steps through as verdict. Robes scorched, sigils crawling like ants along the hems, hair falling like a dark banner. Her eyes are old fires. She looks at the paladin bound to the lantern, then at Drelnza, and a hideous laugh that is not kind curls the air.

“Do you think you can cage that which I bound?” she mocks, her voice a razor. She does not ask for their names. She does not need to. Her presence rearranges blame and debt and memory into the room.For a handful of breaths, she is pure motion, words of breaking, gestures like knives. Stone flakes from the dais. A gust of weather not of this place sweeps through. Drelnza twitches, as if something inside her claws at the seam. Her grip on the stone above falters; the magic that held her clinging to the ceiling ebbs, and she drops lightly to the dais, Heretic dragging sparks across the stone as she lands.   The party expects violence; the sanctum expects it. Iggwilv’s hands slash through the sanctum’s fabric, spells unspooling like knives that nick the walls and send dust like rain. The motion finds its limit when she sees the paladin, and the storm in her palms folds inward, measured and intent., Iggwilv stops. Her gaze finds the paladin’s face and then something in her posture changes—not mercy, not pity, but a dangerous curiosity.

Tasha steps forward. She does not lower herself to pleading. Her voice is the same as always: precise, inexorable. “You took my child’s leash and called it mercy,” she says. 

Iggwilv’s smile is a fracture. “You gave me a daughter to shape into a seal, and when the price was paid you chose to pretend it was protection. You used blood to hold back abyss, and then you pretended to be surprised at the bill.”

She walks to the dais with a predator’s calm. Drelnza’s eyes meet hers and for an instant there is something like recognition and something like accusation. The paladin holds the light steady, body a living lattice of lantern and vow. Silence blooms and holds. Then Iggwilv speaks, not as a challenge but as a ledger being closed. “You broke my lock,” she says. “You stole what I put here to keep my bargains sane. You made a bargain of your own. Tell me—did you think the world you leave behind will thank you? Did you think I would be pleased?”

Tasha answers, “They chose to bind themselves rather than to break. They accepted cost instead of choosing ignorance.” Iggwilv’s laugh is low and bright and hungry. “Cost is what I collect. Do you think giving me a tragedy will make me kind?” She looks at Drelnza. “You are a child of my design. You are a failure because you were mine to shape. And yet—” Her gaze flicks to the paladin, to the rest of the party. “You have made your choice loud enough. I will not waste time unmaking those who offered themselves.”

Iggwilv draws in the breath of old magics and with three short sentences she sets the terms, crisp as a blade:

- “If you stand with me, Drelnza will be bound and re-forged. She will become what I intended: a tool honed to keep abyss and kingdom in balance. You will not be idle; you will be witnesses to remaking.”  

- “If you stand with Tasha, I will not tear Drelnza into pieces here. We will bargain for another kind of solution. There will be sacrifice, but not immediate unmaking.”  

- “If you stand apart, if you refuse to be part of any covenant, then the lantern remains with your paladin and the lock holds—for now. But do not be naive: leaving the world to its fate is a choice I will count as a favor deferred, and debts to me are long.”

She glances at Drelnza with something like hunger for results and then toward the party.

“You are not choosing the fate of a planet,” she says, razor-soft. “You are choosing the fate of a family I shaped, and of the woman I once made whole. Choose. I will act on your choice, and there will be no undoing what follows.”

Tasha adds the last practical note, voice dry: “If you stand with me, I may be able to keep Drelnza from unmaking herself while we bargain. If you stand with her mother”—she inclines her head at Iggwilv—“you will see remaking that will not be gentle. If you stand apart, the paladin will bear the binding and you will all leave here with a debt that will follow you.”

The room narrows to the three options and the paladin standing, bound, a living hinge. Drelnza looks between them, hunger and fear braided together. The homunculus lies like a drained heart. Outside the sanctum the world they came to save waits, a distant and burning concern.

You have the moment. The choice sits like a stone on the tongue.

Stand with Iggwilv. Stand with Tasha. Stand apart.

Decide.

(Ooc. What do you think? I’m leaning heavily toward 3, Brian?)

(ooc: would option 3 allow us to complete our quest? if so then option 3.)

(Sparhawks quest is to save his world and close the rift)

The silence after your decision stretches like a drawn bowstring. You have chosen to stand apart—neither with Tasha, nor with Iggwilv.  

Iggwilv’s smile curves, sharp and hungry. “So. You will not choose. Then you have chosen me.” Her voice is a stormfront rolling in, heavy with promise. She gestures toward the paladin bound to the Lanthorn. “A willing vessel, already tethered to the lock. With him, I can draw the others into myself—Tasha, Zybilna—and wield what was once divided. One will, one power. No more fragments. No more hesitation.”  

Her eyes burn as she speaks the next words: “With that strength, I will tear the Abyss wide and crown Oerth as its newest layer. A world remade as my dominion, a fortress of chaos under my hand. The Abyss grows by swallowing, and what better prize than this world, already cracked and ripe?”  

Tasha steps forward, her tone precise but edged with urgency. “The idea is sound. If she defeats you, she will succeed. But if you defeat her, the power she seeks will fall to me instead. I will not use it to unmake—I will use it to heal. To bind Drelnza, to mend what was broken. Even to grant what was once thought impossible.” Her gaze flicks toward Zybilna, and the word Wish hangs unspoken in the air.  

She looks back at you, eyes steady. “You must understand: standing aside is no longer neutrality. It is surrender. All that is required for evil to conquer is for those with the power to stop it to do nothing. You have the power. Use it.”  

Iggwilv’s hands rise, and the sanctum convulses as her magic surges. Sigils blaze, stone cracks, and a tide of abyssal force lashes toward you.  

This is the final battle. If you defeat Iggwilv here, you win the day and secure the Lanthorn. There is no trick, no reversal—victory in combat decides the ending.  

Roll initiative.