Rod of Azbo's mountain

The rod of Azbo's mountain is an object in the campaign Zincirsiz ("Unchained"): a crooked rod made of alloys of different colours, which Jonathan River later came to call a branch. Imperial soldiers had taken it from the tomb of an orc ancestor for a noble collector in the city, and the orc chief Brakar wanted it back without his people being seen. The soldiers' commander kept it wrapped in leaves inside a carved box of human make.¹²³

Recovery

Offering to check the rod for curses, Jonathan studied it by ritual and learned that, touched to the right place, it could lift an illusion hard to break by other means. He then told the commander, falsely, that the rod could be tracked by magic and that a pin would put that to sleep; the pin he had placed in the box was his companion Blink. By night the real rod was taken out of the locked box and a copy left in its place, a stick Jonathan had whittled and coloured well enough to fool anyone who did not know better. The rod was hidden in the forest and among the trees with his owl Bold until it was safe.³⁴⁵⁶⁷

The vision

On the first night after setting out for the mountains, as Jonathan focused on the rod, he felt himself drawn in and found himself looking through the eyes of a pale green orc. A huge leader cried that they would be free of bondage in life or in death, and the crowd ran into battle; Jonathan could not control the body he watched through. When and where this took place, and who the orcs were, is not known.⁸⁹

The tomb's key

The shaman Gromak explained that the rod lifts the illusion hiding the true tomb of the orcs' ancestor, the great Azbo, which had not yet been found. Brakar left the rod in Jonathan's keeping, on his promise never knowingly to dishonour their ancestors. After a rain that killed small animals and harmed the plants, Jonathan tied it to Bold's foot and asked the owl to carry it to Michael at the Archon if anything should happen to him.^10111213

Inside the mountain

Drawn across a map that gave conflicting roads, the rod turned the ink to smoke, and it settled again as a clear and detailed route up the mountain. Touched to rocks blocking a dead end, it shrank them small enough to hold in the hand; these were real stones, not vanishing illusions. Above a chasm it gave a feeling of density and sparks, and magic showed powerful transmutation there, but no way across was found.¹⁴¹⁵¹⁶

At the end of a steep path the rod shrank away a covering of earth to reveal an iron door with no handle, lock or pattern. The door was true iron, steeped in transmutation that answers to a shape given to it: when Jonathan pressed the rod to it and formed a handle, the handle took on substance, with a keyhole and working parts behind it, and the door opened.¹⁷¹⁸¹⁹

Within, what Jonathan drew with the rod became real: a ringed trapdoor with an old stair beneath it, a torch that lit the dark where ordinary light barely reached, and doors that opened on whatever was written on them, from a small library to a hiding place, a kitchen and an exit. Written requests tied to the mountain were worked by transmutation, while places outside it appeared only as illusions. The rod showed no will of its own; what it gave was a response between material and magic.^2021222324

Spoiler: In the mountainRevealSpoils: Zincirsiz #5 · Say what you have read

When the great Azbo, bound to the mountain, stretched out his hand, the rod flew from Jonathan's grasp and settled into place on a necklace of rods around his neck. It was not shown being given back to Jonathan before the companions were cast out of the mountain.²⁵²⁶

Teresa's judgement

Later, beneath a forest, Jonathan brought out the branch he had used to open doors in Azbo's mountain. It now pushed back against him like two like poles of a magnet, where before it had seemed to draw towards a ready line. Teresa judged it more than a key to one door: it resembled the compasses, keys and gateways that the ancient fey gave to sworn servants of long service for journeys within and between planes. She did not know how long it would take to learn its use, and thought that in a master's hands it could open doors to distant places and other dimensions, beyond Jonathan's reach. Fey creation stands for creativity and potential, and not every magical object in the world was made in it; some are relics of gods, fey or devils.^2728293031

When Jonathan thought of selling it, Teresa asked him not to let it fall into bad hands at auction. He took it back from her with his mind and, thinking of the cave entrance he wanted, pressed it to the rock and forced a small hole that could be passed stooping; the branch bent like a chisel against the stone without breaking, and the group went through. Later he used it to write and draw on walls.^32333435