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I'm looking for clarification on the Sardonyx Shard. The way I understand the Onyx Key, having combed through the books and reading Crystal's item description published afterwards here on the forums - the 8 onyx shards can be broken off and made into magic towers, and then can connect to another tower already in place on the same plane.
Controls in the Onyx Citadel allow you to connect to any of the 8 towers, even across planes. However, if you want to get to the Citadel FROM a tower, you need the Sardonyx Shard, which plugs into a tower and then will open up to the home base. Without it there's no way to open up to he Iron Citadel, making it very important.
This leads us to Prisoners of the Blight, where supposedly the general sent her spymaster Taurgreth to visit with the evil fey to form an alliance, where he gets nabbed. But for some foolish reason, he swiped the Sardonyx Shard and took it with him. The text reads:
The dryad enslaved Taurgreth and his
hobgoblin bodyguards with dangerous,
mind-altering parasites. She stole
the sardonyx shard that he
carried—which the hobgoblin
had secreted away from the Onyx
Citadel as a quick getaway plan
in case the encounter turned against
him—and now holds Taurgreth deep
underground in her Pestilent Palace,
trying to decide if she will retain the
formidable warrior as a pet or send
him back to slay his former mistress.
and here:
Despite being a very minor presence in the adventure
itself, Taurgreth is very much a motivating force in
“Prisoners of the Blight.” Sharing most hobgoblins’
superstitious fear and hatred for the “elf magic”
wielded by fey, he prowled into General
Azaersi’s chamber before leaving on this
ill-fated mission, stealing the sardonyx
shard from the Onyx Key—an assurance
of swift retreat should negotiations go badly. Taurgreth
had no way of knowing that Arlantia and the Darkblight
blocked dimensional travel within the accursed domain,
and so the sardonyx shard proved useless and fell into
Arlantia’s hands.
Wouldn't he have known that in order to open a tower, he would need an onxy shard too? What did he think he was going to do with the sardonyx one, if he didn't know what it was how would he have know how to use it at all? Are we just assuming that he didn't know, and just made a terrible mistake?