Good reasoning.
This is the first time I've heard of this rod, which I don't find in the wiki. @Marko_Markoko, if you could shed a light?
As an alternative, the spider made known to the council that she can cast a combo of Wizard's Reach (corpus) and the Leap of Homecoming, so she can teleport one person at a time, at the cost of a warping point (Probably same thing with the rod, though). The difficulty may be in reaching her (she seldom shows, interacting mostly through her servant Eva).
The big question, indeed
The man cowers before Marcellus gaze, before, spilling the bins, with tears in his eyes
This is a mistoke, aye swear! You see, Julio, here, ee's maye best friend.
And wee were toiling, and toiling, without end, and ee was oll "Ignacio, aye tell you, there must me more to this life. We should just ransom some trovelers, they can toke it, and we'll get rich and escope this life and live like lords". So we took Isabelle, grabbed bernardo for muscle, and went at it
He sobs, take a breath
But your friend, it wos a mistake, aye swear, we never wonted to hurt anyone, just put the fear into them, but then I saw him doing magic things, ond I got afraid, and the arrow fled and he wos hurt, and then his guard attacked us and we had to defend, so we beat him and then we fled.
Aye didn't want to take the wizord, but Julio, he figured we'd score big, since you all have the devil's gold, no disrespect, and aye knew nothing good wos gonna come outta it, and we were arguing, and now he's dead because of this
Isabelle is noticeably worried and tense