ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

What is this control rod? Got the staff of absorption, did I miss something?

The Rod of Recall.

Wait, you can read it?! You... you got the Awakened Staff of Absorption, and you still don't have the Rod of Recall?!

Mewtarthio wrote:Wait, you can read it?! You... you got the Awakened Staff of Absorption, and you still don't have the Rod of Recall?!

pretty sure that'd be literally impossible, since you need to kill the master at the very least, who would drop the rod.

Kabiras could have never picked up the item pile from the first boss (s)he killed, but it's more likely that (s)he's just already inserted the rod. If you bump into the orb again after doing so, it will still display the "Insert control rod" message but it won't give you the option to insert it, since, y'know, you already have.

Or they just skipped the Fortress until after clearing and happened to notice the message.

There's not too much penalty for waiting that long.

Well, then you'd see the option to insert it.