even when Shadowheart still has the Astral Prism herself, she still goes along to straight up walk into a Githyanki creche to see if the Zaith'isk can be a cure for the tadpole
The way mysterious artifact was handled in Act 1 was the most frustrating thing for me writing wise (for Act 1). I played through the game just recently, and i was shocked this is how it was handled even after 2 years of patches. So for me Shadowheart kept the artifact until the end of Creche, but around the time i encountered Gith patrol and Voss, characters acted like I have it and Laezel acted like she knows about it even though she didn't - which i confirmed by reloading and going somewhere else to trigger the scene with the Chosen where shadowheart uses the artifact to protect the group from the Absolute, which is when Lae'zel actually learned about it the first time (for me). And it indeed stayed with Shadowheart. But again at Creche everyone acted like i have it and i had options to give it up - never an option to ask Shadowheart to give it up since it was hers. And when speaking to Vlaakith i had weird options like "The artifact is mine by rights" even though it wasn't even in my inventory. After Astral Prism it just automatically went into my inventory without any acknowledgement or dialogue about it with anyone, Shadowheart had nothing to say about it. I dont know why they didnt just give the player the artifact in the prologue if they want player to have it so much.
I felt like i played the game wrong and had skipped something somewhere even though Im a completionist.
Also it makes sense that youre seen as the leader if you assume everyone thinks the Prism that protects them is bound to you. It's like they wanted to avoid the "chosen one" trope while still having player be the chosen one anyway, they shouldve just leaned into it for consistency.
