Hand Mirror of the Medusa (Patreon)

Wondrous item, very rare

This hand mirror bears the bust of a medusa at its top. Its silver surface is split into thirds by a pair of metal fangs. While holding it, you have advantage on saving throws against becoming petrified, and any creature with the Petrifying Gaze trait that starts its turn within 30 feet of you must also succeed on a saving throw against its own Petrifying Gaze trait. A medusa has disadvantage on the saving throw.

Petrifying Cone. You can use an action to brandish the mirror in front of you and speak its command word. When you do, you expose it to each creature in a 30-foot cone that originates from you, provided that the creature can see you. Each creature in the area is immediately affected by the flesh to stone spell (save DC 16); you must concentrate on the spell as normal. Once this property has been used, it can't be used again until the mirror has been used to petrify a creature with its own Petrifying Gaze trait.

Deep beneath the city, deeper even than its forgotten cisterns, a sealed wall collapsed. Two figures passed through into the abandoned warren, Alistair's quiet tread complementing the brush of Mira's scaled tail. The place was a complex knot, tunnels untouched until they opened on a vast chamber.

A chamber of shattered statues.

Alistair picked around them towards the other side. Even in pieces they bore signs of petrification: details no sculptor could capture, now marred by brutal fracturing. Eyebrow raised, he said, "I thought your kin weren't the mineralizers your Medusan cousins tend to be."

Mira was unreadable as she replied, "We serpentfolk aren't. Look closer at exactly who these statues are."

He held his lantern towards a larger fragment, light playing on a familiar, scaled pattern.

"They're—"

"My kin. And this," she said, calm façade burning to hatred as she pulled a mirror—spotless despite centuries—from the rubble, "is why. Heroes with the cruel tricks they claimed were our monstrous heritage. And we… we…"

Her voice faltered, rage overcome by silent sobs as a hand fell on her shoulder.

Alistair took the mirror from unresisting fingers, an uncanny weight dragging on him as he tucked it away. A lingering call to cast all the world in stone.