Artifact question.

[missmvicious]

I think our party stumbled on the Eye of Vecna.

Stuff that helps explains my thought process and limitations:

From a meta-gaming perspective, this makes absolutely no sense. I'm the highest level in our group and I'm level 6. Why would we be given such a rare and powerful item so early in our PCs development? However, the DM has some seriously tight lips about it.

My character is a Wizard devotee of Wee Jas, but we've all lived a sheltered life in our isolated theocratic village. It's hard to say whether or not we'd know much about Vecna, let alone this 1-in-a-million find. Still, I know there are processes to figuring out what magic items do. First, Detect Magic to find it's Aura and School, roll Knowledge Arcana, then Spellcraft. Boom, bang, boom, you may or may not know it's name, but you'd at least know what it does.

But what, besides trial and error (I'm not cutting my freaking eye out) are the methods to figuring out what an Artifact is? We don't possess the Eye. We've merely seen an Abyssal who my PC has very good reason to believe that it is wearing and using a magical eye that so far, can do all the things that the Eye of Vecna can do. What we saw made our party run like all Baator was at our heels. But it's got me worried. Our home village is only a week's travel away. My PC has written a letter to my father and I will have my bat familiar, George, send it to him when he returns from the last mission I sent him on (I use him as a carrier pigeon a lot).

We could go back and try to help save my village, but our mission is to escort an NPC who knows how to seal the planar rift that's letting this Abyssal monsters through. Saving the village from this one Abyssal only means that another, more powerful Abyssal, will destroy it later. Closing the rift means we only have to clean up the mess (whatever Abyssals are still trapped on the Material Plane) and my home will be safe for good.

Still... the Eye of Vecna. That's never a small deal. I need to know (my PC needs to know) what is going on. How do I uncover the secrets of this artifact without meta-gaming? First:

1. How do I tell the difference between a powerful magic item and an artifact in game?
2. What methods can I use to determine which artifact it is using L6 Wizard abilities?

FYI, Other members of our team include:
L5 Ranger
L5 Druid
L5 Cleric
L4 Crusader/L1 Cleric (soon to be Ruby Knight Vindicator)

All of us come from the same village; all of us worship Wee Jas. I'm the only one who got the hint that we saw a powerful magical eye. I haven't told the rest of the group, because we're running out of time on our mission as it is. At first only Quasit's and Dretch's were getting through the rift. The fact that we're starting to see Large and Huge Abyssal types implies that we are either getting closer to the rift, or the rift is getting larger. I'd like more information before I drop a bomb like this that could send us on a side-quest that may result in the failure of our mission.

[Shadowleaf]

Hit it with a Detect Magic (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/detectMagic.htm) to find out it is magical.

Try to Identify it to find out you cannot identify the overwhelmingly strong aura'd magic item.

You now have two solid clues that this is an artifact (since artifacts have overwhelming auras and cannot be identified).

[missmvicious]

Identify... I'm going to have to get close enough to touch that thing, then. And even if my dad hooks me up with a scroll of Invisibility, it still won't help, if it is indeed the Eye of Vecna.

I haven't rolled a Knowledge check yet. I know I only get one shot, so I was hoping to gather as much info as I could for circumstance bonuses first. Being a rare one-of-a-kind Artifact, the DC to Knowledge has got to be through the roof. I theoretically could roll up to a 30 on Know:Arcana if I roll 18-20, which according to PHB, is enough to answer really tough questions. I think this would fit in the really-tough-questions category. But the odds are against me on that.

I already got tagged by the Overwhelming Aura. If it weren't for the fact that the Abyssal monster wasn't already busy raising an army of the undead, it might have found us. I suddenly realized how stupid it was to cast spells near the Eye of Vecna and released the spell. (Since there's no clearly defined effect of an overwhelming aura with Detect Magic, it's been house-ruled that the caster would swoon and fall prone unless she can pass a DC 12 Reflex save +2 per round Detect Magic is being cast, falling dispels Detect Magic unless the caster chooses to roll a Concentration check.)

Maybe that's enough info to share with my dad. They're in it deep if that demon is doing what I think it is. Looks like this campaign is going to have a Left 4 Dead follow up quest. Wee Jas knows there's more than enough bodies lying around. We've been at war with our neighboring village for 500 years.