Back in the old days, when you took a cabal item, you didn't give it to a mob. You just dropped it at the altar in your own cabal.

Counter-raiding was essentially a matter of fleeing past the outer guardian (which was what our inner guardians are like today) and running into the enemy cabal's altar room and picking up your item.

So what you had, back then, was some poor lowbie in, say, Battle whose job it was to pick up the Master Orb anytime the Masters came to retrieve. And then "down it" again once they left. Fun times, eh? Just sit there all damn day and night.

Also, you had lowbies whose job it was to flee past a mob like the Destructor (ow!) to try to run in and pick it up.

It wasn't a very good system for a lot of reasons, which is why it works how it does now.

But when you hear someone say "Down the Codex" or whatever, that's what they mean - give it to the cabal inner guardian.