Night Wyrm's Ring

Story so far

Mordecai catches sight of it on Carl's left hand mid-conversation, crosses the room, lifts Carl's wrist, and tells him to take it off immediately. Carl's defence — that he has no intention of using Marked for Death and it gives five percent to all his stats — makes it worse.

What Mordecai lays out is the item's real economy. Several Divine Suffering artifacts are generated every season. The bonuses run both ways, which is why the crawlers who own them are the first ones the sixth-floor hunters track down and kill, and why the hunters go to the hunting grounds in the first place. In the hands of a sadistic owner the ring compounds: once charged, its bearer grows massively stronger with every kill. There has never been a Faction Wars whose victorious army was led by a champion without one, and the item class cannot be imported from outside the dungeon, so the ninth-floor factions get theirs by talking idiots into fetching them. Mordecai adds a second danger Carl had not considered: events that activate magic — like the third floor's pulses — and traps that trigger your own spells and items would make wearing this catastrophic. He calls it evil, says it was designed for tourists so they would farm combatants by the hundreds, and threatens to keep Princess Donut away from Carl on the sixth floor over it.

Carl pulls it off, feels his strength drop, and concedes only that they will discuss selling it on the fifth floor. He does not get rid of it.

Appearance

Off Carl's finger and back in inventory, its absence measurable in his stat sheet.

Role

A cursed legendary artifact and, per Mordecai, a target painted on its owner's back.

Relationships