Motif · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

The Ring of Divine Suffering

Frank Q's revenge: +5% to all stats and the Marked for Death skill — mark a crawler, gain a permanent stat point when they die, and heal nothing until they do. Yvette wore it and marked Carl; that is why she could not heal, and why her mother killed her. Carl wears it until Mordecai explains what the sixth-floor hunters do to its owners.

Segment appearances

Chapter 25 — Empress, you have visitors
Chapter 26 — Milk; the Empress marked
Chapter 27 — Gavrilo Princip
Chapter 32 — King Rust arrives
Chapter 34 — The king's message; Rosetta's whip
Chapter 35 — Volteeg; the dwarves' tunnel
Chapter 39 — Alliances break; Operation Snake Pit
Chapter 40 — Little Günter; a dragon chain
Chapter 52 — The Temple of Khepri
Chapter 55 — Head Banger; Milk
Chapter 57 — Thirty-two boxes; the last prisoner
Chapter 69 — Interlude — Several days earlier; Interlude — Rosetta; Zarogoths
Chapter 72 — Diah
Chapter 73 — An act of fiendish cruelty
Chapter 77 — Not yet
Chapter 85 — Zerzura

Progression

On for D'Nadia — highest stat Intelligence, thirty seconds — and off with everyone watching (ch. 25–ch. 27). 'Throw that ring away, Carl […] You're scaring me' (ch. 27). Rust's second one (ch. 39); Li Na asks for it and Donut begs aloud (ch. 57); Rishi marked (ch. 58). Li Na marks everyone in the ball, maxes every stat, and can never heal (ch. 77, ch. 82). Carl holds his up to Donut's nose and she swallows it (ch. 85).