Ring of Divine Suffering

The Ring of Divine Suffering is a dangerous divine ring that grants the Marked for Death skill. It offers permanent statistic growth for completed marks, but prevents its wearer from healing while any active target remains alive.

History

Frank Q’s revenge

Frank Q gives his ring to Carl after the Iron Tangle, describing the gift as his remaining form of revenge. The ring had helped destroy Frank’s family: he and Maggie forced their daughter Yvette to mark Carl, and when she was injured but could not heal while he remained alive, Maggie killed her. Frank expects the same combination of temptation, responsibility, and unresolved pain to corrupt Carl. The item immediately grants Carl five percent to all statistics, but its value and notoriety also make him a target for hunters and later factions. (Chapters 93 and 104)

Carl first activates Marked for Death against hunter Chin’Dua on the sixth floor, where the mark forms instantly and has no cooldown. The active mark inflicts Left to Fester on Carl until Chin’Dua dies, after which Carl receives a permanent point in the target’s highest statistic. Although the ring becomes more rewarding after repeated kills, Carl uses it selectively; he recognizes that a target’s escape would lock out healing and that pursuing growth through routine murder would serve the dungeon’s pressure rather than his own goals. (Chapters 149 and 152–158)

Two rings in Faction Wars

The ninth floor brings the ring’s incentives into open warfare. Carl obtains a second copy from King Rust, whose faction had used rings and the dungeon’s feeding rules to increase its power. Carl cannot equip two copies at once, so after consulting his closest allies he gives the extra ring to Li Na. He worries that the item could push her into reckless violence, while others judge that her chain abilities and discipline make her better able to turn its risk against their enemies. (Chapters 336, 341–342, and 360)

Carl considers marking Empress D’Nadia, but her slight injury makes her ineligible, and he later cancels an attempted mark on Lucia Mar when another personality asks him to wait. Li Na eventually marks the mass of hostile combatants in the rolling battle formation and gains enormous permanent statistics when most of them die. Several marks escape, however, leaving her unable to heal while her own chains continue costing health. Her success therefore demonstrates both the ring’s exceptional scaling and the exact failure state its warning anticipates. (Chapters 325–327 and 377–382)

Refusing the path

After Faction Wars, Carl looks at the surviving mercenaries and realizes he could imitate Li Na, mark them, and push his statistics toward the same extreme. He rejects that path after seeing its effect on her and remembering that survival is not measured only by numerical power. At his request, Donut swallows his ring, permanently removing the temptation; the dungeon later confirms the loss by mocking him for feeding away one of its most powerful items. Li Na’s separate copy is not shown being destroyed in the supplied corpus. (Chapters 390 and 404)

Abilities and properties

• While worn, a Ring of Divine Suffering raises all of the wearer’s statistics by five percent and grants Marked for Death. (Chapters 93 and 104)
• A selectable target must be at full health and within the wearer’s map range. On ordinary floors only crawlers qualify; on Scolopendra Lair floors, non-dungeon-generated combatants also become eligible. (Chapter 93)
• When an active mark dies from any cause, the wearer permanently gains a point in that target’s highest statistic. The reward increases by one after every three completed marks. (Chapter 93)
• Active marks inflict Left to Fester, preventing the wearer from healing until every unresolved target dies. A missed or escaped mark can therefore turn even minor accumulated damage into a fatal threat. (Chapters 93, 149, and 382)
• The setup, cooldown, and simultaneous-mark rules change by floor. Early floors use a thirty-second formation period and five-hour cooldown; the sixth forms marks instantly with no cooldown; the ninth normally allows multiple simultaneous marks on a fifteen-minute cooldown. (Chapters 93 and 149)
• Different copies cannot mark the same person on the ninth floor, and one wearer cannot benefit by equipping two rings simultaneously. (Chapter 342)

Ownership and custody