Loki's Kiss

A steel ring, set with a small recess shaped like a pair of lips. It does not come off.

Description

A plain steel band, unremarkable except for the mark pressed into it: a small recess in the shape of a pair of lips. Found in a chest behind the altar of Loki's temple beneath the catacombs, alongside a striking rune, ghost-touched gloves, boots of striding, and a skeleton key — the last of the haul, and the only one that came with a catch.

How It Was Obtained

The party ran Brelka to ground in Loki's temple — vast, dark, trap-laden, half its snares already disarmed by the time anyone noticed. She had already done what the ring's price demanded of her: bones cracking, fur forced through skin, teeth doubling, a hairless tail slamming down behind her. She came at the party as something no longer entirely human, and they put her down for good on the cold stone in front of Loki's own altar.

In the chest behind it: the ring. Gunnar slid it on and gave the god a cheeky kiss back.

What Happened Next

He tried to take it off. He couldn't.

Pulling at Loki's Kiss brings pain that swallows the wearer whole — Loki's warm embrace, a hand on the face, lips meeting the god's, a tongue winding around the wearer's own. Every tug feels like tearing your own tongue out by the root. The ring stays. Whatever it is, Gunnar wears it now, permanently, with no ritual, curse-breaking, or divine favor yet found that so much as loosens it.

Powers / Effects

Unconfirmed in play beyond the binding itself. Gunnar has not reported any benefit from wearing it — no whispered guidance, no trickster's luck, nothing Loki has asked of him since. If the ring is a gift as well as a debt, it hasn't shown its other face yet.

Current Bearer

Gunnar — bound to the ring since Loki's temple, unable to remove it by any means tried so far.