Stone Bracelet of Servitude

The bracelet ranks among the rarest of relics, a creation of the ancient Ewig the Sage and the single object said to seize control of a demon's thoughts. A thick, unbroken ring, it clamps tightly to the wearer's wrist, its buffed outer edge framing an inner surface etched with dense script. Its substance is never confirmed, though the name hints at an enchanted stone resistant to breaking. A faithful copy also exists, stripped of any real power yet duplicating the original's magical lattice with care.

In practice the artifact runs on spoken commands. When the lord of Weise clasped it on Macht, he ordered the demon to serve the city's people and their descendants forever, and to take his own life the instant he harbored ill intent toward them. The spell holds as designed, yet it cannot curb every act: Macht still turned the town to gold, because the working only punishes malice, an emotion he proved incapable of feeling. Fresh instructions can be layered on, but Edel determines that only the one who first bound the wearer may add them, leaving outsiders unable to redirect it.

Glück fastened the bracelet on Macht in a public ceremony roughly six decades before the present, a concession to frightened citizens after a lone demon leveled a fortified city. Generations later the mage Lernen recruits the hypnosis specialist Edel to study the surviving replica kept in Äußerst and to mend the original from afar, convinced it holds the key to bringing Macht down. When Macht at last crumbles into mana, the stone ring is all that remains of him.