The Hollow Bell Rings

The Aelvarians are said to be silent. However, occasionally they leave presents.

The most notorious of these is the Ring of Hollow Bells, a straightforward band of blackened silver rather than a blade or star-metal relic. There are no gems on it. It doesn't shine in the sun. Its surface is graven with shallow spirals that resemble scars rather than works of art because they have been worn so thin by ages of hands.

The Ring was initially mentioned by a fisherman who claimed to have discovered it in the stomach of a drowned whale near the seaside community of Drevmarch. He laughed at its simplicity as he put the ring on his finger. In less than a week, his whole family vowed to hear faint, hollow chimes that never seemed to go away, bells ringing in the night. The fisherman disappeared into the sea by the next month, leaving just his empty boots on the beach.

The Ring has made numerous appearances and disappearances since then. It was worn as a talisman by a warlord, who was discovered the following morning with his armor intact but his head smashed open. At a feast, a noblewoman exhibited it, but when the bells came "too loud," she raked her own throat raw. A child once buried it in sand, but it was back on his hand by daybreak, clinging to his little finger as though it had always been there.

The Calyran catalog said: "A trinket. A sign of hopelessness. We are not entitled to claim it".

However, the same description is repeated in drunken whispers, soldiers' stories, and pub songs:

"The bells continue to ring when the Ring is worn."

The first chime at first is faint as air. Then, one bell, then two, then a chorus, it becomes louder every night. They are funeral bells, according to some. Some claim that these are wedding bells of ghosts. Others insist that they are warnings. No one who has listened to them for a long time has survived to articulate them clearly, whatever they are.

Still, the Ring keeps coming back. It's always spiraling, dark silver, and too tight to come off once it's found its bearer.

TCOSA residents mutter that it was set here as a test or a trap by the Aelvarians. Naturally, priests deny it. Even still, they are unable to explain why the bells can occasionally be heard throughout entire villages, the sound of empty air ringing as though invisible hands were calling out everyone's doom.

Power is nto bestowed by the Ring of Hollow Bells. It doesn't bring wealth. It only provides the assurance of one thing:

Your sanity calls when the final bell rings.