The Ring of Ending

This is one of the articles that was submitted to the Secrets of Tibia 3 contest. It was written by Erak Starfollow. 

The Ring of Ending

                                                                                   
The ring now cuts your flesh. However, you feel fast as lightning and strong as a dragon, fires seem to burn within you.
You feel as if you could touch the stars and see beyond even the dimmest of them. The ring hurts you now.
The ring now seems to be as hot as fire while at the same time cold as ice. Put it off or it will seriously hurt you.
Pain is no word for what you feel anymore. If you do not put the ring off it MAY kill you. Chances are 50/50.
Your pain transports you in a different world, you are alone there. Filled with anguish. You may live or it MAY KILL YOU.
You became pain itself. You are mere seconds away from death. If you do not PUT OFF THE RING. You MAY actually DIE.
The ring closes. It feels cool now. With the ring restored, you have returned.
You see a ring of ending.
It can only be wielded properly by players of level 200 or higher.
This constantly rotating ring is perfectly weightless yet feels infinitely heavy at the same time.

For years, one of the biggest mysteries of Tibia remained in a broken ring called Broken Ring of Ending, , a ring added in the patch 9.1 on July 6th,2011 and no one knew how to restore its powers or if there was any use. To talk about the ring, first we need to know where it comes from, a creature from another world called Yielothax. This creature was discovered after a mad mage opened a dimensional rift between worlds, and it doesn't look like any creature from Tibia's world.

It is difficult to say when Yielothax's first appearances were recorded. The creature seemed so bizarre and fantastic that encountering them was probably dismissed as feverish delusion. It is correct to say that the Yielothaxs are not native to our world. They often enter our world due to bizarre magical phenomena, often the result of careless experiments with magic. Sometimes dimensional travelers encounter them in what was perceived as their home dimension. But, recent research suggests that the Yielothax are a non-invasive life form that unlike a swarm of locusts, they invade and occupy other dimensions or planes of existence while annihilating all native life. Since they change the environment in a certain way, it was often assumed that travelers meeting the Yielothaxs in their "native" habitat were visiting the same dimension. This has been proven wrong by new scientific methods and knowledge, however.

There are heated debates whether the Yielothax are more like carrion eaters, invading dimensions that have become weakened and disappearing, or whether the Yielothax are the reason for these dimensions' disappearance. Whichever theory may be true, the fact is that the dimensions in which Yielothax are found in groups become increasingly unstable and after a time unreachable. It is unknown if there is (yet) such a thing as a “Yielothax” dimension that they can call their home.

Yielothax are very territorial and extremely aggressive towards non-Yielothax life forms. They can reach surprising speed and attack quickly trying to tear their opponent apart. The Yielothax is omnivorous in the truest sense. They will eat just about anything. There are proven reports of Yielothax eating substances such as rocks, tar, and even magical walls. Even though the Yielothax are likely sentient beings, they seem willing to communicate with any non-Yelothax life form. Since the rare cases of Yielothax appearing in our dimension are the precursors of an imminent invasion, all who encounter Yielothax in our realm are asked to report it to scientific authorities immediately. (translated from tibiawiki.com.br)

So, for years the players tried to repair the broken ring but without any success. The first clue was discovered when the players combined the broken ring with a Shimmer Swimmer and created a Shimmer Wand, a wand that lasts for 7 days.

                                                 It can only be wielded properly by sorcerer of level 40 or higher.
                                                It weighs 31.00 oz.
                                                It feels cold and smooth.

Then, 2 and a half years later, in the patch 10.30 on December 11th, 2013, everything changed, when some new interesting monsters, items and pieces of information arrived in the game. First, we have 2 texts we can find in The First Mate Cave in Lower Roshamuul and its called Secrets About Ring of Ending Part I and II.

Part I 

 <page 1 of some scribblings>

I do not how you found this place, obviously it was not me who told you. I will probably not be far away from where you found these pages. Just take a look around if nobody answers. Because I may just as well be dead already. I do not know why Marv has left me a piece of paper and a quill, that bastard. When we landed on this island, there were barely 20 of us. Marv as our captain ordered us to scout the place. It didn't go well. Not far from our landing point we spotted creatures with bigger teeth than our heads and large feet. Without any eyes they just smelled us. They attacked as soon as we layed eyes on them. A dozen other sailors died on the first day, like flies. We were about to retreat, go back home, get backup - but Marv kept on pushing. He ordered us... commanded us to breach that large wall. That wretched wall. He wanted to get deeper into the island. He wanted us to make it fall.

 

I always suspected he found something, he knew something. He was hiding something from us and now I know. He showed me, and then he left me here to rot. Never to spill his secret. There's just enough ink left to... So I will just write about what may be most important to you. There are creatures on this island which are so wretched and evil that they carry death itself. And somehow he managed to hunt one down or maybe it has surrendered to him willingly. Whatever the case, he got his hands on something nobody should ever have.

 

But I need to tell the whole story to make whoever reads this understand. In some gods-forsaken harbour, Marv came by a broken ring. He won a gamble and the other guy didn't want to pay. He talked about how he found this in another dimension or something. About how it was an extremely mighty ring but that broke and that a creature was carrying it. Whatever fantasies that man had, Marv killed him and all he got was that stupid piece of metal. This tainted place was a perfect match for our captain, I can tell.
 

Part II

On this dark corner of the world, Marv found a way to actually mend the ring. Whatever Marv did to wrestle this... thing from the abominations on this island, he would never be the same again. It was a simple string of a dark shade, not very large and unnaturally smooth. It looked like it was a shiny piece of metal, yet did not seem to reflect a thing, not even Fafna and Suon's healing gaze. When he picket up that piece of rope it suddenly got a life of its own. It wrapped itself around his arm, while he was still wearing that cursed ring. At first he was shocked but that feeling lifted soon, as he began to fantasize about strength, speed and power. He babbled about seeing things and hearing unspeakable sounds. I do not know if it was still our captain or just something else. Then he seemed to struggle in pain, he screamed and winded himself. We did not dare approach him. After some time he seemed to stop doing anything at all, no more moving, no more talking, not even a single breath. And then he just got up. Removed some dust from his coat and walked away, with a laugh on his lips and a pat on my shoulder.

I am sure it is connected to the ring as he showed me the piece of string briefly afterwards. It did nothing at all to me and I was quick to return it, not wanting to have anything to do with that for it surely meant bad fortune for us all. And it did. Maybe even touching it was my demise. I do not know, nor do I care anymore. All I have to do now is to warn whoever else walks the blood-soaked soils of this isle. The ring turned him into something far more treacherous than what we saw up until this point it seems. When we found out he does not intend to leave this island, the others raised a mutiny. I remained petrified by fear of his reaction, as I was one of the few who witnessed first hand what that ring had done to him. And I knew that no good would come of it anyway.

In the end he killed every soul opposing him. Except for me.

Now here I lie. For he did only destroy my body and chained me to the very walls of this cave. He gave me quill and paper. Why? Maybe to write all of this down.

Han, former First Mate of the S.S. Primordia

PS.: I have some ink left and I have to say I am unsure of why he wants me to write this. I guess it's days since I saw daylight, only the small glimpse reaching into this cave from far above. If feels as my life is fading. But why did he made me write this down? As a warning? Probably not. Maybe he wanted to torture me and he gave me barely enough ink to write it all down, why? Maybe he wanted me to - now I know w...  THERE ARE OTHER RINGS! HE WANTS YOU TO-

So, as we can see in the Part 1, Marv and his crew fought some Yielothax and found a broken Ring of Ending, but what is really important here is what was written in the Part II. In the Part II we found that there is a way to mend the ring and that using some odd string the ring would turn into something different, but dangerous. Now we need to find what kind of string can mend the ring. And we find the answer in the same update, in a monster called Sight of Surrender, that drops an item called String of Mending. Sounds promissing. 

          It weighs 0.00 oz.
This extraordinary smooth string feels quite cool to the touch.

They are called the "Sight of Surrender" because everything they set their eyes on ceases to exist in a matter of moments. They are solitary, usually isolated from each other, but they will not hesitate to attack in groups. They see themselves as a kind of guardians of the great walls of Roshamuul and rarely give up on their seemingly almost-imposed goals of guarding what belongs to them. Fighting them is an extremely dangerous and tiring task as they are extraordinarily well prepared for battle with their almost impenetrable armor and their only weak point - their eyes. They will always try to force everything in their sight to surrender so that there is victory or... (translate from tibiawiki.com.br)

So, after killing a Sight of Surrender and dropping a String of Mending, players combined both items and created a new item, called Unstable Ring of Ending.

(Arm: 0).
It weighs 0.60 oz.
Something is happening to this ring.

So, with this new ring there is only one thing left to do, and it's wearing, the same way Marv did and suffer from extreme pain. The first players who tried to use an Unstable Ring of Ending was Forex Wizard, Mastrik and April Veriiky. Mastrik even died trying to get the ring. After enduring the pain and surviving the ordeal, finally we get the result, the Ring of Ending.

Now, here is where the speculation and theories begin. The ring itself doesn't do much, and maybe there is still things to discover about the item.

Prime Artefact

You see a cloth fragment.

This cloth resembles a prime artefact. It feels soft to the touch and seems to have almost no weight.

If we look closely, the cloth fragment of the ring shows the broken ring, so not so many people knows about the full power of the ring. Maybe we will have some quest related to that in the future.

Someone behind the curtains

If we read Part II of the document before, some things are really unsettling about the ring. For example:

 The ring turned him into something far more treacherous than what we saw up until this point it seems.  Maybe he wanted me to - now I know w... THERE ARE OTHER RINGS! HE WANTS YOU TO-> 

Maybe there is someone or something behind all of this. Maybe a masterplan. If the ring turned Marv into something evil and there are a lot of rings, maybe they want the people to find the rings so more people can wear and turn into evil.

We can be talking about creatures from other dimensions, the Yalahari (who can open rifts for other relms) or even the Dreamstealers from Roshamuul, since a lot of things are connected from there, and even a possible connection with Zathroth.  From now on, we don't know. But maybe there are clues out there to be discovered and new quests in the game in the future.

This article used the brazilian website tibiawiki.com.br, the Tibia BR forum and some knowledge from inside the game.