City of Curses: Fusion Ring(s)

Both rings clinked in my palm.  We both had tried them a few times.  They were a precaution.  Singular.

Well, plural.

Jhanna held onto my arm as we walked through the Grand Bazaar.  An alchemist tried to hack his potions.  Technological wonders, like cameras and pocket watches sat in shop windows.  Fruits and meats from exotic places line the shelves of the store to that.  One could buy anything here.  Anything in the world.

I could smell Jhanna's perfume.  Her cold skin.  Even in her dress, she still walked with the cool, trained steps of a proud Fighter.

I never have been much for combat.  Magic has always been my second love.  The first held me close.

Guns cocked from a nearby bar.  We both stopped.  A tall, drooling hyena-headed gnoll leveled a shotgun at us.  He spluttered something at us in his tongue.  I caught the drift.

Gh'tyrax the Blood-Drinker.  Maliphi Gangster.  He'd followed us, from the most southernmost parts of Maliph.  I frowned.

Jhanna shrugged.  "You, me or us?"

I looked the bounty hunter up and down.  More gnolls emerged from the streets.  They shared the same coloring as this one.  They all shared the same, drooling idiotic gaze too.  Six in total.

"Six of them.  Three to one."  I thought.

People around us started to run away.  Screams.  Panic.  Calls for the City Watch.  But knowing the Grand Bazaar of Crux, the Gnolls had already greased the Watch.  They didn't want us to have a crowd to hide in.  Almost clever.  No one was coming.  Not soon anyway.

Jhanna rolled her eyes.  She plucked one of the rings from my hand.

"Make it Six to One."  She put the ring on.

Jhanna and I confused the gnolls as we danced together.  It was a brief, beautiful little thing.  In tune, rings on both our hands.

One of the Gnolls growled again, firing a shot in the air as we continued dancing.  They wanted to know where the Blood-Drinker's treasure was.  They should've asked before we put the rings on.

Then we both glowed bright blue and fused into one.

Fusion Ring

A pair of golden rings, each studded with a turquoise carved into an arrow.  When worn, they feel as though they have their own rhythmic pulse.  They both share the same pulse.

When wore by two different wearers, each can feel the pulse of the other wearer.  They can, if able, match the rhythms.  Activating the rings requires the performance of a dance.  This attunes the rhythms of the wearers to one another.  Then both glow a bright blue for a instant.  Afterwards, they merge and fuse into a new individual.

The Fused being has the best properties of both wearers.  Because of their combined mass, the new being is often far larger than its origin wearers.  The rings merge together into a single ring with two turquoises.   The fused being remembers what both remembers, and can access what either knew.  It can combine features of classes together.

Physical features blend together.  Eye and hair color merge in some unique fashion to this new individual.  Even genitalia blend together into a medium between whatever the two wearers had.  Gear follows suit, changing and merging into a blend of what they first were.

They are a gestalt of class and other features.  They possess a new, much bigger size.  Often this means that new fused being is more powerful than their original counterparts.

Both wearers control the fused being.  With equal, shared minds.  If they come into disagreement or lose their rhythm with one another, the ring splits back into two.  They split apart.  The harsher the split, the harder it is to re-fuse with the rings again.

One could use many fusion rings to merge multiple people together.  Yet, the more people that attempt to keep in rhythm, the harder it is for the fused being to remain stable.  It is possible for a pair to remain fused for long periods of time, maybe even years or decades.  The new being comes in their own.    There are questions on whether the fused being is the same as its originals or not.  Often stable fused beings see no conflict or confusion at all.  They see themselves as both the fused and the originals at the same time.

Powerful magic, few fusion rings are known to exist.  They are believed to be some sort of faerie magic.  Some myths have fey giving fusion rings to lovers in peril.  Or star crossed lovers desperate for a means to escape to be together.  If true, it could be that the fey know the core method to the ring's manufacture.  Or maybe, there could be some sort of curse or bemusement the rings have.  Something the fey find entertaining.  Or maybe something the fey alone could undo.