How does "floating nearby" work? (mild spoilers i guess)

[ephemeraltoast]

I finally finished the quest to retrieve the Amaranthine Prism, which Warden Indrix specifically warned me not to equip. Apparently it's cursed and you can never take it off again once you equip it and I guess he knows that. But... it uses the "Floating Nearby" slot. How on earth is something that is floating near you "equipped," such that you can never take it off again?? I mean presumably it's not touching you while it's floating next to you any more than it would be while "unequipped." Most of the other non-unequippable items I've found like the gentling mask have some explanation of why you can't remove them, like they fuse with your body in some horrible way. I can't figure out how that works with this creepy floating prism.

This question is just for fun. Obviously it doesn't affect the game experience seriously, it just made me scratch my head.

[classicalclarinet]

When you equip the Prism you link yourself to a Power whose extent you cannot even fully comprehend. Once you fall prey to it matters of will or nill become moot.

[ephemeraltoast]

Sure, totally normal stuff. Just another Tuesday in Qud. But like... where do you put it? Do you jam it into your ear, or...? Warden Indrix specifically says "equip" so you must have to actually put it somewhere on your person before it can devour your mind and start floating near you??

[Luke]

what do you mean? its pretty clear, it just floats nearby.

Same with floating glowspheres, they just sort of float near you and give you light. the difference with a glowsphere is that you can just reach out and pluck them out of the air and put them in a pack or trade them to someone.

With the prism, its just floating there and you either cant move it on your own because it is too strong for you to push it around on your own, or you cant move it because it dominates your will and doesn't let you.

"floating nearby" is an "equipable" slot, but that is just a game device that prevents you from having more than one floating item active at a time. So you can't use a floating glowsphere for light now, or you cant equip a hoversled to follow you.

Whatever you do though, you better hurry though. You're on borrowed time now ;-)

[ephemeraltoast]

Oh, I didn't equip it. It creeped me the hell out when I picked it up and it HAD A STORY INSIDE IT ABOUT HOW IT DRIVES MEN MAD so I looked it up to make sure that just carrying it around with me wasn't going to turn me into a flesh-eating monster. And it doesn't! You can wander around with it in your backpack or whatever for as long as you want and it's totally safe and cool. But as soon as you "equip" it, it's game over (eventually). So my question is... what do you DO to bind your mind with an evil prism such that it can never be removed from your vicinity again. Since just having it near you isn't enough for it to permanently dominate your will, you must have to voluntarily do something for it to be able to.

I know that "equip" is just a video game word that Indrix uses for clarity of game mechanics but c'mon we're trying to have fun here.

[Luke]

Yeah, I think you voluntarily form a psychic bond with it. it isn't super explicit, what you read in the story is basically all there is.

Ptoh seems to be kind of a jerk, but a lot of the details are only hinted at and sort of left to your imagination.