"How does that work, or should you not tell me?"

"I don't think it would do any harm.

When someone dies, especially violently, they sometimes leave a ghost. It's not them, just an echo. An echo shaped like them and made entirely of being-bludgeoned-to-death-ness, or however it was they died. Using ghosts is one thing, but the kind of person who wants to use that to make magic items tends to want to make custom ghosts.

And at high levels they can somehow do the same for better items without actually killing the victims, which is possibly worse. I don't know of anyone who does that, but it was once a thing."

"The Enemy sounds like he'd be a very good practitioner. Let's ensure that does not happen."

"Well, he wouldn't have any way of learning to do things, or even knowing what people have done before. But, yeah. He doesn't need more power."

"Those all sound like ideas he'd come up with independently. All right. Implement ritual?"

"Regular magic item ritual, first. You want to do it or should I? It's mechanically the same as what you've done before, except simplified a bit since the elemental doesn't have to come out afterward."

"In that case I will do it; I could probably use the practice."

Setting the burned disc in a circle next to the ring, she releases the spirit. There isn't much to burn out here, so it starts in on the disc. The flames are much larger than should be justifiable; it looks like a campfire perched on a coin. Occasionally some tongues of flame intersect forming shapes reminiscent of claws or scales.

And he can bind it to the ring.

"I guess there's nothing around to test its ability to burn things on. Maybe ice?"

"Should we have brought something?" He sets it down on ice.

"Probably. But if it melts ice when you want it to it'll burn things when you want it to, and once it's your implement it'll do whatever it already does better."

"And I'll be wearing it? Can it burn things at range?"

"I'd be guessing. Just based on how big the elemental was, probably yes if it's close range but you don't need to literally touch things with the hand it's on."

"Thank you. And how does the implement ritual go?"

This one she looks up.

The implement ritual is much more straightforward than the demesne one. Like the demesne one, "implement" is an atomic concept and it doesn't take much to get the spirits' attention. Theatrics are still helpful, and stage dressing wouldn't hurt if it were more available.

The object goes inside a magic circle (diagram provided), and the practitioner starts talking. Describes their history with the object, what it means to them, what they plan to use it for, and generally why their implement is this instead of some other thing. There's effectively no set script, only a few set phrases. This is my badge and this is my tool come up at the beginning and end, and the practitioner has to declare their name and state that the implement doesn't belong to anyone else. Mostly it's freeform and subjective. What gets said during the ritual can affect whether a more symbolic implement ends up being seen as what it's made of or as what it's a symbol of.

"Uh. There are things about the history here that I shouldn't say aloud, but that seem plausibly relevant. Are witnesses important? If so, can you promise not to share this if you don't think I'd agree, and particularly not while you don't know what reactions you'd get?"

"Witnesses are optional. I can be out of hearing easily enough."

"Then please do that."

She does. Walking, not flying. Loose snow solidifies where she steps, and ice provides more traction than it should. Moving is much less inconvenient than it was the last time she set foot on the Ice.

Great. It means he can speak freely. 

"The Noldor make each other their engagement rings. My brother made his wife hers, and she made him his, though she's not a Noldo and made it clumsily. They exchange them before the wedding, traditionally. This was a risk. Making it, taking it,, wearing it, claiming it now as the most important thing to me. It was a good risk, a risk about telling the universe it was wrong. I would like practitioners on Arda to do a lot of telling the universe it was wrong, and expecting it to someday get better."

It sure is a good thing there's no one listening. Imagine what the twenty-first century Canadians might think. Fortunately he's alone.

In the absence of light, the shadows flicker. The spirits are very insistent that this needs to be ominous and important-looking enough.

He is not going to ask twenty-first century Canadians what they think, that'd be really pointlessly dangerous! The rest of the speech is what they'd previously discussed about betrayals and collaboration.

Eventually the universe's considerately provided background winds down. The ring looks exactly like it did before, or is sparkling brighter with magic, depending on which senses it's looked at with. In the latter case, trails of the microscopic ambient spirits are flowing between it and Findekáno.

He goes to find her. "Hey. Done, I think. You can see what it's about, at a glance?"