I just now realized...
Ring of Persuasion: 4 River Dollars(courtesy of Oric).
Level Up Potion: 1 River Dollar(courtesy of the River Watcher).
End result: Incredibleness.
Do we really want to let Ciro cast Genetic Recess, grant Proxxy an ability for her unshifted soul star, make Cherish's Asynchrony Catalyst even more confusing, and make Al the ultimate tank?
Alternate interpretation: ffs and/or Oric valued that ring highly enough to give us all that for it. Perhaps we should take their appraisal seriously.
Unrelated weird thing just occurred to me: Cain mentioned that "not everybody got to be a Sinister Sibling." He was referencing Chief specifically, but the way he phrased it made it sound like it was a fairly common occurrence. So while there are presumably not too many airvent-dwelling psuedo-lords leeching the soul force of small children, there might be an unusually large number of "originals" along for the ride... like, say, all the villagers we never see, the guards, presumably the shopkeepers although they're more likely elite angels, and maybe a ton of others.
All of which raises some questions about how exactly Oric and crew ended up here and why, why everbody was kept on board, what the process for reviving them is, and so on. Remember, Chief was
Illborn, which we now believe happens when your soul is shucked upon entry to the Warrens; when a person simply runs out of Soul Charge, they supposedly become Willborn, as per Yaos. Ciro also mentioned something about "two souls destined to fight," so that certainly could have been unusual in some way, but otherwise it would imply that Chief's soul was eaten like any other despite him being both Cain's brother and important enough to let run his own little side show.