An aside about Hilda's new jewelry

The jewelry Hilda had just taken from Hunny was a legendarily cursed set that had once belonged to Queen Marla The Bold.

It was created 400 years ago at the queen's request. She had always been a shy and timid person, and sought an easy way to boost her confidence using magic. She paid a vast fortune to a jewel maker named Pargon, who had promised her a set of baubles that would turn her into a new woman (and for a time, they did, until the queen lost it and suffered her own disastrous misfortune).

Unfortunately, the jeweler was not as talented as he had let the queen think. Yes, he could theoretically make something that could boost a person's confidence, but not in the way she had envisioned.

He couldn't make a confidence boosting item per se, but he could make something that would steal it from one person and then let another use it.

He was friends with a witch who was quite good with curses, and she had just what he needed; something that could drain the essences from one person, and magically store it in an object for use by another.

It wasn't perfect. The items could only keep one charge, effectively overwriting itself each time it exchanged owners, and the first person to wear it would receive no boost (since it was empty).

For the queen to get her trinket, someone else would first have to suffer. Luckily he knew just who to use it on; a boisterous brigand name Elmira Tarl. Tarl had routinely picked on him since they were young, and had regularly robbed him.

She was a bully through and through and in **** need of her comeuppance. So, Pargon made sure that cursed jewelry found its way to her, and then stole it back during one of her wild, booze-infused benders. The transformation was... impressive.

When Elmira awoke the next day, the bold brassy woman had been robbed of all her bravado in addition to her fancy trinkets.

Where once had stood a powerful, independent, intimidating woman capable of staring down a dragon and convincing it to pay her tribute, was now an easily frightened girl scared of her own shadow. A submissive coward of inaction who would acquiesce to those around her, no matter how outrageous their idea.

As you could imagine, it didn't take her gang of thieves to spot the difference, and within a week Tarl The Terrible became Tarl The Timid. Her followers intimidated her out of her leadership position (as well as her fine clothes, weapons, jewelry, and everything else) and busted her down to chamber maid, with nothing but a burlap sack for clothing.

She went from leader to loser so quickly, that when Bartok Brandt, Hilda's Great, Great, etc Grandfather cleared out Elmira's bandit hideout a few days later, he mistook the woman for a poor peasant girl named Elly (she was, of course, now too timid to correct him).

Their friendship blossomed into love and the two eventually married, allowing Hilda (in a round about way) to exist and take it for herself now!

Will Hilda suffer the same fate as her hapless Great, Great, etc Grandmother Elmira? Only time will tell...

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But the answer is 'probably, yes.'