Recipe: Extended Potion of Nightmare Court Slaying

Recipe: Extended Potion of Nightmare Court Slaying rests on a worn oak counter, a rolled parchment sealed with a crust of wax and a bruised leather thong. Its surface is pocked with fingerprints and faint scorch marks where a careless flame once licked too close, and the ink—iron-black with a coppery sheen—drips across the page like late-night rain. The title gleams in copperplate, while a pale moon sigil curls at the corner, as if the page itself holds its breath. The parchment’s texture feels like pressed linen mixed with ash; rough enough to tell you it’s been carried, unfolded, and consulted more times than you’d expect. A delicate imprint of a vial, drawn in painstaking detail, sits at the center, surrounded by runes that glow faintly when the air grows still. A small wax seal, bearing the Nightmare Court’s thorned emblem, clings stubbornly to the bottom edge, whispering of cautions and bargains made in dimly lit rooms. Lore threads curl through the description the moment you lift the sheet. It’s said the Extended Potion grew from late-night experiments in a ruined satchel of a alchemist who survived a nightmarish encounter with dream-wrought wardens. The extended version, some claim, preserves the antidote to the Court’s dream-weaving longer than the standard draft, granting the user a stubborn edge when the halls grow twisting and the shadows begin to answer with eyes. The recipe speaks of nocturnal petals, ash from a lantern that never fully burns, and a tincture of moon-bloom resin—ingredients that carry stories of betrayals, whispered bargains, and the fragile line between waking and what lies between sleep and waking again. If you trace the diagrams and sigils, you can almost hear the muffled hum of dream-spirits shuddering at its potency. In practice, the potion is a kind of counterspell in a bottle, a tool for those who walk into dream-haunted corridors or confronts the Court’s nightmare minions. When brewed and consumed, it slows the weave of fear and fatigue that paces through a fight, buying moments of clarity as the world tilts and the Court’s illusions threaten to swallow a team whole. It isn’t a miracle cure, but it is a precise instrument: a longer-running shield against the Court’s dream corridors and a wick that keeps reason lit when everything else seems to dim. Market whispers carry the scent of leather and rain to the stall where this recipe is traded. In the Saddlebag Exchange, a quiet bustle of traders and caretakers swaps tales as much as coins, and the Extended Potion sits at a price that shifts with the moon and the demand of certain expeditions. Some days it’s a bargain for a steady crew; other days a prize for those who’ve weathered a nightmare and live to tell the tale. The piece feels less like a commodity and more like a keepsake—one forged in night, intended for the moments when dawn finally creeps back and fear is something you outlive, one careful breath at a time.