Mursaat Runestone

The Mursaat Runestone glows with a cold, sapphire light, a palm-sized slab carved from pale stone. Its surface is smooth as glass on one side, rough and pitted on the other, where flecks of mica catch the air like tiny stars. Tight runic sigils snake across the stone, raised and etched so finely that they feel almost velvety to the touch. When you cradle it, a quiet tremor runs along your fingertips, as if the stone remembers you before you remember it. The glyphs bend light into faint blue ribbons, and in the right angle they flare into a soft, telegraphed pulse—a heartbeat you can align your own breath with. In the scrollwork of its edges, a narrative threads through: the Mursaat who once walked the deserts and the cities they governed, their pacts sealed with carved shards like this, a relic of power that outlived their crumbling empire. In practice, the Runestone functions as a key and a record. It is used in particular encounters and crafting chains that favor the patient collector: you attune to its resonance to unlock a hidden chest during certain ruins, or you trade it to a circuit of traders for other relics to complete a map's quest line. It can be consumed to grant a temporary boon, a cold illumination that steadies your aim against spectral foes, or to unlock a memory in your character's narrative arc, a reminder of a treaty broken long ago. It does not burst into flame or explode; it simply lends its calm to your own pulse, letting you see opportunities others miss—the opening in a sealed door, the statue that a pressure plate favors, the glyph that responds to the same rune in your weapon. Saddlebag Exchange is the name that drifts through the market when prices are discussed. A veteran vendor, with a coin purse and a chalk-marked ledger, will tell you that the Runestone has a steady baseline in the market, yet the price shifts with discoverers and scavengers who chase rumor. On a quiet morning, Saddlebag Exchange listed a handful of runestones at a modest premium, a gleam of gold in the crease of their leather, while a storm-wracked afternoon could see the same stone traded for a few silver more or less, depending on the crowd. I wrapped the stone in a cloth and weighed it against the offered gold, thinking of the deserts where the Mursaat once reigned and the quiet pact those stones kept in place. The Runestone is not merely an artifact to collect; it is a choice to listen, a way to tell a story with your hands, a chance to walk again through someone else’s memory and walk away with your own footing firm in the world. Sometimes the glow grows brighter when rain taps the market stalls, as if the stone feeds on human patience and curiosity. If you listen closely, you can hear an old treaty sigh in the crackle of its glow, inviting another chapter.