Chocolate Bar

The Chocolate Bar sits on the counter like a polished slab of night, its surface lacquered to a glassy sheen that catches the lanterns and hints at air pockets trapped within the cocoa. A thin seam of caramel runs along its edge, and a faint whiff of roasted beans and vanilla drifts up when you tilt it toward the light. Break it, and the snap is decisive, a clean crack that gives way to a velvety melt, a center so smooth you expect it to sigh with every bite. There’s a whisper of salt in the finish, a reminder that even sweetness has memory, and in some corners of the city there’s a tale that the bar carries a trace of old battlefield fires, a story the bakers never quite admit but the gossip loves to repeat. On market mornings, I learned to read a bar by its gloss: some were thick with cocoa, others brightened with oil that shines in torchlight. The lore says this particular recipe came south in a caravan’s crate, carved into a ledger by a baker who learned the trade from an ash-faced courier during a rain-soaked march to the border. They say the recipe survived only because a child pressed the final note into the book with a cocoa-smudged finger; that half-forgotten origin becomes part of the flavor as you chew, turning sweetness into memory. Vendors trade tall talk about how the bar’s sweetness settles an anxious moment as reliably as a familiar tune, and how even grim-faced mercenaries crack a smile when the chocolate’s first bite fades into a warm, lingering finish. In the grind of daily life, the bar is more than a treat; it’s a compact instrument of comfort and pacing. It can be eaten between patrols to nudge a party’s spirits back from fatigue, or used to seal a small bargain with a wary contact who’s hungry for a sign of harmless intent. Gamers tuck one into a pouch before a long trek, not just for the calories but for the sense that a mundane pleasure can anchor a plan. It’s also a pat of nostalgia in certain quests, where a pastry-scented clue or a character’s memory hinges on sharing a bite at just the right moment. The bar’s presence makes the world feel edible, full of chances to pause and savor before the next decision. Cast your coins toward a stall at Saddlebag Exchange, and the price slips between copper and coin when market winds rise and fall. A single bar might be offered for a couple of copper in a quiet hour, yet a brisk crowd could push the price toward a silver if someone insists on a quick trade with a storyteller’s smile. I’ve watched traders bundle two bars with a tale of road-weary travelers and push the price up to a silver’s worth, purely for the memory of sharing sweetness on a cold night. So it sits, unassuming yet vital—a small square of warmth in a world of steel and storm. A reminder that even in a land where caravans pace the horizon, the simplest chocolate can tether strangers, spark a laugh, and carry a fragment of history from one hand to another.