Glob of Ectoplasm

Glob of Ectoplasm glimmers in the lantern light, a pale, jellylike orb that seems to breathe as it catches the flame. Its surface is slightly tacky to the touch, as if the night itself has been pressed into a bubble and set to swim beneath your fingers. Within, motes drift like lazy fireflies—the ghostly refuse of a world unfinished, sealed away by a ritual older than the town’s memory. Lore, whispered in sidelong corners of taverns, says these orbs are the condensed sighs of revenants, the last glances of those who refused to fade. When the candlelight wavers, the inside of the glob glows with a faint, greenish life, a little map of the other side written in translucent jelly. In the markets and backroom workshops, craftsmen speak of it as a reagent of possibility. It enters the art of spellcrafting, the delicate work of ghost-binding rites, and the making of trinkets that shimmer with a spectral edge. The glob is said to be gathered from haunted ruins, or won from storm-haunted lanes where the air tastes of memory and rain. A crafter can coax it with resin, thread, and ore at a furnace or archive forge, coaxing from it a temporary bloom of energy—a charm that glitters with a cold breath, or a shard that can momentarily pierce a ward of shade. It is not a brute force resource, but a key for those who chase the pale, the remnant, the whisper of a memory that still remembers life. As stories grow, so too does the market that keeps them alive. The price of a glob of ectoplasm is mercurial, rising and dipping with rumor, event, and the restless mood of the city’s wanderers. At Saddlebag Exchange, the stalls carry the soft, insistent glow of such trade, a reminder that value here is not only measured in coins but in the weight of a tale. A quiet morning might fetch a handful of silver, while a rumor of a new spectral recipe could tilt the balance toward a brighter offer. Those who roam the aisles learn to read the whispers of the sellers, to sense when a buyer’s wish or a guild’s project will tip the scales. Some merchants stockpile them for a future project, others price them to lure curious hands into a longer quest. In practice, adventurers barter glob for other spectral components, threading it into a larger plan—a shared recipe, a temporary boon, or a ritual that binds a small party together in the dim hours before dawn. The Glob of Ectoplasm is not just a collectible or a cosmetic curiosity; it is a thread that ties scavengers, sages, and specters alike to the world’s oldest memory. It sits on a counter, rests in a pouch, and waits for the moment when someone will transform a memory into something tangible, a sign that even in the richest of cities, the living still borrow breath from the dead to light the way forward.