Vial of Thick Blood

Vial of Thick Blood sits on the desk, a small glass cylinder sealed with a brass stopper. Inside, the liquid is a living, deep crimson that moves in slow, deliberate currents as if it has a will of its own. The color is so dark it drinks light; when you tilt the vial, it clings to the glass and trails a glossy smear that takes a moment to relent. The texture is syrupy and stubborn, thick enough that a drop hangs for a breath before finally falling, the surface catching the lamp light and turning it to a molten ruby glow. The scent is a sharp, rusty iron with a hint of something sweeter, like burnt honey, as if a memory of sweetness lingers behind a boundary of steel. Lore clings to the vial with the same tenacity as its liquid. Some say it is the preserved blood of a fallen chieftain, drawn from a ritual well in a ruined fortress. Others whisper that it was collected from a night-blooming creature whose heart kept time with the world’s oldest pacts. Stories converge on a single idea: thick blood that remembers every oath it has touched, and forgets nothing it should not. In the world’s craft, the vial is a prized reagent with a hinge between life and luck. Alchemists and enchanters prize it for ceremonies that tilt fates and mend wounds. In capable hands, it becomes the bright pulse of a healing tincture that stanches grievous wounds, or the dark infusion that coils around protective sigils to hold a spell’s breath. For seekers and scavengers, it unlocks paths and opens doors—missing maps reappear, long-buried doors slide free of memory, and the quietest debts surface for settlement. The market breathes around such items, and the price of a Vial of Thick Blood is never fixed. On open days, traders measure its worth against scarcity and rumor, the number rising with each fresh tale of heroes renewed or rivals undone. The Saddlebag Exchange, in particular, becomes a discreet theater for its trade. A careful barter might see a vial swapped for a rare herb, a talisman carved from bone, and the priceless trust of a merchant who can tell a lie by the tilt of their hat and keep a secret tighter than the vial’s seal. To hold it is to hold a thread that runs through many lives. Some carry the vial as a quiet vow, others as a test of nerve: will you risk the price the world demands for a single drop of something that binds history to the present? And when the glow from its inside finally falters, the ledger of its stories remains—an artifact not merely of craft or barter, but of memory kept whole by the stubborn, stubborn resolve of thick blood. It travels with travelers, nests in boots and saddlebags, traveling from market to ruin, a quiet reminder that every trade carries both risk and memory, and that some relics outlive their owners by design.