Onyx Fragment sits in my palm, a shard of midnight polished to a mirror, its edges razor-smooth against skin. Facets catch the lamp light with a sudden, cold gleam, like distant stars pressed into a coin of obsidian. The surface runs with subtle veins—a pale, glassy lattice that seems almost to hum when you hold it close, as if the stone keeps a memory of some buried current. When you tilt it, the color shifts: deeper blacks along the core, a hint of emerald where the light threads through, and a whisper of violet where the fracture catches the air. The fragment feels ancient, heavy with weathered stories, as if it traveled through time before it came to rest in your hand. Lore murmurs that it is not mere stone but a keepsake of a pact—the remnant of a fallen star bound into the earth by hands long since claimed by the world’s quiet, patient magic. In practice, the Onyx Fragment is a key as much as a keepsake. Travelers clutching one after a night raid speak in hushed tones about its usefulness beyond its weight. Crafters value it for the resonance it lends to rare components, the way it can coax a weapon’s grip to hold steadier or a piece of armor to catch a glint of light that makes the wearer feel safer in the dark. You learn to listen for the story the fragment wants to tell you, because the right combination of shards, glass, and alloy can unlock options that ordinary materials cannot. It is not simply currency or loot; it is a bridge between an old, patient craft and the hurried, improvisational life of adventurers. When you place it on the workbench, the air tightens, and a faint odor of rain on stone rises, as if the fragment calls the workshop to listen. Market talks thread through its tale as well. I watched a young courier haggle along a crowded alley, the price hovering between copper and gold depending on who spoke first and what other trades were drying on the day’s ledger. The Saddlebag Exchange—a caravan-laden stall hub where scavengers and traders barter with a practiced, careful cadence—becomes the story’s barometer. A posted note promised a cache of a half-dozen fragments in exchange for a rare dye and a year’s service, yet another offered three fragments for a silver trinket and a promise to guard a map’s secret route. The variability feels like the weather: mercurial, yet indicting a larger pattern. People come to the market with their fragments and walk away with stories—of fortunes won, of rituals delayed, of futures braided by stone. In that sense, the Onyx Fragment is less a thing than a story pressed into a shard: a relic that ties the old world’s patience to the new world’s hunger, and a reminder that even small pieces can tilt the balance when they find the right hand to hold them and the right place to belong. Some fragments choose you, and world shifts.