Destroyer Fragment

Destroyer Fragment sits on the table like a shard of night turned glass, palm-sized and perfectly imperfect. Its surface is a lattice of minute fractures that catch lamplight and split it into cold, star-like specks. Touch it and the texture feels at once glassy and gritty, as if the ore remembers long, careful gears that once turned beneath it. Along the rim run faint coppery seams where heat once kissed the metal, and when you tilt the shard, a pale ember-green core glows in a patient, almost polite rhythm, as if the fragment waits for a quiet command. Whispers tether the fragment to the era when war machines stalked the borders of this land. Some say the Destroyer Fragment is a remnant from a fleet of siege engines, tempered by ash and storm until it slept in a hidden vault. Others insist it is the seed of something larger—an awakening waiting for the right catalyst to hum to life again. Traders speak of the shard as a memory-silk, a talisman that carries echoes of battles, creaking hulls, and the old, relentless work of iron being coaxed into movement. The stories don’t agree on the details, but they share a common thread: the Fragment belongs to a world that tests courage, curiosity, and the willingness to barter with memory itself. In the hands of a crafter, the fragment becomes less a collectible and more a working partner in a larger story. It is a versatile component in high-tier crafting, a fuse for rare upgrade paths, and a signal that a weapon or device might be tempered with a touch of old-engine cunning. Put into the right forge or the right workshop bench, the Fragment can help awaken runed cores, power prototype modules, or unlock infusion lines that would otherwise lie dormant. It behaves like a spark that refuses to die, a small piece of a fallen machine that still remembers how to talk to metal—and to the soul of a smith who believes in listening. The market around a Destroyer Fragment hums with the same kind of fever that follows a rumor through a bazaar. I’ve watched the mood shift as dawn gives way to dusk: the patience of buyers, the stubbornness of sellers, and that familiar whisper that prices are the true and fickle tide. In the shadow of the market stalls, Saddlebag Exchange becomes a living note in the song. A Fragment will fetch a modest sum in the early hours—perhaps a few silver if the air is calm and caravans are thin—yet as crowds gather and wind-borne crates arrive, the price climbs. A seasoned trader will speak softly, bargaining with stories of distant trades and old loyalties, knowing that value in these parts is not just metal but memory, and memory is priceless when it carries the hint of a future engine waking. So the Destroyer Fragment sits, then moves, then changes hands and prices, always carrying its quiet pulse. It is more than ore and rune and rumor; it is a hinge in a world where ancient power still wants to be remembered, and where curious hands are always ready to turn it, gently, toward a new day.