Silence

Silence is a palm-sized shard of obsidian, its surface a mirror-dark sheen that drinks the light rather than reflecting it. The stone feels cool and glassy at the fingertips, yet not quite smooth—micro-scratches and minute ridges catch on skin as if the item remembered every footstep it has ever witnessed. A hair-thin seam of pale metal threads the edge, not ostentatious, but enough to catch the eye when a lantern glints off it. In the right light the glyphs etched along its length glow faintly, like breath held just before a spoken word. It isn’t heavy, but it carries a gravity that makes you pause before you test it, as if a secret might spill out if you press too hard. Lore has it tempered Silence in the hush between bells, in a temple where sound itself was a weapon as much as a shield. Old stories speak of a smith who traded noise for stillness, who bound a whispering wind to the stone and instructed it to sleep when the world demanded noise. Some say it was kept by scouts who needed to slip past watchful guards, others that it found its way into the hands of guardians who believed true quiet could reveal what noise concealed. Whatever the origin, it feels less like a trinket and more like a doorway—an invitation to hear what remains when sound falls away. In practice, Silence reads as a practical, almost intimate ally for those who navigate both crowds and corridors. The moment you activate it, the world seems to lean in and listen less, not because it has shut out the chorus, but because the magic minimizes the clamor that gives away your presence. Footfalls lose their echo; gear clatter becomes a soft, inconsequential whisper. It doesn’t erase danger, but it makes danger harder to pin down. Traders speak in hushed tones when they handle it; rangers test its edge by letting their breath fall almost to a whisper and feeling the air tighten around their approach. For those who prize stealth, Silence becomes a companion that makes a careful plan feel almost inevitable, a chance to align intention with outcome without the world becoming aware of the alignment. All of this anchors Silence in the market as much as in the field. I watched a quiet exchange near Saddlebag Exchange, where a seasoned collector weighed the shard in a cloth pouch, counting copper and silver with the practiced rhythm of long habit. The price drifted with the day’s tides—one moment a couple of silver, the next a touch more as demand rose—but the real currency, as any veteran seller will tell you, is trust. The vendor’s hands held Silence carefully, like a sparrow you don’t intend to release until you’re certain the net is cast properly. In the end, it’s not just a piece of stone; it’s a hinge—opening passages through which quiet can become strategy, and strategy, in turn, becomes history. So Silence waits, cool and unassuming, tucked into a leather lining, ready to be drawn when the moment asks for it—the calm in the storm, the soft step that lets the story keep moving without shouting its name.