Vera

Vera is a teardrop of obsidian, cut so precisely that it captures a night-bloomed reflection of the moon. Its surface is smooth as glass, yet cool to the touch, with a filigree of argent runes curling along the edge like ivy. A slender vein of sea-green resin threads through its core, catching light and turning every glance into a small, secret flame. In the markets and on the trail, the stories say Vera was forged in a dawn-lit forge beneath the root-stairs of an old watchtower, tempered by rain and memory. The inscription in the center glows faintly when danger nears, as if the stone recognizes a kindred pulse in the world’s tides. Sleek, simple, but alive with whispers, Vera carries history like a melody. To hold Vera is to feel a faint tug of the past and a promise of direction. The texture implies a craftsman's careful hand: a surface that feels almost lacquered, then unexpectedly cool, with a thin copper thread visible where the runes meet the metal. When worn as a pendant, it rests just beneath the collarbone like a quiet witness, and its glow thickens under starlight, as if listening to the same stories the traveler tells at dusk. In practical terms, Vera has become a traveler’s talisman in this world. It is said to sharpen the wearer's sense for safe routes and to temper impulse with a measured calm, a helpful thing for scouts who must read wind and rumor before they commit to a path. In battle, its runes pulse in rhythm with the heart’s own tempo, granting a brief window of steadiness that helps allies land a decisive strike or slip through chaos unscathed. It is not a weapon, nor a shield, but a quiet compass that turns a moment of indecision into a measured step. Caravans that travel from harvest towns to harbor markets often exchange Vera in a hush of excitement. The price, like the stone’s mood, shifts with the season and rumor. At Saddlebag Exchange, where crates creak and traders barter with wind-battered gloves, Vera might hover in the 28 to 36 gold range, depending on who braids a story about its founding and which guilds are hungry for the relic’s lore. The same vendors will offer a range of resin-tinged charms, but Vera draws a patient crowd: those who trust that a small token can guide a long journey as surely as a map does. If you listen close, you can hear the road sing back through Vera’s glow—the footfall of caravans, the quiet breathing of the watchtower, the soft rustle of leaves in a hillside camp. And in that sound, the relic feels less like loot and more like a promise kept by a world still learning to read its own history. That day I followed a trader toward the river bend where the Saddlebag Exchange stands like a schooner pulled ashore. The stallkeeper, a wiry human with rain-white eyebrows, unwrapped Vera from its velvet, letting the surface drink the light from a linen lantern. "You feel that?" he asked, tapping the copper thread where the runes meet the metal. "It’s not just ornament. It chooses its owner in the hour of need." His hands moved with practiced calm, measuring the stone with care as if it were a living compass. A young apprentice listened, eyes wide, murmuring the pendant hummed when she spoke a road she had yet to walk. In the world’s more practical terms, Vera is as much a map as a memory. Adventurers bring it on river crossings, trade routes, and ruins that whisper with damp and echo. The stone’s glow rarely blinds, but in the dark between trees it seems to coax a traveler toward safety—like a friend leaning in for a whispered clue. When the party skirts a cliff or threads a ravine, Vera’s runes flare for a heartbeat, aligning the group’s pace with the terrain’s vertical challenge so that no one slips or stumbles. Collectors tell me the oldest Vera traces to a guild of cartographers who vanished into a storm beyond the mountains. They say the gemstone’s core absorbed the region’s memory: a seed, a road, a promise. The more you listen, the more the stone feels like a ledger of journeys rather than a prize. For guardians guarding the trade between scattered camps, Vera is a reminder wealth is not only coin but direction. As evening settles and the market’s lamps bloom, I watch night-sellers argue over copper links and a map, while Vera glows gently against the merchant’s chest, patient as a sentinel. It does not scream its desire to be worn, but speaks in light in a language few can ignore: walk with me, look up from the map long enough to notice the world’s quiet, for every journey worth taking begins with a single step. In every corner of the road, from the river markets to the shadowed arches of caravansaries, Vera keeps faith with the travelers who carry its light forward. Together onward.