Rodgort's Flame

Rodgort's Flame rests in a slender copper cradle, a teardrop of glassy red that seems to be lit from within. The core glows like a contained sunset, molten and restless, shifting from ember sheen to almost liquid gold at the edges. Its surface is impossibly smooth, a mirror touched by a whisper of heat; when you run a finger along the outside, the metal tingles faintly, as if the warmth remembers every touch it has ever known. Around the gem, delicate filigree spirals of burnished brass curl like tongues of flame captured in metal, catching the light and sending a halo of orange across nearby walls. When you hold it up to a torch, the flame within seems to flutter, not with light alone but with a heartbeat—the pulse of a fire that once lived in another world and has learned to wait. In the lore carved into old caravans and field manuscripts, Rodgort was more than a name; it was a forge’s breath and a guardian of heat. The Flame, so the stories go, was forged in a furnace where wind and ember wrestled, then tempered by a hand that understood flame as a language rather than a resource. Those tales speak of Rodgort’s Breath seeping into the gem, lending it a stubborn will: to glow when danger is near, to simmer softly when care is needed, and to blaze into action when the world requires a spark. The artifact is said to carry a memory of searing days, of banners turned to ash and then rebuilt, a reminder that power—like fire—must be tended with restraint and purpose. Beyond myth, the Flame moves with a quieter, more practical cadence. In skilled hands, it breathes life into fire-focused magic, sharpening the edge of incinerating spells and amplifying the warmth of protective wards. It can light a path through damp nights, coax torches to burn brighter, or steady a campfire against a creeping wind. Wielders speak of its temper as a kind of discipline: the glow answers a steady mind, and the ember’s courage grows with careful use. It’s not a weapon of brute force but a conduit—an anchor for the will to burn away fear, ignorance, or delay. For crafters and enchanters, the Flame becomes a rare touchstone—an artifact that can fuse with other fiery relics to yield new warmth, new capacity, a narrative tool to tell of a world that learns to glow from within. The market, of course, is a human chorus. I watched a merchant beside the harbor tables argue a patient, measured price, the kind of talk that makes coins feel weighty and time feel measured. Saddlebag Exchange, with its weathered awnings and the scent of resin and salt in the air, has become the hall where such legends pass from whisper to sale. A trader will name a price, then a counterprice, then a story about why this Flame belongs in the hands of someone who understands what it’s asking for—care, calculation, and a shared fire. And so it moves—season to season, season to soul—through the hands that crave its heat, through the jobs it enables, through the quiet courage it whispers to every traveler who chooses to keep a little flame alive.