Faithful

Faithful is a compact talisman, its surface a warm, burnished copper that catches the light like a coin kissed by dawn. Its shape is an elongated teardrop, smooth to the touch, with edges worn silky by years of handling. A slender leather thong is looped around the middle, braided with a thread of pale silver that once cinched a pledge closed. In the heart sits a tiny gem—a pale blue that glows faintly when the world grows loud, a quiet beacon in a marching column of dust and noise. Rumors swirl about where Faithful came from. Some say it was sewn by the Sisterhood of the Faith, healers who tended the wounded at the edge of contested borders, stitching hope into every seam. Others insist it was traded along caravan routes, pledged to keep a vow across cities, galloping on a road that never ends. A few whisper that Faithful is not one object but a fragment of a larger oath, reassembled by fate each time the wearer chooses a steadfast path. In any telling, the piece carries the weight of promises kept and promises yet to keep. In the heat of battle or in the hush before a raid, Faithful feels less like metal and more like a quiet companion. Equipping it, players describe a soft, invisible tether that steadies their hand and steadies the nerves of those around them. The gem seems to hum when a canto of healing rolls through the party; it boosts the duration of boons just a breath longer, and it carves away a fraction of the time a cooldown sits on your sleeve. It is the kind of item you notice only when it's not needed, and you notice it most when you do. For a core guardian, it nudges a shield to stay up a few ticks longer; for a renegade scout, it grants a touch more patience between long shots and short dashes. Faithful works well in stories that hinge on endurance, on staying the line when the world seems to tilt toward retreat. Like any cherished relic, Faithful travels with its own trade winds. In markets known to travelers as the Saddlebag Exchange, stories about its price drift as easily as rumors do. A pristine Faithful commands a respectable coin—a neat sum of silver, perhaps a gold if the thread glows bright and the gem stays perfectly cool. A worn, frayed version, straight from a backlog of expeditions, finds buyers at a softer rate, traded more for trust than for metal. Merchants haggle with practiced patience, while caravans pause to consider the vow the piece carries, deciding whether its worth is measured in coins, courage, or a promise kept. Somewhere between map and memory, Faithful remains more than metal and thread: a small island of loyalty carried forward, a reminder that in the crowded world of journeys and battles, a single faithful thing can keep a group from drifting apart. It travels with you, then, through frost and flame, a whispered oath.