+17 Agony Infusion

+17 Agony Infusion glints with a deep, glassy sheen, its core a bruised violet that seems to breathe in the candlelight. The surface bears a lattice of sigils, delicate as frost on a midnight pane, and a razor-thin capsule keeps a tremor of something living just beneath the glass. A thin thread of argent wire traces the rim, catching every glow and throwing it into a hundred tiny constellations. It feels heavy in the hand, not just with metal and glass but with history, as if someone whispered a hinge of old wars into the very coating. Lore says it was forged where the old orders kept watch over the boundary between night and steel, a relic of craftsmen who believed pain could be measured, bottled, and then turned into another form of protection. In the small hours of crowded markets and quiet workshops, the infusion finds its place among the other rarities—the kind that are talked about in half-finished poems and the furred gloves of veteran traders. Its +17 designation is a shorthand for years of hidden work: not merely a higher number, but a promise that a user can bend more of the world’s weight to their will for a time. People talk of agony as a language too—one that speaks in pulses of heat along the nerves and a glow in the eye when the chosen path is taken. When slotted into an ascended piece of gear, the infusion becomes part of a craft that is as much about restraint as it is about power—the wearer draws on the reserve it grants, running a fingertip over the edge of a blade or bracing a shield against a chilling gale. The effect is not flashy, but sincere: a quiet surge of momentum that lets one press through a momentary stall, or push past a guard who would rather you not cross the threshold. The market, of course, loves a story as well as a statistic. At Saddlebag Exchange, the ledger is stamped with careful ink, the kind that keeps a memory as well as a sum. A gloved hand might lift the Infusion, tilt it toward the lamplight, and in that moment a buyer feels the weight of the bargain—the years of risk folded into a single purchase. Prices swing with rumor, demand, and the readiness of a buyer to carry a legacy into their next duel or trade run. The Saddlebag Exchange has to balance the thrill of discovery with the practical ache of keeping a world moving; in their hands, a coveted infusion becomes a doorway rather than a trophy, a tool that changes the course of a battle or a journey depending on who wields it and with what intention. So the +17 Agony Infusion remains both relic and instrument, a small object that carries a larger kind of gravity—the idea that power, once bottled, must be placed into someone who can carry it without breaking. Its glow lingers, a promise and a warning tonight.