Augury of Death

Augury of Death rests in a shallow velvet-lined tray, its surface a midnight mirror that swallows light and spits it back in jagged flecks. The disk is small enough to palm, yet heavy with presence, a smooth obsidian circle etched with copper filigree that looks almost like living veins. Touch it and you feel a whisper of cold, a tremor as if the metal remembers every breath drawn in fear and every last breath let out in triumph. Around the edge a ring of sigils glints faintly, not written so much as remembered, and at the center a skeletal motif coils inward, as if the past itself were curling toward a verdict. It is said to have been tempered by hands that once walked the shadowed edge of life and death, a relic born of whispered oaths and a doom that refuses to be forgotten. In the light, the object seems to hum, not with electricity but with intent. Those who study it tell stories of a time when those who wore it could tilt the scales of a fight with a single, patient breath. Its aura feels like a promise and a threat all at once: a quiet compulsion to watch and wait, then to intervene just as the moment turns. When the right wielder takes hold, Augury of Death doesn’t merely sit in the hand; it awakens the battlefield around it. A pale shadow blooms at the edge of the wearer’s vision, and as an enemy falls within reach, the air tightens and a pulse travels outward in ripples of necrotic light. It is said to siphon a portion of the fallen foe’s vitality to heal allies nearby, or to grant the bearer a short surge of resolve, a sharpened edge of clarity just long enough to press a final strike home. Yet there is a price: the more you lean on its verdict, the more you hear a distant clock ticking in your own chest, a reminder that power here is a ledger you must be prepared to balance. I watched a dealer nudge the coin-pouch around the edge of the stall, listening as the crowd whispered of its legends and flaws. Saddlebag Exchange, a place where neat stacks of silver meet the rough honesty of needs and dreams, carried the augury with the sort of reverence that makes even the jaded pause. The price tag—three gold, with the wink of a trade-in that could include rare inks or a token from a fallen order—felt like a dare more than a sum. A pair of hunters argued softly about its worth, one insisting that a relic of such weight should be earned by merit, not mere possession. The other argued that artifacts carry their own merit, a history pressed into stone and memory, and that the market itself is a living witness to what the world values when it weighs a life against a legend. So the Augury of Death remains not just a piece of crafted iron but a story threaded through the market, the hands that hold it, and the battles that bend around it. It travels with those who chase meaning in a world where every kill reshapes the air, and every breath taken in its presence seems to count a little louder than the last.