Ebony Orb

The Ebony Orb sits upon a cushion of midnight velvet, a perfect hemisphere of obsidian glass that catches candlelight and holds it like a captured star. Its surface is impossibly smooth, a cool sheen that seems to breathe, with minute fissures running like hairline rivers across its skin. When you tilt it just so, you glimpse a faint, internal dusk—as if the orb contains a pocket of night sky that refuses to spill. A hairline seam circles its equator, etched with silver sigils that glow faintly when the air hums with magic, and the whole thing weighs less than a handful yet carries the gravity of a long memory. Lore whispers that it was forged where meteors stitched the world to the dark, and that it binds fragments of fallen light to the living that dare to listen to its pulse. In practice, the Ebony Orb is not merely ornament. It acts as a rare focus for attunement, a conduit through which latent power can be awakened or redirected. Sages speak of its role in ritual work: a charged orb can stabilize a volatile ward, coaxing a weapon to flare with a cold, white heat, or unlock a temporary affinity—charms that let a healer glimpse a grievous future so they can avert it, or grant a scout the speed of a shadow for a breath-bound moment. Players who learn to cradle the orb in a palm and concentrate can weave it into offerings, carving sigils into leather or bone, and watch the sigils come alive in the glow of the runes inscribed on the orb's silver ring. It is not a weapon here, but a key—opening doors, aligning currents, letting choices become consequences. Sometimes the orb seems to pulse with a patient rhythm, as if it’s listening to the heartbeat of the world and deciding who among the living deserves its quiet concord. Market days make the orb into a rumor you carry from stall to stall. Traders speak of a scarcity born from a recent run of caravans that vanished into the western rivers, and of a few bright-eyed collectors who hoard the best specimens. A page in Saddlebag Exchange will tell you a price, then another will tell you it has climbed, then fallen, then climbed again as the mood of the market shifts with rumor. One crate at a time, a whisper-worth of value passes from hand to hand; the Orb's worth is measured less by gold than by what it unlocks for the person who carries it—an omen, a memory, a future possibility. So the Ebony Orb endures, not merely as a relic of craftsmanship but as a quiet hinge in the day-to-day drama of the world. It reminds people to listen before acting, to weigh what they hope to change, and to remember that even in the blackest glass, there can be a spark that refuses to be snuffed. For those who carry it, the Ebony Orb is a companion as much as a tool—a reminder that power without purpose is a hollow thing. Sometimes it seems to pulse with a heartbeat, as if the orb itself judges the worth of the hands that offer it reverence and restraint.