Oyster rests on the market stall, a small, dome-shaped shell the color of mother-of-pearl with a faint copper seam along the hinge. Its surface gleams when the gaslight catches it, a microcosm of the sea’s patience—swirls of cream, ash, and a kiss of pink that seems to glow when a visitor’s breath clouds the air just a touch. When you cradle it in your palm, the shell feels cool and slightly rough, the exterior a map of tides and barnacles, the interior a velvet pocket that holds something almost secret. If you press your fingertip to the opening, the clam’s breath comes out as a faint hiss, a reminder of brine and spray; and if luck is kind, a pearl will rest in its satin bed, a miniature moon that shimmers with a subtle warmth, as if it remembers the warmth of a sunken harbor. Lore slithers in with the scent of kelp and salt. Old coastal folk speak in half-whispered legends about oysters that grow where currents remember old shipwrecks and prayers, about the way pearls are not merely jewels but memories—carved by the sea’s long hand, offered to those who listen closely enough to hear the tide’s story. On market days, the Oyster is a quiet witness to those stories, passing from hand to hand like a signed note from the coast itself. Some say the pearl inside can reflect the heart of its finder, tinting the room with a blush of courage or a sigh of longing, depending on what the sea has seen you do that day. In practice, the Oyster is more than a pretty thing to find tucked away in a pocket. It is a bridge between resource and request, between fisher and crafter, a small talisman that tightens the weave of everyday life along the shore. Players often prize the opened pearl for its potential rewards: a gem for jewelers to set into rings and pendants, a component for alchemical tinctures that hush the brash noise of battle, or simply a bargaining chip when the tides shift and the Saddlebag Exchange leather-bound ledger hums with new numbers. The Oyster’s value ebbs and flows with the harbor’s mood—when storms beat the coastline, the price climbs as boats return empty-handed and coastal kitchens scrub salt from their pots; when calm seas linger, the market loosens, and distractions drift away like gulls. The Saddlebag Exchange, with its oiled leather banners and copper-touched counters, is where these shells find their next chapter. A single Oyster may fetch a modest cup of coin on a quiet morning, or a more generous handful of silver if a pearl glows true and the stall-owner senses a tale behind your gaze. Traders swap stories as they tally dues, and the Oyster becomes part of a larger harbor economy: a quiet hinge that opens a door to a craftsman’s workshop, a tavern’s hearth, or a caravan’s quiet mischief as it rolls along the coast road. So the Oyster endures, not merely as something to hold or barter, but as a small emblem of the sea’s memory—a tangible link between tide and town, between a solitary traveler and the larger story the coast is always trying to tell: that every shell, every pearl, and every whispered legend is a stitch in the same vast, patient seam.