Thag, Cycle of Tears of Severance

Thag, Cycle of Tears of Severance sits on the table like a captured sigh: a compact reliquary carved from midnight obsidian, its surface cool and silky to the touch, faint veins of moon-silver winding through the stone. A ring of teardrop crystals—opal, moonstone, and cobalt—circles a central core, each droplet poised as if in the act of falling and staying, a perpetual breath around the relic’s heart. The texture shifts when you roll it between your fingers—glass-slick one moment, slightly gritty the next, as if the relic remembers both workshop and battlefield. Tilt it to the light, and the runes etched along the plates glow with a pale, patient blue, telling a story of oaths cut and loyalties severed. Lore says Thag was sealed by those who practiced the old rites of severance, a pact-breaker’s talisman shaped to end a binding without spilling blood—a mercy and a weapon at once, depending on the hand that holds it, and the oath it answers to. In the market squares where traders thread between stalls, the relic travels with its own rumor—the idea that its cycle can either spare a friend or cut a rival’s magic. Vendors speak in hushed tones of how the teardrops align when the bearer’s breath steadies, and a single, precise gesture can unravel a shield as easily as undoing a knot. In practice, those who carry Thag learn to move with intention: it is not a blunt instrument but a key that fits a particular lock. When a target bears a ward or a shield, the cycle glows brighter and, for a heartbeat, the defenses falter. The wearer feels a careful warmth in the palm, a promise that the next strike might pierce where others merely press harder. Like a proverb whispered in a caravan, the relic teaches restraint—the art of severing bonds at the right moment rather than by sheer force. That is where its true weight shows itself, beyond the shimmer of the crystals. Thag is less about spectacle and more about turning a moment of opportunity into a turning point in the story the world tells about itself. It redefines what it means to break a chain: not through reckless force, but through an understanding of where the thread runs thin and where mercy can still cut a path forward. When the cycle completes, the user’s path feels clearer, as if a fog-laden corridor has suddenly opened into view, and the choice of which door to step through rests on your next decision rather than the next blow. The price, as with any relic that carries a history as dense as rain in a chestnut grove, is not fixed but negotiated. At Saddlebag Exchange, the sign squeaks in the breeze, and a wary dealer’s fingers hover over the price tag—roughly two gold and sixty-five silver for a tested relic, more for one with a tale of recent, decisive use, less if the telltale wear speaks of long years in quiet piety. The negotiation itself becomes part of the artifact’s legend—the way values, loyalties, and futures hinge on a few measured breaths and agreed-upon numbers. And so Thag travels on, a small but potent hinge in the broader story, turning ordinary moments into threads that may someday be woven into something larger and enduring.