Minor Potion of Outlaw Slaying

The Minor Potion of Outlaw Slaying sits in a tiny vial of kiln-fired amber glass, its surface pocked with the fingerprints of a hundred hands that have handled it in haste. The glass curves like a whisper, the stopper a bit crooked, carved from bone with a lacquered seal that bears a looping sigil—three stars arranged in a triangle, the same symbol you see on the posters that warned of brigands along the low roads. Inside, the liquid catches light in a slow, patient gleam, a depth between honey and molten copper, with minute motes that drift as if stirred by a bearded god of the silted rivers. The label is a pale parchment, edges singed from a campfire, bearing ink that has faded to a warm brown; a tiny illustration of a blade crossing a hooded silhouette marks its purpose before you even read the line that names it. Lore whispers that it was brewed where the law meets the road: apothecaries who apprenticed beside watchtowers learned to temper justice with mercy, and this potion carried the oath of that trade into bristling streets and shadowed inns. When you tilt the vial and catch the scent, you swear you can smell iron and old leather—dust from a bivouac, the sting of a saddlebag at dusk. In the world, its true claim is in the way it channels attention. A drop on a blade, a flick of the wrist, and the user feels a chill as if dawn has started to pry open the hood of night; for a handful of breaths, outlaws move slower, their bravado falters, and a faint glow traces the path of every strike that lands against them. It isn’t a cure-all, but a moral compass of sorts, a glint of judgment that makes mercenaries think twice before closing with a target who has violated the law and the common peace. Used by hunters, guards, and wary caravaners, it becomes part of a ritual: check the road, weigh the vial, and sweep the crowd for signs of the outlaw’s stubborn resolve. Pricing, of course, is a neighbor to rumor. I heard of a trader pausing at the Saddlebag Exchange to haggle over a handful of coppers—two or three, depending on the angle of the sun and the mood of the guard who had staked out the stall. They trade in whispers and small coins, the sort that jingle when the wind shifts, and the vial disappears into a hooded cloak, only to reappear later on a different road, exactly where a story would begin. So the Minor Potion of Outlaw Slaying remains not merely a tool but a portable chapter in the ongoing chronicle of law, frontier, and the people who carry both along the road’s long spine.