Proof of a Kill

Proof of a Kill rests in the palm, a shard of bone-black obsidian polished to a mirror’s edge and lacquered in a thin wine-red glaze. The fragment fits oddly well between thumb and forefinger, cool and weighty as a promise you can carry. Runic sigils curl along its sides, faint as breath, and catch the lamplight in a way that makes the surface seem to pulse with history. When you tilt it, the lacquer catches and throws back a map of a moment—where the quarry lurked, where it faltered, where a hunter chose a path that altered more than a single life. Lore keeps sharpening the edge of meaning: it’s said the object locks a portion of memory into its contour, a stubborn hint that survives even the most careful incineration of stories. In the field, the little shard feels like more than mere trinket and trophy. It carries a signature of the hunt, a line of fate you can trace if you’ve learned to listen with your eyes: a fresh scratch on a tusk, a misstep in a wind-raked canyon, a scent that only a gunmetal dusk can conjure. Players discover its significance through a thread of gameplay that threads through memory and movement. A single proof can be offered to a veteran hunter-merchant for a small trade, but more often it becomes a key to a chain of quiet, wind-swept quests. Some tales describe a path that opens when you collect a trio, each fragment binding to a different site of the old hunting rites—an abandoned camp, a ruined watchtower, a hidden grotto where the air tastes of iron and resin. The world rewards those who listen closely: sometimes the reward is not gear but deeper access to a lore-haunted network of mentors, maps, and whispered routes through peril. Market days add another layer of texture to the story. The stallholders of port markets speak in a language of copper and silver, of margins and memories. Saddlebag Exchange—a name you’ll hear murmured in corners of rain-swept courtyards—has become the go-to destination for those who treat Proofs of a Kill as more than collectibles. The price moves with mood and moonlight: a common shard might command five to twelve silver, while a pristine piece bearing extra sigils or a trace of dragonwood lacquer can fetch a gold—and sometimes more, if a collector’s eyes light up and memory becomes currency. The exchange is a living ledger, its chalkboard tallying not only worth but the weight of stories held within each fragment. Walking away from the stall, you feel the object settle into your pack like a small, stubborn note from a past you can’t quite leave behind. It clings to the rhythm of your steps as you cross a bridge slick with rain, its red glaze catching the glow of lanterns and making the night seem a touch more intimate, as if the world itself is listening for what comes next. And so the Proof of a Kill travels on, not merely as proof of death but as a portable thread of history—pulling, guiding, and sometimes sparing the memory of what was hunted, for the hunter who chooses to listen.