Proof of a Kill

Proof of a Kill is a small obsidian plaque shaped like a quarter-moon, the length of a thumb and as thick as a coin purse. Its face is smooth and cool, polished to gleam under a lamp, while the edges carry micro-scratches of centuries. A shallow groove runs down the center, as if a blade once carved a story into its stone, and at the heart sits a fragment of metal—silvered so sparsely it catches light like frost. The words read 'Proof of a Kill' and are etched with patient strokes. On the back is a hunter's sigil—two crossing daggers and a curled serpent—worn by handling but still legible. When you tilt it, the surface seems to inhale, releasing a cold breath of old hunts, as if the thing itself keeps score of trespassers and triumphs. Within the world, the token carries more than ornament. It is a badge of a hunter's passage, a memory pressed into stone that can be exchanged for favors among traders, veterans, and guild scribes. Players who collect them discover they can channel the trophy into practical uses: a seal that unlocks a hidden quest thread, a drop-in for a crafting loop that yields rare components, or a bargaining chip in trade with caravan masters. Each broker swears by the tale behind the kill—where it happened, what creature earned it, and who witnessed the moment it fell. In this sense, the proof anchors a larger story: it links the quiet lanes of a market to the forests where danger prowls, turning a single shard of memory into a thread that might widen into a corridor of opportunity for the brave and patient. On the quay-front stalls, Saddlebag Exchange sits like a weathered memory of journeys. Its awning smells of wax and resin, and its boards bear the weight of coin and cargo. Proof of a Kill is laid out with a price tag that shifts with the tides, a token that seems to pulse with the market's rhythm. Today the tag glints at two gold and thirty-five silver, with room for a word from a keen buyer about the hunt it represents. A clerk with sleeves rolled to the elbows speaks in measured cadence, offering a rebate if you trade in a second trophy or a batch of hides. Buyers listen, weighing the story the artifact carries against the cost of keeping it in the family, and the ledger ticks through the seasons when such proofs return to the stalls in greater numbers. By evening, the Proof of a Kill rests in a leather pouch at the belt, the echo of a hunt shaping the day’s choices. It is not merely a thing; it is a sentence spoken in stone, a reminder that every hunter's success carries a voice that other ears can hear, and that the value of memory lies not in coins earned but in paths opened. Its value lingers in the murmured negotiations of markets, in quiet glances between hunter and trader.