Minor Potion of Slaying Scarlet's Armies sits on the wood counter like a drop of dusk in a clear glass bead. The vial is small, no longer than two fingers in length, its glass amber with a soft glow that refuses to be contained. The liquid inside shimmers a deep ruby, as if stained by the banners it remembers, and tiny motes drift within, twinkling when the lamp light catches the surface. A cork stopper is sealed with red wax, stamped with a crest of crossed banners—scarlet and gold—that bears the memory of a long, brutal campaign. The label is a hand-painted thing: a thin line drawing of a shadowed army, a column of spears, and a runic line said to mean courage. When you tilt the bottle, the scent loosens—iron, resin, and something antiseptic, like a field hospital kept on a shelf rather than in a tent. To hold it is to hold a promise. This little draught is not a miracle against armadas, but a forge-light for a lone skirmisher: a temporary surge of focus and edge that makes a veteran more wary of ambush and a newcomer more precise with the blade. In the stories told around campfires, apothecaries brewed it after the fiercest sieges, when the Scarlet banners haunted every road and the ground itself tasted of ash. The potion, they say, blossoms when it meets the red tide; it feeds on the memory of burned fortresses and spits out cleaner, swifter strikes against Scarlet's agents. In the heat of battle it shifts not the soldiers but the tempo—slipping fear from the lungs, sharpening intent, and letting the user find the seam where a guard is too tired to defend every line. In practice, the Minor Potion of Slaying Scarlet's Armies is a tool for those who walk between raids and caravans: a safe, quick dose before a push into a temporarily vulnerable checkpoint or a twilight scouting run along scarlet-lit roads. It won't win a war on its own, but it buys time—enough to plant a banner right at the edge of a fortress or to slip a critical strike into a distracted captain. Traders speak of its value in quiet tones, as one might speak of a family heirloom—the memory of a rough winter hardened into glass. At the Saddlebag Exchange, the bottles fetch a modest price, roughly a few silver coins depending on demand and the coins in circulation that week. I’ve watched a courier barter for a pair, not just for the flair but for the knowledge that a single dose can tilt a night raid in a city’s favor. So the Minor Potion of Slaying Scarlet's Armies remains more than a curiosity. It is a fragment of history, a practical tool, and a reminder that even tiny, well-crafted things carry the weight of war’s memories and tomorrow’s fights. Some nights, when the wind rattles shutters and red banners glitter in lamplight, the bottle seems to whisper: remember why you fight.