Dragon's Gaze

Dragon's Gaze sits in the palm of my gloved hand, a round lens of smoky amber framed by cast-iron scales that catch the light like a dragon waking from sleep. The surface is cool to the touch at first, then warm as if a tiny embers of a lost battlefield still burn beneath its glassy skin. Runes etched along the bezel whisper of an eye that saw empires rise and fall, and when you tilt it, the stone seems to breathe, shifting from honey to shadow as if it’s remembering a moment only dragons can recall. It’s not merely a trinket; it feels, in a way that unsettles and invites, like a kept memory pressed against the temple of your skull. I found it tucked away in a rain-slick stall behind a harbor tavern, where old maps curled like dried leaves and the air smelled of tar and iron. The vendor spoke softly, insisting the Dragon's Gaze came from a hunter’s cache, a prize won from a dragon's lair after a passage through ash and memory. He wore a smile that suggested he had never believed the tale himself, only enjoyed the performance of it—the drama of a dragon’s eye once made tangible, now resting in a ring of aged brass. The piece gleamed with a subtle, almost reluctant glow when the rain hit its surface, as if it preferred to be watched in the hush between thunderclaps. In the world it inhabits, the Dragon's Gaze has always carried more than its beauty. Among cartographers and pathfinders, it’s said to help reveal hidden routes through dragon-haunted ruins, to coax faint sigils from walls otherwise easy to miss. Adventurers who cradle it report a steadier eye for danger, a quickening sense that you’re not just following a map but listening to a memory—the dragon’s memory—nudging you toward the pulse of a ruin you’d otherwise walk past. It isn’t a weapon, not in the traditional sense, but it sharpens perception in ways that matter when a corridor suddenly narrows into a trial or a dragon’s sigh rattles loose a hidden chamber. The Dragon's Gaze also travels through the markets with a quiet, stubborn dignity. On a busy morning at the city’s edge, I overheard a dealer arguing softly over its price, the kind of negotiation that feels more like a dance than a bargain. He referenced the Saddlebag Exchange, not as a shopfront but as a pulse point of the trade—where rare things find their next owner and stories, like coins, clink from one pocket to another. A well-worn Gaze fetched a respectable sum there, enough to fund a months-long expedition or to entice a notable scholar to join a chase after a half-forgotten clue. All of this—its warmth, its lore, the way it makes danger feel navigable—ties Dragon's Gaze to a larger story, a thread that winds through dragon-haunted corridors and quiet workshops alike. It is not merely worn; it is carried, a reminder that some eyes, once opened, never truly close. The eye of a dragon, gazing through time, guiding the curious and the brave toward the next secret waiting in the shadowed light.