Green bronze leaping panther charm

This item was a prize from the Hunt for History.

Item

a green bronze leaping panther charm

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Enfolded within the thin embrace of centuries of tarnish, the small figurine of a panther pouncing toward its prey still shows an amazing amount of detail. Each toe is poised in utter realism, the eyes seem focused with blazing intent, and the entire lithe body of the panther ripples with hard musculature beneath the green-tinted dark fur.

Details

This is a game piece from a tavern game of balance.

Loresong

A wave of heat and foreign scents assails you like the opening of a door into the tropics, and, with a drunken shudder of luminosity, a picture erupts in your mind.

Soldiers with haunted eyes huddle inside this lamp-lighted tavern, those who have seen war horrors burying themselves in their cups. Two bored serving wenches sit near the door, playing a balancing game on the table between them. It appears the object is to build a tower out of slender bronze panthers, pulling them from the bottom of the pile and carefully placing them on the top without it toppling. The tower sways suddenly as one of the ladies carefully drops her piece into place, but steadies itself, and they break into giggles.

From behind your field of vision, a line of vindictive drunken gibberish spews from an unseen female mouth, and both serving girls turn to gawk. A cloaked figure stumbles into view heading for the exit, slamming into the table and sending the bronze game pieces clinking to the floor. Squealing, the barmaids jerk their sandaled feet beneath their chairs to avoid having the heavy panther tokens fall on their toes, while the cloaked figure dashes out the door into the night.

Snuffing as abruptly as a candle's blown flame, the vision winks out, and your eyes begin to refocus.

Feeling the vibrations of your song take hold inside the panther charm and reflect back into your palm, the magic conjures forth a wobbling vision to your eyes.

Perspective has changed, and now the darkened nighttime streets of a massive city swim around into focus. Shouting from inside a bright doorway to the side is muffled as the door swings shut, also breaking the view of the angry patrons inside looking toward the street. The drunken figure pauses, breathing in the crisp night air, and you can see that trapped in the hem of her rumpled shadowy cloak is one of the bronze panther game pieces. A giggle from within the hooded cloth confines identifies the figure as female, and she twirls unsteadily in the center of the street and then dashes off down the cobbles.

A sinister-looking shape oozes into the moonlight in front of the woman, coalescing into a scarred and gnarled cutpurse with a sneer caught between grin and grimace. Without missing a beat in her skipping or her husky giggling, the woman dances into the thief, first caressing a vivid puffy scar on his surprised cheek with a fingertip, and in the next instant snapping her rigid fingertips into his throat. The moonlight bandit crumples to the street like parchment in fire, struggling to intake a breath as the woman continues off behind him into the night.

Tearing away from the vision as your magic intonations fade to memory, you blink your eyes rapidly a few times to clear your sight.

Twinkles of light bubble through your eyes like dashing starlight and the pulses of power flowing through the charm in your hand grow stronger.

A district much the same as before, though better lighted and with more carousing couples wandering happily around, melds with clarity and stabilizes within the vision. A familiar figure, her cloak showing dishevelment as if she had rolled halfway here, dances tipsily into the scene. She approaches a man and woman, strolling arm-in-arm more to stay upright than for romantic notions, and seizes the man's face into a big, wet smooch!

Gawking, his female companion's face shifts toward anger with the dulled responses of the inebriate, but before achieving her goal she too is grasped into a sloppy kiss by the cloaked woman. Without the recourse of sober thought to dictate otherwise, the couple explode into laughter and grin at the woman prancing before them. They stoop to peer up into the hood for a glimpse at their sudden friend, but both blink and stare for a moment before straightening up and backing slowly away.

Their faces, with no buffer between thought and expression besides alcohol, show plainly the emotions blossoming inside their heads.

Astonishment, bafflement, and following slowly at the end yet winning in power, fear. The cloaked woman laughs loudly and twirls away down the street, the heavy little panther trapped in her hem causing the cloak to flare and expose a flash of nightgown.

Breaking into shards of blurring color, the vision shatters like glass within your mind and the world becomes clear again.