The Oath Stone (Petrichor 365)

In the Grand Market of Port Imperial, there is a plain, flat-topped stone.  The area around it has been cobbled and there is low rope barrier around it.

At first glance, there is nothing special about the stone but if you ask anyone in the market about it, they will tell you that an oath sworn upon the stone is binding.  Not just in the usual way, relying upon the honor of the people involved and legal enforcement but in an indescribable mystical way.

Most major business agreements by the merchants of the grand market are sworn here, many times in low voices so as not to be overheard, sometimes shouted publically so that all will know.

If one asks, they would say it has been a market tradition as long as there has been a market (all four to five years it has existed).  There are very few people around who were there when the market was founded.

There are some who remember, Captain Ajzure for one, that when the market was founded, the stone just happened to be there.  A couple of slightly drunk merchants made a deal one night and swore on the stone, as drunken people will, a few days later, one of them tried to renege on the deal (he was drunk at the time after all) and promptly had a heart attack and died.  Magic?  No, just a coincidence.

But it fostered the belief that the stone is magical and the funny thing about a magical world is belief becomes reality, magic is imbued by that focus and what was once just a stone, is now a magical site.

Notes: Just an idea I had and a reminder that in a magical world, sometimes things become magical not by enchantment but because people think they are magic.

Petrichor 365 – Port Imperial.  Previous Entry: Timmeri Blackstaff   Next Entry: XXX

Image One Big Stone by MALIZ ONG found on PublicDomainPictures.net and is, as it happens, in the Public Domain.