Orb of Remembrance (Patreon)

Wondrous item, common

This glassy orb is 3 inches in diameter, weighs 1/2 pound, and is wrapped in a golden wire cage. Strange, wispy smoke drifts around inside the orb, creating cloud-like shapes that are almost recognizable as real-life objects.

While holding the orb, you can use an action to speak its command word, priming the orb and causing the smoke inside to restlessly billow and swirl. While holding the primed orb, you can gently squeeze it (no action required) to cause it to record that moment in time around you. When you do, the glassy sphere becomes perfectly clear over the course of 1 minute and reveals an exact duplicate of the area around you in up to a 30-foot radius as a miniature, illusory diorama inside it. While holding the orb, the scene inside soundlessly replays the next 6 seconds following the diorama's capture.

An orb remains primed for 1 minute or until used to capture a diorama. Touching a primed orb of remembrance to one that already has a diorama creates a duplicate of the diorama in the primed orb. Speaking the command word again while shaking the orb causes the diorama inside to disappear into smoke, allowing it to be primed once more.

Oscar was lost. He'd come to the bazaar with Holly to shop for spell components, but within moments she had vanished into the crowds, leaving him to drift hazily between shops searching for the parts of his itemized list. As he kept moving from stall to stall he began to worry that'd he'd never extricate himself from the labyrinth of overly-friendly shopkeepers and jostling customers. However, just as he was about to give up and find a quiet corner to wait for everyone to clear out, he heard a familiar voice moving towards him.

"Oscar, Oscar! I found something!"

"Holly, what do you—"

As she cannoned into him he saw the glassy orb in her hand and the massive smile on her face before he was bowled over, both of them sprawling on the ground.

"Watch this, watch this!"

Oscar stared as the orb's color began to clear, revealing in perfect miniature the moment of impact, Holly's beaming smile and graceful poise, and his own look of shock and flailing surprise. As Holly began to laugh Oscar couldn't help but join in, and, as the two of them sat in the middle of the crowded bazaar, everything else seemed to fade away.