Berserker's Exalted Masque

Berserker's Exalted Masque gleams under the shop lamp, a heavy arc of tempered steel plated with ember-hued lacquer. The mask curves to cradle brow and jaw, its angular plates catching the light with a hunter's glint. Brass thread traces a sigil of the Berserker along the rim, and along the inner edge tiny runes glow faintly as if kept alive by a whispered oath. The texture shifts from cool, war-worn metal to a warm, almost living leather lining that settles against the skin, a reminder that beauty here is tempered by grit. The Exalted designation hints at rarified craftsmanship—smiths who breathed ash and oath into the metal, who tempered it with a vow to endure and to outlast the fiercest storms. When you lift it, a faint heat lingers in the chamber, as if the wearer could stand the pull of battle and still keep their breath. In combat, the Masque is less a costume piece than a compass. It frames vision, muffles the world into a sharper line of edge and purpose, and its sigils seem to pulse when a foe falters. Worn with the Berserker's armor, it becomes a symbol you don't just carry but enact: a chorus of ferocity and precision that aligns with a rhythm of strikes, a beat you ride to pull off decisive moments. The mask's aura blends with the set's traits, amplifying the moments when reckless bravery pays off and the counterattack lands with the weight of a familiar story. Soldiers tell of the mask guiding a hand through a blurring melee, of eye contact with a foe breaking under a precise, brutal sequence. The exchange that finds you the Masque feels like a page torn from a caravan journal. Traders murmur about supply chains, about how scarcity and demand shape the price in the Saddlebag Exchange, that bustling, wind-swept bazaar where a single pawn can become a legend by dawn. I watched a veteran barter with a youth who had found a cracked chest in a ruined fort, and the numbers changed as if by a live rumor: a godsend one moment, a measured return the next, all depending on who haggles with the mask in their hands and which talisman they pair it with. The room smelled of oil, leather, and old battles, but the conversation always circled back to value: what it costs, what it earns you, what it means to wear the name. And so the Masque travels on, not simply as armor but as a memory. Those who lift it from a velvet cloth carry a thread of the history it bears—the haunt of a berserker's vow, the echo of a war drum, the moment when a single, decisive strike became part of a larger saga. In the right hands, it becomes more than metal; it becomes a story you can wear, a legend you can live through the next clash, a reminder that even in victory there is a price and a purpose. Let the mask guide your steps.