Carrion Hard Wood Trident

Carrion Hard Wood Trident rests in the palm of my gloved hand, its shaft a deep, rain-dark wood that drinks light, three prongs curling outward like skeletal teeth, the edges sharpened from years of service and salt. The grain runs in stubborn, almost stubborn spirals, lacquered to a quiet gloss that catches lantern flame and makes the weapon glow with a pale, almost spectral sheen. The grip is wrapped in worn leather that smells of old nets and rain-soaked decks, and where the wood shows a few scars, you can glimpse the tree’s old life—sap veins that once ran bright and green, now darkened to a steady, patient brown. It feels ancient and practical at once, as if the wood itself remembers the currents, the wake of a boat, the pause of a skiff against a riverbank after a skirmish. Lore threads into its presence as if the trident had stood at the edge of every harbor the caravans ever visited. They say the carrion trees grew where mercy and hunger crossed paths, their wood forming a stubborn heartwood that resists rot and rumor alike. Carvers who worked with the timber etched sigils into the head—runes of warning, of luck, of safe passage—so that the weapon would carry not just force but memory. When the river fog rises and the market stalls glint with damp copper, I hear the whispers of those marks: the stories of scavengers, traders, and shipwrights who used the trident to pry open stubborn nets, to prod weary hulls into motion, to guide a crew through a night where the only light is from a lantern swinging like a weary metronome. In the heat of a skirmish, the Carrion Hard Wood Trident feels more like a story you carry than a tool you wield. Its length gives you reach, its balance a stability that steadies you when the wind shifts and the line breaks. The three prongs aren’t merely for puncture; they carry the memory of parries—a quick snap of the wrist that turns a charge into a measured counter, a way to tether a foe for a moment so a comrade can slip in from the flank. It’s a weapon that invites a defender’s posture, that tells a tale of harbor guards and river scouts who learned to read an opponent by the tilt of a shadow. When the trident sinks into a target, it seems to pull the world a fraction closer, as if every strike threads a line between old wounds and newer hopes. The marketplace gossip threads into this narrative, too. In the lantern-lit stalls of Saddlebag Exchange, I heard the oaths of traders and the soft clink of coins as the price for such a relic shifted like tidewater. Some days it’s spoken of in copper and promise; other days, a few gold pieces move in a sigh and somebody walks away with the memory of the river in the weapon’s grain. I traded a handful of salvaged shards, a folded map stained with salt, and a promise to tell its tale well, and I walked away with a number whispered in the same breath as the wind over a canal: a fair price, a fair chance to see the trident bring new life to old stories.