Cleric's Darksteel Axe

Cleric's Darksteel Axe rests on a worn wooden table, its blade a midnight gloss that seems to drink the lamplight. The edge is sharp but not merciless, a tempered curve that whispers of sanctified forges and patient hands. The darksteel itself bears a subtle grain, like storm-worn wood, with a pale seam tracing the blade’s spine where runes glow a soft, pale blue when moonlight creeps through a window. The haft is wrapped in cracked leather, dyed the color of dried blood, with brass rivets that catch every glint and hold the grip in a veteran’s certainty. At the pommel sits a sigil—an intertwining cross and hammer—carved with meticulous devotion, a symbol that has survived peace and siege alike. When you lift it, the weight settles as a pledge you can feel in your shoulders, a quiet resolve that the blade will find its purpose in the hands of someone who chooses mercy even in the heat of battle. The texture is a conversation between cold metal and warm breath; the blade carries faint striations where the sanctified alloy met fire, and the fuller along its length hums with a barely perceptible hum of wards. Legends insist it was forged in a shrine as much as a smithy, blessed by clerics who prayed for protection for those who could not defend themselves. Some nights the axe seems to shimmer with a pale halo under lamplight, as if the prayers themselves were hammered into the steel, ready to be released with a single decisive swing. In the world’s wider story, the Cleric's Darksteel Axe is not merely a weapon; it is a statement. Wielded by wardens who walk the line between mercy and duty, it unlocks a rhythm: a hard strike that cuts through corruption, followed by a moment of restorative energy that slides back toward the wielder and their allies. It’s prized by healers who want staying power in a skirmish and by guardians who believe that healing comes through protection as much as through cure. Its presence on a battlefield is a reminder that violence can be tempered by reverence, that power can be tempered by restraint. Market whispers carry the axe through towns, carried in satchels and saddlebags, from one trader’s stall to another. At the Saddlebag Exchange, a bustling, sunlit corner of a market square, the blade’s price mutters along with bartering—an enchanted discount here, a personalized engraving there, a few silver dropped for a guarantee of quality. The chatter gawks at the rune-work, nods at the clerical sigil, and then weighs the cost against the stories it carries. Buyers imagine the blade at their side during a vigil, a reminder that strength can serve mercy, that steel can honor prayer as much as it harms. So it travels, from smithy to battlefield to shelter, a relic that keeps finding new hands, each one adding a line to the ongoing tale of a weapon that was made to heal as surely as it harms. And keep moving.