Carrion Banded Legs of Mercy

Carrion Banded Legs of Mercy lie on a rough wooden table, bone-white plates overlapped like a ribbed exoskeleton, bound with blackened leather straps that have learned the fit of years and rain. The surface is cool to the touch, smooth where plate meets plate, gritty along edges where resin has dried into a pale crust. Tiny sigils—half-erased, half-present—are etched along the thigh guard, remnants of a healing order’s blessing that once walked the carrion-blooded roads with a patient mercy. The knees hinge with a practiced ease, copper rivets catching a late sun and turning it to a small coin in the eye of a passerby. When you tilt the leg, the joints reveal a quiet flexibility, a luxury granted by the artisan’s care—for healing demands both pace and restraint, and these plates offer the latter as surely as the former. Old stories whisper that the Carrion Banded Legs were forged for the Mercy’s medics who rode ahead of skirmishes, the ones who carried poultices and whispered comfort into the long night. They wore them as they waded through ash and carrion, letting the plates bite down the chill and keep blood where it belongs. Some say the bones used in the banding were salvaged from carrion wolves’ lairs or from the fallen guardians who kept watch over ruined harbors; others insist the metal was tempered with resin from mercy-flowers, whatever the truth, the effect is undeniable: those who wear them move with a measured, almost hallowed calm, even as the world seems to fall toward fever and ruin. In the weave of the world’s skirmishes and long treks, the legs unlock a mercy of their own: the wearer finds their stride steadier, heels skirting the worst of traps, stamina and vitality gathering in a slow, dependable rhythm through sustained healing and swift repositioning. For healers and support builds that must split time between patient casts and rapid repositioning, the Carrion Banded Legs of Mercy feel like a quiet ally, a shield of mobility that never asks the wearer to surrender the healer’s other duties. They aren’t merely stat sticks; they’re a signal—a reminder that mercy can be a pace as well as a pulse. The sigils glow faintly whenever you surge, a tether to stories of retreat and rescue, of mercy delivered at the edge of danger. Even the market hum of the world seems to lean toward their use. In the river town’s hustling market, the Saddlebag Exchange is the name the locals murmur when the sun slips behind the tents. A stallkeeper with grease on his knuckles and a traveler’s grin leans over the counter and speaks softly of the legs’ price, of the way their value shifts with caravans and fortunes. A few gold when the season favors the bold, or a lean two to three when luck tightens its grip—yet prices are never just currency here; they’re a ledger of mercy traded and stories earned. The Exchange’s ledgers flutter with each passing breeze, and the legs pass from hand to hand like a whispered oath: speed for relief, weight for hope. Placed beneath a cloak, the legs carry more than weight; they carry a memory and a promise. In the world’s worst hours, they remind their wearer that mercy can walk beside speed, even as the road grows long and the night deepens.