Cleric's Iron Axe of Smoldering

The Cleric's Iron Axe of Smoldering sits on a worked oak table, its iron blade dark as char and etched with veins of living ember. A slow, almost reluctant glow travels along the fuller, like a coiled flame trapped under glass, and the edge itself catches light with a warm, hungry lilt. The grip is wrapped in weathered leather, scarred by long use and rain, the stitching frayed but stubborn as a stubborn oath. At the hilt's guard, runes circle in a shallow brass ring, and a tiny heat-blue spark crawls up the knurled spine when you lift it. It looks as if it should be cold iron, a weapon of discipline, yet every inch hums with a soft, warning heat, as if the blade remembers the flames it once called to life. In the stories the smiths tell, the axe was forged within a temple forge heated by the breath of a volcano’s guardian. The clerics who commissioned it did not seek mere weaponry but a conduit for flame and mercy — a tool to scour corruption from the body and from the world. When swung, the blade seems to bite with a patient hunger, leaving a faint ember trail in the air that lingers like a memory. The lore insists the weapon carries a smoldering mercy: every successful strike kindles a small, purifying burn, a flame that hurts the unholy and warms the living. It is said the axe knows the difference between a shield’s sturdy grace and a foe’s ravenous hate, and it responds in kind, burning away deceit as surely as it melts rust from armor. On the battlefield or in the long corridors of ruined sanctuaries, the Cleric’s Iron Axe of Smoldering is more than a blade. It feels like a companion in judgment, turning the wielder into a beacon of controlled fire — a weapon that punishes the wicked while offering a protective warmth to those who fight beside you. Its signature isn’t just the burn it leaves on armor; it’s the sense of purpose it lends to a cautious tempo: strike, seal, renew. In practice, the axe augments a cleric’s or support-oriented melee build by layering a persistent burn on foes and refreshing allies with a residual heat that sharpens resolve. It is the sort of tool that changes the rhythm of a skirmish, transforming close-quarters chaos into a calculated, healing blaze. Market chatter around such relics rarely stays quiet for long, and Saddlebag Exchange is a steady chorus of riders and merchants who trade stories with metal. There, the axe disappears and reappears in the same breath, priced against the willingness of a buyer to part with gold and the nostalgia of a trader who recalls the temple’s smoky bells. A parchment price tag might show a generous few gold, or an anxious handful of silver if the storm breaks and demands rise; buyers haggle with the patience of monks and the street-smart instincts of old hands, testing the blade’s weight against the memory it carries. Holding it, you feel not just heat but history: a forge’s memory, a cleric’s faith, a world that believes in fire as both scourge and salvation. The Cleric’s Iron Axe of Smoldering is more than steel and glow; it is a story you swing into the dusk, a small mercy blazing in the wideness of the world.