Berserker's Soft Wood Scepter of Agony

Berserker's Soft Wood Scepter of Agony rests on a faded velvet cloth, its shaft carved from pale cedar—the grain a living map of rivers and roots—soft to the touch yet unyielding, the head a snarling, bone-white totem crowned with ringed sigils that glow faintly when danger nears. The runes coil along its length like wind through branches, catching the light and sending a pale blue flicker into the air as if the wood itself remembers every scream and strike it has witnessed. The name is scrawled near the butt in a hesitant script, a reminder that this is no mere ornament but a vessel for a hunted rage. When you lift it, the scepter feels almost tender in your grip, as if the forest had whispered approval for you to carry its voice into the world. In combat, the scepter seems to hum with a heartbeat older than the banners that flutter over towns. It is said to braid a warrior’s raw strength with the soft wood’s patient resilience, turning brute force into a more deliberate storm. Wielding it, a fighter does not simply swing; they call a tide to rise, and the wood answers with a measure of ease that belies the fury within. The Agony etched into its core offers a quiet, inexorable pressure on foes, not loud and flashy but persistent, like the ache of a long march that refuses to end. It is the kind of weapon that rewards patience and timing—when a line holds, the scepter’s energy seems to thread through the air, weaving a small, spectral wound that saps a target’s will and gives a momentary edge to the bearer. Palms heat, breath sharpens, and the battlefield—whether a cliff-top camp or a crowded square—feels altered, as though the forest itself had leaned closer to listen. There is more to its presence than pure combat utility, though. The Soft Wood Scepter of Agony carries a whisper of lore about a berserker who bargained with the living trees, trading bluster for a weapon that could speak in the language of pain and resolve. To carry it is to step into that legend, to feel the weight of old oaths and old oaths broken and renewed. Merchants speak in hushed tones about how the scepter’s warmth curdles into resolve when the user faces down fearsome odds, how the wood seems to remember every road traveled and every siege endured. It is a talisman and a weapon, a token of kinship with the primal world and a reminder that true power often comes wrapped in gentleness. On market days, the price becomes its own story. I found it at Saddlebag Exchange, where crates sag with goods and the air carries the tang of resin and pine. The clerk laid the item beside a ledger, eyes narrowing as he weighed history against coins, murmuring that the scepter sits in a rare class—valuable, but not untouchable. The line in the ledger looked back at me: a few gold, perhaps more with bartering. We traded furs, jerky, and a promise to share future finds, and as the deal closed, the scepter’s runes flickered once, as if to say: carry on, traveler, let the agony guide you home.