Strong Soft Wood Focus sits on a weathered wooden table, its surface a pale sheet of grain etched with narrow, wind-worn lines. The body is compact and oval, the wood so smooth you can still hear the soft sigh of growth in it as you rub your thumb along the curved edge. A thin ring of copper inlay encircles the base, catching lamplight and throwing a warm halo when the hued sigils beneath the lacquer glimmer. The sigils themselves are carved in a feathered script, two dozen tiny runes spiralling toward a center aperture that is just large enough to cradle a caster's fingertip. The whole thing feels alive with weather and wood, a small artifact that seems to remember every storm it's weathered and every map it's helped draw. Lore ties the Strong Soft Wood Focus to a guild of cartographers who used wood chosen for its resilience and its memory; storytellers insist the tree yielded its last sap at the moment the map of a forgotten coast snapped into place, and that the focus absorbed that memory, guiding hands that trembled with doubt. The crisp aroma of resin and polished shellac hangs in the air, a reminder that this is no mere tool but a companion for those who chart lines that others fear to read. In the hands of a practiced user, the focus becomes less a sculpture and more a conduit, channeling the caster's energy into precise streams of magic. It steadies the tremor of a patient hand as you call down a thin bolt of wind or coax light to etch a protective sigil into the air. Practitioners claim it helps with concentration under pressure, smoothing the rhythm of a spell and shortening the moment between thought and action. In a world where a map can be as valuable as a sword, the Strong Soft Wood Focus is prized by scholars, healers, and scouts who need calm hands on complicated tasks—signing wards, tracing routes through fog, or guiding a scribe’s quill to draw a line that won’t waver. On a dawn-washed quay, the Saddlebag Exchange is a hive of traders and tinkerers, a place where the market’s pulse hums through rickety stalls and shared timber roofs. It’s there that the focus changes hands for a price that reflects its stories as much as its weight—roughly a dozen to a dozen and a half silver coins, depending on wear and the shape of the sigils, the trader tells you with a measured smile. A better-man would barter for a bundle of compass ribbons or a hawker’s note, but most sprint-forward teachers, apprentices, and wandering tacticians settle for the agreed sum and walk away with a page of new possibilities in their pockets. The Strong Soft Wood Focus thus remains not only a tool but a thread in a larger tapestry—an object that binds memory, craft, and the stubborn courage of those who keep walking the map. As the sun climbs, the author tucks the focus away with care, its memory quiet but ready, a reminder that every journey in this world leaves a trace in wood as in heart.