Rampager's Soft Wood Torch of Grawl Slaying

Rampager's Soft Wood Torch of Grawl Slaying rests in the palm of my gloved hand, its pale shaft gleaming with a satin finish. The wood feels almost velvet, the grain running tight as a whispered map. The head is crowned with a copper ring that anchors a clay-lamped wick, and the flame flickers with a patient, amber glow. Tiny runes are carved along the length, filled with resin that darkens the wood's pale surface, a quiet reminder of the pledge carried by scouts who once haunted fogbound lanes to keep caravans safe. The name is inked along a brass band near the butt, Rampager's, while the rest—Soft Wood Torch of Grawl Slaying—speaks with stubborn clarity of its purpose. Legends say this torch was carved by a single Rampager who trusted softwood for its balance of lightness and resilience. They pressed it into service on routes where Grawl skulked in damp hollows, the resin sealing the grooves against damp nights and the wind's sudden cold. The ritual sigils were meant to temper fear as much as flame, and men and women who carried it swore that the glow steadied their hands when a shadow moved too close. In the old maps, such torches mark campsites and pathbreaks, little beacons that stitched together weary travelers into a community even for a single night. In practice, the torch is more than a light source. It blazes to reveal hidden runes on stone, softening the glare of lanterns and guiding a party through a cave where damp air clings to the throat. The wood's surface feels warm to the touch, its glow deepening when a Grawl steps into range, as if the amber flame remembered a grudge from a hundred skirmishes. Its enchantment is not a brute increase in damage, but a kind of tactical ally: the flame unsettles damp, dull places, and the wearer learns to time a lantern's lift with a swipe of a blade, buying a breath more in a crowded fray. It also serves as a warning beacon, drawing attention from allies and belying the hidden catcalls of the forest that seem to murmur in reply. When I found it at Saddlebag Exchange, the clerk weighed the tale as seriously as the coin. A price was laid out in two silver coins with a copper tip, a sum that felt fair for an artifact that has walked through many nights and countless thresholds. The deal was not just about value, but about owning a rumor you could light in the dark—a tangible link to a lineage of scouts who trusted a slender piece of soft wood and a stubborn flame to keep them alive. So the Rampager's Soft Wood Torch remains, in quiet service, a portable campfire in hand—soft to the touch, steady in the throat of the forest, and always ready to remind us that even the smallest flame can tilt the odds when the night grows thick and the Grawl start to murmur. In that glow, stories endure.