Cleric's Soft Wood Torch of Perception

Cleric's Soft Wood Torch of Perception rests in my gloved palm, its shaft carved from pale softwood that feels almost warm to the touch, like a bedside candle warmed by faith. The grain runs in gentle, patient rings, and a fine lacquer seals the wood so that the texture breathes a faint, resinous sweetness. The head is a small lantern cap, forged of brass that has darkened to a soft bronze over years, with a slit of glass that catches the light and fractures it into a thousand patient motes. A linen wick sits within, guarded by a ring of copper wire that seems to pulse when a rumor of danger rides the air. It isn’t merely a torch; it is a reliquary of perception, a tool given by a cleric who believed that sight could be a sanctuary, that what is hidden should be coaxed toward daylight rather than scoured with force. It carries the whisper of old orders, the way a lantern passed from one keeper to another might carry the weight of vows. When lit, the beam is pale and intent, not blaze and bravado; it seems to map the unseen, drawing to light the creases of a room where truth hides behind flaking plaster. For a hunter of relics or a seeker in a ruined chapel, it is both compass and quiet ally, a reminder that perception is a choice as much as a sense. In gameplay terms, its glow does more than illuminate; it reveals subtle traps, camouflaged sigils, and the faint lines of wards etched into stone. You can use it to pierce illusions, or to coax a stubborn guard to talk with the soft, patient tone the Clerics favor. In a dungeon, I’ve watched it pull the curtain back on a puzzle: lines align only when you hold the torch at a certain angle, and suddenly the door sighs open as if the building itself has remembered something it forgot long ago. Prices in the world drift like the smoke above a campfire, and this torch finds its way along the winding routes of barter and memory. I traded mine with a veteran merchant at Saddlebag Exchange, where a crowd hovers around a stall smelling of wax and rain, listening to stories as deftly as coins pass hands. The vendor spoke of scarcity and demand, of clerical orders that still hope to keep watch over the night, and how perception itself has become a scarce resource in crowded cities and forgotten temples. Carrying it, I feel the space between what is obvious and what could be known tighten into a thread. The Cleric's Soft Wood Torch of Perception is not a weapon, not a symbol of conquest, but a patient invitation: to look, to listen, to honor the quiet truths that hide in the corners of a world where light is scarce and the dark remembers. In the night, that soft wood keeps watch with me, and the world seems to lean closer.