Honed Soft Wood Focus of Air

Honed Soft Wood Focus of Air sits on the market stall like a small wind-chime carved from a single twig of pale ash, its surface polished to a satin glow that drinks the light and returns it in a sly, quick gleam. The grain runs in soft, sinewy lines, as if a breeze had pressed the heartwood into life and left a trail of whispering knots behind. Carvings spiral along its sides—delicate gusts looping into themselves, a faint inlay of pale blue lacquer tracing the wind’s path. A slender brass pin anchors a thread of cord around the focus’s neck, aging to a warm patina that catches sun and candlelight alike. When you cradle it, the wood remains cool, almost musical, and you swear you can feel a quiet pulse beneath your fingertips, as if the focus breathes with the promise of a next gust. There is more to its look than craftsmanship, though. The Honed Soft Wood Focus of Air bears a weathered lore, a whisper of wind-singers who once coaxed storms from seed pods and called breezes to their palms. Some say it was carved in a forest glade where the trees learned to listen to footsteps and exhalations, then tempered by a patient master who learned to listen back. Others claim a shipwright’s daughter, trading wind for function, etched runes along the grain so that the focus would always tilt toward the sky. In any telling, its edges are sharp enough to slice through doubt, its texture so even that you forget the world’s noise when you run your thumb along the wind-carved grooves. In practical terms, the focus is a conduit as much as a weapon: it channels air, not flame or stone, and in the right hands it quickens the rhythm of spellwork. When gripped, it seems to pull the air closer, smoothing the cadence of offhand motions and letting a spellcaster thread a line of gusts, barriers, and quick darts of wind with greater ease. It doesn’t roar into battle; it hums, more like a whispering leaf that gathers momentum before a canyon-wide sigh. Used with the right sigils and traits, it can shorten the moment between thought and air, turning hesitant breezes into decisive currents that push foes back or nudge allies toward safety. It becomes part of a larger story—one where the wind is a trusted ally, measured and careful, rather than a reckless force to be wielded. On a sun-warmed afternoon, I watched a traveler haggle with a merchant who carried stories as much as wares. The price, the seller implied while tracing the wind with his fingertip, hovered in the familiar range you hear about in Saddlebag Exchange—not inexpensive, but not mythic either, a few gold depending on condition and charm. The buyer nodded, pocketed a little more silver than he planned, and tucked the focus into a leather case that softened the object’s edge with a pinch of reverence. Then, with the artifact secure, he stepped into the street where the breeze pressed the day into motion, as if the Honed Soft Wood Focus of Air might have been guiding the world all along, one careful gust at a time.