Cleric's Soft Wood Focus of the Hydromancer

Cleric's Soft Wood Focus of the Hydromancer rests on the edge of a copper-lit shelf, its pale wood catching and releasing light with every breath of the room. The shaft is slender and smooth, the grain curling like a coastline, and at its tip a shallow bowl of glass holds a single droplet of water that seems to resist evaporation longer than any other liquid nearby. Along the length, run delicate sigils etched in a midnight-blue ink: runes for patience, tide, and healing, their lines catching on the lamp flame and throwing faint reflections onto the walls. A thin ring of sea-salt crystals is bound near the butt, not for decoration but as a talisman against leaks and storm-wrack. Hold it close and you feel the wood exhale a faint, briny fragrance, as if it remembers rain on a shoreline and the hush of sheltering groves. It is more than a story-piece; in the hands of a hydromancer the focus becomes a living liaison between patient mercy and raw water. When attuned, it sharpens the bloom of healing skills and steadies watery barriers, guiding mist to envelope allies like a protective veil. The wood's warmth seems to draw moisture from the air, thinning the border between healer and patient until a wave of restoration pours from the palm and into the wounded. Prices drift through the market's morning chorus, and the cleric's soft wood focus becomes a thread in the tapestry of commerce. Traders speak softly of the focus' condition—no cracks, no warping, sigils crisp—and the price shifts with runes and inscriptions added by careful hands. In Saddlebag Exchange, a bustling stall tucked between a barrel of salves and a map-carved crate, the cleric's soft wood focus draws curious glances and tempered offers. One merchant recites a sum in gold that would make a caravan grin, another counters with a tale of guardian spirits; it lands somewhere in the mid-range for a well-preserved piece, a value that rewards patient bargaining and a good sense of the tides. For the hydromancer, this focus becomes a companion on journeys upriver and down—streaming healing to the wounded pilgrim, conjuring a sphere of chilled aqueous light that slows fevers and steers a skittering storm away from a camp. In the field it translates into reliability: fewer miscast words, more secure channels for water-based sigils, and a quiet confidence that the river itself approves of the caster’s purpose. Old clerics whispered that the wood remembers every rain it drank, and in battle, its memory becomes a calm voice guiding your hands. Thus the Cleric's Soft Wood Focus of the Hydromancer is not merely gear but a thread woven through a larger tale. It ties the river to the healer, the village to the storm, and the market to the shrine where water, always patient, teaches us to mend what was once broken. Those who keep it close know its lessons run deeper than spellwork: it teaches restraint, the patience to wait for the river's cadence, and the grace to give back more than it takes.