Cleric's Soft Wood Focus of Smoldering

Cleric's Soft Wood Focus of Smoldering rests on a scarred velvet cushion, its pale sapwood gleaming like a sliver of sunrise. The shaft is slender and warm to the touch, the grain swirling in delicate rings as if the tree itself had kept a diary. The head is a shallow cup carved with sigils—ash-gray and gold—framed by a ring of hammered iron that bears a trace of heat, as if the item remembers last summer’s flame. A tiny ember waits inside, protected behind a thin lens of glass that glows with a patient, almost shy light. When the holder breathes in rhythm with an old blessing, the ember stirs, sending out a lazy haze that crawls along the wood, tracing faint constellations on the surface. Locals say the focus was birthed in a monastery perched above a smoking kiln, where a cleric learned to listen to the wood’s breath and coax a healing fire from it without scorching the hand that holds it. The soft wood, scarred by long years of ritual, remembers every chant that brushed it and lends that memory to whoever wields it. The Smoldering part is not merely ornament; it is a vow etched into the grain, a promise that warmth can be precise, focused, and disciplined—enough to mend a braced rib or kindle a flare of courage in a consul’s tired heart. Within the balance of a fight, the focus becomes more than a conduit; it is a companion. Those who tune their spellwork with it report a steadying hum in the aura, a signal flare that aids healing streams and sharpens the edge of protective wards. The ember’s glow is not loud; it invites restraint, but when pressed, it answers with a disciplined blaze that makes the healer feel the room tilt toward safety. In the hands of a patient defender, the focus can turn a moment of collapse into a dawn. In the hands of a fervent zealot, it might become a lantern that burns too bright, reminding the world that warmth can scorch as easily as it can shelter. Market days pull people into narrow alleys where traders haggle over the weight of metal and memory. I watched a vendor offer the Cleric’s Soft Wood Focus of Smoldering at the Saddlebag Exchange, the price whispered as if the ember itself were listening. Some spoke in silver, others bargained over bones of old coins, all while the focus’s glow pulsed a slow beat like a patient heart. The seller claimed the wood’s patience deserved a patient buyer, and a buyer without fear would see beyond the price to the quiet companionship promised by the ember’s breath. By sundown, the focus had moved from stall to satchel, traded with care for a bundle of rare cordage and a promise to guard a small monastery’s flame until spring. Maybe that is why, in the quiet hours after the crowd thins, the focus glows with patience, a reminder that flame, tended, keeps the world from fraying.