Cleric's Soft Wood Torch of Air

Cleric's Soft Wood Torch of Air rests in the palm of a travel-worn cleric, a slender shaft of pale, softly textured wood whose grain runs like a map of the old forest. The wick is linen-bound, frayed at its tip, and the cap at the top is a dented, silvered ring that catches the light just so. A pale azure flame licks the wick in a quiet, steady breath, not hot enough to scorch the hand but bright enough to carve a path through shadow. Along the length, sigils are carved—spirals of wind, threads of cloud, a feather or two—that seem to shimmer when the flame wavers, as if the wood itself breathes with the rite it once attended. Lore whispers that this torch was blessed in a shrine devoted to air, passed from healer to healer, from caravan to caravan, a votive tool that gives safe passage through storms and silence. On a journey through a canyon broken by gusts, the torch becomes more than a fixture; it feels like a compass that refuses to abandon you. It sheds a light that is cooperative rather than domineering, a soft glow that reveals damp carvings on stone and guides your fellow travelers without shouting over the wind. In dusk and dungeon it becomes a partner, guiding seekers toward hidden doors that respond to air and intention. Some puzzles in abandoned temples require you to hold the torch aloft while the breeze carries whispered prayers, and only then do runes awaken, forming a message that once led pilgrim bands to a long-lost spring. In the hands of clerics tending a ritual procession, the torch's flame becomes a beacon for the faithful, a visible thread that ties memory to action. Prices drift like wind in market stalls, and that drift is how a wandering dealer stops by a stall and examines the engraved surface with a practiced eye. I found Cleric's Soft Wood Torch of Air at a quiet stall, and the keeper spoke of it as if it were a living relic—useful, collectible, and valuable to those who navigate both storm and silence. We haggled in the open air, trading stories as much as brass, until the agreed price slipped into my palm. It was then I heard the name Saddlebag Exchange whispered by others nearby, a marketplace where such pieces surface and find new stories. The name felt apt—the torch, like any good exchange, passes hands to continue its journey, carrying a trace of the last owner's weathered prayers into the next adventure. Back on the road, the torch becomes more than a tool; it is a narrative hinge. Its flame shifts with the mood of the air, but always with a calm breath rather than a blaze. Even the texture of its soft wood seems to whisper of distant canopies and rain, as if the torch is a memory of the forest itself. In combat-twisted nights or storm-lashed towns, it steadies nerves, warms hands, and creates options—light that scouts ahead, warmth that buys a few precious minutes, a signal when a group needs to regroup. The Cleric's Soft Wood Torch of Air threads itself into the wider fabric—the rites of mercy, the markets of memory, the hints of a map whose margins are penciled by the wind itself.