Berserker's Soft Wood Torch of Blood

Berserker's Soft Wood Torch of Blood rests in the palm like a living ember, its pale grain running with the quiet severity of a winter stream. The shaft is smooth, almost milky to the touch, carved from a soft wood that yields under a thumb’s pressure yet never shivers in a draft. A copper collar cinches the head, where a braided wick waits, red-stained with the glow of countless nights spent marching through murk and ruin. The flame itself flickers with a feverish crimson, not a flame you see every day but a scarlet whisper that seems to drink the surrounding darkness rather than merely illuminate it. Along the length, runes are etched in shallow engraving—sigils that look like a map, a pledge, a pact made with a hunter’s courage. When lit, the torch seems to pulse with a heartbeat of its own, as if each spark carries the memory of those who once wielded it in the fiercest bargains of blood and steel. It’s the kind of object that feels lived-in, as if the wood remembers the weight of a berserker’s shout and the hush that follows a fallen foe. In the world where pathfinders and patrols thread through night markets and ruined camps, this torch carries more than light. Its glow cuts through tunnels where torchlight would otherwise be swallowed by damp and dust, guiding a wary scout toward hidden crevices where sigils hide in plain sight. The wood’s warmth steadies the nerves of a team crowded into a narrow stairwell, lending a sense of purpose to every breath taken between steps. The reds in the flame are not merely cosmetic; they speak to a heritage—of berserkers who turned raw fury into discipline, of oaths sealed with a spark that would not gutter no matter the rain or damp of the old ruins. In a raid, its flame becomes a banner carried low by a veteran frontliner, a signal to allies that danger approaches from the left corridor or from behind a shattered statue. It is as much a talisman as a tool, a shared memory you can see and feel when you tilt your head toward the glow and listen to the murmur of armor plates in harmony with the crackle. Price, in the everyday theater of the market, folds into that myth. I watched it change hands at Saddlebag Exchange, where traders haggle over value with a practiced calm. The vendor spoke in hushed tones, weighing the torch against a palmful of gold, a sliver more than the standard drop for a curious collector. A coin’s clink—three or four pieces, sometimes more if the moon hung low and demand pressed hard—could hardly capture what the torch meant to a party slipping through a cavernous ruin at midnight. The Exchange’s chatter swelled as a buyer offered a rare cloak and a chest of salvaged sigils, yet the keeper held steady, reminding everyone that some flames are priceless because they carry memory as much as heat. So the Berserker's Soft Wood Torch of Blood isn’t simply a light source; it’s a companion in the deep hours, a story whispered between breaths and footsteps, a relic that turns every shadow into a chapter waiting to be written.