Berserker's Iron Hammer of Corruption

Berserker's Iron Hammer of Corruption rests on a scarred wooden block, its head a heavy slab of iron darkened by heat and time. Veins of green-black corruption thread the metal, like lightning trapped in ore, and torchlight makes them glow faintly, as if a forest slept inside the iron. The haft is a battered ashwood, bound with riveted copper bands, the grip wrapped in worn leather that still carries the rain-smell of a hundred storms. Inscribed along its spine are runes I cannot fully translate, promises of fury, of breaking foes, a reckoning following a single swing. In the margins of a field diary I once found, the hammer lay sketched beside a scorch-marked page about a night watch relying on its tremulous rhythm to stay alive. Forged in the last days of the marsh-town siege by a berserker chieftain who bargained with a dusk-touched smith to bind corrupted crystal into the core. Whispered legends say it feeds on courage and fear alike, drinking battle's heat to shove enemies back as if the hammer has a will. Wielders speak of a surge in breath, a tunnel-vision that makes every strike slam shut the enemy's guard. In skirmishes it loosens a heavy rhythm, cracking shields and rattling armor with the sound of old anvils. When the wielder's anger rises, the hammer's eye—a dark fracture—burns brighter, promising the next blow will shatter more than bone. During a night push against a cordon of spearmen, I watched the weapon bite through their chain as their own panic pushed them to stumble, the corruption's glow snuffing out as dawn broke. Within the wider tapestry, the hammer is more than a weapon—a weight of history, a symbol passed from camp to camp, whispered of in barter yards and relic houses. Knights and tinkerers speak of its dual nature: burden and boon, demanding the user to master the rage it invites. Respecters use it to punch through armor and disrupt precision, forcing missteps from rivals who think themselves in control. Some elders warn that sustained custody of the hammer thickens blood and dulls mercy; others insist it teaches respect for power without fear. The hammer will not be easily quieted in the right hands. Market days bring it to the stall at Saddlebag Exchange, where traders haggle over the hue of corruption and the weight of history. A fair coin tells the weapon to the highest bidder, yet the true currency is trust: who will carry the hammer's mark without becoming its next subject? In quiet rooms behind market tents, I watch coins traded for glints of steel, for stories of a blacksmith who saw his forge as a doorway and chose to step through it. On a market day a dealer traded a sacred drum for the hammer, stirring whispers about bloodlines and origin. If you listen, whispers say that a single evening bid—carried into Saddlebag Exchange on a caravan's last dusk—can land you not just a weapon, but a direction in the world, a path carved by the hammer's corruption and the wielder's resolve.