Cleric's Black Earth Trident of Agony

Cleric's Black Earth Trident of Agony rests on a weathered pedestal, a relic whose presence seems to murmur of rain-outlined deserts and tremors long past. The shaft is a deep, matte obsidian that drinks light, cool to the touch and unexpectedly smooth under the palm. Its three prongs curve upward like roots breaking through a stone floor, each fork etched with quiet runes that resemble dried mud cracks, a language of weight and memory. A strip of leather wraps the grip, scarred by years of careful handling, and the head is crowned with a ring of pale ore that glints with greenish veins when the light catches it. The weapon carries a scent—rain-silver and coal dust—as if the earth itself breathed through the metal, a reminder of the ground’s stubborn, patient will. The name burns along the base in ember-gold lettering, a vow spoken aloud only to those who listen for the judgments of stone and soil. Lore clings to its grip as tightly as the leather. Black Earth, they say, was once a creed that believed pain could be transmuted into memory, that the ground holds stories harsher than any battlefield tale. This trident was crafted by the Clerics who tended the fissures where the world had split, channeling tremors to shield a village from collapse and to punish a corrupt terra that fed on fear. When earthquakes growl under a hillside, the Trident’s wielder can coax the soil to listen—drags of stone rise as sentinels, columns of earth spring to interrupt a careless stride, and the very air feels denser, as if the ground itself weighs every syllable spoken in rage. It’s a weapon of discipline as much as force: a conduit that asks for restraint as much as it offers victory. In the right hands, it becomes a hinge between mercy and consequence, a story etched into every strike. In practical terms, the trident threads into the fabric of one’s build the way a village threadworks through a loom. Its user can anchor teammates with stabilizing tremors, ripple a line of earth to disrupt advancing packs, and unleash a cleansing shock that clears the field of fear-struck foes. It rewards patience: timing the earth’s pulse to pair with healing pulses, to interrupt a foe’s advance just as their stamina falters. It invites a narrative of cooperation and risk, where the wielder’s choices ripple outward, shaping skirmishes into chapters of a larger saga about ancestors who learned to listen to soil and stone. On a crowded pier one afternoon, I watched a trader bartering in the Saddlebag Exchange, a market where whispered legends meet coin. The cleric’s trident drew more than glances; it drew a small chorus of bargaining, a ritual of glinting snares and careful glances at runes. The price tag, a three-figure promise inked in gold, lingered on a parchment tucked beneath the leather wrap, and the negotiator’s humor rose with the coins as vendors weighed lore against utility. Some offered barter—ancient potions, rare ores, even a relic from a field hospital’s shelves—while others spoke of future dowries of gemstones and essences. In the end, the exchange was less about the number and more about the trust that such a weapon can carry—how much history a single trident can shoulder when carried into the next tremor, how it can bind a story of protest, protection, and quiet, enduring agony to the land that forged it. The Cleric’s Black Earth Trident of Agony remains not merely as a tool of war, but as a living chapter in a world that still remembers the price of listening to the ground.