Cleric's Black Earth Trident of Agony

Cleric's Black Earth Trident of Agony gleams in the dim torchlight, its shaft a length of obsidian-black wood bound with weathered bronze bands that bite into the fingers with a cold, patient history. The head, a three-pronged spear, seems carved from a single slab of basalt, each tine etched with runic spirals that swallow light and spit it back as a dull, mineral glow. The balance is uncanny, the weight resting at the haft’s center, urging the wielder to press forward as if the earth itself were rooting the hand to the ground. A leather strap wraps the grip, smelling of rain and soil, and at the base a tiny sigil glows faintly—an oath whispered by priests who kept watch over fissures and forgotten wells. This is more than metal and wood; it is a relic that remembers tremors that swallowed villages and the quiet prayers spoken to coax the first spring back. In the world’s quiet corners, this trident draws a line between the sanctified and the stray, a symbol of how power can be patient as bedrock and sudden as a broken cliff. The Black Earth hue is not mere aesthetics; it hints at a bond with the land itself, a discipline that trembles when the ground sighs and steadies when faith is tested. Warriors speak of trenching through chaos with it, healers speak of listening for the surface’s hum, and elders tell of the Cleric who carved out a sanctuary inside a buried canyon by channeling seismic breath through the weapon. The Agony in its name is a measured price—the cost of speaking to the earth with enough certainty to coax it to yield a stone-strong shield for allies, or to lash out at foes with a tremor that stuns and unsettles their footing. Wielders learn to trade comfort for advantage, to measure courage against the careful calculus of soil and stone. On the battlefield, its uses unfold like a tale told in whispers and wakes of dust. It can anchor a line, summoning a depth-charge of earth that slows enemies, or call down a cradle of ground that arches up to shield a spell-wrought partner. Its arms become a mediator between healers and frontline fighters, letting the party breathe as the earth absorbs heat and fear alike. The trident’s motions feel ceremonial and practical at once—an ancient choreography that transforms a rush of melee into a controlled surge, a reminder that strength without roots is quickly uprooted. Prices in the crowded stalls touch something of the item’s gravity. I watched a merchant at Saddlebag Exchange tug back a length of leather, weighing the trident against a small pile of coins and a weathered map. The discussion wandered through legends and odds, and the price drifted like smoke—enough to make a hunter haggle with dignity, enough to make a collector pause and listen to the earth’s murmur in the palm of the hand. The trade felt less about gold than about the pact the trident represents: to carry the weight of the world and still give shelter to the vulnerable. In that moment, the Cleric’s Black Earth Trident of Agony was more than a weapon; it was a folded map to a landscape where courage grows from patience and the ground remembers where it has been.