Berserker's Torch

The Berserker's Torch sits in my hand like a red-hot coal wrapped in worn leather, its copper skin etched with runes that pulse with heat whenever the flame stirs. Leather straps rattle as I shift it, the wick thick and blackened with ash, and the flame itself is a savage orange that seems to lean toward the maps I carry as much as the air around me. The hilt bears shallow, claw-mark impressions, and the lore that travels with it says it was forged by a berserker-smith who coaxed fury into metal, tempering it with the roar of a dozen campaigns. Runes along the barrel tell of a pact with a war god who demanded light as bright as wrath, a covenant whispered at dawn when banners still hung from the ramparts. In the caverns and ruins where I’ve learned to listen to the rock, the Torch does more than illuminate; it seems to pull the gloom back a fraction, turning corners into bright, navigable lines and revealing carvings that would vanish with a simple moon. It is a practical tool, true—a lantern on the move, a predictable spark in the hands of a hurried party—but it is also a signal, a reminder that this world fears a blaze fed by will and steel. And when the rumble of a raid shudders through a hall, the torch is there to flare, to cast long shadows that can mislead or misdirect, depending on who holds it and why. As a piece of gear, Berserker’s Torch hints at the larger story of those who chase glory by flame. Some travelers wield it as a badge of identity, a statement that they fight with unbridled force and unshakable nerve. Others treat it as a trusty companion on long marches, a beacon that never quits when the night grows cold and the distant drums come closer. It’s not merely cosmetic; its glow invites encounters, opens certain environmental puzzles, and marks a path for the bold to follow. Prices drift in the market like embers, and that drift is most visible at the Saddlebag Exchange, where traders discuss scarcity and demand with weathered hands and quick smiles. A torched emblem of Berserker’s might can fetch a tidy sum on festival days or a lower toll in the wake of a crowded market. I’ve watched a barter swing on a single rumor, a whispered line about a fragment of an old war story that morning crowds believed again. The torch transfers hands, and with it goes a fragment of the road—the memory of a rush of heat, the memory of a night when the light did not fail, and the certainty that light and fury can walk side by side through the world's long and perilous halls. When I tuck it away, the torch still hums in the pocket of my cloak, a spark waiting for the next shadowed doorway. In this world, every flame writes its own story, and this one burns with a stubborn, reckless heartbeat.