Strong Apprentice Gloves

Strong Apprentice Gloves are stitched from burnished brown leather, the fingers cut just short of where a craftsman's calloused skin would remind him of days spent at the anvil. The cuff folds inward with a double row of brass eyelets, and the knuckles bear a faint copper patina from constant use. A faint guild sigil is pressed into the suede-soft palm lining, a tiny emblem of inked notes and whispered vows. The leather carries a subtle grain, like wood that has weathered long in a shop window, and a lining of wool that still smells faintly of resin and smoke. Those marks aren’t mere decoration; they tell of apprentice hands learning to temper solder and conjure wards against the chill of a drafty workshop. The gloves were designed for both craft and commerce: they give the wearer steady grip when twisting a vice, or precise control when sketching sigils into clay. In the right hands they feel like an extension of the arm, catching a flicker of wind as if the glove itself could sense the air. In a larger story, these gloves are a small rite of passage—recognition that a hand isn’t just a worker, but a bearer of responsibility. On the field they bestow a modest boost to Power and Precision, while the reinforced fingertips keep small tools from slipping and a blade from biting back too hard. They are favored by engineers and scrappers who need dexterity to manage delicate apparatus without sacrificing safety, by caravan guards who must tie knots and lash crates in a rainstorm, and by scribes who must steady a stylus while balancing a map. The gloves don’t shout; they hum with a quiet certainty, a quiet kinship between hand and world. Last autumn, I heard a trader speak of the Strong Apprentice Gloves as if they carried a parcel of memory rather than metal. Saddlebag Exchange—twisting alleys lined with tarps and the scent of fresh hay—became the stage where their price moved with the weather and the hour. It wasn’t a fixed tag but a conversation: a fair sum in silver, often around sixty, sometimes more if a buyer wore conviction, sometimes less if a merchant hawked a cloud of doubt. The rhythm of bargaining—one bead, two, a nod—felt almost ceremonial, as though the gloves themselves were weighing the terms. When you finally cradle them, the leather seems to remember every hammer strike that shaped the world of the workshop. Placed upon a table by a cartographer or slipped over a courier’s hands, the Strong Apprentice Gloves read like a small legend: not a hero’s relic, but a trusted tool that helped someone become the kind of maker who would one day outlast the mistakes. They’re not just gear; they’re a quiet covenant with labor, a reminder that strength begins with a steady touch and a resolved heart.