Carrion Steamblade of Earth

Carrion Steamblade of Earth sits on the table, a long, sinuous blade of darkened steel etched with coppery runes, catching lamplight in a slow, reluctant gleam. Brass gears along the guard click faintly when you tilt it in your hand, and a pale green steam curls from shallow vents along the fuller. The grip is wrapped in weathered leather, the pommel a bone inlay carved like a cracked leaf, a whisper of carrion’s quiet mortality. The blade's surface bears micro-etchings that look almost like dew, and the scent of damp earth fills the room whenever you lift it. Locals tell of a forge hidden beneath ruined quarries, where carrion priests mated bone, ore, and steam to temper weapons that bend earth and memory. The Steamblade, they say, drinks a drop of its owner’s life to keep a field of mineral dust humming along its edge, and every rune holds a rumor of someone who vanished inside a cave during its tempering. In battle it is not merely a weapon but a talisman. When swung, it siphons vitality to stoke an earth shield that reduces incoming damage and sends a tremor through the ground, cracking stone and staggering enemies. Precise, disciplined strikes multiply its steam-powered charge, so a practiced hand can chain a tremor into a spear of mineral shards that glints like broken ore. In party play, it rewards those who read the terrain—greatly aiding frontline fighters who need purchase on loose stone and unstable floors. I first learned its stories in a quiet corner of the coastal markets, where traders whisper about storms and bones and the way a blade can rustle a mine’s silence. One afternoon, seeking a price to pass along to a collector, I wandered into Saddlebag Exchange, a covered stall-row where importers and dreamers swap relics and receipts. A weather-beaten clerk unfurled the blade’s cloth and spoke of its tempering, then laid a chalk price on the counter—eighteen gold, a sum that felt as heavy as a herald's bell. We bartered across the counter, coins clinking as the blade’s green steam hissed faintly, and the deal was sealed with a small bone rune drawn on the cloth. The handwriting in a ledger beside him read like a map: notes, counts, and the occasional whispered bargain that makes a blade move in a world. Carrying it away, I felt the world tilt a fraction: earth answers the call of steel, and a story sticks to your fingers long after the exchange ends. The Carrion Steamblade of Earth is not just metal and steam; it is a hinge between memory and motion, a tool that turns rumor into movement, death into momentum, and land into a battlefield where every kick of earth remembers the weight of life. I left it sheathed, listening to the soft hiss fade, knowing that such a blade changes not only fights but the stories that carve themselves into the land. Some nights I hear it whisper, calling me back to the quarry.