Carrion Verdant Shield of Air

Carrion Verdant Shield of Air rests on a trader's rack, its bronze-green skin mottled like moss over aged stone and the pale rim catching the light with a quiet, phosphorescent glow. The texture speaks of weathered brass and resin, a cool smoothness where the eye expects roughness, with a subtle grain that hints at something living beneath the metal. A central boss bears a whetted emblem—a feathered gust curling inward, as if wind itself were pressed into a single moment of force. Turn it in your hands and the surface shifts from hunter’s patina to a weave of micro-scratches that tell the shield has learned every clap of wind and every crash of clashing steel. There’s a weight to it, not iron-heavy but purposeful, as if the shield carries a memory of storms and the scent of rain-soaked leaves. Lore says this piece was bound in verdant resin to carrion-wood, a relic forged at the edge where plague winds once scrubbed the air clean with a gust of mercy; a guardian’s tool that learned to breathe with the battlefield rather than stand apart from it. In the field, its significance unfolds with the same quiet inevitability as a champion stepping into the open. It’s not simply a barrier against force; it feels more like a partner that remembers the terrain—the slope of a hill, the curl of a path through thorn and bramble—and shifts with the wind to cover a comrade’s retreat or to shelter an ally as a fight spills from one area to another. When a shield swing connects with steel and summons the telltale shield-burst, a cool gust rolls outward, bending dust and momentum in the direction of the user’s choosing. It’s a tool for a hunter who fights from a stance rather than a stance alone: a shield that can block, parry, and then, in the next breath, loosen the air to carry a whispered warning to the rest of the group. The Verdant Shield of Air feels like a piece of the world’s weather itself—predictable only in its reliability, dangerous to those who forget to watch the skies. Market talk rounds out the picture with a hum of human commerce. I watch a brief exchange beneath a canvas awning where traders discuss not only the metal but the tale that clads it. The Saddlebag Exchange is mentioned in a low, respectful tone—the sort of place where a well-loved item is weighed not just in gold but in the stories it could tell. The posted price reads around a handful of gold and a few silver, a price tag that seems fair to a buyer who has tracked winds and debts alike. A buyer murmurs about trading a cluster of rare sigils for the shield, and the seller nods as if they can already hear the shield’s next gust through the doorway of a new life. As I walk away, the shield’s edge catches the late sun and sends a ribbon of green light along the cobbles. The Carrion Verdant Shield of Air doesn’t just endure battles; it invites others to imagine the air between them—the spaces where fear falters and trust takes flight. It’s a safeguard and a story, folded into one compact, living object that keeps turning with the wind.