Carrion Verdant Trident of Air

The Carrion Verdant Trident of Air sits on a weathered pedestal in the corner of a dim tent, its three prongs arching outward like skeletal talons grown from living moss. The shaft is a mottled green, a metal that somehow remembers rain, veins of emerald resin running along its length as if the wood had learned to breathe again. The grip is bound in faded leather, stitched with thread that catches the faintest light and shivers when a draft slips through, as though the weapon itself is listening for wind. A faint odor—earthy, faintly coppery, and damp with rot—lingers around the relic, a reminder of what it once carried: carrion transformed into something usable, a vow to defy decay by riding the gusts of air. The runes along the haft glow with a pale, almost bioluminescent green, etched deeply as if the trident remembers every wind it has cut through, every alley it has flicked with shadow. Lore threads through its appearance like the veins on a leaf. Some say it was forged in the aftermath of a storm, when a scavenger-priest bound the sighs of carrion birds and the breath of the forest into a single, sentient instrument. Others insist the verdant churn of its metal is the garden’s own memory, grown from soil that refuses to stay dead. The carrion element, the verdant life—both hold hands in its design, offering a paradox: decay and renewal coiled into one weapon, as if the wind itself could ferry both rot and rebirth in equal measure. In the stories travelers tell around campfires, the trident’s true power lies not in brute force but in the way it channels air—to push, to pull, to guide a swift path through a clamor of enemies, and to clear the mind of fear as easily as it clears a battlefield’s dust. In the hands of the right bearer, the Carrion Verdant Trident of Air becomes part compass, part chorus. Attuned to the breath of the air, it cracks open the space around the wielder, sending gusts rolling outward to stagger foes or to shield allies with a sudden, wind-whipped barrier. Quick strikes weave into sudden relocations; a well-timed thrust can unbalance a crowd, a rising arc can lift a skirmish into a momentary skyscape of opportunities. Its uses spill into the world outside combat, too: a hunter using the wind to hunt down a stubborn trail, a caravan guard feeling the trident’s whisper guiding them past treacherous gusts that would crush a lesser gear. It belongs to stories as much as to hands. And then there is the market, where the old anchors of exchange still murmur in the same breath as the new. A stall near the harbor, a ledger open to a page stained with ink and rain, and a trader naming a price that makes the room lean. The name Saddlebag Exchange surfaces in hushed tones, a reminder that even legends need a place to land. The price is never simply copper and silver here; it is a story threaded through the value of wind and rot, a badge of courage purchased with patience, and perhaps a small debt to the world that never stops turning. The trident finds a new owner, or perhaps a new protector, who understands that to wield it is to invite the air to write the next chapter of the map.