Dire Banded Gauntlets of the Grove lie on a weathered counter, the leather a deep, forest-dark brown that seems to drink the light. Three iron bands circle the forearm like a captured vine, each band etched with winding leaves and tiny thorn motifs that glint when the sun catches them. The fingertips are capped with slender, claw-shaped plates that look more ceremonial than dangerous, yet they carry a weight that makes you feel the past shifting with your pulse. The surface bears a texture of bark and skin at once—rough enough to grip a shield, smooth enough to slide your palm along a branch without snagging. Inked sigils, pale as moonlight, seep from between the bands, suggesting they carry a story as old as the trees themselves, a story woven by hands that learned to listen to the grove’s every murmur. The gauntlets seem to hum with a quiet life when you cradle them, as if they remember the hands that once wore them—hands that kept watch over sacred groves, that trained a body to move with the rhythm of roots and rain. The lore is not printed on a brochure but whispered in taverns and field camps: forged by Sylvari smiths who worked in the heart of The Grove, these gauntlets were made to bind a wearer to the forest’s pulse, to channel its stubborn resilience into a fighter’s will. They carry the scent of resin and rain, of old oaks standing through countless seasons, and a promise that the wearer’s strikes will carry a heavier, greener echo than before. In the heat of a skirmish, the Dire Banded Gauntlets seem to pull at the arm with quiet insistence, not to overpower but to align the body with a patient, patient force. When suited to a guardian or a woodland-minded ranger, they feel almost like a second wind—the kind that returns you to your feet after a dug-in trench of trouble. The wearer's vitality steadies; the grove’s calm steadies the nerves, letting you breathe through a fight, then strike with a measured, rooted purpose. It’s not that the gauntlets provide flashy power alone; they foster a relationship with the land, a synergy that rewards those who move like branches in a breeze—flexible, resilient, precise. In practice, they amplify nature-based tactics: better sustain during long engagements, a subtle enhancement to healing and vigor, and a sense that your armor is more than metal—it is a living memory of the trees you protect. I found them not in a gleaming showroom but in a traveling market where stories ride along with steel. A dealer at Saddlebag Exchange tapped the gauntlets gently, recognizing their age and quiet authority, and we spoke of value as if we were weighing the weight of a forest itself. The price mingled with memory, roughly a couple of gold pieces, with room for barters of curios and worn relics shaped by the same forests. The exchange—Saddlebag Exchange—moves through markets like a caravan of whispers, a place where one man’s heavy leather can meet another’s lighter heart and both walk away richer in meaning than in coins. As I walked away, the gauntlets settled into their new keeper’s grip, and I could feel The Grove updating its heartbeat for a moment—a living piece of its temper wrapped around a wrist, ready to endure the next challenge with the patient, rooted strength of a tree that would not be moved.