Assassin's Elder Wood Focus

Assassin's Elder Wood Focus rests in the palm like a shard of twilight wrapped in warm wood. Carved from a single piece of elder wood, the grain winds through it in slow, organic spirals, as if the tree itself keeps a heartbeat. The surface is satin-smooth, worn by hands and inspections, with a lacquered sheen that catches candlelight in gold and copper flecks. Along its spine, runic sigils coil and vanish, and a narrow band of dusk-stone inlay circles the grip, catching the light when danger nears. When you tilt the focus, the grain seems to breathe; the wood tightens under your fingers, and a faint hum threads through the palm—not loud, but distinct, like the whisper of a skilled hand testing a puzzle. It smells faintly of rain-kissed bark and old markets, and beneath that scent lies a chorus of whispered legends about the nights when a hunter walked unseen. Legends say elder wood grows beside moonlit streams where dawn and dusk touch, and the focus was born from bargains etched in whispers. The Assassin's name hints at a lineage of quiet eyes and careful steps, a lineage that trusted wood to guard secrets and clear a path through crowded rooms without drawing a blade too soon. In the tales, the focus carries a map of shadows, guiding the wearer through patrol routes and back corridors, letting a soft step become a decisive strike before guards can blink. In play, the Assassin's Elder Wood Focus is more than ornament. Those who handle it speak of a tightened reflex, a sharpened sense for rhythm—the moment a foe begins a tell, the wearer is already there, threadbare noise fading into the background. It channels a precinct of energy that fuels stealth techniques and precise, surgical strikes, while weaving in subtle boosts to the wearer's accuracy and timing. The focus feels like a partner in crime rather than a mere tool: it aligns breath with blade, compiles the nervous energy into a quick flash of motion, and makes the space between footsteps seem to vanish. The market, of course, survives on stories as much as on metal. At Saddlebag Exchange, the price tag for such a relic shifts with gossip and the moon. Traders haggle over whether the focus was truly sworn to a vanished guild or simply worn by a shadowed fixer who learned to vanish in crowds. A buyer might slide a map, a few rare inks, or a forged certificate across the counter, hoping the exchange will vouch for its worth. The result is a price that matters less than the tale it tells: a tool of quiet power, a fragment of a larger history, and a reminder that some bargains are sealed between silence and the turning of a page. When the night settles, the Assassin's Elder Wood Focus remains, a small instrument that keeps time with the city’s secrets and the dark that moves just beyond the lamplight. Its quiet power lingers in the mind long after the trade ends.