Dire Orrian Focus of Water

The Dire Orrian Focus of Water rests in the palm like a captured tide, its surface a cool, glassy blue, threaded with pale kelp veins. The texture is smooth as oiled glass, yet when you turn it over you feel a faint, living ripple beneath your fingers, as if the item itself breathes with the sea. Small droplets cling to the edges, not from rain but from a memory of spray, and the edges scalloped as if carved from a shell. Runic sigils coil around the center, droplets that seem to move when you blink, and at its heart a shard of deeper cobalt glows faintly, pulsing with a rhythm like a distant tide. Born in the long shadow of Orrian domes, the focus bears the marks of its rite—an artifact of the Water priesthood, bound to a spirit of current and healing. The lore says it was tempered in the deep wells beneath the city, where tides never sleep and whispers of drowned ships rise in the brine. Those sigils were meant to steady a conduit, keep a volatile stream from breaking the caster’s will. When you cradle it, a current scratches your pulse, as if the ocean itself is listening, patient, waiting for your breath to match its tempo. In the hands of a guardian or a water-attuned spellcaster, the Focus of Water becomes a living instrument. It does more than prettify a gesture or crack up a shield; it bends the fluid world around you. Your healing skills feel wider, more generous, as if the current carries your allies along with the tide. Water fields swell with reach, and cleansing waves seem to rinse away more than just poison—fragments of memory, regrets, the echoes of past skirmishes. Even in the heat of combat, the focus steadies the mind, drawing your attention to the next ripple that will reveal a hidden path or shore up a faltering ally. It is a dialogue with the sea, not a tool alone. I learned of its market life not far from the bustle of Saddlebag Exchange, where caravans barter for stories and trinkets as much as coin. A weathered trader named Lira whispered over a chalk-streaked counter that the price has a memory of its own, swinging with demand like the tides. At times it sits near twelve gold, at others it slips to seven, depending on who hawks its lore and who believes the bargain. She warned me about counterfeit graces—the glassy shells that pretend to glow but never breathe—and urged me to trust the weight and the quiet pulse within. Back in the daylight, the Focus of Water remains. A relic of rain and reef, a compass for tides and choices. The story it carries is not just about power but about belonging—to a city that harnessed flood and faith, to sailors who rode the crests of memory, and to the small, stubborn hope that the next wave might be kinder.