Dire Aureate Longbow of Air

The Dire Aureate Longbow of Air gleams in lamplight, its limbs carved from a meteoric gold that seems to drink the sun and spit back a cool shimmer. The surface is pattered with delicate wind-swirls, like the furrows of a field just brushed by a storm; every line traces a gust, every contour fits the palm as if the bow whispered, not spoke. The grip is wrapped in pale dragonhide stitched with a thread that hums faintly when you run your fingers along it, a tactile note of age and craft. Along the belly of the bow runes glow softly—asterisk-sized sigils that speak of storms long past, of a sky-singer who lent her breath to the weapon's first swing. The string is a silver-lattice, taut and cold, with a bite that promises velocity and distance, as if it were the hinge of a door that opens onto a wind-swept overlook. An inlaid crest at the tip—the winged hourglass of an air spirit—seems to catch the light at odd angles, turning simple fire into a promenade of motes that drift in its wake. I found it tucked in a back corner of the open-air market, where traders talk in green coin and old stories. People swore the bow remembers weather: it shivers when you near a storm, it sings when you draw and nock, and the first arrow feels heavier with expectation than the last. The Dire Aureate Longbow of Air isn't just a weapon; it's a witness to countless hunt-days and caravan nights, a page torn from a ledger of winds. When drawn, it emits a keen, airy resonance—a note you could swear is the sigh of a gale softened to a whisper. Fire and iron become a single stream, and arrows—fletched with raven-dark feathers—arc cleanly through murk and rain, biting through armor as if the wind itself had sharpened them. In battle, the bow seems to tilt a little toward freedom: shots carry farther, critical strikes feel like gusts that scatter the ranks, and once in motion, the projectiles tug at foes as if caught in a draft that never quite dies. The lore around it binds to a larger story—the hunter who tamed a desert wind, the smith who hammered a storm into a tool, the pact between air and arrow that threads through generations. In the field, those who wield it often speak of patience and cadence: you wait for the right gust, you time your breath with the bow’s subtle murmur, and then you let the world tilt toward your shot. I watched a scout barter for it at Saddlebag Exchange, where a coin purse clinked like raindrops on a ledger, and the bargain itself felt as much a rite as a sale. The price hovered around two gold and twelve silver pieces, a sum that marked it as rare enough to demand respect while still leaving room for a hopeful buyer to write a new chapter of wind and aim. The exchange stayed busy, feet shuffling on wooden boards while the tower bells tolled faintly in the distance, and the bow moved from stall to hand with lucky ease, carrying with it a promise of wind, of aim, of stories still being written.