Recipe: Ruka's Striders

Recipe: Ruka's Striders is a rolled parchment, its edges singed from candlelight and its surface a patchwork of ivory creases and copper ink. The title is embossed in a copperplate that catches the shop’s glow, and a tiny wax seal—shaped like a fox—keeps the folds from flapping open in the wind. When you crack it, the scent of fresh leather and polished oil escapes, as if a pair of boots has just drawn a breath after a long day of crossing road and ruin. The diagram is precise, with arrows tracing the path a craftsman must take to shape supple hide into sturdy boots, and a marginal note in Ruka’s hand about contouring to a wearer’s stride. Ruka, a name whispered among caravans, was said to have walked every trade route at least twice, testing his craft against rain, heat, and the sudden sting of a rival's blade. This recipe carries that legend in its folds—the idea that boots can do more than shield the feet; they bend the world to the wearer’s pace. As you follow the steps, you imagine a courier lifting a pouch of letters, the weight of the world lightened by a pair of boots that find footholds where others slip. The texture on the parchment—grainy like bark, with ink that gleams faintly as if it remembers the shoe’s first shine—tells you the craft matters as much as the journey. The leather loves a careful edge, the threads sing when pulled tight, and the seal’s faint fox hints at a craftswoman or craftsman who never forgets a client’s namesake. In this lineage, the recipe carries that legend in its folds—the idea that boots can do more than shield the feet; they bend the world to the wearer’s pace. As you read, you feel the road you will travel traced in your mind, and you sense that choosing to craft Ruka's Striders is choosing a tempo for your own feet. The leather forgives a patient touch, and the stitchwork remembers every step you’ve taken across sunlit billboards and rain-darkened bridges, every echo of a footfall that might herald a change in fortune. In gameplay terms, those who own Ruka's Striders discover they are more than a costume piece; they are a statement about movement. The boots are light, grip the ground well on uneven ruin-streaked stone, and reduce the fatigue of long chases through coastal markets and ash-fallen streets. They let a scout weave through patrols, slip under archways, and sprint toward a rendezvous before a door pounds shut. Crafters appreciate the recipe because it ties together hide, thread, and glue with a patient, compassionate eye: to mould a good stride you must understand the road the wearer travels. On market days, about the Saddlebag Exchange, the recipe circulates in whispered favors and coin. Traders pass it at the shade of awning canopies, where the sun glints on brass scales and copper coins. A question of price arises: some weeks the parchment goes for a handful of gold, other weeks for more, depending on the caravan routes that string the city to wildlands. I watched a weary courier barter a tale for the exact set of mats—the wax, the leather, the thread—until, at last, the parchment found a new owner who would turn it into something that might outpace a rumor. In the end, Ruka's Striders are more than parchment and thread; they are a map for those who travel with care, a quiet reminder that pace can tell a story as loud as any shout through the markets.