Writ of Basic Speed

Thin as a sparrow’s feather, the Writ of Basic Speed lies on the merchant’s counter, parchment pale as ash and smooth as river stone. The edges are rubbed soft by hands that have traded in dust and rain, and the script is a disciplined iron-ink, letters curling in a seasoned, careful hand. A small sigil is pressed in the corner, a seal that glints when the shop’s lanterns shift, and the texture shifts as you tilt it, like a coin catching the sun. When daylight catches the fibers, faint motes rise from the ink, and the air hums with a promise that something ordinary could become swifter. Lore clings to it as if to a threadbare map. It was born from the old caravan routes and the scribes of the Transport Guild who learned to harness momentum without binding magic to one rider. The writ does not grant immortality or forbidden power. It grants a measured, steady speed—a basic competence—that lets a rider keep pace with a stubborn wind or a long, stubborn road. In the world’s markets it is a passport of sorts for everyday work: a caravan escort can keep a line of wagons from breaking, an itinerant healer can reach a patient before nightfall, a courier can deliver a word before the rain comes. In play it’s a practical tool with a quiet kind of elegance. You affix the writ to your saddlebag or belt, and for a stretch—likely a handful of minutes, long enough to crest a series of hills or outrun a sudden cloud—the world seems to tilt in your favor. It doesn’t erase rough terrain or repair broken wheels, but it smooths the path just enough: a jog becomes a confident stride, a hoofbeat keeps time with the drum of the road, a traveler’s breath comes a touch easier. Its value isn’t in spectacle but reliability—the sense that, when you needed a little more ground to stand on, the road would lend you a little more. Prices travel with rumor as aggressively as caravans do with spices. A traveler’s pouch carries tales of the Saddlebag Exchange, where sellers and buyers argue over deadlines and distances as if both were currency. At the Exchange, the writs shift hands for a neat stack of silver or for a fondly worn trinket that still carries a memory of the road. Some vendors trade for a handful of copper and a promise of future service; others barter with a carefully honed leather bridle that carries more than its weight in stories. The point is simple: the writ is practical, a quiet anchor amid the market’s bustle, a small instrument that keeps a world moving when the weather turns stern. And so the Writ of Basic Speed remains less a tale of power than a story of trust—the trust that, in a day of uncertain weather and uncertain routes, a basic boost can be enough to keep a deal alive, a patient tended, a path open.