Swim-Speed Infusion +13

Swim-Speed Infusion +13 sits in a slender crystal vial, the liquid inside a pale aquamarine that shivers with micro-motes like a school of dusk-lit fish. The glass is cool to the touch, etched with a delicate tide-line pattern, and the cork stopper is wrapped in a thin, coppery band that gleams when light catches it. A small parchment tag flutters at the neck, ink still damp with salt, promising speed where the water hums and currents bend. In the right light, the infusion looks almost alive, as if it remembered every grueling crossing a sailor ever faced and chose to lend a little part of its breath to whoever was brave enough to dare a deeper swim. Lore say it was born from the estuaries where freshwater meets salt, crafted by a guild of navigators who believed the sea kept memory of every passage. They brewed it with salts drawn from hidden coves and a shard of glimmering kelp blessed under a full moon, bottling the result so whisking tides could be tamed for a heartbeat or two longer. The infusion carries that old river-wind feeling—the sense that the water itself is listening, guiding your stroke as if the current were a careful tutor rather than a rogue trickster. When you slot Swim-Speed Infusion +13 into an ascended piece, it shifts from a glinting curiosity to a practical vow. In water, the wearer cuts through the surface with noticeably less resistance, the body feeling lighter, as though the sea itself had rolled back a fraction to admit you. It’s not just a trick of movement; it changes the rhythm of a voyage: you crest the first swell with a cleaner breath, you skim past a patch of tangled kelp where others slow to pick a path, and you reach the next inlet before the tide’s real patience has worn thin. For explorers who map uncharted channels or merchants who must ferry cargo between distant ports before a storm, that extra breath of time can be the difference between a guarded retreat and a successful, profitable crossing. The infusion also carries a quiet confidence into perilous passages—a subtle assurance that if you meet an unexpected current, you won’t be swallowed by it before you can react. I watched a merchant-bound party at the Saddlebag Exchange barter for a few glimmering trinkets and a coin’s worth of stories, the topic inevitably circling back to the +13. The vendor’s stall smelled of brine and wax, sails overhead fluttering as if listening in on every bargain. He offered a fair, if sharp, price—a handful of silver coins and a careful trade of small wares—for a piece that would already save you hours on a long day’s sea-route. The buyers—seasoned sea-roamers and inland scouts alike—knew the market’s fickle winds: today’s price could rise with a sudden flood of new shipments, or fall if another shipment beat the harbor’s clock. And so the Swim-Speed Infusion +13 passed hands with the same careful, almost ritual cadence that marks a reliable trade route, a reminder that some treasures aren’t merely about speed, but about the stories they enable—the tides you ride, the currents you outpace, and the longer, safer journey you can claim because you chose to trust in a little bottled current.