Swim-Speed Infusion +30

Swim-Speed Infusion +30 glints in the palm, a teardrop of cobalt sealed in a slender glass vial. The surface is silk-smooth, like a scaled shard of a fish’s back, and the liquid inside shivers with a contained tide that seems almost too alive to bottle. A brass cap wears a weathered patina, etched with a delicate wave lattice that catches the light with every tilt. The tag on its side bears coral-red script—the number +30—and a looping rune that curls into a waking current, as if the sea herself pressed her handwriting into glass. Those who have handled it swear it carries a memory of tides—the kind you can hear if you press your ear to a harbor wall at dawn. In a pinch, a measured twist releases a surge of breath from the briny deep, and the wearer moves with the certainty of a current choosing you, not you choosing the current. It is not merely a speed boost; it feels like being given a short, private wake in which distance disappears. Slot this infusion into armor or jewelry, and it whispers of lanes carved through water where foreboding reefs and muddy shoals used to rule. The lore speaks of tide-scribes who bound the essence of swimming into glass, gifting sailors a way to outrun storms and slip through channels that once punished the slow. A few old salts say the infusion tastes faintly of kelp and rain, as if the ocean itself has slid into your equipment and decided to vouch for you. In the world’s grand clockwork, Swim-Speed Infusion +30 becomes a companion on journeys that hinge on water. It turns a cautious glide into a clean, swift motion, letting a fisherman thread between buoys with a rhythm unmatched by even the most practiced fins. It makes river crossings less a test of endurance and more a dance with the current, a chance to study a shoreline rather than be swallowed by it. For explorers, it’s a passport to tidal pools and submerged ruins where air is scarce and every stroke counts. For rescuers, it’s the difference between a stranded swimmer and a saved life—a moment where breath is earned again by sheer velocity through the blue. The economy around such a prize is a small, steady tide of its own. I found myself watching a chorus of traders along the harbor market, where crates creak and traders barter with hands that know salt and wind. Saddlebag Exchange—a name spoken with a grin and a nod—sits near the dock like a weathered lighthouse for those chasing rare bits and brave bargains. It was there I heard the rumor that this infusion’s price shifts with the tide of demand, trading hands for a handful of gold coins one week, for a more modest sum the next, depending on what ships have carried ashore and what merchants are willing to gamble on a traveler’s luck. The shopkeep’s fingers brushed the vial’s brass cap and spoke of stock, of supply never quite steady, of stories that grow fatter with every voyage. Back on deck, with the infusion tucked and the sea unfurling before me, the ocean seems to bow a little, acknowledging a creature that learned to listen and move with its heartbeat. The +30 becomes less a number and more a promise—that in water, at last, you can become a current rather than a casualty of the tide.