Scavenger Protocol: Wood

Scavenger Protocol: Wood sits on the counter like a stubborn token from a forgotten workshop, a palm-sized cube of deeply scarred timber bound with bronze bezels and a flexing seam of resin that glistens when a lamp catches it just right. The surface wears a dozen little glyphs—dots and serrated lines that trace a scavenger’s map of wind-swept rafts and ruin-strewn camps—etched into the wood as if the grain itself remembers who held it first. A tiny glass eye, set at a slight angle, keeps watch over a slow, patient glow within: amber threads weaving in and out of a micro-timber heart, as if the device were listening for the sound of fallen timber waking from the dead. The scent is unmistakable—pine and smoke with a tang of lacquer and old glue—an old workshop’s memory pressed into a single, portable artifact. It feels alive in your hand, as if the wood itself is reporting back with every pulse. Lore threads glint in the corners of the piece, hinting that this is no mere gadget but a fragment of a larger scavenger’s protocol—a method once whispered among caravans that traced supply lines through ruined towns and collapsed canopies. Some say the Wood variant was designed to harvest and harmonize with the most stubborn resource in the wild: wood. When a scavenger activates it, the glyphs flare in a slow cadence, coaxing the surrounding timber to give up its secrets—how long since a post was forged, where a cache of planks might lie hidden beneath a collapsed stair, which splinters would yield the best fiber for bindings. It feels like a key that belongs to a ledger of ruins, as if the protocol itself keeps a timetable of decay and regrowth. In practice, the item isn’t only a relic but a tool that breathes life into a player’s workflow. Used at the right moment, Scavenger Protocol: Wood can transform a routine salvage run into a deeper scavenger narrative: it guides you to select timbers with ideal elasticity for crafting bows or carriers, or to locate old crates with wood-pinned contents that can be repurposed into practical gear rather than discarded. Its value isn’t merely in the wood you recover, but in the story you tell of how a single artifact stitches together the lives of salvage crews, carpenters with rusty tool belts, and traders who keep quiet about the true price of a rare knot or a seasoned plank. It’s the kind of item that makes a scavenger feel part of a larger, unfolding map—one that threads through market stalls and campfires alike. Speaking of market stalls, the Saddlebag Exchange, with its creaking canvas and sun-bleached awnings, becomes a living barometer for this item. Here, the wood’s worth isn’t fixed; it climbs with scarcity and falls with oversupply, traded in copper and coin as lightly as a whisper. Vendors talk in hushed tones about the protocol’s demand, about whether a buyer seeks the glow of the amber core or the stubborn bite of the timber’s grain. A seasoned trader might pocket a modest profit one day, only to watch the value surge after a storm-drenched ruin reveals a fresh cache of reclaimed boards. In this world, Scavenger Protocol: Wood is more than metal and resin; it’s a narrative thread—a way to measure time, labor, and memory, all bound up in a single, unassuming block of wood.