Mighty Soft Wood Torch rests in my palm, a stout baton of pale pine that feels almost alive in the hand. The shaft is smooth as a river stone, the grain running like threadbare maps, lacquered to a soft gloss that catches the light in a way that makes the wood seem to glow from within. A copper band encircles the base, read with tiny runes that catch a flicker and spill it back in a warm, amber halo. The wick is snug in a little brass socket, and a rind of resin-scented wax beads around it, minty and sweet even when fresh air cools the room. It’s sturdy enough to survive a hands-and-knees journey through rain-slicked ruins, yet refined enough to feel as if it were carved for a storyteller’s hand. When you strike it, the flame wobbles into a patient orange, like a lantern held by a friend who knows every creak in the house. Lore threads through its surface, too. Carved sigils along the length speak of a forest-town where a guild of woodwrights pressed the tree’s memory into each torch. They say the Mighty Soft Wood Torch was a gift to those who kept watch over quiet glades during long, dangerous nights, a beacon not just of light but of guardianship. The wood—soft to the touch, resistant to cracking—seems to remember rain and the hush of midnight wanderers. In old tales, a spark from a forge’s heart caught in its wick could calm a panicked caravan or reveal a hidden doorway etched into a hillside by a long-departed mason. It is a small thing, yet it holds a thread of that larger story: light as a promise, and a promise that the dark cannot outwait. In practice, the torch is a quiet companion for both routes and rooms. It cuts through damp air in ruined courtyards, making glyphs on a stone wall legible again and turning dew into a halo that marks your path for allies who trail behind you. It keeps the chill from turning into bite, the smoke from fogging your thoughts, and it owns a certain social weight in a party gone quiet: a torchbearer’s duty is to carry not just warmth but clarity, to illuminate both the obvious and the hidden corners where trouble likes to hide. Its glow can coax a door’s mechanism into remembering its own rhythm, or coax a sleeping brazier into a fevered bloom that lights a camp without drawing every predator’s eye. The market is kinder and louder than the forests, though, and the Saddlebag Exchange has its own rhythm for this piece. I bartered for it after a long morning of trade, trading a handful of tempered rivets and a spool of stout cord for a price the vendor called “reasonable for a torch that can outlast the rain.” He winked when he wrapped it in oiled cloth, noting that the Mighty Soft Wood Torch would burn steadier in damp air than most, a claim borne out by travelers who swear by its patient flame in long tunnels and drafty camps. It is a small relic, but a steadfast one, the kind of thing that threads through a village’s nights and into its waking days. In the end, the torch is more than equipment. It’s a memory pressed into wood and flame, a reminder that light itself can be a quiet act of courage—to step forward, to wait, to guide, and to be ready when the dark decides to press in again.