Ijuurou

The combat pole Ijuurou carries tells two different stories. On the bottom half are the faded notches of a mercenary life, each one a beast slain or rival bested while charting the wilder parts of the world. The top half is covered in crude carvings of flowers and smiling suns, etched into the wood by the children of The Heart of the Forest. Ijuurou arrived in their amber-leaved clearing as the sole survivor of a disastrous river expedition, with nothing but the pole and a deep, weary silence. The locals offered stew, not questions. They gave Ijuurou an azure blue cap, a color utterly useless for a night-walker. But they kept it. These days, the pole is used less for fighting and more for poking at beehives and clearing paths. They lost a crew, but found a community.