The Staff of Lorre

No relic has inspired more pilgrimages than the Staff of Lorre.

Some insist it was carved from the First Tree, whose roots once stretched through the heart of the Garden of Lorre before the world knew kings, borders, or war. Others dismiss the tale as comforting myth. Yet every generation seems to produce another account of a weathered piece of pale wood that refuses to rot, burn, or splinter beneath the passing of centuries.

The oldest stories never describe it as a weapon.

They describe it as a companion.

Those who walked beside it found impossible journeys becoming bearable. The sick endured illnesses that should have claimed them. Wounds closed without scar. Blind eyes were said to glimpse light once more, if only for a heartbeat. Even exhausted travelers spoke of standing a little straighter while leaning upon it.

Curiously, the Staff never granted strength to conquer others.

Only enough strength to continue.

Its greatest keeper was a wandering physician named Elias Rowan, whose name survives only because so many other names did not. For nearly forty years he crossed the Known Realms carrying nothing but a weathered satchel, simple provisions, and the pale staff at his side. He accepted no payment beyond a night’s shelter and enough food to reach the next village.

When asked why he never settled, Rowan would smile and answer:

Entire generations claimed to know him.

Children remembered the old traveler who eased their fevers.

Soldiers remembered the stranger who walked through battlefields after the fighting had ceased, tending friend and foe alike.

Even kings sought him, though he was just as likely to leave a palace without entering as he was to sit beside a dying shepherd no history would ever remember.

Those who met Rowan often disagreed about the man, but never about one thing: wherever he had passed, suffering seemed somehow lighter than before.

His final journey remains one of Maezhiir’s enduring mysteries.

A sickness unlike any before it spread across the eastern valleys. Villages emptied within weeks. Witnesses claim Rowan entered the afflicted lands alone, carrying the Staff as he always had. None agree on what happened next.

Some speak of a brilliant white light that lingered until dawn.

Others remember only silence.

When travelers finally reached the valley, Elias Rowan was gone.

So was the Staff.

In its place lay dozens of smooth wooden fragments scattered across the hillsides, each no larger than a man’s hand.

They should have been ordinary splinters.

Instead, every piece carried the same impossible warmth.

The fragments have surfaced countless times throughout history.

A monastery claims one rests beneath its altar.

A queen was buried clutching another.

A child once carried a small piece unknowingly in his pocket for years, surviving a plague that consumed his entire village.

Whether these stories are truth or wishful thinking, no two fragments have ever remained together for long. Those who attempt to reunite them invariably discover that one has vanished before the next can be found.

Some scholars argue the Staff was destroyed.

Others believe it fulfilled its purpose.

Blink, however, has penciled only a single note beneath the final page.