Soft Pistol Frame rests in the palm, its surface a whisper of metal and patina: brushed steel catching a copper glow, edges rounded by hands that learned to respect a tool as much as a weapon. The texture is a contradiction—cool and almost velvet-soft where your thumb drags along the groove, yet beneath it lies stubborn strength, like leather pressed into stone. Fine engravings snake along the lower flank, tide-pool patterns that hint at Harborward’s old markets, where ships lull at dusk and tinkers traded more than parts. The frame seems to carry a rumor, too—that in its core remembers the day a caravan ran through a rain and the pistol snapped from clumsy fittings, yet the rider rode on, frame intact, a story saved in its slight give. In the hands of a craftsman, it becomes the spine of a pistol, the place where grip and barrel kiss reality with a confident click. The soft in the name isn’t about gentleness to the trigger; it’s about how the frame absorbs shock, how it makes a volatile thing feel almost tame. When you screw in a barrel and mount the grip, the frame’s lattice channels heat and recoil into a controlled whisper, letting a steady hand track a target rather than flinch at a blast. It’s favored by scavengers who improvise across ruined districts and by duelists who want their second shot to feel drawn from a smooth river, not a buckle-stamped plank. Markets drift around such items, spun on a wheel of tales and debts and favors owed. I watched a seller at Saddlebag Exchange lay out a handful of frames on a cloth greased with oil and old stories, the way traders scatter pearls to see who will bite. He said the Soft Pistol Frame is common enough to be a baseline for workhorses, yet coveted enough to fetch a coin or two of caution in a bad month. The price, he added, dances with supply: a brisk trade can push the frame into the 4 to 6 silver range, a premium you pay when the road behind you is full of rain and raiders. I traded an old map fragment for one, a parchment that had seen two winters and a misrouted caravan, and the bartering gave the frame heft in my palm, a reminder of the decisions ahead. With the Soft Pistol Frame, you don’t just carry a piece of hardware; you carry a thread of people who whispered about balance and bravery. It’s not merely a component; it’s a hinge, a gateway to what you’ll improvise next—the way you’ll reduce the kick of a poor shot, how you’ll align a sight in a windstorm, the breath you take when you tell a story of something soft yet enduring. The frame doesn’t end in your holster; it begins there, in the ongoing narrative of craft, trade, and the stubborn hope that a single well-made piece can help a neighbor get home.