Healing Shiverpeak Arquebus

The Healing Shiverpeak Arquebus rests in a frost-glass case, its barrel a pale, ice-blue crescent, etched with runes that glow faintly when the room grows quiet. The stock is carved from snow-larch, its grain like twinned spines of a glacier, polished to a sheen that catches light and returns it as a soft, healing glow. Brass fittings snake along the barrel, a dragon's backbone pattern catching the eye, while the stock's grip is wrapped in leather dyed the color of winter pine. The overarching motif is a cross of frost and flame, suggesting the gun's duty to bear healing through cold and heat alike. A small sigil on the trigger guard hints at a long-forgotten guild whose healers once rode with explorers into blizzard passes; their hands learned to stead a weapon that mends as it mends morale. Rumor says it came from the Shiverpeak clerics who trained scouts to endure the cold while tending wounded from avalanches. In their hands, the arquebus was more than a weapon; it was a field hospital in metal and wood. Each shot, when fired, carried a pulse of pale-green energy that stitched wounds and steadied nerves, a mercy in a crossfire. Those legends traveled with the rain and snow, and some say the armor smiths of the north signed the barrel with frost to mark it as blessed by the winter spirits. On the battlefield this arquebus becomes a rumor you can hold. It is not a glass cannon; its power lies in timing. You draw a bead, you wait for the moment a comrade wavers, then you squeeze and a healing ray spills forward, mending a cluster of allies and giving the group a breath of time to regroup. The weapon's true power scales with healing power and your ability to read the field; you can chain heals into a rhythm that turns a near wipe into a stubborn stand. Prices drift through the market, as reliable as a snowdrift, and the Saddlebag Exchange is where you hear the price rings most clearly. Some vendors tell of a pristine example commanding a modest sum in gold, others warn that a weapon with the same name bears a long, demanding history—patch-work repairs, varnish worn by storms, a notch in the barrel where a rescue shot once lived. If you trade carefully, you walk away with more than a weapon; you inherit a contract with the weather itself. Carried by caravans, stored in a lookout's chest, the Healing Shiverpeak Arquebus has teeth of frost and a heart of mercy, and it reminds us that sometimes the best gear is not the loudest, but the warmest. When the snow settles, it's the ally you want at your flank, ready to push back the cold and bring a dawn of restored breath to those who stand with you. Its memory lingers in frost-bitten towns, where apprentices sketch the hallmark on their own rifles, hoping to keep the mercy alive. It travels on, patient and precise, always.