Cleric's Iron Pistol of Venom

Cleric's Iron Pistol of Venom rests on the oiled oak desk, its iron body gleaming with a cool, restrained luster, the barrel slender and perfectly balanced as if carved to kiss the wind with silence. The grip, wrapped in weathered crimson leather, bears the kiss of countless travels—the texture a mosaic of tiny nicks and a subtle, resin-dark sheen that catches the lamp light like a whispered secret. Along the barrel, sigils coil in a bluish patina: a rose entwined with a serpent, a reminder of mercy tempered by necessity. A small, frost-glass vial sits in a recessed nook beneath the hammer, capped with a metal seal that glints when the flame flickers, suggesting a venom not merely as a weapon but as a signal flare in a larger, ancient rite. Its lore threads run deeper than the metal and lacquer suggest. Local smiths insist the pistol was blessed by a downtrodden order of healers who learned to braid cure with bite, to convert the sting of poison into a counterspell against necromantic blight. They spoke of a cleric-chemist who argued that mercy sometimes demanded precision—shots that punish corruption before it can take root in a patient’s system. Because of that memory, the venom within is not simply a toxin; it’s a measured syllable in a longer spell, a punctuation mark in a chant the order has whispered through ruined chapels and river camps for generations. In the field, the weapon reads like a compact sermon—the pistol’s shot is quick and true, enough to pierce a shield or a veil of wards before discipline and healing work their quiet miracle. When fired, it disperses a thin thread of venom that laces the target with a lingering torment—poison that poisons time as well as flesh, stacking with conditions the user’s higher-minded tricks already spread. It isn’t a brute’s hammer, but a clinician’s scalpel: a tool to expose weakness, to accelerate the moment when a wounded comrade can be saved or a creeping curse can be snuffed. The cleric who bears it knows that in the right hands, venom is not wanton harm but a measured reminder that healing sometimes begins with a disruption of harm. The pistol’s place in the world is not only as a weapon but as a token of the delicate bargains that keep travelers alive in contested long-shored towns and markets that have learned to trade hope in exchange for iron and vial-glass. I learned of its journey not from a vendor’s ledger but from the rhythm of a river town where stories flow as freely as coin. At Saddlebag Exchange, where nomads and tinkers barter relics and recipes, the Cleric’s Iron Pistol of Venom drew a price that felt written in gold and blood—a ballpark figure of roughly two gold coins, plus a modest heap of silver and, if a buyer pressed, a vial of venom dust to sweeten the deal. It’s a vendor’s tale told in a bazaar’s murmur, a reminder that every artifact travels a path through hands that fear and hope alike. And so the weapon rests once more in its case, the sigils catching the room’s light as if to remind any passerby that mercy and menace are siblings, and that a single, precise shot can redirect a world’s next chapter.