The Hearty Iron Pistol sits on a scarred wooden workbench, its barrel dull with patina and the iron skin marked by years of careful handling. The grip is wrapped in worn leather, dark with use, and the metal catches the lamp light in a quiet, almost stubborn gleam. A slender brass band runs along the barrel’s ridge, catching tiny scratches that tell of long journeys, quick draws, and the small, almost affectionate hum of faith in its maker. A heart-shaped engraving sits near the trigger guard, a subtle flourish that hints at the weapon’s unlikely lineage: a tool forged not only to fire, but to endure, a keepsake born from the workshop where life and iron were tempered together. In daylight the pistol wears its history plainly. The iron feels cool to the touch, yet it settles into the hand with a kind of familiarity—weight where it should be, balance where you expect, a predictable recoil that returns you to your aim as if the world itself paused for a breath after every shot. Its finish bears the fingerprints of countless hands—the clasp of a guard who pressed it to a trembling kid’s shoulder during a desperate night scout, the careful carefulness of a hunter who learned to fire as much with patience as with precise aim. People who handle it swear it has a heartbeat of its own, a quiet resonance that seems to echo the pulse of the road itself. Some whisper of a blessing placed by healers who tended the smith’s workshop after a flood, turning hard iron toward a kinder purpose. The weapon slides into the daily rhythm of trade and travel, a companion for caravans winding through rough lanes and crowded markets. Scouts keep it at the ready when crossing the basalt outcrops, merchants smile when it’s seen at their side, and hunters know it for a tool that won’t betray them when the night grows thick with rustle and rumor. Its value isn’t only in the shot—but in the sense that the pistol can be counted on when a fight might spill into a moment of fragile peace, when a sudden blast can scatter the odds and buy a friend a second chance. Prices drift through the market like dust in a late-afternoon wind, and it’s no surprise to hear that the Hearty Iron Pistol appears at Saddlebag Exchange from time to time. The stall’s keeper weighs it in with a calm, practiced eye, muttering about the balance, the grip, the way the heart motif seems to settle in one’s palm. A price is named—measured in silver and copper, never in bravado—and the traveler nods, feeling the weight of the coin and the weight of the gun’s story settle into the same fold of their belt. It’s not merely a purchase; it’s a vote of confidence from a road-worn world that wants something that endures. And so the Hearty Iron Pistol continues to travel, a quiet protagonist in the ongoing tale of movement and shelter. It isn’t just metal and wood; it’s a small beacon along the long spine of the trade routes, a reminder that even in hard times there is a reliable, steady thing that can carry someone safely home.