Strong Iron Rifle of Hobbling

Strong Iron Rifle of Hobbling rests on a scarred map of leather, its barrel a dull, weathered iron that bears the patina of countless campaigns. The stock is a heavy piece of ashwood, sunbrowned and slightly slick with oil, with rivets that gleam like beetle eyes when the light catches them. A crooked crescent notch sits above the iron sight, and a whispered sigil—three intertwined shackles—is etched along the underside, a nod to the lore that lent its name. The finish is rough to the touch, as if the gun has stood guard through years of rain and dust, and a thick leather strap is threaded through iron rings, ready to be slung across a hunter's back. It feels balanced in the hand, not light, not heavy, but honest—something that remembers the fingers of a smith who hammered on it until the hammer sang. In the stories told by veterans at the rail-side taverns, the Hobbling rifle came from a crossroads smith who traded with caravan guards, a weapon born of necessity during a war to slow pursuers rather than to pierce armor. "Hobbling" was the old hunter's term for slowing a quarry enough to be walked down, not finished in a blaze. That memory lingers in the gun's mechanics as well: a steady crack that carries farther than most, and a chance to hobble a target—slowing its movement for a heartbeat or two, long enough for a shot to count. The rifle's rare-metal core resists the heat of long chases, and its stock has soaked up the rain so many times that it seems to hum with damp wood and weathered lore. When you shoulder it, you feel the weight of a pursuit that stretches beyond a single skirmish and into the long, winding roads of the region's history. Of course, in the world of barter and wandering merchants, this rifle has a life beyond the chase. It is a tool for rangers who prefer to engage from a distance and a narrative thread that binds hunters to the memory of those who taught them to read the landscape—the ash trees, the tracks, the wind ahold of a hillside. Its value shifts with stories told around the campfire and with the rustle of coin in pocketbooks. I found it once at Saddlebag Exchange, where brass tags jangled and traders whispered about the price in a language that felt part arithmetic, part superstition. The tag swung between two hands, and the ledger scribbles suggested a fair price for the moment: not so dear as a legend, not so cheap as a rumor, but enough to carry the rifle on to the next crossroads. For the hunter who glides through the brush, the Strong Iron Rifle of Hobbling is not merely steel and wood; it is a compass bearing—a reminder that some legacies are meant to be carried, even as they slow the world just enough to let a quarry slip away into memory.