Incinerator

Incinerator sits on the workbench like a bronze heartbeat, a heavy brass cylinder wrapped in a soot-dark patina, its seams knurled with heat and years of service. A glass reservoir near the gnarled trigger glows faintly amber, as if a captured ember waits to be set free. Copper wires coil around the midsection, and a small vented muzzle sticks out from one end, pocked with scorch marks. The handle, carved from salt-stained ashwood, fits a palm as if it were always meant to be there. When you lift it, it exhales a warm breath, a whisper of the flames it stores, and you catch the scent of dried resin and old smoke. In the lore of the smiths who once shepherded the Ashen Gate, the Incinerator was forged to bind a wild element to metal, a ceremonial tool turned practical weapon during a siege where light itself felt scarce. Locals say the first burn lasted longer than the night and changed the map more than any treaty could. In town markets and mid-day camps alike, the Incinerator moves through conversations the way a rumor does, a portable forge in a box. Its flame thrower’s arc is short but devastating, a cone of heat that scours brush, gates, and mob lines with a few measured breaths. It isn’t about elegant precision so much as it is about hospitality to chaos—an engine that makes a narrow doorway wide again by pushing enemies back or pinning them in place as archers find their aim. Master gunners claim that its gleam teaches patience: you wait for the right moment, squeeze, and the air fills with the smell of scorched leather and resin. For a caravan guard, it’s a lifeline before a cloaked ambush, for a dig site crew it clears a tunnel of stubborn vermin, and for a hill camp it gives you a moment to breathe before the next storm. I learned its price not in coin alone but in stories, and in the back-right stall of Saddlebag Exchange I found a buyer who spoke of trade routes and scorched map scrolls. The clerk laid coins across the scarred counter; the weight told me the story wasn’t cheap, but the trade felt right. They call it a bargain, a rare relic with practical teeth, and the roving hunter who sold it to me swore the heat sink would outlast two winters of sieges. The Incinerator, ultimately, is not merely a tool of damage but a catalyst—a memory of fire that tests courage and bonds the telling of a world that refuses to be still. On patrol at dusk, I watched a crew use it to pry a breached gate, then seal the breach with heat and resolve. The Incinerator isn’t a solitary object; it hums with memories of those who carried it, the strangers who bought it, the children who asked about the glow in its glass. It reminds us that in ashes, there is a choice: to burn away fear or doubt.