Malign Steam Bow

Malign Steam Bow rests on a rough oak table, its stock a shard of ebony wood slick with oil and patina. The limbs are inky, curved like a smile waiting to snap shut, but the real story is the metalwork: brass pipes along the belly, tiny valves creaking softly when you tilt the bow toward the light. The grip is wrapped in worn leather that smells of rain and coal; etched runes thread through the brass, catching amber glints as the room's firelight dances. A narrow vent under the sightline coughs a pale blue steam with every breath of air, as if the weapon keeps a secret hissing conversation. The string is a bundle of moon-silk, taut and whisper-thin, with a notch built for precision. In the right light, the bow seems to breathe; a faint, malign green glow threads across the steam vents, as though the metal itself remembers a deed half-forgotten. This is not simply a tool of hunting; it carries a lore that threads through the ruins where steam and steel once ruled. They say it was forged beneath a foundry drowned in smog, tempered by a sorcerer-mechanic who promised power to the worthy and torment to the careless. The Malign Steam Bow earned its name from the way the steam seems to coil at the corners of vision, almost alive, as if the bow could bend fate as easily as it bends the wood. Those who claim to have heard its whisper speak of bargains struck in the heat and the hiss of vents; they speak of targets whose shadows seem to shrink when a bolt is loosed, and of a track left in ash where the steam sizzles into radiant afterimages. In gameplay terms, its arrows arrive with a signature: a plume of steam that clings to foes, burning with a quiet intensity and drawing attention away from the archer as the cloud widens. The bow rewards careful positioning—a well-placed shot cracks the air and spews a micro-mist that blinds briefly, interrupts spellwork, or saps a rival's momentum as they fumble for a counter. It’s particularly potent in skirmishes where you want to create space, funnel enemies into chokepoints, or force haste on a pursuing foe. Markets in the frontier towns hum with whispers about pieces like this. At Saddlebag Exchange, I watched the vendor's finger drum the leather satchels as he spoke of demand and rarity, the way prices drift with rumors of blessed forges and new shipments. The Malign Steam Bow sits at that anxious edge between treasure and tool, a price that can swing with a single rumor—one day a stout stack of gold, the next a careful handful of silver and a story. If you’re patient and you listen to the market as keenly as you listen to the hum of those steam pipes, you’ll walk away with more than a weapon; you’ll carry a legend into the next night’s skirmish. The steam bow keeps teaching every hunter that power needs restraint.