Malign Steam Pistol of Force

Malign Steam Pistol of Force rests on the counter, its brass frame gleaming with an almost guilty shine, as if it’s just waited for someone to notice it and forget the price of safety. The surface bears a fine network of micro-scratches, like a map of old routes carved by careless hands. Leather-dyed grip wraps the handle in a weathered brown, its texture yielding slightly under finger pressure, a reminder that this weapon has lived in holsters and trench pockets long before it found its way to open sale. The muzzle is a dark bore surrounded by copper rivets, and along the barrel a line of etched sigils—crescent sigils, looping runes, faintly glowing in a pale blue—trace a story you can almost hear if you listen closely, a murmur from the forges of a distant district. A faint hiss of steam escapes when it’s picked up, a whisper of heat in the palm, and there’s a weight to it that feels almost ceremonial—the kind of weight you’d trust to keep a danger at bay more than to start a quarrel. The pistol’s “eye,” if you will, is the little glass capsule tucked beneath the trigger guard. In the right light you can see a blue shimmer inside, a microcosm of energy that sings when the gun is charged. It isn’t just metal and steam; it’s a compact story of craft and risk, a thing tempered by cagey engineers who preferred a clean kill to a spectacle. Lore has it that Malign Steam Pistol of Force is the child of a fugitive gunsmith who vanished into a rain-soaked quarter of the city, leaving behind blueprints that smoldered with ideas about bending force itself to a weapon’s will. The pistol bears those ideas in its sigils: a promise that force can be directed, focused, and forced to bend space just enough to topple a shield or throw a stubborn foe backward. In the ledger-dark corners of the market, people whisper that the choice of name isn’t a brag, but a confession—that the device was meant to bend more than metal. In the field, this pistol makes its own argument. It’s quick to draw, balanced in the hand, and the shot splits the moment into a crisp, clean arc of impact. The force-damage it delivers doesn’t only bruise; it repels, ejecting foes as if the air itself had decided to push back against them. It’s particularly valued in ambushes and narrow streets where a swift shove can create the breathing room engineers and thieves alike crave. And because it runs on compact steam charges, you don’t need a workshop full of cylinders to keep it ready; a single pouch of charges and a sturdy shoulder will do. I watch a dealer in the backroom, a tangle of smoke and ledger-paper, slide the Malign Steam Pistol of Force across the counter toward a customer who’s been bargaining with a steady, careful rhythm. The price tag glows with a number that’s as much a rumor as a fact, the kind of line you can wheel and deal around in Saddlebag Exchange, where the trade routes of the city pulse in the air like a second heartbeat. The clerk suggests a fair-share arrangement, and the buyer nods, eyes already calculating the balance between risk and reward. In that moment, the pistol feels less like a weapon and more like a hinge—an old, bright hinge that might swing the story of its owner in a new direction.