Apothecary's Mithril Rifle

Apothecary's Mithril Rifle gleams with frost-blue mithril, the barrel slender and perfectly straight, catching the light like a shard of winter. The stock is carved from dark timber, smooth as glass yet warm to the touch, with ivory inlays tracing a winding pattern of alchemical runes. Along the receiver, fine engravings swirl—tiny beakers, winged pestles—whispering of the guild that forged it: healers who kept their carts stocked with salves while the road grew dangerous. A glass capsule sits above the trigger guard, filled with a coruscating amber liquid that swirls when the weapon is handled, as if it holds a captured storm. The muzzle wears a muted halo of mithril filigree, and every fiber of its surface seems to hum with quiet purpose, as if the gun remembers every withdrawal of a priestess’ breath and every crate of tinctures that crossed the frontier. Lore ties the rifle to caravans that rolled through the gray dawn, when apothecaries dared the open road with crates of volatile compounds and half-measured cures. It was not merely a weapon but a compromise between science and survival: a tool that could pick a lookout off a post while the encampments let down their guard, then allow the medics to set a shattered bone or mix a delayed-digest tincture during the retreat. Some stories insist its creator whispered over the chamber until the gun learned to drink the hinge of daylight and return a shot that stitched order into chaos. The mithril itself, tempered and light, carried a resonance that supposedly steadied the hand of a nervous marksman, as if the metal remembered every patient’s trembling breath and every whispered prayer for a safe crossing. In the field, the rifle feels like more than a weapon; it is a patient’s guardian wearing a hunter’s face. Its rounds land with surgical precision, giving engineers and scouts a decisive edge when distance is a friend and not a risk. The shots are not merely bullets but alchemical tracers: a puff of poison that clouds a foe’s vision, a caustic tincture that melts away a rhythm of defense, or a tinctured blast that leaves a lingering burn on the skin of a target. The reload is deliberate, almost meditative, rewarding those who pause to study the map and time their breath with the cadence of a long, measured pull. It is the kind of weapon that changes a trek from a slow, cautious march into a story the campfire will retell for generations. The market has a language all its own, and it is a language the Apothecary’s Mithril Rifle speaks fluently. I found it first in the back room of a weathered stall, where a trader’s hands smelled of leather and oil. The price tag wasn’t written in ordinary ink but stamped on parchment that rustled with each barter, and a whispered negotiation in the corner turned the trade into a small legend of its own. Saddlebag Exchange, that dusty hub of whetted appetites and careful coins, bore witness to the deal—its clerks cataloguing the rifle as if it were a rare herb with a dangerous bloom. The moment I carried it away, the road around me seemed to shift: a reminder that gear, like story, travels with a worth that grows when it finds a listener who understands the weight of each shot and the care behind every cure.