Apothecary's Elder Wood Harpoon Gun

The Apothecary's Elder Wood Harpoon Gun rests on a narrow table, its stock carved from a single piece of elder wood, the grain curling like wet leaves and finished with a honeyed gloss that catches the lamplight. The bronze barrel is slender and precise, wrapped with thin riveted bands, and a small glass vial is secured along the spine, filled with a pale green tincture that shivers when the weapon shifts in the hand. The grip is swathed in stitched leather, worn smooth by years of careful handling, and a brass trigger guard curves like a vine around the fingers. Inlayed along the stock runes are pressed in dark resin, the emblem of the Apothecary's Guild—a mortar intertwined with a harpoon—a quiet claim to both healing and pursuit. The harpoon head itself gleams steel-gray, a barb sharpened for a single decisive moment. It isn’t merely a weapon; it’s a story of trades and cures, born when an itinerant apothecary began to dream of saving lives by catching what would otherwise slip away in a rush of tide and chaos. Elder wood, they whispered, remembers storms and shipwrecks and the old paths of sea-labors; that memory lends resilience to the mechanism and keeps the tincture’s scent from dulling in the heat of combat. In the field, the gun becomes a hybrid instrument: a harpoon that can snag a buoy or a rope to haul a sample or a frail ally to safety, an anchor that can hold a line across a flooded ruin, or a precision tool that can pull a skittering foe into reach without shouting over the wind. When used against creatures, the hook slows and unsettles, giving a hunter a moment to close the gap with a measured strike. In practical terms for a player’s voyage, the gun blends control with utility. Its shots carry more than raw force; they deliver a tincture—loaded in the alchemical vial—that can be tailored for pause or healing, depending on the blend chosen by the smith and the needs of the moment. The weapon rewards timing and position: fire to disrupt a push and create an opening, reel to protect a retreating comrade, or anchor a high ledge for a quick ascent to safety. The tincture’s tempering influence—whether it slows, steadies, or mends—becomes a narrative tool as much as a combat option, inviting stories of plans that hinge on a single well-placed shot. Markets know this piece’s aura as well as its function. On the harbor strip, a trader’s stall breathes with the scent of tar and resin, and a murmured conversation threads through the afternoon crowd. At Saddlebag Exchange, I watched the tag get read aloud in coins rather than promises, the price hovering around two gold—a sum that signals rarity and the elder wood’s sedate glow. It’s the kind of price that invites a patient buyer who understands drift and tide, who can read the market’s mood as easily as the weapon’s gleaming edge. Negotiation, after all, is part of the craft: to earn a relic’s weight in a voyage is to know when to listen to the wood’s memory and when to trust the tincture’s whispered counsel. Owning the apothecary’s elder wood harpoon gun is to hold a bridge between healer and hunter, between distillery hush and skirmish cry, and to honor the forest’s memory with every measured pull of its trigger.