Cannoneer's Distinction

Cannoneer's Distinction gleams on the table, a hand cannon wrapped in patina and rain-worn leather. The barrel glints with brass sheen, its surface etched with a compass-rose that catches the light and flares like a tiny sunset every time the wick-sparks spill from a recent firing. The stock is a tide-worn slab of wood, dark as a midnight harbor, smooth from years of rubbing against palm and sleeve, the grip carved with scalloped arches that fit a hand as though the weapon remembers every touch. Copper filigree crawls along the gun’s spine, and small runes—faded, almost shy—thread through the metal like faint memories refusing to fade. The heft speaks of its purpose: heavy enough to punch through lines, delicate enough to be aimed with a surgeon’s care; a relic that has learned to balance pride and restraint in a single, patient recoil. Locals say it was forged in the harbor forges during a siege that turned a coiled bay into a theater of smoke and thunder. The cannon’s tale is etched into its brass, not just in the scorch marks that bloom when fired, but in the way the engravings seem to settle whenever the weapon rests, as if listening to a distant bell. Legend has it that the cannoneer who carried it spoke to the gun with a steady voice, calling out orders that were almost prayers—commands to hold the line, to spare the powder for the crucial moment, to remember the mark the Distinction would leave on the field. Since then, the piece has drifted through markets and caravans, picked up by collectors, by veterans who still hear the summons in its echo, by traders who see it as a hinge between memory and momentary victory. In the hands of a player or a wandering marksman, the Distinction becomes more than metal. Its uses are a quiet dialogue with the battlefield: a single, decisive blast that can break a battery’s rhythm, followed by a careful pivot to a rapid secondary shot that folds the moment back into the rhythm of combat. It demands respect and timing, because its power is the kind that shifts morale as much as it shifts meters. Artillery-minded builds prize it for the way it folds explosive potential into precise, measured bursts. It’s the kind of weapon that makes a small squad feel larger, not by the number of enemies it thunders past, but by the way it forces negotiations with the map itself—the line of sight, the choke points, the lull between charges. The Distinction doesn’t just change the fight; it changes the story every time it’s fired, turning a simple skirmish into a memory a village will raise its lamp-posts to honor. I heard tell of it again at the Saddlebag Exchange, where old coins and new bargains mingle under a tarred awning. The seller spoke in soft, weathered tones about condition and provenance, the crowd leaning in to hear the gun’s chain of custody as if listening to a parent recount a child’s journey. It was priced as a premium piece, a marker of pedigree that drew collectors and field hands alike, and yet there was room in the conversation for a fair trade—one that acknowledged the Distinction’s weight in the world it inhabits. In the end, the gun found a new hand, and the harbor’s bells seemed to toll once more, promising that the cannon’s story would keep traveling, one measured shot at a time.