Sun-Grown Rifle

Sun-Grown Rifle rests on a weathered crate, its stock pale as sun-bleached bone and the grain carved with tiny knots that catch the light like a living pattern. Brass fittings circle the barrel, brushed smooth by years of handling, and the long tube itself holds a quiet warmth, as if it remembers a noonday gaze. Along its length run slender sigils etched in gold, solar runes that glimmer when the sun hits them. The butt is wrapped in aged leather, cracked and polished by hands that know to trust a weapon that drinks light. On the stock’s side sits a tiny inlay of a sunflower, petals curled as if to bait the dawn. Lore whispers it was grown, not forged, from seedstock saved by an order of wardens who tended it under constant sunshine. They said the wood learned to remember heat, and the weapon, snapped together, carried a patient, precise hand. In the field the Sun-Grown Rifle feels like a patient partner rather than a blunt instrument. Its balance invites measured aim, and every shot pulls a thread of light toward its target. Players prize its reliability at mid-to-long range, where a single well-placed shot can crack a shield and reveal openings. The ammo—charged by stints in sunlight or by charged kits—executes a crisp arc, ideal for thinning a pack before a melee. To engineers, it is a canvas for gambits: combine long-range damage with supportive effects from utility kits or siege devices. To scouts and gliders, it is a quiet beacon in a noisy world, letting you tag foes without shouting your position. Even in crowded events, the Sun-Grown Rifle stands as a symbol of patience, time spent letting the day burn in your hands. I found mine after a dawn patrol, tucked in a crate within a desert outpost’s ruined ventilation duct, the first sunbeam kissing the brass. Nearby, the market hummed, a caravan trader’s tent spilling light onto leather and glass beads. A clerk at Saddlebag Exchange, hands smeared with dust and ink, inspected the rifle with reverence that a dusty relic earns when it breathes again. We spoke in chalked shorthand about its price, the kind of coin that travels deserts and river ferries. The tag spoke of gold, though the clerk favored barter: a map to a solar shrine and a bundle of sun-hardened ore. In the end I traded two silver coins and the map, plus a promise to deliver water to the caravan’s rear guard. Saddlebag Exchange stamped the receipt with a wax mark, and the rifle changed hands as if it were a living sun, ready to be set loose. Back on the road, the weapon clicked into rhythm, and the world felt a shade brighter, as if daylight itself had taken up residence in the gun. On the road the rifle warms your shoulder as the horizon blushes and the day grows bright. People tell stories about it as if a seed grew into a weapon, binding travelers to daylight we have.