The Kemer-Lexi Cannon – KemerCann for short, though never in front of the quartermaster who signs them out – is the standard sidearm of the Chuza city watch and Section 18’s Agents alike. It reads, at a glance, like a compact hand crossbow. What it actually is, is a great deal less mundane: a crossbow of arcane design, firing enchanted quarrel bolts accelerated by the charge stored in a Coraman crystal pack rather than a drawn string alone.

FILE NOTES

Each shot draws down the charge in the loaded crystal – a standard cartridge carries five enchanted quarrels and one crystal pack, good for five discharges before it needs reloading – and every discharge announces itself. The report is loud enough to be recognised across a street in the pouring rain, a sound Section 18 officially calls the Kemer-Lexi Boom and unofficially treats as a fair warning to anyone still deciding whether to run.

The recoil is severe for a weapon of its size, though balanced enough for one-handed use in a trained grip. Misfires are rare but not unheard of, and the warnings etched into every issued unit are blunt about the consequences: a shattered crystal core has taken hands before now, and the weapon is not rated for use in confined spaces without expecting to lose your hearing along with the element of surprise.

STATUS: Standard issue, classified as a volatile relic rather than a mundane firearm. Origins are murkier than the Watch’s official record admits – rumour has the first Cannon gifted by a nameless artificer who vanished into the mists of Coramantrex, or forged in the Drowned City entirely, depending which armourer is telling the story that week.