B2: Chapter 5 - A Few Hares

“Keep your elbow straight.”
“You should hold the draw to build up the muscle. It’ll give you a more controlled release and make your aim better.”
“I’ve found enough Huntervines that I could make a Homing Salve. As long as you don’t hit a bone, we could use the arrows a few times and get enough hares that Lana could make a lot of Underpfeffer…”
“Can you three shut up,” Garth snapped. Edwin and Edward both smiled sheepishly while I looked at him a bit incredulously. He ignored my unspoken complaint then looked back at Wulfric. “Edwin’s right, keep your elbow up and parallel all the way through the release. Your shots are going wide because you’re dropping it right as you let go. Also, stop holding your breath already.”
Wulfric let out a hiss of air… then accidentally released the arrow he’d nocked when we’d spotted another one of the Underbrush Hares. So far, except for a single one I had tossed a badly made Sluggish Potion at, he had missed every single one we’d spotted and they’d gone scurrying off into the… well, into the underbrush. Which was unfortunate because I was rather sure they were larger than most Underbrush Hares that I’d ever seen.
“Why does that make my arm hurt more than swinging the axes ever did?” Wulfric grumbled, causing Garth to shake his head.
“Because, unlike what Edward tried to tell you, holding a properly built bow at full draw is tiring and does exceptionally little to actually improve your aim,” he explained, holding his hand out for the bow. Wulfric handed it over to him and I watched Garth carefully. There was a bit of a tremble in his hand, but I almost had to wonder if he’d been practicing since our last excursion into the forest.
He’d brought a spare quiver that was strapped over his shoulder and after taking just a second, he let out a slow breath, then in an impressively rapid succession, he nocked, drew, and loosed three arrows in a row. Only one of them hit the tree near where we’d seen the Underbrush Hare, but I wasn’t about to judge him when he was still holding a weapon near me.
“It’s the motion that matters. If you can get the entire sequence turned into muscle memory, then your aim will naturally improve because you’ll spend less time worried about shooting and more time focused on where you’re shooting.”
“But if you just dip the arrow in–”
“And taking shortcuts with potions that increase the odds of a hit is not the way to actually become a better archer,” he cut me off and I lowered the vial I had already been lifting up to offer. Wulfric seemed to look my way briefly before he took the bow back from Garth.
Someone that was pettier than I was might have pointed out that using potions to speed up the growth of plants on his eventual farm was basically the same… but technically it had been Daniel who had floated that as an idea, not Garth. Honestly though, people had been using fertilizer for farming around the kingdom long before I came around and while my application of potions was novel, it didn’t break anyone’s expectations of how much effort they’d personally have to put in.
Or maybe I was just reading too much into it. I deposited the potion into my bag, knowing it–and probably the many additional ones I’d make while they still earned me experience–would have a use eventually. Really, the potion was incredibly broken if you actually focused on your target until the arrow actually hit it… For some reason, everyone just thought you could fire it and then let it do its thing, then wondered why they were still missing. I shrugged the thought away, eliciting a look of curiosity from the Eds, then looked back around the forest while Garth talked Wulfric through a few more practice shots.
Life certainly had come back to the forest in full force and the trees weren’t any worse for wear just because new bushes, grass, and a pleasantly wide variety of reagents were sprouting up from practically everywhere. And that wasn’t even pointing out the sound of crickets, skittering, and just… life. We’d only had to go a dozen meters into the forest before I found a patch of Black-Spotted Peonies, then a patch of Edgethorn Roses, and soon between Edwin, Edward, and me, we’d quickly stuffed most of our bags full of different reagents.
I offered to carry everything, even promising that I wasn’t just trying to keep them all for myself, but to my surprise the brothers actually had a Reagent Bag. It wasn’t deep and it could literally only be used for items that qualified as reagents, but it meant that they were able to store away plenty of the stuff we collected as we went. Though Edwin did insist we could “trade some” when we got back into town.
Unfortunately, even with the abundance of reagents we’d collected so far ranging from Common to Rare in quality, we’d yet to find any more of the Lion’s Dawns. That could be a good thing… While they were the best choice I could think of for the Growth Enhancement Potion I’d been able to put together, the thorns were really risky for amateur Alchemists to deal with. As good as the two brothers had been with spotting the flower patches, I didn’t quite know if they’d accidentally poison the water supply if they took some of the Lion’s Dawn home with them. And I really doubted Daniel or the Council would go for the idea of restricting the reagent so that I was the only one technically qualified to work with them either.
Maybe I’d have to have us take a trip down through the southern edge of the forest and get us as close to the Midnight Marsh as Neverdusk took us instead if we didn’t get lucky here… Waterlog Mushrooms had decent enough revitalization properties and that place was loaded with shrooms of all kinds. Plus, it had the benefit of being one of the few places adjacent to us, like the Salt Waste Desert, that Dawnmere didn’t technically have sovereignty over, so they couldn’t pretend we were slighting them about making a trip into the Marsh without their “permission.”
I looked over and watched as Wulfric loosed another arrow, the shot still going wide of the tree. Okay… maybe I’d have us wait until Wulfric was a better shot… Or maybe one of the new migrants from Gold’s Lodge was hiding some skill with a bow and wouldn’t mind taking a trip out there. I was pretty sure it didn’t have that bad of a reputation without me using the place as a seat of power, though… the Bog Biter was a bit annoying. Probably better to avoid it if we could.
“Found another patch!” Edwin’s voice cut through my thoughts and I searched for his voice. “Wonder if Gold’s Lodge is getting the mines opened back up… they’re gonna need more of these Blastroots for the Blasting Jelly eventually…”
“Hey Garth, when’s the Council voting on the Merchant Charter anyway? I already got a name picked out and everything: The Neverdusk Traders.” Edward asked, looking from the direction his brother had gone and then back to Garth who gave him a curious look.
“Dartigan’s ‘spose to be back in a few days to pick up the next order of Great Oaks and we already decided he’s still being given right of first refusal. No offense but I agree with Daniel on this one. Dartigan’s kept trade going for us here and his connections with the Royal Merchants could open up a lot of options for Danwood if we all don’t get killed because the Lord of Dusk is here.”
Everyone seemed to stop for a second and look at Garth simultaneously. His head darted between everyone before his eyes finally met mine and he gave me an awkward smile.
“Sorry, must not have gotten great sleep last night. Meant to just think that last part,” he laughed and I just rolled my eyes.
“You know what, I’ll take it. At least one of you still realizes the risk,” I said, shrugging it off quickly enough that the tension seemed to immediately dissolve. “Now can we continue? Sun’s not gonna stay up any longer just because and I’d like to maybe bring back a few of the hares…”
“Is this Undersefer thing you’re talking about really that good?” Edwin asked, walking through the brush and holding out a small handful of Blastroot toward me. “My bag’s filled, you want the rest of this Corbin?”
“If I ever tell you I don’t want reagents being handed to me… well actually nevermind… One of you repeats that to someone else, next thing I know someone’s trying to hand me boar dung because it counts and they think it’s funny…” I said, stopping in my tracks and falling into a mumble as I took the offered Blastroots and put them into my bag. I snapped out of the thought and looked back at him. “And yes, Underpfeffer is delicious. It’s warm, full of flavor, and just…”
I trailed off for a second, my mouth watering slightly as I felt an odd pang at the thought of the food. My nose scrunched as I thought about it… trying to figure out why I suddenly felt homesick of all things.
“Umm…. how far are we from the edge of the ward?” Wulfric asked and I snapped back to attention. I followed his gaze deeper past the trees and it wasn’t hard to wonder why.
See, had he sounded panicked, I might have thought there were Duskwolves or something that had heard us and come for a snack. They’d be disappointed of course… though I did briefly have to wonder if they could be domesticated to help herd animals if someone was trying to add that to the town. That was probably more trouble than it was worth.
Regardless, while it wasn’t something immediately dangerous, I could understand exactly why Wulfric sounded cautious if anything.
The massive network of antlers was the first thing I saw, a pair of them curving off of each other as the two separate heads of the creature stared our way. Its fur was a burnt orange and it was far bigger than any creature should realistically be after only a few months of the area being free of Mana Nymphs.
Wild Manaspawns didn’t follow the same rules as things like Fieldgoats or Truffling Boars that had been domesticated. They sprang into existence once the Mana Density for an area was high enough, and sometimes… they appeared fully grown.
There was some sort of actual formula that the System Archivists used to determine exactly how that happened and what might have been the cause of it… and part of me was kicking myself for having left that technical nonsense in their hands. Because I was looking at, honestly speaking, the largest Twin-Headed Stardeer I’d ever seen. Its shoulders alone must have been taller than I was and there was certainly enough there to feed everyone who’d come through the inn.
I wondered how Willow would feel about a mounted head on the wall of Quiet’s Hearth. My stomach growled and I wondered if I’d been thinking about food a bit too much today.
“Now that’s a target I think you can hit, Wulfric,” I said, a new plan already starting to come to mind. “I say we kill that thing… Venison wouldn’t make a bad start to dinner for tonight either…”