As they got closer Kit spotted more of his employees. Shouts of greetings met Kit and Twix as they approached. “Hello everyone.” Kit smiled at the enthusiastic greeting he received. “How was the trip?”
Chamomile spoke up, “It wasn’t too bad. We made good time. Mars and Peaches have been by a couple of times looking for you. They said to keep you here when you came, and they will come back again soon. Umm, Kit what happened to your face though?”
Kit groaned, he needed to get rid of the swelling around his eyes as soon as possible. “Wind from the ride here.”
“Ahh, that makes sense. Ah Kit I might have something to relive the swelling.” Chamomile rustled in the pouch at her waist. She then produced a pile of green leaves. “This should clear it up for you both.”
Kit and Twix took some of the leaves then stared at Chamomile with a blank look. Tinkling laughter left her mouth. “Place them over your eyes.”
They complied with her instructions, soon Kit felt a cold sensation spread over his eyes and he felt his eyes start to water. When he took the leaf away, he was pleased to see the world come back into full view. “Thanks Chamomile, do you have more of the leaves. They will come in handy if I have to ride Pint again.”
Chamomile smiled and handed over a bunch of the green leaves.
Once he had caught up with everyone, he took out his tent and magic camping oven and found a spot to erect them close to the others. When everything was completed, he called over Cupcake, Crackers, and Bree to help him make the remaining apple pies.
With the help of his staff, it didn’t take long to have enough pies ready for tomorrow. Kit decided to check his inventory one more time to make sure he had enough stock for tomorrow’s monster run. He smiled when he saw the stacks of stats items in his pouch.
As he closed his menu, he heard a familiar voice. “Have they gotten here yet?” Mars voice carried over to Kit. He headed over to his friend.
“Hey Mars.”
“Finally! I need to go over some things with you and Twix before tomorrow.” Mars started to turn his head looking for Twix. Kit had forgotten all about Twix in his haste to set up his tent and complete the pies.
“I’m not sure where Twix went Mars, sorry.”
“That’s ok, Grandpa can fill him in on his role in the monster run.” Mars paused, then tentatively continued talking “Kit, I need you to listen to me and not interrupt, ok?”
“Ok?” Kit looked at Mars nervous expression. What was going on?
Mars then sucked in a breath and rushed his words. “So about tomorrow. Grandpa decided that it would be better for you and your employees to be in charge of the exploding arrows. No one wanted to risk you coming to any harm. It’s not because you’re a low level, it’s that everyone is worried that something will happen to you and the restaurant will close.”
Kit blinked, all he heard was exploding arrows. He was going to get to fire some exploding arrows! Who cares about the rest of Mars words. He would be in charge of bloody EXPLODING ARROWS!!!
Water started to pool in his eyes from happiness. Kit could feel his body start to shake from the excitement. Before he could open his mouth and express his joy Mars spoke first.
“Kit don’t be upset. I’ll go talk to Grandpa and see if you can join me closer to the action, ok?.” Kit reached out and grabbed Mars’ arm before he could move. Who wanted to be closer? He was more than happy with his job. Kit wouldn’t let anyone take this job back.
“NO, DON’T YOU DARE.” Kit realised he was yelling, he instantly blushed. “What I meant was I’m super excited to be firing exploding arrows. Who would want to change jobs. Firing arrows will be awesome!”
Mars blinked stupidly at Kit, then laughed. “Ahh I should have known you would like the arrows. Ok now that’s settled we need to round up your employees so you can all learn how to fire the crossbows.”
Mars and Kit quickly gathered everyone and filled them in on what they needed to do tomorrow. Then they all followed Mars through the surrounding trees to another small clearing. A crudely constructed target range was in the clearing. Wooden stakes with a board stuck to them stood in a line. Paper targets were attached to each wooden board.
Not far from where he was standing was a neat line of crossbows on a white blanket. Each crossbow had a quiver filled with arrows next to it. A middle aged man with blond hair was crouched next to the blanket.
“Well, this is cutting it fine. There won’t be much time to practice, there is not much daylight left.” Kit watched as the wiry man rose, then walked over to them. Kit noticed that the man made no noise when he walked. Kit had a moment of jealousy at the man’s agility.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“I’m Crumpet, I’ll be teaching you lot how to shoot an arrow. There is limited time to teach you so we will be using crossbows instead of a bow. Don’t stress too much about accuracy, your targets are going to be very large, so as long as you can get your arrows roughly near the targets over there, I will let you pass.”
Kit gaze automatically followed the man’s fingers to the targets. They were at least 100 meters from where they were standing. Was this man for real? How was he supposed to shoot an arrow that far? He was a complete novice at archery.
Distressed comments erupted from his employees. It looked like Kit wasn’t the only one sceptical about their chances of hitting the targets. Crumpet ignored them and picked up one of the crossbows. “Right, enough of that chatter, time for lessons.”
Crumpet took them through how to load and aim the cross bows. After the explanation Crumpet proceeded to lazily lift his arm and fired a bolt at a target. Kit watched as the arrow sped towards the target and landed on the white piece of paper. “It’s as easy as that to fire a crossbow.”
Kit’s mouth dropped open in awe. He was positive if he walked over to the paper target, the arrow would be embedded right in the middle. Crumpet was amazing! But would they all be able to do that after one lesson?
“Right, it’s your turn now.” Crumpet motioned to the crossbows on the white blanket.
Kit walked over to the white blanket and picked up one of the crossbows and quivers.
Ding!
[CAL]
Quest accepted.
Crumpets training, common.
Land an arrow at least 5 meters near the target.
Reward: crossbow and quiver.
“Ha that’s great!” Kit beamed at the notification that popped up in front of him. He could keep the crossbow if he succeeded. Kit was even more determined to land an arrow on the target.
“What’s great?” Mud gave Kit a puzzled look.
“Oh, it’s great to use a crossbow.” Kit hadn’t even realised he had spoken out loud when the notification of the quest appeared.
“Maybe for you. I don’t think I will be able to fire the thing.” Kit looked at Mud. The crossbow was half his height.
“Maybe Crumpet has something smaller?” Kit walked with Mud over to the blond haired man. “Crumpet is there any crossbows that Mud can use.”
Crumpet’s eyes lowered to stare at Mud. “Why is a young boy here? Lad your parents will be worried, you can’t sneak off like this. When you’re older you can participate in things like this.”
Mud slowly blinked his eyes at Crumpets words. “I’m 108 years old, young man.” The aura around Mud changed from a bright young youth to a deathly chill.
Kit was gobsmacked at Mud’s behaviour, he would have never guessed in a million years that Mud could become scary. Kit had only ever seen his bright bubbly personality. Mud was more like Snickers than he thought. It was easy to forget that they were so old.
“Sorry lad that’s my mistake.” Crumpet gave a small bow of his head in appeasement. “I have something that you can use.” A smaller crossbow appeared in Crumpets hand. He passed it over to Mud. The change in the small man was instant, a bright sunny smile appeared on his face.
“Thanks!” Mud took the smaller crossbow then ran over to Bundt.
Kit was left standing awkwardly with Crumpet. “Thankyou for that.”
“No problem. It’s my fault for not checking how old he was before opening my mouth. I should know by now that not everyone’s age matches their appearance.” Crumpet nodded to Kit then walked over to a line dug out of the earth.
“Right you lot, let’s get to practicing before we lose the light of the day. Each of you come and stand in front of one of these lines then try to hit the target at the other end.”
Kit followed Crumpet’s orders and found a line to stand behind. He then tried to cock the crossbow like Crumpet had instructed earlier. He pointed the crossbow to the ground and stood on it with his foot. He then pulled the string back and hooked it behind the mechanism.
He then placed one of the arrows from his quiver onto the barrel. “So far so good.” Kit lifted the crossbow and took aim at the target in front of his sight and pulled the trigger. Kit felt a jerk as the arrow left the device. He watched with held breath as the arrow flew through the air and embedded in the dirt about 10 meters from his target.
Kit felt a thrill rush over him. This was easier than he thought it would be. His first arrow wasn’t far from his target. He was positive he would reach the target by the end of the training session. Why could his normal training not be this easy.
He reloaded the crossbow and adjusted his aim. This time when he fired the arrow it landed not far from the wooden target.
Ding!
[CAL]
Crumpets training complete:
Land an arrow at least 5 meters near the target.
Rewards: crossbow and quiver.
Ding!
[Skill learned: Crude Archery]
Player has just gained a miniscule skill in archery, nothing to be proud of.
+ 5 Intelligence
+ 3 Agility
“Whoop!” Kit couldn’t contain his excitement, he turned around with a beaming smile to see if Crumpet noticed his accomplishment. Kit’s smile dimmed when he noticed all eyes on Mud, not one person had seen him get close to his target.
“Mud you are amazing, you hit the target on your first try. You looked just like Crumpet when he shot his arrow.” Mud was blushing at the praise from Charlotte. Kit gaze wandered to the target in front of Mud. He could see an arrow sticking out of the white paper.
Instead of being disappointed that Mud had all the attention, Kit was thrilled. He wouldn’t have to worry about his friend being left behind because he couldn’t get his arrow onto the target. He was glad that Mud had amazing skills in archery.
Hopeful that he could get some pointers to improve off Mud. He made a mental note to stand next to Mud tomorrow during the monster run. That way if he ran into any trouble hopefully Mud could troubleshoot for him.
Kit turned back to practicing with his crossbow, he didn’t want to waste any time staring at the others when he could be improving his skills. Kit focused all his concentration at his task at hand. After numerous attempts he finally hit his goal.
A wave of joy spread over him as he stared at his arrow protruding from the wooden target. He quickly loaded his crossbow to see if it was just a fluke or he if could continue to hit the target. Kit reloaded his crossbow and took a steadying breath.
He pulled the trigger and watched the arrow speed towards the white piece of paper. Delight filled his heart when it aimed true once again.
“Well done Kit! I think you finally mastered hitting stationary targets with the crossbow.” Kit turned to see Crumpet standing behind him. “It’s a pity we didn’t have time to progress to moving targets. But this will have to do for now. The sun is setting and we need to get back to camp. Come on over to the white blanket.”