Arthur did not need to wait much longer as Calavia soon arrived wearing casual clothing instead of her mages guild robes. From a small distance she waved to Arthur and ran towards him. “Good morning Arthur. I hope you are hungry after the tournament because I made us some lunch for afterwards.”
“Since the tournament lasts for a good two or three hours we will likely be here at lunch time.” Then suddenly a small hand held bell was rung for several seconds within the grounds of the range and someone started shouting. “All who are here to register for the tournament please follow me. Everyone else can take their seats in the stands.”
The man who shouted was a dwarven man no taller than four feet tall, quite short even for a dwarf. He did not remain idle for long as he began to lead the crowd of archers into a nearby building. Arthur quickly handed Calavia the bow and arrows in his hands and reached into his dimensional bag for the second set. “Here, you can keep these after the tournament.”
Calavia ran her hands down the shaft of the bow she just received. It was well made, not the highest of quality, but much more than she was expecting for a one time deal. Clearly Arthur had not cheaped out. The arrows on the other hand were quite ordinary, a simple wooden shaft with a flat head and simple feather fletching's.
The duo quickly followed the rest of the archers into the building where they waited in line for about ten minutes to sign up and pay a small fee of three copper coins for each person which Arthur paid. They were then directed out a door to the left of the receptionist's desk that led to a small area with some targets for people to practice before the tournament officially began.
Arthur and Calavia decided to take the leftmost target and take a few practice shots to see how well they were. Arthur was the first to try, taking the bow in his left hand and the arrow in his right he nocked the arrow and slowly drew the arrow back. With his empowered strength it was of little difficulty to draw the arrow most of the way, the biggest problem he had was taking aim at the target.
With the target at a distance of ten meters it wouldn’t be impossible for Arthur to hit it, so he lined up to where he thought the arrow would hit and let go just as the strain on his arm was getting worse. The arrow whizzed through the air and hit the fourth and outermost ring of the target.
“That was a lot harder than I thought.” Arthur remarked as he nocked a second arrow.
“You need to account for the arrows drop off. It won't stay at the same level indefinitely, so you will need to aim a bit higher to account for it.” Calavia said just a few meters behind Arthur.
In response to the new information he was given Arthur aimed just an higher than he did before and let the arrow sail through the air. The arrow landed in the second circle from the center this time. “How did you know to do that?” Arthur turned to Calavia while smiling.
“My brother always talked about stuff like that at dinner after practicing all day, he said stuff like that so often it just stuck with me.” Calavia walked up to Arthur and stood next to him while she readied an arrow of her own. She pulled the arrow back but only made it about two thirds of the way Arthur did before she fired her arrow.
It sailed through the air and struck the third circle from the center, just a wee bit shy of Arthur’s second arrow. “Wow, this is a lot harder than it looks.”
“You can get more power in the arrow if you pull it back farther, it will also go faster when you do that so you won’t need to aim so high.”
The two took turns shooting at the target from farther and farther distances for about fifteen minutes. Then the dwarf with the small bell walked out into the middle of the field and began speaking. “May I have everyone's attention for a moment!” All the others stopped what they were doing with their bows and turned to give the dwarf their attention.
“Thank you all for joining us for the fifth Mountain Arrows tournament of the year. I can see that all of you are quite excited to start so without further ado here are the groups you will each be starting. A second dwarf arrived pushing a board on wheels with a large piece of paper detailing all the groups in an elimination style tournament.
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There were forty eight names in total and Arthur's first opponents were named Livia and Quintus. Calavia’s name was on the other side of the layout and her opponents were named Dusoli and Solana. “Looks like we won’t be against each other unless we somehow get through all the way until the finals.” Calavia pointed to each of their positions on the board.
“Well in the off chance that we both make it to the finals we should get a painting of it or something.” Arthur and Calavia both chuckled at the bad joke.
“Well I am in the first round so I should go get ready.”
“Ok, good luck Arthur.”
*******
Arthur stood in his lane, his bow in his left hand and a quiver of arrows provided by the tournament on his back. The target ahead of him was just ten meters away for the first round. The dwarf stood on a small stool with his bell in hand to signal the start of the first round.
“I want to welcome everyone for coming here for the fifth Mountain Arrows of the year!” The crowd started cheering for a good half minute before the dwarf raised his hand to calm the crowd.
“I am just as excited as all you are, so I hereby declare the start of the tournament and the start of the first round.” Just as the dwarf finished speaking he gave the small bell a good ringing that signalled the participants to begin.
Arthur reached back for an arrow and nocked it before he took aim. Arthur managed to pull the arrow back about eighty percent of the way before he let the arrow fly towards the target. Thanks to the practice he had just a few minutes before he knew where exactly to aim to hit the target, and with that practice the arrow managed to hit the second circle from the center earning three points.
The other participants were not far behind as they also struck the second circle and each earned themselves three points. Arthur might be quite skilled for someone who just picked up a bow but his two opponents had actual time to practice and soon out matched Arthur by earning four points at a time by hitting the center circle.
Arthur still put up a good fight and managed to earn forty five points after he used up all twenty of the arrows he was given. Livia earned sixty three points and Quintus earned seventy one points which allowed him to pass to the next round.
The tournament went on for another hour and a half before with sixteen contenders done and it was finally Calavia’s turn to participate. She stood in her lane with her bow ready to be drawn and the moment that bell rang she took an arrow and was ready to take her shot.
Although she wasn’t as fast as Arthur was when he was participating she was still the second one in her group to fire off an arrow and get three points from it. She did her best and did not slow until near the very end of the round when her arms started getting tired. By the end she had accumulated thirty nine points, just six points shy of Arthur.
“You did well for your first time shooting a bow.” Arthur said while Calavia was leaning on him from fatigue. Her arms had never felt so tired before.
“My arms feel like they are going to fall off.” Calavia’s arms laid limp at her sides as she turned to face Arthur. “I can’t even get our food out of my bag without dumping everything out because it is a dimensional bag.”
“What exactly did you make us for lunch? If you tell me I might be able to retrieve it.”
Calavia paused for a second and nodded. “Alright, I made up each a ham sandwich with butter on both pieces of bread and some lettuce.” Calavia then gestured to the small satchel over her shoulder.
Arthur reached into the bag and after about half a minute of thinking of different ways the sandwiches could look like he eventually pulled them out. They were both four inches long and wide making a square shape. They had a good amount of ham and lettuce on them as well making Arthur more than ready to start eating.
But then he recalled that Calavia’s arms were too tired to eat on her own, and combined with her sad eyes he reluctantly held her sandwich in front of her while she ate it. “Are you sure your arms are too tired to hold a sandwich on your own? Because this must look weird to anyone who might be watching.”
“I'm sure, and believe me if I could I would. And if I wasn’t hungry I would have just let you have your sandwich and waited till I got home and rest to eat mine.”
The two watched the rest of the tournament which was another hour and ten minutes. The second round of the tournament was one of the most intense with two participants in each round with only one going to the semi finals. Quintus, the man who won Arthur's round, was one of the contenders in the first match of the second round.
Another of the major differences in the second round was the distance to the target was increased from ten meters to twenty upping the challenge. Quintus’s opponent was a wood elf named Erlan who used a bow that looked to be grown into its shape instead of cut.
Arthur recalled that Erlan’s score in the first round was a perfect eighty, every shot he fired was in the center circle which as more and more arrows filled made it harder and harder to hit. Clearly Erlan was a very skilled Archer when firing from ten meters away, but the question remained if that also applied at twenty meters.