The tournament continued on, although Quintus did not make it to the third round he did earn a respectable sixty five points to Erlan’s sixty nine. It was a little sad for Arthur and Calavia who were rooting for him, mostly because there hadn't been anyone else who they had any connection with, even if it was minor.
The tournament continued on with every contestant giving their all to make it into the third round, but alas only half could make it. And most unfortunately none of the people who did get to the round were anyone Arthur or Calavia knew or competed against. Although there were a few that caught Arthur’s eye, namely the one with the most impressive score.
Unfortunately Arthur didn’t look over all of the names on the board so he did not know who it was, and the cloak they wore only further made things complicated. The only thing he could determine was that they were a human given their height of five and a half feet.
Regardless they had considerable skill and in both rounds so far they had gotten eighty out of eighty points. The only question that could be answered was if they could keep it up.
After a short intermission that lasted about ten minutes the competition started up again with the mysterious number one facing off against Erlan. The main difference this time, the target was forty meters away and only Erlan looked worried.
The small bell was rung and the semi finals began, the mysterious human was the first to draw their bow and with an excellent show of skill and precision nailed the very center and earned four points.
Erlan tried to ignore his opponent and simply focus on himself, but with the crowd cheering every time he scored four points it was quite difficult. When he did take his first shot it wasn’t as good as at the twenty meter target, he only managed to get two points by hitting the third circle from the center. It was a good shot of course, but his opponent did far better.
Throughout the entire match Erlan was kept on edge by his opponent doing so well, even when he tried his best and followed what he had been taught it wasn’t enough. He was simply outmatched.
By the end of the match Erlan earned fifty points, whereas his opponent earned a perfect eighty points once again. Erlan sulked off to the side away from the audience who cheered for their mysterious favorite.
Soon all the other matches were done and over with only one person who could rival the mysterious human. The person in question was a wood elven woman who stood at four feet and seven inches. She used a wooden bow that like Erlan's looked as if it was grown into its shape, but hers looked to be of a higher quality in some strange way.
With that bow she managed to earn seventy six points in the third round easily beating her opponent who only earned sixty. With her positioning on the chart she wouldn’t encounter the mysterious human until the finals, which most expected her to since she earned the second highest amount of points.
While the tournament was going on a few things happened in the stands. The first thing that happened was someone walked down the aisles selling food, this happened a few times with the dwarf in question selling a few different things each time.
The second and more interesting thing that happened was people started betting on who was going to win the tournament, with the most votes on the mysterious human with odds of 1.1 to 2.5
Another twenty minutes and two matches past leading to the semi finals with the mysterious human and the wood elf facing separate opponents. The first to go was the human and a dwarven man that looked about the same as a thirty year old human.
The two readied themselves eighty meters from their respective targets and upon hearing the bell ring began firing away. Like the previous round the human was the first to take a shot, hitting the center circle and earning himself four points.
But the dwarf wasn’t far behind, he too hit the center circle and immediately drew a second arrow. “Not too bad are yah lad?” The dwarf asked while taking aim.
“I have been practicing archery for a long time, so I consider myself more than not bad.” A coarse and old, yet youthful voice came from under the cloak. This surprised the dwarf who hesitated giving the human an extra second to fire an arrow.
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The dwarf immediately noticed and cursed himself for allowing himself to be surprised by a simple voice. ‘Dam you moron. You’ve heard even trees speak, so why are you shocked at just a human's voice?’
The dwarf attempted to keep up with the human but even without the small amount of time he paused for he was no match and lost seventy seven to fifty nine points.
While the dwarf was sad and moping off the range the audience was cheering at the humans victory. Admittedly his performance did drop off ever so slightly, but that is to be expected, he was shooting from eighty meters away after all.
Up next was the wood elf and her opponent who was a human woman wielding a simple yet well maintained longbow. The longbow in question was very simple, so much so in fact that it was hard not to notice just how basic it was. It looked like it was just made this morning and hadn't even been finished completely. Honestly it was a miracle that with such a bow someone made it to the finals.
The final match of the semi finals began and the two took off firing, the wood elf quickly took the lead with the human woman not too far behind, but no matter how well she did the elf would always either match her or do just a little bit better than her.
Soon it was apparent that even with her magic bow she couldn’t beat her opponent and by the end she lost sixty six points to fifty five.
The crowd was loving every second of the show, even Arthur and Calavia couldn’t help but to cheer and clap with the crowd from time to time. And with one final intermission the final round began, the mysterious human vs the wood elf.
The two walked out onto the range each taking their respective positions one hundred meters from the targets that were now suspended by these metal wires attached to a strange contraption with several wheels that the wires looped around.
The crowd along with the two contestants were quite confused by the change of events, until the announcer stepped up and began speaking to the audience.
“Welcome back everyone! I hope you all are ready for the finals to determine the champion of the Mountain Arrow Tournament! Today we decided to try and change things up a notch, instead of just shooting at a target from 100 meters away we decided to try out moving targets from 100 meters away!” The dwarf pointed to the targets suspended by the wire with several loud popping sounds followed by a vrrrrom.
Suddenly they began moving in a clockwise motion revealing five different targets of various sizes that would move around. The audience was absolutely baffled by such a possibility, such things only happened in stories with powerful mages or clerics performing powerful magics.
“We have acquired a device that allows us to create a far more difficult challenge for our two remaining contestants, they will be tested not only on their strength and precision, but also their patience and timing!”
The dwarf paused for a moment to allow the audience to speak amongst themselves and look at the moving targets. ‘When this gets out our profits are going to skyrocket. Because we are the only ones who can truly test an archer's skill.’
“Now instead of separate targets for each contestant we have instead decided to have them share the targets and tie small colored ribbons to the back end of the arrows, and to up teh stakes a bit we have halved the amount of arrows each contestant has. Now without any further ado, you may begin!” The dwarf rang his handheld bell as finished and the two contestants immediately took aim on the moving targets.
For a good ten seconds neither contestant fired their arrow, each waiting to see what the other would do and hoping to adapt their strategies based on what they saw. But soon it was apparent to the human that he would need to take the first shot, and so he did at the target at the rightmost, moving towards the left.
Taking into account the distance and time it would take to reach the target he aimed a bit forward and took his shot, the arrow whizzed through the air and struck the target causing it to swing back from the impact.
As the target swung back the human gritted his teeth, the arrow hit the second circle from the center instead of the center. The wood elf next to him wanted to laugh at his misfortune but stopped herself realizing she too would likely have a difficult time, and instead chose to try to account for the movement of another target as she took aim.
Keeping her bow as steady as she could she had her bow just to the left of the center of the target she wanted to hit and took her shot. The arrow whizzed through the air like the humans but untimely missed the exact target, instead of aiming too far left she aimed too far to the right and missed the center by about the same as her opponent, hitting the second circle from the center.
The match only got more and more intense as it went on. With only ten arrows every shot was more valuable than before, if before you could use an arrow or two to get back into the game now you don't have that luxury anymore and every shot you take counts.
The audience loved every second of it, they saw their two favorites performing at their utmost limits. They could not be under more tension unless it was an active war zone making it an excellent opportunity to show the common people just how incredible they were.
After what felt like an eternity of the two taking their best shots at the series of moving targets it was over. The elf needed to sit down from the stress she was feeling and even the mysterious human who hadn't shown weakness so far took a moment to sit.