Chapter Twenty
Joe woke early the next morning to eat his breakfast before heading out to the village agora to meet the hunters. When he arrived, he ended up waiting there for close to twenty minutes before the blacksmith arrived. After a bit of back and forth with Garnedell explaining Joe’s words, Joe learned that the hunters would begin their hunt tomorrow. Joe smiled, asking if he could join the hunters. When he got approval from Kargallen, Joe grabbed Garnedell and disappeared into the forest to continue his slime hunt with Garnedell. The day ended with Joe back at the village, but he stopped back at the priest to swap to the hunter job, figuring that he would need it for tomorrow. After taking a quick bath, he enjoyed a long lasting meal before he headed to bed.
As he lay in bed trying to sleep, Joe struggled to sleep. He was finding falling asleep ever more difficult. Exhaustion brought him to sleep easily over the first month or two of his time on this new planet. But starting on his third month, he’d found sleep becoming ever more elusive. It had caused him a bit of confusion at first, but then it came to him. He’d been significantly sleep deprived back on Earth with late nights spent on movies or the internet. However, his time here had seen him in bed with the sunset, sleeping at least twelve or more hours a day… the day and night cycle seemed to be longer than earth, maybe another six hours per day… not sure… Because of his sleeping another four or six hours per day, he saw himself well rested and found it very difficult to fall asleep. To take up the time between laying down and sleeping, Joe had begun playing with his status menu which turned out to be a very poor substitute for the internet. He learned a couple more inconsequential things, but really ended up playing out of pure boredom. He couldn’t do anything else in the dark, and the only thing that actually glowed in the dark was his status menu.
The next morning found him rising and eating breakfast early. He ended up at the village agora with Garnedell waiting for the last of the hunters since one was already there. Garnedell waited nearby eagerly, and Joe almost considered giving him the day off since he wouldn’t be able to offer anything to the hunt. But when Joe turned to send him away, he realized that Garnedell was about his only way to communicate with the hunters so he decided to have him come along.
“You help talk?”
Garnedell nodded eagerly, “Yes, me help!”
Joe smiled and accepted his help, “Thanks, kid.”
Joe turned to look at the hunters and smiled, waving hello to the two that were there, “How are you two doing, guys?”
The hunters looked toward Joe but said nothing, smiling awkwardly at Joe’s greeting but Garnedell gave a translation and the men’s face opened up with genuine smiles gracing them before both gave the uncomfortable caressing palms handshake. Garnedell gave a nod in greeting back to them before turning to Joe and offering their greetings in reply.
“They speak hello.”
Joe clapped Garnedell on the shoulder in reply and simply nodded, returning their handshakes as best he could despite the fact the handshake still gave him the shivers. When in Rome… The three men and the boy stood around awkwardly before the boy broke the silence and began a conversation with the two hunters separate from Joe. Joe simply nodded and allowed the conversation to continue. As the three spoke, Joe looked over the two hunters and their gear without too much consideration but the oddities of their gear caught his attention and he took a second look. The bows themselves were basic, simply a long straight but tapered piece of wood. They were not recurve bows and were not even curved at all. It seemed the bow string itself would curve the wood into the classical basic bow shape. Huh… maybe recurve bows are too expensive? The bow was quite tall, almost as tall as each hunter, short of their height by only a few centimeters. The string of the bow was a strong twine, but he couldn’t really tell what it actually was.
The arrows were also very tall and only slightly shorter than the height of the bow itself. This made the arrows almost five feet tall, or one and a half meters tall; incredibly long arrows for what Joe was used to. They’re almost as tall as I am! Why do the need to be so long? However, they seemed light weight, made from something that looked like bamboo. He could even see the typical bamboo ridging that occurred every foot or so on the shaft. The arrow heads themselves were also long and deadly looking but only made of wood, each being about thirty centimeters long, about one foot, and barbed in a variety of ways. It seems each hunter designs their own arrow heads? Why are they so long? The arrow heads didn’t seem to follow any uniform shape, although there seemed to be three basic types. One was a cut away shaft of bamboo, sharpened along the length of the arrow head. It seemed quite sharp, but had no barbs of any kind. It would likely strike the target and then fall out easily from any flesh it was embedded in. The second seemed to be a knob of wood stuck on the end of the arrow. It wasn’t nearly as long, only about two or three inches long, and simply looked like a fist on the end of the arrow. Huh… a blunt stunning arrow head. Wonder what they use it for? The hunters only had one of the blunt arrows, but seemed to carry two or three of the bamboo knife arrows.
The last type of arrow was the one that caught his initial interest, and each hunter carried five or ten of them, no two the same except for the fact that the arrow heads were all about thirty centimeters long and, they all seemed to have been carved out of some form of hardwood. Aside from their length and the materials, each shape was different but deadly. Some were ribbed along their length with various sized thorn like spikes. Some were carved in spiral nobs and whorls. Some had nasty ridges ranging the length of the shaft which curved around the arrow head perpendicular to flight path and thrust of the arrow. Some had spikes that shot out from the central spine of the arrow head, but facing rearward, so that once it punched into a body, the spikes would catch in the flesh if someone tried to pull it out. Each of the designs seemed to be made purely at the fancy of the fletcher. Each arrow head was secured to the arrow shaft with a string. Huh! If I had to guess, if the bamboo is hollow the same as back on Earth, then they probably spiked the arrow head down inside the bamboo shaft then tied the string along the bamboo shaft up onto the arrow head itself! Nice!
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While the arrow heads had caught his fancy and their fantastic and deadly designs leaving him a bit queasy at the thought of them entering his body, what really stirred his thoughts was realizing that the shaft was simply a long straight shaft. There was absolutely no sign of fletching, or spirals. Although, can you really put rifling on an arrow? Maybe? It certainly wouldn’t be as accurate as fletching, right? Would it still be called rifling? Is it now… arrowing? Joe sighed at his stray thoughts and brought himself back to the surprising lack of fletching on the arrows. Why wouldn’t they have fletching? Shouldn’t they?
Joe called the hunters over and asked to see the bow and arrows. The two men seemed a bit shy and surprised, even reluctant to offer their weapons to him. So Joe tried to smile as openly as possible and took the initiative, pulling out his own compound bow and offering it to them to handle. Do they think their weapons hold spirits or something? Are they worried I”ll curse or damage their weapons? As Joe pondered their reluctance to hand over their weapons, he saw that his show of kindness relaxed them completely and he was quickly offered one of their bows. He glanced over it for a bit to examine it but found nothing to really catch his attention and he turned to the arrows since they were what really caught his attention.
As he held them, he realized they really were as long as he had initially thought, and was a bit surprised by that fact, but found them as light as he had expected. The shaft really seemed to be bamboo. Huh… pretty cool there’s bamboo here, too! Maybe I’ll be able to find some steak or cheese! Joe pondered the three types of arrows, thinking he easily understood the two, but wondered about the strange nobby arrowhead. He pulled it out and showed it Garnedell.
“Hey, kid. What’s this one for?”
Garnedell looked towards him but blinked with a bit of confusion and Joe brought himself back to the reality of his situation. Man… I really need to learn the language here!
“Uh.. Arrow,” Joe pointed to the object and spoke emphatically, “Arrow. Arrow! Arrow! Arrow.” He pointed at another arrow at each time and Garnedell replied with understanding.
“Arrow… Kat.”
“Kat!”
Garnedell shook his head a bit and elongated the sound, emphasizing what Joe was missing, “Kaaart.”
“Oh… OK…. Kart!”
Garnedell shook his head again, saying it a bit quicker, “Kat!”
Joe blinked and stopped. Huh… must be a sound I’m not catching or can’t here. Lack the ear training to hear it. Hm… is it a super short ‘R’ sound maybe? Joe considered and tried again, shortening the ‘R’ sound considerably to the point where he didn’t even hear it, “Kart!”
Garnedell nodded happily and Joe responded with a grateful smile before hiding his face and grimacing. Learning new sounds was always an almost impossibility for foreigners, and Joe wasn’t too excited at his prospect of learning it. Bah.. Store that for later! I want to know what this arrow does.
Joe held up the blunted nob of wood and asked, “Kat… arrg.. Kart… no… Kart… Arrow. What for?”
Garnedell blinked a bit as he parsed the sentence then nodded and turned to the hunters. The conversation continued for a few moments, Garnedell’s responses short while the hunters responded with longer explanations to which Garnedell nodded in understanding. When Garnedell was done, he turned to Joe and took the arrow. He pointed to the air, pointing out a bird, then took the arrow and had it ‘hit’ him in the head. He then formed a poor imitation of a bird with his hands and showed the bird hit by the arrow before tumbling from the sky to the ground.
“Ah! Got it! The arrow equivalent of a shotgun! Maybe birdshot? Huh. Pretty clever!”
The three locals looked at Joe before the hunters looked at Garnedell, seeking a translation. But Joe’s thoughts and mind had turned inwards as he continued thinking about the arrow, removing himself from the conversation. The two hunters returned to looking at the strange compound bow and Garnedell excused himself, keeping himself ready for Joe’s needs. The hunters spoke for a bit before trying to fiddle with the bow, obviously confused by it. Joe noticed their confusion and decided to help them out but also wanted to know how well and true one of their arrows would fly. Deciding to solve both problems simultaneously, Joe asked for the bow back and then asked for an arrow from the hunters.
“Hey, Garnedell. Could you ask them to give me an arrow? Uh… Give me arrow?”
Garnedell nodded and turned to speak to the men, but Joe interrupted Garnedell before he could ask, “Oh… and make it a … um… Bad arrow! Good arrow no! Bad kart! Good kart no! Kart die. Broken!”
Garnedell seemed to take a bit longer to parse through Joe’s horribly mangled speech. While Garnedell was thinking, Joe mimed to the hunters that he would shoot his bow, but then pointed to one of their arrows and then to his bow. While this was going on, the last two hunters showed up, and all four hunters and Garnedell started speaking together. The discussion seemed intense but cordial with a bit of underlying excitement when the hunters learned that Joe was going to shoot one of their arrows. The four talked amongst themselves before handing Joe one of the bamboo knife arrow heads. Joe smiled and thanked them, then led them towards the lake. Probably the safest place to shoot! Don’t want to accidently hit anyone!
When they made the lake, Joe panned along the edge of the lake, finally looking towards east. The west side was where the road followed the lakes edge and the shrine with the priest sat. He had no desire to accidently shoot anyone. He pointed towards the east side and the tree lined edge of the lake and then turned to Garnedell.
“People. Yes? No,” Joe asked as he pointed at the forest lined east side of the lake.
Garnedell quickly shook his head, saying, “People no!”
Joe nodded then strung the bamboo arrow to his bow. The length of the arrow made it so unwieldy, and he wondered at the arrow’s viability. Pulling the arrow back and preparing to shoot revealed the arrow was even more unwieldy than he realized. A great bit of its length actually hung off the front of the bow and even drooped a bit. Man, maybe you would need the bigger bows to handle the longer arrows! With the string pulled fully to his cheek, he aimed carefully at a tree on the far side of the lake and released the arrow. The arrow fled from the bow, wobbling badly and poorly aimed, but still maintaining its general direction of attack. Huh… maybe that’s why they’re so long. They would fly poorly without fletching, but if long enough, they act a bit like a spear. The arrow sped across the lake and smashed into a tree to the right of the one he was aiming for. Man… trying to use these would really be bad! I better make sure my arrows last!