The next morning the man is up and early with work on his mind, having harvested the wyverns only yesterday his chores are rather cut out for him with tanning leather and preserving bones, though breakfast comes first. Walking into the hall he dons his apron, a patchwork of leather probably made from the remnants of a wall, and starts cooking, adding a bit of salt there, mixing this here, but as he cooks he starts to feel that something is inexplicably off. Tasting the food, he finds nothing odd, and looking through his notebook, it's not some chore he's forgetting about. Suddenly he snaps his fingers in realisation, “it's Elio!”, he says aloud, or rather the lack of him. Looking over his shoulder he scans the hall and can't find Elio anywhere, not sitting at the middle table, or standing silently next to him. This is surprising to the man as he doesnt make an effort to be silent in the morning, and the smell of food should have spread to Elio's room and woken him up already, as long as there wasn't a hole in the roof somewhere, and so with breakfast almost ready the man calls out, “Elio!!!”.

  Seconds pass, and all that the man hears is the sound of something hitting the floor as well as some faint rustling, he calls out again, “Elio, WAKE UP!!” This time the reaction is instant as the sound of slow and methodical steps get closer and closer to the door, when finally Elio stumbles into the hall. Unlike most days, Elio is dead tired, struggling to even keep his eyes open, he wipes away the line of drool from the side of his mouth and hobbles over to the middle table. The man asks as returns to cooking, “Elio, what happened? You didn't sleep well last night?”. A few good seconds pass of silence, the man turns and finds Elio is once again gone, and after scanning the hall, he eventually finds Elio lying down on the bench on the verge of going back to sleep.

  With the man close to plating the food he says to try and wake Elio up, “if you go back to sleep, your going to miss breakfast” to which Elio does attempt to get up, the top of his head clearing the table just barely, before he gives up and goes back to lying on the bench. The man sees how tiered Elio is and decides to let him go back to sleep, he begins walking to the middle table, and as he does so says, “if you're this tired, you can go back to sleep, breakfast wont disappear, and I won't count today as a ballista day either so don't worry”. Turning the corner he is stricken with confusion, as he finds Elio gone, seconds later he hears the sound of fast footsteps in Elio's room, blazing back and forth to get ready. The man smiles as he walks back to the kitchen to plate their food, and when he turns once again he sees Elio sitting patiently at the table, hair brushed, face washed, and ready to start the morning.

  After blazing through breakfast Elio rushes along to the tower to load up the sleigh with quivers, but runs into a problem. With a long day ahead of him, he intends to load up multiple quivers to save time and get to the ballista as fast as possible, but the problem is that he can't carry them all at once. The man sees Elio considering his conundrum, and asks reasonably, “can't you just move them one at a time?”. Elio looks at the man, then back to the quivers, and thinks about it long and hard, the gears within his mind turning, before he ignores the suggestion completely and attempts to lift two of the quivers by himself. Elio pulls with all his might but he can barely drag the quivers along the ground, let alone lift them onto the elevator. The man, seeing his suggestion enter from one ear and fall out the other decides it would be easier to help Elio then try and convince him further. With ease the man is able to lift both the quivers up and even carry a third under his arm, and with a forth in the sleigh being pushed by Elio, they set the quivers into the elevator, and Elio is sent up the tower.

  After waiting for the counterweight to come down, the man walks back into the hall but before he begins any work, he stops and reaches into an inner pocket that sits on the right side of his vest to pull out a pocket watch. he holds the watch in his hand, its golden surface scarred and dented with the insignia that once sat on the face long since unrecognisable. opening it up reveals it to be broken on the inside as well, as the watch doesn't tick, and under the cracked glass the arms don't move. There are no pictures on the inside of the door either, neither any writings or reminders, but still the man checks the time, before setting it back into his pocket.

  He start his chores walking into the barrel room were the leather has been sitting in a salt bath to cure, and after loading them up in a wheelbarrow and wearing his iron sole boots, he walks through the button door to the back of the house, were a field of wood and bones are used to hang the leather out to dry. The expanse around him is empty, as all the wyverns that were harvested yesterday have disappeared, exempt for some wayward corpses that sit sunken into the ground and barely noticeable. As he throws another leather onto sticks he can hear the whistling sound of the bolts flying overhead, and in the distance wyverns dropping closely after. The man eventually finishes up outside and enters the hall to start work hollowing the bone, and so on.

  With many things either waiting to cure or waiting to dry, the man works on a mundane but time consuming chore in the meantime. in the hall, he grabs the bag of red crystals and empties them out into a box with a soft and padded inside. Opening the bag, the illustrious red that seemed to shine so prominently when the crystals where harvested are now faded and dull, but return as they lightly hit each other. after slowly and carefully emptying them into the box. With the bag cleared the man sits down at the table and pulls from underneath an indented sheet of metal, not unlike an egg carton. At the bottom of each dent lies a small copper cap that connects with several strands of copper that combine to form thick wires on either side.

  With that to his side, a soft mat in front of him, and a magnifying glass attached to an arm brought to his eye, he begins to grab a crystal from the box, and one by one checks for damage. The ones that are cracked or broken are placed in another box in front of him, and the ones that pass are placed in the tray, carefully. As soon as the crystal touches the copper caps, the crystal glows once more, at first a bright flash, and then a faint but remaining glow. Slowly but surely the man moves through the piles, and one by one the crystals are placed and metal sheets stacked atop one another, until the forest of crystals tint the hall in a thin shade of red, and the pins that litter the house begin to flicker with their green glow. He would remain seated for hours, checking the crystals time and again, and again, and again. His eyes were blank and soulless, not following his hands but constantly looking ahead at the same exact spot unchanging and unflinching. Meanwhile his hands moved with an uncanny precision into the box and out, bringing a crystal in front of him, and after being checked, passed along to the other hand to be placed into the tray delicately, and perfectly. Time flies by as the man is lost in a trance, but is interrupted when after checking another crystal, he passes it to his other hand only to find his pocket watch firmly in his grasp.

  While he was observing the crystal mentioned before something odd was happening, after his left hand placed anther crystal into a slot, it had began to move to his inner chest pocket, all the while he wasn't looking or acknowledging it, furthermore the hand moved in a way similar to that of a thief stealing from someone in a deep sleep, slow and methodical and without sharp movements. all to pull out the pocket watch, after which it opened it and kept it firmly in its grasp as it laid motionless on the mat, seemingly giving back control and leading to the events right now. the man, surprised to find the watch in his hand, places the crystal safely on the soft mat and stares at the watch for a good moment, he looked at the crooked and unmoving hands, and cracked glass that distorts his reflection back at him. he was still seated, and his face was blank and emotionless, when suddenly he snapped! His fingers then said aloud, “oh right the leather” before pocketing the watch and walking to the ‘backyard’ to bring in the now dried leather. Walking outside, he notices that it is now far past the afternoon and nearing sunset, and so he rushes to bring the leather inside to cook dinner/lunch in time.

  After dusting the salt form the leather and placing them in the stockpile he packs up the crystal by placing a lid on the two boxes, and then placing the tray of crystals into a unfolded box with a spiralling copper wire at the bottom that connects to one side but not the other. Closing the box the hall is now free from the red tint and the pins glow begin to die down, and then he begins making dinner. Some time later Elio finally comes back down form the tower, as he enters the man greets him without turning around, “welcome back, and right on que too, dinners right about done”. Hearing that Elio throws the empty quivers off to the side before taking off the blue jacket and sitting on the middle tables bench, the man plates the food and brings it over to the table, and notices Elio both tiered and incredibly giddy at the same time. the man asks with curiosity in his tone “Looks like you had fun, did something interesting happen”, and Elio confirms before playing out the event.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  With his finger he starts at one side of the table and arks up, stopping just before hitting the table again, indeed it was just as the sun was setting when the spectacular event happened. Elio had only a few shots left and the targets had become sparse, with large swaths of time in between firing. He was considering closing up the tower early as he had a very fulfilling day when he noticed a dot in the distance. Looking closer he thought it was two wyverns, but when he scoped in he realised it was one, but with two pairs of large wings, a strong build, reinforced by a tough and rocky hide. In its claws was the head of another wyvern ghoul who he dropped in pursuit of the tower, the only mark from the fight was a light graze under its chin. It retained the dozen or so eyes on each side but they were slightly more symmetrical and none of them were missing. its toothy maw was covered in blood from its last meal, but was also more tidy, allowing it to close it fully. It had colour, life, as well as amply ferocity as it sped up towards the tower, each beat of its giant wings speeding it forward. Seeing this Elio was about to jump back on the ballista when the man intruded, “A mutant, and rather mean looking one baised on your description, so did you take it out?” He says, Elio pouts after the man interrupts, and puts his hand up to tell the man to stop it as he gets back to the story.

  After sighting the mutant he could not miss such an opportunity to take it down, he climbs back onto his ballista, and loads up another shot and fires, only for the bolt deflects off of its hard patch of its skin, seeing this he fire another shot this time aiming to hit a joint were it would be softer and after firing he doesn't wait to see if it landed or not to fire another at its face. the first shot misses as the wyvern glides under it, the other shot however is much more successful, the mutant too focused on the first bolt had only given himself a few moments to dodge the second, it tries to lean its head out of the way but it's not enough and the bolt rips through that side of its face taking out four eyes and showring the rest in blood, practically blinding the mutant on its right side. It tries to recover when to its dismay the shots are just heating up. two more come at him, but he is able to dodge one and the other hits a tough spot in his hide, lodging itself loosely in it.

  It ducks and weaves out of the way as a hail of metal rods force him into a serpentine motion to the tower, the mutant ducks, dives, rises and spins at every opportunity, and Elio is only able to graze and pepper the mutant as he isn't used to the complex movement. But it gets worse as his ammo runs dreadfully low, and with how the battle is developing Elio is sooner to run out of bolts then take down the mutant and so with that in mind he is left with only one option; he slides the bowl to the man for seconds and waits patiently for him to return to resumes the story.

  He disables the breaks of the ballista, and while on it he fires, launching the ballista back and to the middle platform where with a tug of the brake lever, sparks fly, and the ballista stops in the middle. After that he pulls the string back, and after it is tensioned he pulls another, very heavy lever with all his might. It takes a good deal of effort for it to move, and eventually he does so, and the four tension hands that stood atop and below the bow spread out, pulling their respective strings and causing the entire ballista to creak with tension. Elio then takes a quick breather before running to the corner pillar with all the hand cranks. He spins a crank with the red handle, causing a long wooden box to drop below the rafter onto the ballista. running back to the ballista he fiddles with a latch on the box, and after opening it, a bolt drops onto the flight groove. The bolt in question is two inches in diameter and covered in a glinting steel, capped with the black point. Elio throws the box aside and pushes the ballista forward, before locking it in and climbing back on. Looking through the telescope, he can see the wyvern far closer than before, and now flying straight, towards the tower, Elio scopes in on the target, takes a deep breath, and fires.

  the sheer amount of force released sends ripples across the towers leather and disturbs a large amount of dust and sand all along its flat surfaces, the mutant sees the dust being kicked and the entire tower rattle, suddenly a cylinder of black blocks its view as the bolt lands directly on its hard carapace face, cracking the bone all the way down. it doesn't die, yet, for when the bolt was sent flying its lower half broke open and was left behind to reveal a thinner rode, that, with the sudden force of the impact, is launched forward, igniting gunpowder to cause, a hidden bolt to fire forward and create a valley through its skull.

  As the dust around Elio settles he sees a momentary flash of light followed by clouds of black smoke and a second later a loud bang as the mutant begins falling quickly. Elio lets the event settle in before celebrating by punching the air, but not for long as in the distance small dots approach, attracted by the sound. Elio ends up clearing the last of the bolts taking out the wave of wyverns, and after checking the skies and realising the sun is setting he quickly closes up the tower to avoid attracting any more wyverns. he takes the sleigh with him and down the elevator with the now empty quivers, on the way down the adrenaline settles and the accumulated tiredness creeps in, which leads to now, empty bowls, filled bellies, stories told. the man says as he takes the plates away,

  “Well I'm glad you had fun, and that the special bolt was useful. from the looks of it the mutant was rather strong, so it'll be worthwhile to get it in the morning, where did it land again?” the man looks behind him to find Elio fast asleep, the adrenaline form fighting the mutant and telling the story now gone and all the tiredness hitting all at once, the man places the dishes down and carries Elio to his room, tucking him quietly into his bed, he goes into the suddenly dark hall, and after lighting the pins he forgoes the dishes and after loosely putting on the iron boots he takes a step outside.

  he leans on the doorframe, there he reaches into a chest pocket opposite the pocket watch and pulls out a cigarette, one of a dozen, and places it in his mouth as he lights a matchstick. After lighting the cigarette he throws the matchstick away, where it disappears into the pitch black. there are no stars in the sky, nor any moon or any natural light source to speak of, simply a pitch black darkness that swallows the entire world, what little light the pins produce form inside the house only reaching so far, he breaths out clouds of blue as the end of his cigarette burns a alluring gold, for a moment, a small moment, the sparkle of red that always sits at the bottom of his iris disappears, and a new colour begins creeping in, his shoulders drop, and a calmness takes over, before suddenly standing at the ready and looking into the void, the red in his eyes coming back to form a half circle. He keeps looking, but nothing happens, pure silence as usual, bringing the cigarette to his mouth he finds that it burned out, and he puts it out, mumbling under his breath “Can never get a moment of calm”.

  Next morning starts like any other for Elio, he wakes up, eat breakfast, gets dressed, and goes up the tower, while riding the elevator he dances to a tune that he doesn't hum and with a spring in his step pulls back the curtains to the tower, he pushes the sleigh to the ballista when he notices something odd, he steps to the side to get a better angle when his entire body shudders in fear. In the daze of adrenaline and sleep deprivation he had left the ballista pulled the entire night, and the stress build up has bent the hands to their breaking point. He freezes up as he notices all the cracks and breaks, in that moment not knowing what to do, but eventually as one of the cracks spreads he panics and rushes to the elevator to ask the man for help.

He pushes the sleigh back as quickly as he can on the rickety rail, when is foot gets caught on a nail and he falls, sending the sleigh back with his momentum, he gets up slowly and then notices the slay is still moving, he bolts to try and grab it before it hits the elevator but he's too late, just as his hand is an inch away from the handles it crashes into elevator which sends vibrations up the rail and to the ballista. the sound of broken wood fills the tower as the rope swings forward and rips one of the arms off, Elio is luckily far enough to have not been hit by the splinters. He turns, only to see the right arm disappear into a thousand shards. Down in the hall the man is just beginning to work on the special bolt once more when he hears the sound of the elevator hitting the ground, he doesn't turn around as he is in the process of pouring the gunpowder in but begins to stand up.

“Elio? Back so early, did you forget your gloves again?” he says, he places the powder down and turns around when he feels his legs suddenly get tackled, looking down he can see Elio hugging him tightly,

“Elio?” the man says with concern in his voice.