Kashubian's woodworking wasn’t literally magic, and I was surprised they had that metaphor in a world that had magic, but god damn he was fast with it.

He cut off the bark and pieces went flying everywhere, one of em got into Mole’s beer, he wasn’t all too happy about that.

Now that I think about it, I haven’t ever seen magic in action, though nothing would stop me from believing it existed in this world, it just had to.

In the span of a minute, he had made the bow, just without the string. “I’ll get it later,” he said. He managed to cut pieces of wood off and instead of it just being wasted, he used any workable pieces and cut them into arrow shafts.

“I have no feathers.” He simply said while he was masterfully cutting sharp ends on the arrows. “They won’t fly accurately, but that won’t matter if you are close, I have no stones so you’ll have to use the wood tips, if they work they work. If you die you die.”

“Geez, talk about a confidence booster.” Jeremy said.

I had noticed when looking inside the speakeasy that Jeremy’s boss who worked at the forges wasn’t there, he was the founder n’ all so he should be present and among his men, but he did have his job, it was good a group like this had a man on the inside, I’m not sure how much power a knight like him had, but we would use all the help we could get.

“Mole, fetch me some twine.”

Mole skittered away into a backroom, as he exited he threw a roll of thin rope over towards Kashubian, which was caught and immediately strung onto the bow.

“There is your bow.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, kill bad guys with it, ok?”

Jeremy nodded and we went on our way back to the cave, we spared no time getting there, we were both sprinting and Jeremy was considerably faster than me, I needed to catch up to his speed stat sometime.

Anyway, we went back to the cave for the third time now, this time ready to face up against a boss, Jeremy already had a bow nocked, he was ready to dish out damage, we jogged over as fast as we possibly could without slipping and cracking our head on the jagged rocks, that was less of a concern for me as I had my hardhat on.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

We came back to the purple shard wall with the Miniboss Gnoll guarding it, it was still stuck in its animation, swinging its flail around all threateningly.

Jeremy had arrows in-between his fingers, he pulled back on the string and let one arrow soar towards the Hyena, it managed to strike but he wasn’t watching where the arrow went, he knew his aim was good and that it would hit, he was instead focused on adjusting his grip so that the second arrow was into place within a split second after firing the first arrow.

He pulled back again, it hit, he adjusted, pulled back again, it hit again.

These arrows did not do much damage, they had no strong arrowhead, but it did stick inside, and if it did happen to hit somewhere soft and vulnerable like the eyes or nuts the gnoll would be in a world of trouble, and with his speedy firing rate that wasn’t unlikely.

He reached for more arrows, he shoved a few in each belt loop while preparing and grabbed a belt loop’s worth whenever he needed to reload, but he didn’t have much time. One arrow flew and it hit again, the gnoll disregarding the attack entirely.

I had to do something to draw aggro so that Jeremy had a bigger chance of hitting vulnerable areas, I gripped my mace and rushed over towards the enemy, slamming it in the back of the knee before it was able to strike Jeremy with his flail. It staggered onto one knee and Jeremy was given time to go back and fire off more shots.

I kept bashing it in the head with my mace until it had enough of my shit and stood up, arms flailing wildly as it screamed, I was knocked back a good two meters but I think I had done more damage to it.

Arrows were constantly sinking into the beast, I hadn’t seen a single one miss or anything, but I was worried he could run out.

I slowly got back up, the wind had been knocked out of me when I landed and I needed to recover my breath quickly, the gnoll's priority was Jeremy.

I walked towards it again, but it had noticed me before I was able to get in my range and deliver another strike to the back of its knee, he turned and his flail struck violently against my hardhat, sending me onto the floor.

I saw stars, if I didn’t have my hardhat I’d probably be dead right now, thank god for safety regulations otherwise these wouldn’t exist.

“RAAAAGHHH!!!” The gnoll screamed in agony, I mustered all my power to move my head so that my gaze was focused on the hyena and not the ceiling.

The bastard did it, Jeremy managed to get not one, but two hits to the gnolls nuts, it staggered to the floor and cried for mercy, but Jeremy did not relent, he rushed up to the gnoll and sent uppercut after uppercut into its face.

I was slowly recovering, I got back to my feet, I was unstable but I think I could still swing my mace.

Deep breaths, in… and out…

I walked over to it, gripping the fur on its neck tightly, I turned the mace around in my hand so that the pointy bits were facing down, I slammed it up and down repeatedly into the back of its head, blood spurted everywhere, bits of bone chipped against my face and into my mouth, leaving a bad taste.

It was only until I saw the level-up notification that I stopped.