Dominic and the Archery Instructor

[Dave G]

On Mondays, we alternate between playing 2 different games, one every other week. Our last session of D&D ended with us finally getting back to our Mercenary company's home base. We'd been out in the field for a while, and even took an unexpected interdimensional trip to purgatory, and had to bargain with death to secure passage home...

This is a series of e-mails between me (Dominic), My GM, and another player (Tibby)

Cast: Dominic and Tibby are half-brothers... it was Dominic's birth that resulted in Tibby, a half elf, approximately 7 years old, witnessing his elven father picking up the human infant from his human wife's arms. Dangling him over his panicked mother by one foot, as he brutally stabbed his wife in the chest for her infidelity.

Tibby watched as his father killed his mother, and then crushed Dominic's foot before uttering a curse upon him and tossing the wailing infant to the bed before striding out of their lives forever (...)

Orphaned and abandoned, and no longer truly welcome in the elven community where the two boys lived, the human father of Dominic took in both boys... His name was Will the Fletcher. Dominic and Tibby Fletcher joined up with the mercenary company to avoid being drafted by the imperial guards fighting in the war of the humanoids to the north. They began their training, Dominic as an archer and warrior, despite the limp that would follow him into his adult life. (In fact it will follow him forever, according to Death, if the 'curse' isn't removed, Dom will limp even in the afterlife). Tibby became trained in the skills of a bard, using his inspiring "the blank that made a difference' stories, his chanting, poetry and songs to help his companions out on their adventures.

(whew that took a lot longer to say than I intended :shock: )

The next morning, Dominic got up before 1st light, and spent some time going over his newly bought arrows. He began unconsciously sorting them into 3 piles... to his right went the straightest shafts, and the most balanced arrows. In front of him are the ones that he can fix, the ones with a fletching that's loose or a slightly crooked head. On his left he places the sub-standard and inferior.

He's fairly surprised how good a batch this is, almost half of them are good without and effort, and only a fourth of them were rubbish. Picking up those 10 inferior arrows, he grabs his bow and a fresh string, and heads out to the practice field before the whole camp wakes up. The air is crisp in the pre-dawn light, the sounds of the night birds beginning to fade to the wakening of the daylight songbirds. Dominic muscles a large hey bale into place, and selects a target. Pinning it into place. He walks back to the start of the range and hung his cane upon the rail. His morning exercises are almost ritualistic to him, he clears his ming and stretches his muscles and sinews. Paying particular attention to his arms and shoulders, he limbers up religiously, studiously ignoring the pain in his foot...

"Damn!"

Thinking about the curse brought him off track... why was it so easy to ignore the old injury before he knew more about it? He throws himself into a set of meditations, and finally strips off his shirt, exposing his well defined chest and arms to the morning breeze, the thin sheen of sweat quickly dries, as he strings his new bow, unconsciously checking it for wear, warping, and splits. He closes his eyes as his hands slowly roam over the bow, feeling the wood, sensing the way it is designed to resist bending without obstructing the draw... Keeping his eyes closed, he grabs the first arrow, and nocks it in one fluid movement, drawing it back to his ear before opening his eyes. As he expected, his aim was true, and he quickly visualized the arrow flying through the cool morning air, and striking the target... He released his shot. The pent up energy of the bow releases with the sudden twang, that quirks the corners of his mouth up in a grin. The shot wasn't bad... he could do better... it was amazing just how good this bow made him shoot...

Again and again, he went through the ritual, nocking and drawing the arrow, opening his eyes and traveling through the shot in his mind as he releases the string...

On the last arrow, he picked it up and nocked it... but something was different... his eyes fluttered open, and standing in front of the target, with his back to him, was a person studying the array of shots... this must be the new archery instructor he'd been told about...

----

Remaining fixed and looking intently at the target, the instructor speaks in a soft but audible voice suggesting that he has just experienced a sleepless night. "So this must be Dominic, the hot shot archer with the fancy bow that I heard so much about."

The instructor turned slowly towards Dominic revealing a grimy unshaven half elf whose leanness suggested an unhealthy lack of any diet. In his left hand he held an open bottle, and to Dominic's surprise, there was no right hand, just a metal prosthetic hook. His eyes turned into a scowl once he caught Dominic staring at his hook.

"I guess these shots could be considered adequate considering that you only used the straight arrows. Now go back and use the others that I prepared for you earlier today. We'll see how well you really will shoot, my friend," the instructor leers expressing a hint of menace.

----

Standing up a bit straighter, Dominic tried to pry his eyes off of the hook the man bore, and forced his eyes to meet those of the other man.

"Well met, sir, I am Dominic, I hope what people have been saying about me isn't too flattering, I miss my shots far too often to claim much skill as of yet." Dominic strode forward to reach out a hand, but faltered, unable to decide whether to shake the hooked hand or the one holding the bottle... grimacing his stupid indecision, he bravely reached out for the hook.

"May I have the pleasure of your name sir?" He smiles, leans on his cane and continues "Where are those arrows you mentioned? I'll go run and get them and then come back to start work... Or if you'd rather, we can schedule a time later."

----

The instructor lets Dominic shake his hooked hand. "Those arrows should be in the quiver that I left for the quartermaster this morning. I specially selected all of the arrows myself. I want you to shoot the ones with the warped shafts and the crooked fletchings first and I'm expecting to see all of them reach this bullseye," as he taps the center circle with his hook.

"Now make haste! Let's see if you have what it takes to be a student of the bow. Many have disappointed me already young Dominic, so lets see if you have what it takes." The instructor lays back on a bale of hay propping his earthworn boots on another bail. He slowly takes the bottle to his lips as he chugs the liquid down his throat. The whole area begins to smell of the berry sweet scent of Spice Wine.

----

Tibby was having the nicest dream. He was surrounded by young women of every race: human, elf, orc, gnome and all the half-breeds. Every one was naked and lined up before him, ready to be taken, by he who is Tibby. He heard ramblings outside of his quarters, and with his half-elven hearing recognized the voice of his brother, Dominique. Tibby strained to hear what was going on, but when he heard a second unrecognizable voice, he sprang out of his quarters, buck-naked with an erection, to find out what was going on.

----

As Tibby springs naked and erect from his quarters, he runs head first into the seasoned veteran, Grizilda, falling ass first to the ground. Now there has been some confusion in the camp on Grizilda‚s exact origins. Officially and legally, she‚s a half orc, however Grizilda is twice as muscular as most typical Orcs themselves leading some to belive that she is actually a half ogre.

----

Dominic hobbles back to the range and sorts through the arrows, pulling out the most distorted of the bunch. Trying to ignore the tempting smell of the wine and clear his senses, he drops back into his meditations before pulling out the first twisted arrow and launching it... sending it spiraling into the wall above and behind the target... Putting that shot out of his mind, he focuses on the next one, and clips the left-most edge of the target... he reaches for another arrow...

---line break---

The afternoon sun had glazed Dominic's skin into a bright pink hue, he collected the arrows again, wiped the sweat from his eyes and began again... His arm and fingers were aching and raw, yet his chin was set. After hours in the sun he had slowly moved in closer to the bullseye, but had yet to get one of the mutant arrows to hit the mark. He was irritated and tired, and wanted to go dunk himself in the horse trough to cool off...

It takes him longer to center himself, he no longer hears the buzzing of the flies around him, or the clink of armor and weapons in the training yard... he nocks the arrow and opens his eyes... he visualizes the bullseye being split by the arrow, and releases it... He almost doesn't see it, as tears fill his eyes from the pain of the blisters on his fingers, he feels fluid gush down his fingers and sees that he's torn the calluses off... He blinks it away... sliding the bow to the ground, and looks at the target...

...right there... on the outside edge of the inner-most circle... an arrow had struck home...

Dominic's eyes roll up into his head, as he passes out...

----

Dominic woke up in his quarters to the rhythmic sound of Tibby's bed squiling next door. A slight moan echoed through the walls confirming that Tibby was breaking in one of the new recruits. Dominic leaned forward to grab the pitcher of water on the table next to his bed, and a black arrow shaft rolled off of his chest. This shaft had no head nor was there any fletching on it, the only thing that it contained was a note of parchment tied by a tiny gold string.

Carefully and with much urgency, Dominic untied the string and unrolled the note and read it. "Thousands of repetitions and out of one's true self perfection emerges. Initiate, you have impressed me with your skill. This alone is hard to do. Meditate and ask yourself what you were doing differently on that last shot. The answer is the key to everything. Your next instructor will seek you out. And beware of Tamoura, the Lady of Curses. She is the nemesis of all whose heart strings the bow."