Callie's Heroes

PART VII - MASS ASSEMBLY

“How are they doing, Reynard?” Master Trainer Thorn asked, walking up to his friend. The Foxkin was sitting in the shade of a tall tree quite a distance from his recruits, using his Eagle Eye skill to zoom in and watch them almost as if he were standing there.

“Almost immediately she organized them into an assembly line,” Reynard growled. “Usually it takes them a good hour to figure that one out.”

“I told you she would. Logistics, remember?”

Reynard grunted. “Maybe that’s where she belongs instead.”

Thorn chuckled.

“I had assumed Shul’an would take control since he’s Bronze,” Reynard said, sounding almost perplexed. “But instead the Gnome seems to be directing everyone and they are letting her. She’s even making sure to have them change duties so they each work on every step. I’ve never had a group do that! Usually they each pick a role and stick with it.”

“Interesting,” Thorn said.

“She also took over the class earlier, or at least partially did,” Reynard added with a huff.

“What?”

“One of the students, the Catkin, Jesca, was having problems making her first query. Before I could even say anything to help the girl through it, the Gnome pulled Jesca aside and guided her through some exercises to calm her mind like she was in charge. She did it twice, actually.”

Thorn comfortingly patted the Foxkin on his shoulders. “Sounds like they are all working well together, then. How many arrows have they completed?”

“About twenty or so. They are limited while the glue sets, so they can’t go any faster than they already are.”

“What’s the best any of your groups have done in two hours?” Thorn asked.

“Fourteen,” Reynard said with a scowl.

The five recruits of Team Ranger were busily trying to make arrows. Their first attempt was clumsy and slow, with everyone getting in each other’s way and only two of the arrows barely passing a quality vote by the group. That was enough to irritate Callie, and she took control, wanting a more-organized setup than the chaos they were dealing with. With a few directions, Callie set the newling fletchers up with an assembly line.

The first person screwed a pre-made metal tip to the shaft, held in place with a dab of a fast-setting glue, then did the same with a pre-made metal nock at the other end. The second recruit would trim feathers to the correct size and shapes. The third and fourth used a simple wood and metal template to line up the feathers at one-hundred twenty degree spacings and glue them to the arrow. Once the glue had hardened enough, the last person would wrap string around the feathers, knotting them securely into place. To make sure everyone got practice on all steps, Callie rotated the duties every fifteen minutes, and together they managed to get a really fast rhythm down.

Callie was irritated, though. They could go faster; should go faster, but they only had ten of the feathering templates, and they were all in use. At this point, they had a pile of arrow shafts waiting, another pile of trimmed feathers waiting, and only about twenty-some arrows fully completed.

“Time's up!” Reynard said, walking up to his recruits.

“Dammit,” Callie said with a slight whine, dropping the tip she was about to apply glue to. “How many did we end up with?”

“Um, twenty-five,” Shul’an said, quickly counting.

“And we still have another ten curing,” Thucax said, gesturing towards the arrows waiting for the feathers to set, “if that counts for anything.”

Callie looked up at Reynard, a slight pout on her face. “Sorry. We got backed up waiting for the glue on the fletching, otherwise we’d have more.”

Reynard shook his head slowly with a sigh and then gave a light chuckle. “Honestly, the whole purpose of this exercise was to teach you to all work together.” He gestured towards the completed arrows lined up and leaning against the wall. “I think the five of you managed fine.”

Reynard walked over and ran his fingers along the line of completed arrows, inspecting each of them. He selected two, and then a single third. “This is probably your best quality arrow,” he said, holding the single one up for everyone to see. “These two are your worst, and even they would be usable in an emergency, but we’ll exclude them for the next demonstration.” He set the two low-quality arrows aside.

“Still, in two hours we could only make twenty-five,” Kaisess said with regret. “Surely we would need many hundreds for our training. Even with many experienced craftspeople, it would take weeks to keep an army properly supplied with what I assume are thousands of arrows.”

“Very true, but remember the details of your Fletching perk?” Reynard said as he gathered the remaining arrows, adding it to the one he was still holding and laying them down in a pile on the ground. With a bit of concentration, there was a flash of pale, blue light and the stack of twenty-three arrows became a stack four times that.

The five recruits gasped, and Shul’an looked at his clawed hands in wonder.

“Arrow Replication,” Trainer Reynard said. “It’s a skill you all will receive at Bronze that has a synergy with your Bowyer/Fletcher perk. At Platinum, I am able to duplicate up to one-hundred arrows, triple up to fifty, or quadruple up to twenty-five.” The Foxkin waved his paw again, and the stack doubled in size yet again. “That should be about …” Reynard trailed off as he started to mentally calculate the results.

“One-hundred Eighty-four,” Callie said, having instantly done the math in her head.

“... right,” Reynard replied, eyeing the Gnome.

“Sorry, I’m good with numbers,” Callie said sheepishly.

Shaking his head in amusement, Reynard said, “Shul’an, you should be able to do simple replication now, doubling up to ten arrows. The rest of you will be able to do that when you get the skill at Bronze Tier. Whenever we are taking a break, and you have mana to spare, work on perfecting it.”

“But Callie doesn’t need arrows,” Jesca said.

“But someday …” Reynard started to reply.

“I may not always have my Endless Arrows bow,” Callie interrupted, gesturing to the red bow leaning against the shelter-wall, “so I need to know this, too. Plus I could magic up some arrows for other archers.”

“”Exactly,” Reynard said dryly, the little Gnome stealing the words right out of his mouth. “Your goal is to become proficient enough that you are able to replicate the arrows already in your quiver in the middle of a fight, so that you never run out. It’s not as useful as Callie’s enchantment, and takes finer control so the duplicates don’t all drop to the ground, but with practice you will always have an arrow available.”

Reynard had Shul’an attempt their own duplication, and after two attempts with unusable results, the third nailed it and ten quality arrows became twenty. A fourth attempt was just as successful, leaving them with a pile of thirty. The rest of the recruits cheered their comrade on, while Reynard gave a stiff, “Good job.”

“What’s a synergy skill?” Jesca asked.

“It is a skill that is either related to or relies upon another skill, perk or trait,” Reynard said. “In this case, Arrow Replication pairs with one’s Bowyer/Fletcher perk. If you didn’t have the perk, the skill wouldn’t function. You’ll see synergized skills more-often as you reach higher tiers. This is important if you ever try to learn an off-class skill, as sometimes there may be one, or more than one, required for it. Do your research.”

Callie had deduced that synergies worked something like this, based on the description several of her perks had in relation to her racial Tinker trait. It made sense. One couldn’t Tinker-up something about plumbing if you didn’t know anything about plumbing, or at best it would take much longer to get good quality results.

Reynard looked skyward, checking the position of the sun. “We have a little less than an hour until we break for lunch. Let’s do some basic, non-magical target practice. When we return, we’ll try some castings, and then we’re joining with the Bladedancers, Bladeweavers and Duelists at the end of the day for some very basic sword practice.”

The Recruits followed their trainer over to the cart and he handed each a simple longbow and a leather quiver, filled with two-dozen arrows. He almost handed one to Callie, and then remembered there was no need, instead handing her three quivers and ordering her to set them in the shelter as spares. The arrows were nearly as long as Callie was tall, so it was awkward moving them all. Eventually, Shul’an relieved Callie, and set them where needed.

As Kaisess had only minimal archery experience, and with Thucax having none, Reynard started at the beginning, explaining the parts of an arrow, the bow and emphasizing some basic but critical safety rules. Callie wasn’t sure if this lesson was needed, due to the Advanced Archery perk’s knowledge, but Reynard walked through everything anyway, not missing a detail.

“Recruit Callie, would you demonstrate a proper shooting stance for us?” Reynard asked. “Don’t draw, just the form.”

“Uh, sure,” Callie said, remembering back to the basics of form she learned when she first took up the hobby as a little girl. Holding her bow out, she straightened her body and raised her elbow up.

“There,” Reynard said. “Hold that for now. Everyone, look closely.” The Foxkin, using one of the unused arrow shafts from the crafting session as a pointer, reviewed proper stance, arm position and everything else required. Eventually, Reynard released Callie and had the other four practice their own stances. It was old information for Shul’an, given their years as a caravan guard, but they followed along anyway, picking up a couple minor changes that would correct some less-optimal habits. Jesca also had a pretty good form, although one could tell it was largely self-taught. Quickly, between the instruction of their trainer, a few interrupting pointers from Callie, and the knowledge from their Advanced Archery perk, everyone had that basic first lesson down pat.

Next, Reynard used Shul’an to demonstrate the sequence for nocking an arrow, drawing the bowstring and finally loosing, while holding the proper stance. Lesson lectured, everyone took a position on the line, and step-by-step went through the same process, with Reynard calling out a slow cadence. With the perk playing out in their heads, it took hardly any time before even Thucax was able to draw an arrow from his quiver, nock it, and release, all in a single, smooth action. As arrows ran low for each recruit, Reynard would walk behind and replicate a fresh batch into each person’s quiver so they could maintain cadence. Callie, not needing to use an arrow, was still made to go through the motions as if she was drawing an arrow from an imaginary quiver on her back, before dropping every magic arrow into the target a short distance away.

What was super strange for Callie, and for the others, was that with Ambidexterity, she could now shoot easily using either hand. Instinctively, she still used her right, but Reynard pressed everyone to switch back and forth in order to get used to it, and encouraged continuing to do so until it became second nature. Callie simply found it weird and foreign.