Basic Archery: Paul Tyndal

[O'Brien]

Eagerly, Sal walked over to his shed and picked up Crescent, his own bow. He handed it to Paul. "This, my boy," he said, even though he was hardly older than Paul, "is my prized posssesion, my bow Crescent. Yes, I did name the place after her. You'll notice Crescent, too, is a longbow." As the half-elf held the pale blue weapon in his hands, he could notice it was significantly lighter than his own longbow and, as could be expected, had a much sleeker design. This was obviously a custom-made weapon, and greatly surpassed Paul's general model in pretty much every aspect - but then again, Sal was an expert and Paul was not yet even of a basic level in the art, if it could be called that.

"She's a lot lighter than yours, sure," he continued, "and that's because she's a composite longbow. Composite bows are made of a specific combination of woods and metals to minimize weight while maximizing tensile strength as well as arrow speed, power, and distance. Basically there are four types of bows - a bow is either composite or wooden, but mind you composite bows do still have wood in them, and bows are either long or short."

Sal went back to his shed and returned with three more types of bows. "Now tell me, Paul," he began, "and I apologize that we are not shooting right away - I assure you I'm as eager as you - but you have to learn the basics, to crawl before you can walk. Anyway, Paul, I want you to tell me what you think are the advantages and disadvantages of each model of bow. Also, pick three situations in which you would use a bow, and tell me which type would be best and why. We'll get to the shooting soon enough" It was far from the first time Sal had taught such a person the very same way, and he would have patience as long as Paul did.

[Paul Tyndal]

Paul's eyes went downcast, but he revived at the thought that he was being trained by a true master. After a moment of though, he answered with a tentative and hesitant, "Wooden short bows are for short distances, but are more durable than composite short bows. Wooden and composite long bows are for higher distances and put more power into the shot than short bows, and the wooden is, again, more durable."

He looked around neriously, wondering if his answer was anywhere near correct.

[O'Brien]

OOC: My only criticism to you is to make your posts longer, and add some detail into them. Good posting is a golden touch and will get you all sorts of places in this game.

IC: It was close enough for a novice. "You are partially correct, Paul," Sal said with a curt nod, "but composite bows are in fact more durable than wooden ones, despite what you may think. Generally you would take a wooden bow hunting and a composite bow for war, but you're not likely to meet much success if you mix the two up."

Sal reached back for Crescent. "Of course, there are more than four models of bows. As you can see, Crescent has several waves to its shape, while your bow is only a single curve. For the most part such features tend to be primarily for aesthetic enhancement of the bow."

Sal sighed for a moment before returning his longbow to its position against the shed. "Now then," he continued, "the next thing we will cover is the proper position and stance for shooting. I see you already have a quiver and arrows, that's good. First tell me, Paul, are you right-handed or left-handed?" Sal paced around a bit as he spoke, living up to his reputation of being a heavy talker.

[Paul Tyndal]

(( I'll try, but that's kind of hard in certain situations.. such as answering the question of whether I'm right- or left-handed... I'm gunna model my dialouge after you, hope you don't mind. ))

"I am right handed," Paul answered quickly and confidently. Finally, a question he was sure about.

"However," he continued, "why don't you let me try to figure this one out? I have seen others shooting off arrows at a range I used to frequent, and even though I never had a chance to join them, I did pick up a few things."

"Is it anything like this?" Paul asked, getting into a stance with his feet parallel to the target, and his body swivelled towards it, bow in this left and and his right hand on the string, holding it loosely.

[O'Brien]

Before Sal could show Paul the proper stance...well, Paul basically showed it to Sal. "Very good, Paul," the archer noted, "I'm glad you know the very basics, for as you can imagine it can be tedious to teach them, and some are very slow to catch on. You're almost perfect." The human walked up behind Paul and put his large hands on Paul's shoulders. He pivoted the half-elf's upper body to be regularly aligned with his legs.

"When in the proper position, you should be standing normally with your target off to your left, like you are now," Sal instructed, "and the first step will be to turn your head to face the target. Never move your upper body towards the target if you can help it. Unless you are in combat or wielding a crossbow, there is no excuse for that."

Sal walked around in front of Paul. "You seem to have the bow well enough," he noted, "now just to make sure you've got this, I want you to relax yourself, and then get into position again." Sal watched intently, fully expecting no problems.

[Paul Tyndal]

Paul did as Sal asked, and got into the same position as before, feet parallel to the target, and his bow in his hands the same way, but he faced his upper body parallel to the target as well this time.

Eager to get on, Paul drew an arrow from his quiver, and tried to set it on his bow. However, his hand would not seem to pocket the end of the bow, and he fumbled with the arrow for a moment. After a few futile attempts, the arrow fell to the ground, and Paul's face turned a deep, crimson red. Embarassed, he bent down to pick up the arrow, and held it in his right hand, his left still on the bow.

[O'Brien]

Sal gave an exasperated sigh and seemed to even wince a bit - perhaps it gave him pain to see one handle his sport so clumsily. Paul was excited about learning, sure, but he was carelessly so. "You simply cannot rush this, Paul," he said sternly, shaking his head, "your stance is fine but archery takes time, and lots of it. If you try to charge into things like this, you won't get anywhere." With another sigh, Sal walked over to the shed, picked up Crescent and an arrow, and returned to be in front of Paul.

"Back to the learning, then. Now I will show you what you were attempting to do," he said, "which is called knocking the arrow." Sal pointed out the notch on the blunt end of the arrow, and mentioned that this area was sometimes covered by feathers or other decorations. He then demonstrated the knocking of the arrow - how the string of the bow goes down into that indentation.

"As you can see," he noted, "a good arrow fits onto the bowstring perfectly." With the string and arrow connected, he jiggled the arrow a bit in place, demonstrating how it was difficult now to remove without pulling it straight out, much like the opposite of how it had been put in.

"Once you have the arrow snugly knocked," Sal remarked with a grin, taking aim downrange at a target and firing, "you're ready to fire." As if on cue, the arrow nailed the center of the target, a perfect bull's eye.

Before Paul could do anything, Sal held up a hand to stop him. "Don't you fire yet, though," he commanded, "just stay calm this time and knock the arrow."

[Paul Tyndal]

Paul watched intently as Sal knocked his arrow, and felt a surge of excitement flow through him as he saw the bull's eye. To be taught by such a master was surely an honour not many up-and-coming archers would partake in!

Paul once again lined himself up with the target in the correct way, his entire body parallel to it. Taking his bow in his left hand, he reached around his left shoulder and brought an arrow to his bow. Taking care to do it as Sal had just shown him, he laid the arrow over the indent that his fingers formed against the long, wooden rod that was his bow. Aligning the arrow with the ground, he held it against the string of his bow, and waited, his bow pointed at the ground incase he accidently shot it off.

[O'Brien]

Sal watched and nodded confidently after Paul had knocked his first arrow. "Good, Paul," he remarked, "now you can see patience is not a very difficult thing to maintain now, is it?" He hoped he wasn't speaking too soon. Yes, everything seemed to be in order...natural though it was, Paul already seemed to have a good idea of how to fire the arrow off. Oh, but the arrow was pointed downwards. Hmm...

"Actually Paul," he noted, "I can see you're holding your bow towards the ground, no doubt for safety, but it is better that you keep it pointed downrange. Strictly speaking you'll minimize the chances of injuring someone that way, despite what you may think. Besides, if the arrow accidentally takes flight and nails the bull's eye, you can pretend it was purposeful." Sal winked, as if implying that he could get accidental bull's eyes consistently. Truthfully it would be hard even for an expert to demonstrate such effortless perfection.

"Make sure you hold the knocked arrow in place between your index finger and middle finger," he instructed, "just don't hold it too tightly that it can't go out when you want to fire it. Don't worry about that, though, 'cause you'd have to be a giant to be able to hold it that tightly."

Sal looked the half-elf over a few times before imitating his stance with Crescent. Reluctantly, he knew it was time for Paul to fire an arrow. Sal shot one of his own downrange, this time getting very close to a bull's eye, probably because of the anxiety from the prospect of Tyndal being about to shoot. "Well, Paul," he said finally, "I'd like you to shoot your first arrow. Just gently and slowly pull the string back taut, making sure you're holding the knocked arrow as I mentioned. Smoothly let go of arrow and string when it's pulled back and you'll fire. Now let's give it a try." Sal was completely ready to hit the ground, even if Paul was shooting ninety degrees away from the expert.

[Paul Tyndal]

(( Your confidence is overwhelming! Just for that, Paul's gunna be knocked off balance by a sudden wind, and the arrow's gunna impale your non-believing heart!

Not really, but I should.... ))

Paul felt his body quiver with anticipation. About to fire off his first arrow! He knew he would be lucky is he hit the ground five feet from the target on his absolute first shot, but he'd be cursed to the city if he wasn't aiming for the bull's eye.

He lifted his bow as Sal had shown him, pointing it downrange. Making sure the arrow was firm inbetween the two fingers on his left hand, he loosely held the arrow in his right hand, and pulled back.

He pulled with all his might, but he could not get the arrow to go back!

"Good God!" he exclaimed, "I never thought that getting the string to move would be so damned difficult!"

He raised his bow again, after a moment of catching his breath after his exclamation, and took a light hold on the end of the arrow.

This time, he was ready for the huge amount of force he had to put onto teh string, and pulled it back to his head, though not without substancial difficulty.

Letting loose the arrow after quickly looking down it's shaft and aiming it, he lowered his bow and checked his shot.

Even though the arrow had landed ten feet away from the target, Paul felt an amazing sense of accomplishment.

He quickly knocked another arrow, though it was also done carefully, and pulled back on the string once more. "This gets easier with time," Paul thought, letting loose his second arrow.

This time, his shot hit the target, even though it did not stick.

"Bull's eye!" he shouted, leaping in the air.

[O'Brien]

Sal quivered (no pun intended) with aggravation at watching his pupil so clumsily handle the archery process. In the back of his mind he had hoped Paul's hastiness was because he knew more of the art than he was letting on, but these thoughts were now dead and gone. Despair wagged its tongue at Sal mockingly as Paul's first arrow took flight. While the Paxian did not get frustrated by failure alone, the half-elf's altogether maladroit performance made Sal bury his face in his hands and wonder, "Why me?" How could things get any worse?

Well, however they did, they did indeed get worse. Before Sal could wearily hold up a palm to dissuade Tyndal from firing another arrow, the half-elf had already rapidly grabbed and knocked his next one, and heralded this shot as a bull's eye. Impatience kicked despair in the crotch and began flaunting itself instead. "That wasn't a bull's eye, you daft pid," he cried out, "that was -- it...I - argh! Come back next brightening, Paul, I need some time to cool down, you need some time to relax a bit, and I want to teach you with another student anyway that's at the same level as you. I'll see you tomorrow."

Without another word, the expert archer ushered Paul off of his facility, not specifically looking forward to the half-elf returning the following brightening to continue training.