1 Cylus 720 | Mathias Blackwood | The Stormlands
The group of volunteers moved slower together than they would have if they'd decided to travel alone and Mathias attributed that almost entirely to the seemingly endless amount of chatter and debate. With no clear leader in the group, the volunteers often found themselves arguing over which direction was the right one and then backtracking until they reached a familiar point to move forward from again. They stopped a few times a day to give their horses a rest and they stopped for an entire two breaks fora mid-trail meal. It didn't take Mathias more than half a break to finish his bread and water so he grabbed his bow and quiver of arrows from his horse named Hound's saddle then walked off, with his horse beside him, away from the group.
They'd stopped near an abandoned farm and set up in what must have once been the barn. Everyone was sitting somewhere in the barn eating their food so Mathias walked from the barn to the main house. He walked up the porch steps to the farmhouse and pushed open the door, craning his head in to make sure no one was around. When he was satisfied that there was nobody inside the house, Mathias shut the door and pulled the glove off his ever-glowing right hand. His eyes traced his glowing silver veins beneath his hand for a moment before he set his hand on the middle of the door. Mathias closed his eyes and focused on the wood- which his spark told him was a poorly constructed oak- and urged his spark to corrode it.
Almost immediately, Mathias's veins began to glow brighter and he felt the tingling of his ether cracking from his fingers to the door, melting his hand print into it before Mathias pulled his hand off of it. He examined the hand print which he'd melted into the door for a moment then turned his back to the door. He counted out thirty paces and then turned to face the door while pulling his bow off of his shoulder. Mathias notched one of his arrows and drew back his short-bow string, inhaling as he did so. Mathias narrowed his eyes at the target he'd made for himself.
Then he let the arrow fly.
It hit the door.
Of course it hit the door. He wasn't a child who had picked up a bow for the first time in their life to shoot at the door of an abandoned home!
However you might be lead to think that because his arrow was planted right at the bottom of the door. Mathias's face twisted. What? He looked at his bow and then pulled another arrow from his quiver. He drew the bowstring back further this time, lowering his elbow a little to a more comfortable level as he did so. Then, uncomfortable with how he'd began, he returned to a resting position with the arrow and adjusted his footing. He took a deep breath in as he drew the bowstring back and took aim at the hand print melted into the door. He'd aimed with his left eye the first time, thinking that because he held the bow in his left hand it would give him a better view. This time he aimed with his right eye, the one in line with the arrow.
With a breath out, he loosed the arrow.
It hit the door... again.
This time it hit the door just under the target and Mathias grinned slightly. He pulled another arrow from his quiver, quickly checking to see he had seven left. Ten total in this quiver and two fired into a door... one on the bow. He was stalling. Mathias performed the same motion again, aiming with his right eye but shifting his arm just a hair higher to try and correct the low shot. Then he breathed out and his finger slipped a little, firing the arrow before he was ready.
It didn't hit the door.
It hit the wall and clattered onto the floor. Mathias said a dirty word to the wind and notched another arrow. He took a breath, still slightly aggravated, and aimed at the hand print. Then he fired and hit the door too far to the right of the hand for Mathias's amusement. He laughed an angry, spiteful laugh and raised his bow as if he meant to chuck it onto the floor before he stopped and composed himself and looked at Hound who was hitched not far away. "You see what you've done? You've ruined it. Now I'll never make the shot."
Mathias walked back to the door, mostly because he wanted to collect his arrows but also because he wanted to erase the physical proof of his failures thus far. He carefully pulled his arrows from the door, finding that the soft, decaying wood did not do very much to hold them. Then he returned to his mark on the ground and looked towards the door again. The hand print remained in it's place, just as one would expect a non-sentient mark to do, and Mathias notched his arrow again, drawing back with a breath in and firing with a breath out. He repeated this process for about a break, always getting close to the mark but not quite close enough for his own satisfaction before he decided to put on the mysterious ring he'd been given during Zeilmass.
It was like a blind man putting on glasses that allowed him to see for the first time. Mathias got a headache almost immediately as his eyes compounded, allowing him to see with greater accuracy and clarity than the average man... to see like an insect in flight, absorbing and cataloging an incredible amount of visual information. It was disorienting at first, especially when shifting focus from the door to his quiver to retrieve arrows, but with slow effort Mathias managed to notch another. He drew back, looking at the target through his special eyes and the fired.
The arrow hit the mark, but not quite in the center.
It was still closer than many of his other attempts had been, and as a result more satisfying. Yet he'd hit that spot without the aid of the magical ring so what had it really changed? Well for a start he hit that spot on the first try this time, and it seemed that the arrow had flown more directly. Mathias took a few more shots, trying to zone in with the compound eyes functional but before long he had another idea. Mathias set his bow down and tried to draw his focus inwards. He called on the ether in his body and tried to focus it into his hand. At first the result was merely that his silver veins began to glow brighter but shortly after a silver sliver of glowing ether formed in the pal of his hand and that ether grew into a small javelin which Mathias held. He didn't merely want to create the projectile, he wanted to destroy the door with it. Mathias focused on how it felt to corrode the bit of the door he touched and he focused that feeling into the ether missile that formed in his hand, then he hurled it towards the door.
At the distance he was standing, he would have been luck to hit the door. He was much better with a bow than a thrown object but he had the advantage of the ring improving his sight. The ether missile struck the wall beside the door and melted away some of the material where it had crashed. It made a loud noise life lightning striking and the wall seemed to smoke softly but Mathias didn't have time to examine it before one of the other volunteers came to retrieve him. It was time to move on again, unfortunately for the training archer. Mathias slipped the ring off his finger and into his pocket before he went to retrieve his arrows with the volunteer who'd come for him.
It would be a bad idea to leave all his arrows on the road to Storm's Edge if he meant to use them there. With his arrows retrieved, he returned to Hound and gave him a quick pat before mounting the steed... and off they road.
