Sebastian got up the next day determined to find out if he could enchant more than one arrow at a time. Spending most of yesterday with Sarah while she studied had actually been rather refreshing, which rather surprised him, since normally he found spending extended amounts of time with pretty much anyone rather tedious. Who knows? I might actually like her company enough to call her a friend. Lord wouldn’t that be weird. He thought wryly, before turning his thoughts back to his pile of arrows.

He hoped that since he wanted to put the exact same enchantment on each one, it would apply the enchantment to every arrow he was touching while he casted it. As such he had laid out the arrows side by side in two rows, one for each hand. He only had twenty of them, but with the fletching and arrowheads on them he couldn’t really fit more than that under his hands anyways. He took a deep breath. Here goes nothing.

He focused his mind on the effect he wanted the arrows to have, it was actually more complicated than the bow by far, and he had to be careful it couldn’t activate unexpectedly. Once he was absolutely sure he had it perfect, he firmly planted his hands across the rows of arrows, making sure he was physically touching all of them. The moment the enchantment started to take hold was unbelievable agony. Far worse than anything else he had enchanted so far, white hot agony flooded his mind. His vision went dark and the world went silent as his mind seemed unable to process anything other than the pain. His body was locked in place while he was lost in a world that consisted solely of pain.

When he came to after finally passing out, he found himself on the floor of the workshop, surrounded by arrows covered in faint delicate filigree. Well it worked I guess. Never doing that ever again though. He was almost afraid to try and move, but was surprised when he tried and found what felt like very little lingering pain. Of course, that could just be because anything lingering couldn’t possibly compare to that hellish nightmare I just went through. Pretty sure I could try and dance with two broken legs and not feel that much pain.

Sebastian raised his hand to run it through his hair out of habit, but froze halfway there. What the fuck is that?! He screamed in his head as he looked at his hand. His hands, and he raised his other one to confirm it looked the same, had developed what looked like scar tissue. Faint, intricate scars that seemed to flow along his fingertips and about an inch onto the back of his hand and palm.

He hesitantly touched his left hand with the right one. It felt like normal, unblemished skin. Bringing them closer to his face, he saw that it wasn’t actually scars at all, it looked more like that part of his skin was just missing the color. As far as he could tell, it was only a visual change, everything felt normal. It terrified him all the same. Is it because I did too much at once? Will it go away? Will it spread? Is it dangerous? Should I mention it, or hide it?

After a while he decided that he would hide it for now, if it didn’t go away, or started to spread, he would bring it to Owdel and find out if he knew what it was. Naturally as soon as he came to that decision, Owdel walked into the room. Of all the bloody luck, I nearly kill myself, pass out on the floor for gods know how long, wake up with crazy magic patterns on my hands, and now the person I decide to keep in the dark about it for now walks in.

Owdel didn’t seem to notice Sebastian’s distress, he just looked over at him and said, “I thought I told you that you shouldn’t sleep up here? What’s with the mess?” He looked at the scattered arrows, “Enchant all those at once? That was pretty foolish, but impressive all the same, I wouldn’t have figured you had the mana to do that many at once.”

Sebastian grimaced, “I don’t think I did, have the mana that is, that was more painful than any hell I could have ever imagined.”

Owdel nodded sagely, “Congratulations on surviving then, lesson learned I suppose? Don’t try to enchant a pile of things at once?” then he turned away to continue with whatever it was he had been working on.

Sebastian just shook his head and started collecting his fallen arrows, checking each one for damage as he did so, and confirming that each had been enchanted properly. As he was about to leave, Owdel turned his head towards him, “Oh, did you want to test those out boy? I’ll admit to some curiosity about what you’ve managed to cook up, and I’m taking the girl out to the fields to let her practice some larger, more destructive spells later. You can accompany us if you want.”

Sebastian thought it over, he probably should test it, he didn’t care for having to go outside the walls to do so, but he knew it would be rather unsafe to fire magic arrows in the town. “Yea I suppose, better than trying to go outside by myself to test it anyways. Just gotta grab some things first.”

Owdel nodded, “Just meet us by the gate around noon.” Then he turned back to his work, throwing a dismissive wave over his shoulder at Sebastian.

After he had all the arrows, he stopped and grabbed his bow, then left the tower. The first order of business was a pair of gloves. Which, now that he actually thought about it, might turn out to be a rather miserable experience. Sarah’s mother, the one that was likely less than happy to lose her future apprentice and successor, was the only real professional seamstress in town. Oh well, maybe it won’t be so bad? Not like I really have a choice, she’s probably the only one that might have something on hand, everyone else would have to take measurements and make them on the spot, which would make it rather hard to be at the gate by noon.

Trying not to expect the worst as he walked into her shop, he greeted her cordially, “Hello ma’am, I was hoping you might have a pair of gloves on hand that would fit me.” He winced slightly. That was terrible. Gloves on hand? Seriously?

She wasn’t looking his way at first, focusing on whatever it was she was in the middle of stitching. She hit a point where she could stop after a minute, and turned to face him, smiling, “Why, Sebastian! What a pleasant surprise! I was so happy to hear that you decided to spend more time with my Sarah!” She leaned towards him conspiratorially, “Just between me and you, I think she might be getting a bit of a crush on you.” She stood straight again and her voice was suddenly as cold as ice, “If you take advantage of that and break her heart I will break your everything.” Then in a normal, friendly tone again, “Gloves are right over there, sweetheart, feel free to take any pair you like, consider it my thanks for being Sarah’s friend when she needed one.” Then she turned back to her work.

Sebastian was shocked, and stood there for a moment gaping at her. Then he decided that it would be most prudent to pick out a pair of gloves, and get as far from this lady as he can before her personality changes again. He found a nice pair made from a supple black leather that fit wonderfully, and still uncertain about the entire interaction he just experienced, he held them up towards her and asked just to be certain, “These ones fit great, are you sure I can just have them?”

“Yes, yes, its fine, have a nice day hon.” She said without turning from her work.

Sebastian shuddered as he made his way to the gate, it hadn’t been much before noon when he came to from his little misadventure, and he was supremely grateful that his interaction with Sarah’s mother had been so blessedly short. For more than one reason. That woman is bloody terrifying.

He made it to the gate at almost the same time as Owdel and Sarah, and was surprised when he saw the small contingent of guards that were clearly preparing to escort them. Then he saw the guard captain walk over to stand by Owdel, and realized that the guards were probably because letting the town’s wizards and guard captain go out near the woods unescorted would be pretty stupid. He certainly wouldn’t complain about having people along to stand in between him and anything that wanted to eat him.

Once he joined them, Owdel gestured for them to head out with a wave. Sarah walked up next to Sebastian and asked him, “Did something happen? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

He looked at her for a moment, “No, no ghost. Probably worse than any ghost.” He waved a newly gloved hand, “I needed a new pair of gloves, so I stopped by your mother’s shop a little bit ago.” He hesitated a moment, “Have you talked to her recently?”

Sarah turned bright red. “Oh no, no, no, mother you didn’t!” she whispered, not realizing that Sebastian could still hear her.

Sebastian grinned at her distress, “Well that answers that question I guess.” Sarah turned even brighter red.

“Uh, can we, erm, can you, can you forget anything she may have said?” Sarah managed to get out.

Sebastian rather wanted to do precisely that, but this was a golden opportunity, “That depends, why would she think you have a crush on me, and what did she mean by she would ‘break my everything?’” The absolutely horrified expression on her face was too much for him and he started laughing so hard he nearly fell over.

She elbowed him in the side, hard, and hissed, “Jackass!” then folded her arms across her chest in irritation.

Sebastian decided to let it end there, figuring that you shouldn’t get someone too annoyed at you right before they start practicing more destructive magic than normal. I needed that though, after such a terrible start to my day, that was the perfect remedy. He worked to get himself under control, but he couldn’t banish the smile from his face.

Sarah pouted most of the way there, while Sebastian got lost in thought. His mind had wandered off on ideas for other weapons, preferably ones that wouldn’t require him to suffer an eternity of pain to make ammunition for, ideas for defensive enchantments, and due to the late summer heat, ideas for enchantments that make him more comfortable.

He jumped when Owdel clamped a hand on his shoulder, “Well boy? Show us what your mighty stick thrower can do, we are all trembling in our boots in anticipation.” He deadpanned, “Is this close enough to the treeline, or do we need to be closer?”

Sebastian realized they made it a surprising distance while he was lost in thought, they were just barely outside bowshot of the woodline. Normal bows, anyways. He thought smugly. “No, this is fine. Might be closer than we need to be actually.” He looked around for a second, just now realizing something, “Err, can I borrow an arrow?” he sheepishly asked the closest guard. As the guard looked pointedly at the quiver full of arrows Sebastian had, he explained further, “Mine are magical, and it wasn’t particularly easy to make them magical, so I would prefer not to waste any on ranging shots. I just forgot to pick up some normal ones, I, err, got distracted.” He glanced at Sarah.

The guard smirked, clearly getting the wrong impression there, but handed him a couple arrows nonetheless. Sebastian thanked him and nocked one, took aim at the treeline along a much shallower arc than the guards expected, and loosed it. The guards all watched, astonished, as the arrow soared faster and farther than it had any right to, and sinking into the trunk of one of the trees. Sebastian nodded to himself and turned to the guard that had handed him the arrows, “Mind if I use this second one too? That hit higher than I meant it to.” The guard just nodded, still staring at the arrow embedded in the tree it shouldn’t have been able to hit. The second shot landed right where Sebastian wanted it to go, and he decided that it was time to use a real one.

“To be entirely honest, I’m not totally sure what will happen,” he said, holding one of the magic arrows, “I mean, I know what it’s supposed to do, but it wasn’t something I could test in the tower.” That at least got Owdel to raise an eyebrow, the workshop was very well protected against magical experiments, he made sure of it, checking the wards daily.

Sebastian took a deep breath, then grinned and nocked the arrow, swiftly drawing it back. On a whim he decided to challenge himself a little, since it had been a while since he did any archery, he nodded at the guard that had lent him the arrows before, “Call a target.”

The man grinned at him, familiar with this game, he would call something and Sebastian had to find it and fire within two seconds, a miss was penalized. Kids usually had to take a punch from the caller if they missed, adults sometimes did that too, but usually played for drinks. It was a pretty good way to practice shooting under pressure, and the bow was essentially the only weapon Sebastian had ever been any good with, so he had played the game often. “From the one you hit first, three left, two deep, second knot from the ground.”

Sebastian found it and loosed his shot, impressed with the man’s eyesight, most would call an entire tree from this distance, not a specific part of the tree. The enchantment on the arrows was really only complicated when it came to the trigger he had to put in it. It first activated when it was nocked, after it activated, any violent impact with the arrowhead would trigger the dangerous part of the magic. Sebastian had set the amount of impact it would take to trigger it somewhat high to be safe. He didn’t want to have one go off if he dropped it after all. As a result, he was mostly hoping that the test arrow would actually activate, and not just look like any other arrow.

He realized that he hadn’t foreseen some of the side effects his enchantment might have. He expected the tree to catch fire, since the enchantment on the arrow made it absorb all the thermal energy in a two-foot radius on impact. He had figured that would be more than enough to set fire to the arrow and whoever or whatever it was inside of. The part he had neglected to think of, was that in taking the thermal energy out of its surroundings, it took it from the tree.

They all stared in shock as the arrow hit the tree, froze a four-foot diameter chunk of it, then promptly exploded as the sheer amount of thermal energy it was flooded with overwhelmed it. The tree trunk shattered and sent slivers of frozen wood chunks everywhere, followed by a wash of flames that rippled outwards for five to ten feet, scorching moss off of the nearby trees.

In the silence that followed the unexpected explosion Sebastian heard the guard next to him say, “You missed.” As he turned to face him, his eyes widened in surprise right before a colossal fist crashed into his face. The next thing he knew he was on the ground, the man leaned over him and shrugged, “You were close though. Maybe next time.” He offered Sebastian a hand up. The other guards looked rather nervous, probably because one of them had just decked a mage.

Sebastian shrugged, “A calls a call. Maybe next time.” They all relaxed at that. He noticed Owdel looking at him funny, but the mage didn’t say anything. He had a weird urge to fire another one, but resisted. He didn’t want to waste them, since he didn’t want to have to make more any time soon.

Owdel turned to Sarah, “Well girl, time we get started.”