Back in his room, Floris started emptying his backpack of all the herbs and other plants he had collected on his journey to Arrowhead Loch. He carefully placed each and every herb where they belonged in the desired chest and started writing down notes of how many he had collected. Unfortunately, he hadn't collected anywhere near enough herbs to completely restock his chests; judging by his calculations, he would need to make another twelve trips to Arrowhead Loch to completely restock on resources.
"Great! The village is out of food and I'm out of alchemy supplies! This is not good timing; I don't have the time for this!" Floris frustratedly thought. With a heavy sigh, he grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulders, "I might as well make another trip out there. Maybe I can catch a break this time and actually bring something of use back to the village."
He restocked his arrows, grabbed his bow and his walking stick, and made his way out the front door of his house. But before he could make it very far, he heard a familiar voice calling his name.
"Floris! Floris, wait up!"
Floris turned around to see the only other boy in the village running towards him.
"Alvis? What do you want? I'm busy right now." Said Floris.
Alvis was the only other child in the village and Floris' one and only friend. He was a little taller than Floris with short messy blonde hair, green eyes, but had a more muscular build and the armor he wore had thicker padding. But unlike Floris, he didn't hide his identity by wearing something around his face.
Alvis bent over his knees as he tried to catch his breath. He had been running for quite a while by the looks of things, but whatever he was needing to tell Floris must've been pretty important. He took some time to catch his breath, then looked up at Floris with an excited grin, "I just spotted that buck we've been trying to track down for the past several days. I think I found where he's living."
The thought of going back to Arrowhead Loch suddenly vanished from Floris' mind and he gave Alvis his undivided attention, "You sure it's the same one?"
Alvis nodded, "Without a doubt. Are you still too busy, or do you want another shot at this deer?"
Floris narrowed his eyes, "Take me to him."
Alvis smiled and nodded and started leading the way to where he last saw the deer.
After traveling through the swamp for a while, Alvis led Floris to a place the villagers called Sunlit Shore. It was an area similar to Arrowhead Loch in that it was a large clearing from the swamp and a good area for animals to graze. Its name came from the millions of tiny glittering rocks that littered the shore. During certain times of the year, the light the rocks emitted was almost blinding yet beautiful at the same time. Floris, however, rarely ever came here. There was a distinct lack of herbs he could use, making the area next to useless for him. However, Sunlit Shore was not as dangerous as Arrowhead Loch. The glittering stones made it an unattractive place for some animals during warmer times.
The two hunters ducked down into some tall grass behind the hanging vines of the towering swamp trees and Alvis pointed to a bunch of bushes next to a hollowed-out fallen tree trunk, "That's where I saw him. He's hiding inside the log." Alvis whispered to Floris.
Floris nodded and started thinking of a plan. First, he needed to know if the buck was still in there. He signaled for Alvis to wait where he was so he could move through the brush more quietly without alerting the buck. He crawled on his belly to an area where he could see inside the log and could see that the buck was sleeping inside. Normally, this would have been an easy shot, but the buck had chosen his home well. The log had collapsed to a point that it would be next to impossible to hit him from behind with an arrow and one hitting the log would make a loud enough noise he'd run out in a flash. However, Floris had had enough of this animal getting away from him; it was time for this buck to die one way or another.
Floris crawled back to Alvis on his belly with a few stones in hand. His original plan was for one of them to strike the log with an arrow, scaring him out, and the other would shoot him when he was escaping. However, he didn't want to risk one of them missing the shot. They were both expert marksmen, but deer jumped around at random when they were trying to escape from danger; he wanted both arrows ready to fly when he left the log.
"What are the stones for?" Alvis whispered.
"You'll see. Just get your bow ready." Floris answered. He stood up to his knees, readied his bow and arrow, then started chunking the stones at the log.
Thunk!
Thunk!
Thunk!
There was a loud rustling noise and the buck shot out of the log like a flash of lightning. The two hunters took their aim and let their arrows fly. Alvis' arrow went high and into another bush, but Floris' arrow went straight into the neck. Before the deer even had a chance to react, it fell to the ground dead. The two hunters smiled excitedly and ran to collect their prize.
"Dang, Floris, that was one hell of a shot!" Alvis said as he pointed to the arrow in the deer's neck, "You can't make a much cleaner shot than that. Right in the neck."
Floris nodded in thanks but didn't waste any time in getting to business, "Let's not waste any time here. The last deer I had a try at was stolen from me by a giant Swamp Lizard. Let's get this guy back to the village before something else comes along."
"Alright. Let me find my arrow and I'll help you carry the body." Alvis said. He started for the direction the arrow went but stopped when he heard loud squealing and saw the brush moving around frantically. "Uh-oh...I know that sound." He started to slowly back away to Floris, who had already drawn his bow.
The noise came closer and closer until the creature finally came into view. It was a bull Swamp Boar and Alvis' arrow was sticking out of its side. It stood at a height that rivaled that of the two boys and had four tusks sticking out as long as a man's arm. It snarled and waved its head around, giving all the indications that it was ready for a fight.
Floris slowly turned his head to look at Alvis and gave him a very unamused look with his eyes.
Alvis threw his hands up defensively, "Well, don't blame me!"
"I blame you! Of all things for you to accidentally shoot, it couldn't have been a squirrel?!" Said Floris with a very unamused tone. He sighed heavily and reached for one of the poisons on his belt, "Well, you know the drill."
"What?! Now, wait a minute! Why am I the one who always does the hard work?!" Alvis asked.
Floris reached inside his cloak and handed Alvis a journal, "Here. Read this."
Alvis stared at the journal with a blank face, then looked at Floris again, "You know I can't read!"
Floris nodded and put the journal back in his cloak, "And that's why you're the one who does the hard work."
Alvis growled for a moment, then stomped his way over to the boar, "Hey! Fatso! Your mother was a piglet!"
The boar focused its attention on Alvis and started charging at him and Alvis started running around randomly to distract it from Floris.
With the boar distracted, Floris quickly climbed up a nearby tree and started applying poison to one of his arrows. Boar hide was thick and a single arrow wasn't going to cause any kind of fatal damage, and arrows fired from ground level usually just bounced off a boar's armor-like skull. The only way to take them down was to aim for the spine. Unfortunately for Alvis, however, poisons took a while to apply to anything.
"Feel free to jump in any time, Floris!" Alvis shouted from the ground below as he ran for his life.
"Oh, you're doing fine. He seems to like you." Floris taunted back as he continued applying the poison to his arrow.
"Yeah, lucky me!" Alvis shouted as he darted to his left, making the boar charge into a small boulder, making it squeal one of the most terrifying sounds either of them had ever heard from a Swamp Boar. Alvis looked up at Floris for a moment before he started running again, "This isn't as fun as it looks! Hurry up, Floris!"
Floris watched the boar from atop the tree branch and readied his arrow. He waited for Alvis to lead the boar in a circle to him, then let the arrow fly straight into the soft skin of the boar's back. The arrow sank into the boar's spine, and it collapsed to the ground and slid a short distance before the body came to rest.
Alvis bent down on his knees as he tried to catch his breath and watched as Floris jumped from the branch and landed on the ground, "Okay...that's enough excitement for me today."