They were finally at their destination. So, the first thing first was to get the lay of the land, which she did by checking out where they would be ambushing the carriage.
And what she found was…
A road.
Well, there wasn't really much to it was there? It was a well-trodden dirt road, consisting of footprints, wheel tracks and horseshoe prints in both directions scattered everywhere. It looked very busy but given it hadn't rained for a while the prints could be a few days old. Plus, when she looked either way, Olivia couldn't see anyone coming along it. And she could see a good distance down the road.
On either side of the road was the forest, where it was denser on her side and began to get sparser on the other. Trees lined the whole edge on either side which meant she should get some use out of the axe as she thought.
But first, other preparations were needed. There was no point in cutting a tree down now to stop a carriage, as it wasn't until tomorrow that it would be coming. All that would do if done now, is just cause a lot of problems for those on the road, and then they may get found out.
So, they retreated a little bit back into the forest, finding a partially open area to use. It was the best they could do but they still ended up with their tents over a few root systems.
With the camp set up, they got down to building up their ambushing supplies.
"Okay, Philly can you put together some of the bottles with that mucus and the explosive powder, as well as some with just the mucus," Olivia said to the girl in question.
"How much should we use?"
"I don't know how useful it is outside of being something to throw. Use about half of the jar then we can see how many we have. Then we can see if we want to keep any of the mucus rather than use it all."
"What should I do?" Lyrika asked eager to help.
Olivia looked over at her and wondered what she could do. She was sure that when it came to the ambush, she would need Lyrika's skill as an archer to either distract the guards or take them down. The problem was that in taking them down, she didn't want to get them killed. And firing an incredibly sharp arrow at someone might cause that to happen. So was there something she could use instead?
As she then looked around the area for some inspiration, she saw lots of stones littering the floor. The first thought was that they were fine for ammunition for the slingshot should they stop using the bottles of mucus Philly was making. But then, a second thought entered her head.
Blunted arrows.
They would very much be makeshift blunted arrows, and probably wouldn't be as good as ones made of metal, but finding some way to blunt the arrows meant it would be similar to using stones in a slingshot. It was possible that you could just attach a stone to the end of it, but she couldn't see it being easy to keep it tied on the end. So, if stone wasn't the way to go, what about wood?
"Do you think you could make blunted arrowheads? They won't be as lethal as the arrowheads you have now, but should still do some damage. It might even daze them if you hit their helmet."
"Huh. I don't see why not. I have heard of them being used to stun animals when you hunt them. A few of the arrows have metal heads, but for the ones which are just a sharp point on the wooden shaft, I should be able to…add some wood to the end of it. Can I have your axe?"
Handing it over, Lyrika headed over to a nearby tree where after some careful inspection, hacked off a few branches. She then proceeded to cut the branch into chunks and then spent time chipping away at the wood, making it more aerodynamic.
So, while the girls were off doing their parts, Olivia got to work making her creation. Taking the vine, leather and one of the Y branches she went ahead with creating the slingshot.
The people at the tannery were nice enough to gouge some holes into the leather, so she got to work threading the vine through them. First, she cut it in half, and passed one half through the corner hole, sending it behind the leather and then passed it through the other corner. She then did the same at the bottom of the leather with another vine.
Next came a bit of whittling. The only thing she had that could do the job was her knife, so, she got started on the holes. She poked two holes on each end of the Y branch, but only got so far with the knife given its width. She could make a great big hole, but that could stop the vine from sitting in the hole snuggly. So she looked elsewhere.
So, after some searching, she managed to find a long rock that she tried to grind down against another, but that hardly helped. This whole thing was a long and slow process, and if she was going to make another one of these, she would definitely look to getting some proper tools. For now though, she made do with what she had, even taking one of Lyrika's arrows, annoying the girl a bit, but she did manage to break through each of the holes.
With the four done, she then passes the vines through and spent some time fiddling with the lengths for a bit, trying to get a good starting length for the vine to how far and taught it could stretch. It took a while, but she managed to get the ends of the vines the same length and a good resting length that gave a powerful shot when pulled. She tied them off a couple of times in order to secure them, and once she did all four she help up her masterwork in all its glory.
And to Olivia, that's what it was.
It was also the first slingshot in this world, as far as she knew. With the girls not having a clue about it, only knowing about a sling, she had actually invented it. We'll sort of.
Now though, came the testing.
Getting up she grabbed a few stones she found on the floor and stood a few meters from a tree.
By this point, Lyrika had made a few blunt wooden arrowheads, which she had then forced onto the pointed ends of her arrows. After that, she went for some target practice against a tree in order to deal with any problems the additional weight caused.
Olivia with her slingshot didn't really know about any specific stances to use when firing the slingshot, so she decided to follow what Lyrika did, standing sideways to the target. With the stance taken care of, she took firm hold of the slingshot, she placed a pebble in the leather pouch, pulled back, took aim and then fired.
"…"
Rustle
Well, she wasn't a marksman or anything. But, while she missed the tree by a long way, it definitely had some distance. The rustle was a result of it slowly dropping as it moved and then hitting the ground covered in leaves. It was almost silent, it being that far away.
But while distance was good, and likely meant it was a powerful shot, she really needed to get her accuracy right and hit a tree to see how well it worked.
Taking aim again, she tried to figure out how the way you held it and positioned the slingshot would affect where it ends up. It took a dozen or so shots, but she started to make some headway in terms of accuracy.
All in all, she knew she needed to make another for herself.
…
"Is that the slingshot thing you were talking about," Lyrika asked as she came over taking a break from her archery practice. Not using typical arrowheads you couldn't see them all sticking out of a tree or anything to see how on point she was. But, the dents and chips in the bark told her how well she had done. It had taken her a few tries in order to deal with the additional weight, so now she decided to take a break to whittle several more blunt heads.
Which is when she heard the thinks of stone against wood and headed on over to see what she was doing while she got to work.
"Yeah. It's not bad right? Quick, simple, and compact. Might not do as much damage as an arrow going through someone, but if you need to hit someone at range and arn't a marksman or don't have a bow, this would be a good thing to have."
"Can I have a go," Lyrika asked as she put the arrow shafts to the side.
Handing it over, Lyrika gave it a shot. Being the archer that she was, and the technique Boeing quite similar, it was no surprise that she managed to hit the tree in her first shot. A tree that was several meters away mind you. I made a massive dent and snapped some of the bark off.
"It's good. I'd probably still you a bow, but if I ran out of arrows having this would be a godsend."
With Lyrika's approval of the new toy, this meant she needed to get some more leather pouches commissioned and grab some more vines.
She fired a few more shots at the tree, getting a feel for it. The last shot she fired though for some reason ended up making a much larger sound than all the others. If anything, it sounds like a small explosion.
"What was…Philly!"
With it sounding like an explosion, it could only be something to do with the explosive powder Philly was using. So, with worry on their face, they ran back to the clearing all the while hoping that Philly was all right.