Timestamp:
Season of Spring, Day 24, 510 AV
Sea of Grass, Cyphrus
Afternoon
Season of Spring, Day 24, 510 AV
Sea of Grass, Cyphrus
Afternoon
His quarry was up ahead.
The Benshira was on his stomach amidst a clump of reeds, peering between the thin stalks at his target. He had found the rabbit's den a while back, and had since taken a guess at which direction it might have gone in based on what few tracks he could identify. Tracking had never been his forte.
As luck would have it, though, he had been right. This hare was particularly large, and it was preoccupied with feasting upon an apparently tasty clump of grass.
Griffith had had the presence of mind to keep his head down. He had also loaded his sling with one of those lead bullets before he had even tried to crawl closer.
Now he was in a position where he was relatively certain that if he tried to hit the rabbit, he might pull it off.
Might. He was more successful at translating tomes than he was at this business of hunting down small animals and selling their bodies for a few gold-rimmed mizas.
Now he waited. The rabbit finished nibbling on a length of grass and looked up, checking its surroundings for danger. The Benshira froze where he lay, deliberately avoiding eye contact with the creature when its eye tilted in his direction. Finding nothing alarming, the hare turned back to its meal.
Now! Griffith rose, sling already in motion as it looped to his right. He released one of the fingerholds, letting the metallic orb the pouch should have contained fly.
But nothing happened. No ammunition flew, and the Benshira stared as the rabbit took off, effectively escaping.
He stood there for a long moment, glaring at the limp weapon. Then he turned around, slowly. There, on the ground, where he had lain only a moment before, was the lead bullet.
Griffith suppressed the urge to release a scream of impotent rage at himself for making such a stupid error. He bent down and scooped the sphere up, fuming silently as he tucked it into a belt pouch where he kept all of the ammunition for his sling.
It had slipped out as he'd crawled. In his care not to alert the rabbit, he'd neglected to check. And as a result... this. He was about as good with the traditional weapon of his people as he was at hunting: outright incompetent.
He walked back to where his horse waited for him, tethered to a tree as it was, and set about packing his sling into the saddlebag set aside for it. Once done, he untied the horse and led it back to Riverfall.