Ace in the Hole

Chapter Three – Overclocking

“It’s been a hard day’s night and I’ve been working like a dog…-The Beatles”

I woke up early the next morning but I felt well rested.  If I worked hard enough today, then maybe I could still get that day off.  After all that happened yesterday, I feel that I really need a day to just think through everything.

Scarlet was still asleep when I left in the morning and, in truth, I really just wanted to be alone.  I went to the Mistress to see if she knew where I could find some work today.  The Mistress is what our guild leader is known by.  She is a strange pony that always hides behind a thick cowl and is in overlooks everything that our guild does.  Everybody has to report what they are doing to her so she can keep track of how many ponies we have doing certain jobs.  She uses these records to then handout any leftover jobs to the ponies that slept in.  This keeps our guild’s presence spread throughout the city and stops other guilds from claiming territory.

“Mistress, I came to see where I could be of the most use today.” The Mistress looked at her lists, face hidden behind a cowl. ‘I wonder how she can even see anything,’ I thought, ‘with her eyes always in the darkness.’

The Mistress laughed as though she had read my mind.  It sounded more like a deep gurgling than a laugh, but that just made it that much more disconcerting.

“It seems we do have a job for you, Master Shrimp.  One you’ve never tried before. It seems that most of the usual jobs are taken, so today you will be going hunting with Gizmo.” With this, the cloaked figure of the Mistress lay back down and said nothing else.

Well I can’t say I was displeased, after all it was a break from the usual routine and its one job that I won’t feel bad about doing.  You see, hunting for us is treasonous. All of the good hunting grounds are owned and privately used by the obscenely rich.  Most of these wealthy landowners gained their riches through backstabbing and black mail. I definitely wouldn’t feel sorry for these people if they lost some rabbits from their large estates on the outskirts of town.

There is another option for hunting but nopony I’ve known has ever braved the Haunted Hollows.  The Haunted Hollows is what everypony calls the large forest outside of Bastion.  With the constant shade that the trees provide, it is always dark underneath.  This is probably what leads to all of the ghost stories told to the younger ponies and has deterred anypony from venturing in there. No, most ponies decided it was a safer bet to risk their lives poaching in the hunting grounds of the estates.

I spent a couple of minutes trying to find Gizmo, a rather small filly that was purple and had a light blue mane.  I found her asleep in one of the lofts that we use when we have a surplus of members.  We didn’t have any extra members at the moment, but I think that Gizmo was just staying there because she didn’t have that many friends.

“Gizmo let’s go.  The Mistress assigned us to go hunting today. As it’s my first time, I’m assuming that you have some experience with it?” Gizmo, who had been groggy since I woke her up, was suddenly quite excited.

“I love hunting. It gives me time alone in the woods,” Gizmo said. “Hey Shrimp, after I show you the basics, would you mind trying out one of my new inventions?”

“Sure Gizmo. What is it?” I asked.  Gizmo spent most of her free time tinkering with things which usually backfired on her.  I just hope whatever she’s got won’t kill me.

“It’s like the crossbow’s the gryphon guards have, except it automatically resets itself and has a clip for the bolts,” Gizmo said excitedly. So much for not being dangerous.

“Well let’s head out. Do you know which hunting grounds we are supposed to go to?” I asked.

“I’m guessing it’s the same one that I’ve been going to over the past month,” Gizmo replied.

“Then, by all means, lead the way.” With that we set out to hunt.

Gizmo set me up to train with a knife first.  Though she gave me constant encouragement, I couldn’t get the form right for the life of me.  I would grab the knife with my right hoof, but whenever I would lunge at the practice dummy Gizmo set up (a small stuffed sack) I would lose my balance and usually end up landing face first in the dirt.  Even though Gizmo was trying to be polite, she couldn’t help from giggling at my failed attempts. I was starting to feel bad about hunting because, if I couldn’t hit a sack, what chance did I have of hitting a moving target?

“Let’s move on to bows,” Gizmo suggested, obviously unable to stop herself from laughing anymore.  We had wasted about an hour while I fiddled around with the knife.

“Why not? I obviously have no hope with this knife,” I said throwing the knife back into the pile of practice weapons.  Gizmo handed me a small bow because it would be easier for me to pull back.  Taking the bow in one hoof and the string in another, I began the pullback. The motion of pulling the bow back felt natural to me.  Once I had the bow in position, I began lining up my shot.  After taking a moment to determine where I should aim, I let the string free and watched my shot fly. THWANG! The sound of the bow was intoxicating.  The arrow landed with a solid thud inside of the target!  I felt like cheering. I had done something right, and after a day of failure, that sure made me feel good.

“Wow, that was really good Shrimp! You got within 5 inches of the center.  That’s generally what the more experience archers achieve.  I think we’ll be sticking with the bow.” Gizmo said, obviously pleased with my performance. “Now will you please help me try out the crossbow?”

“A promise is a promise,” I replied. ‘And hopefully it doesn’t kill me.’ Gizmo handed me the contraption she had made. It was one of the crossbows that the gryphon guards carried around with some mechanical parts attached to the string and a hollow stock.

“The hollow stock is so you can insert these little boxes of bolts,” The bolts are fed back into the shooting mechanism by a spring system that detects when the string is pulled back. Oh well… I guess you don’t really care about all of this. Basically you aim and shoot, then wait a second, and the crossbow takes care of the rest for you. Go on. Try it out,” Gizmo explained.

Right. Point and shoot. Simple enough.  I took aim at the target again. At least there is a sight on this crossbow; otherwise I wouldn’t know where to aim with all this mechanical stuff attached to it.  I fired again at the target.  This time the crossbow gave a nearly silent shot and again, the shot landed in the target with a thud.  Before I finished admiring my shooting, I noticed that the bow was already ready to fire again. ‘Let’s see how many times I can hit the target,’ I thought to myself.  I emptied the five bolts that the cartridge had left into the target.

I went over to inspect my handiwork and was pleasantly surprised.  All six bolts were five inches from the center in a densely packed circle.

“Wow,” said Gizmo.  “I’d say this invention has been a success.  Let’s go get you geared up so you can do some real hunting. I’m going to continue working on this crossbow to see if I can make it work better.” I was enthralled. The woods would provide some of the time I desperately needed alone.

Gizmo geared me up with some light brown clothing (with matching saddlebags) that would help to keep me out of sight in the dim light of the forest and a map of the best places to find the rabbits I was hunting for.  I was also equipped with a short bow and a quiver with a supply of twenty arrows. Then Gizmo, handed me a small knife.  I wondered why. She had seen how awful I had been with it earlier.

Upon seeing my puzzled expression, Gizmo said, “If you don’t get a clean kill with the arrows, finish off the rabbits with this knife.  Although I know we need them to keep us fed, I hate seeing the rabbits suffer any more than they need to.”  I promised to put them out of their misery, and with that, I was off. Honestly, I didn’t even know whose hunting grounds I was intruding upon nor did I care.

‘Okay,’ I thought to myself ‘according to this map there should be a nice area up ahead where I can lay in wait for some rabbits.’ I walked as quietly as I could through the bushes both because I didn’t want to scare the animals away and for fear of being caught by some of the gryphons that patrolled this area looking for poachers.

I found a tree that overlooked the area marked on my map as a premier hunting spot.  The tree had a large overhang and branches that looked like they could support my weight. As stealthily as I could, I began climbing the tree and found a nice, thick branch that concealed me from above and gave me a good view below me.

I began waiting out the rabbits. Gizmo had told me that they only appeared at certain times during the day and I would usually have to wait for them to show up.  I had assumed this waiting time would allow me to think about what had been happening within the government over the past couple of days.  This turned out to be a false hope.  It took skill to stay on the branch without falling off and it was even more difficult for me to pull the bow back without falling over.  I spent twenty minutes practicing the form before I figured out how to use the draw weight of the bow to steady myself.  Then came the first sentry.  The gryphon was flying alone above the forest, looking lazily about for intruders like me.  I had almost forgotten all about the guards but now I realized that hunting would mean that I had to focus on the prey and the predators.  I took careful note of when the first gryphon had passed.  The same gryphon came flying through about thirty minutes later.  I wondered if it was this gryphon’s routine to do a sweep every thirty minutes.  I find in life that everyone falls into habits.  It doesn’t matter who you are, without constant vigilance you’re going to go into autopilot and stop paying attention.

I began to see rabbits fifteen minutes after I saw the sentry the second time.  If my suspicion about the guard was right, then he would probably fly overhead while I was securing the kill, but if I didn’t then the rabbits might move on and I would be without any game to bring back. ‘Better to be safe than sorry,’ I recalled one of the older mares telling me when I had almost gotten caught stealing an apple.  I guess I’ll wait another fifteen minutes and once the guard passes over, I’ll go for the kill.

Those fifteen minutes were filled with worry and doubt. 'What if the gryphon saw me earlier and is now bringing other in to help? I bet I could get one of those rabbits before he comes back around and nopony will be the wiser.’  At one point, I began to take aim at the rabbits, but stopped in fear when I heard the leaves behind me rustle.  I nearly lost my grip on the branch from the terror.  It turned out to be nothing more than the wind.  I realized that if the wind was going to scare me this bad, I would probably be stiff in terror if a gryphon opened fire on me with a crossbow.  I decided that it was in my best interests to stay put.

The gryphon passed overhead when I assumed he would, and I was grateful that I hadn’t rushed the kill but waited.  Otherwise, I might have been somebodies catch of the day.  Calm after figuring out that the gryphon had a schedule I began taking aim at one of the older rabbits that appeared to have an injured hind leg.  I abhorred the thought of killing another animal, but I needed to stay alive.  I picked the old rabbit because I figured he had less time to live and I could more easily catch him if I didn’t get a clean kill.  With my heart pounding, I readied the bow.  I cleared my mind and pictured the arrow’s flight in my mind, straight into the heart of my target. TWANG! I released the string and listened to the hiss of the arrow in its flight.  As if compelled by a sudden urge, I took another from the quiver, figuring that it would be best to get two arrows in my target.  Within a second, the second arrow was on its way.  While the rabbits were still dazed from the ambush, I began pulling more and more arrows from my quiver and sending them at different targets.  Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky and kill something.

After five arrows had been fired, the rabbits scattered in all directions and I knew that any shots I took now would be wasted.  I hopped from branch to branch on my tree to get the ground faster.  I noticed that my original target was already dead. I reached the ground and I was going to throw his corpse into my saddlebag when I noticed another rabbit, a rather plump one, pushing with all his strength to get away from me.  I grabbed the knife with my right hoof and dashed after the rabbit.  Once I got there, I grabbed him and was about to finish him when I was overcome with a feeling of nausea.  Killing this injured rabbit seemed so cold hearted that I almost left him, but then I thought about how I had just killed another rabbit and hadn’t had any qualms about that.  Also there was the promise I made to Gizmo.  With a wave of gritty resolution, I stopped the poor rabbit’s heart with the cold steel of my blade.

“Promise made, promise kept.” I said to nopony in particular. I threw the rabbit into my saddlebag, suddenly feeling very emotionally taxed.  I went back to the older rabbit and retrieved the arrows from his body.  One seemed fine while the other was bent and of no use to anyone.  I threw the older rabbits body into one of my saddlebags and went looking for the rest of my arrows.  No use letting anyone who stumbled in here know there had been poachers.  Both of the last two arrows were broken from hitting the hard ground although it appeared that I had grazed some other rabbit with one due to the small smudge of blood on the tip of one of them.

During the time it took to complete all of this, twenty minutes had passed.  I hid the broken arrows under a bush and I crept into some dense shrubs to wait for the gryphon to run his usual route. During these few minutes, I noticed a dead deer off to the side of the path.  It looked to have died of old age and I wasn’t one to pass up opportunity.  I waited for what seemed like an eternity for the gryphon to pass overhead before I could go collect my prize.   People paid extremely well for the skins of deer because, before hunting was made illegal, they had been overhunted. Their skins could be used to make nice clothing and fetched a good price in the market. I slung the deer over my back and started a slow march back to where I had left Gizmo earlier today.

When I was safe, I yelled to get Gizmo’s attention. “Gizmo! Come and see what I got today!”

Gizmo appeared from her workspace with her horn glowing and the parts of a crossbow magically levitating behind her.  After seeing me, she quickly set down the parts and ran up and hugged me.  “I’m so sorry, Shrimp,” she wailed.  “I forgot to tell you about the guard’s schedules. I was so worried you would get caught that I haven’t been able to concentrate all day.  I was so happy about the success of my crossbow that I forgot you had never been hunting before and so you didn’t know about the schedules and normally ponies don’t stay in there that long and I was so worried…” By this point Gizmo was out of breath. “I’m just so glad you weren’t caught.  I couldn’t get ANYONE else to try out my crossbow.  They were all to scared that something would go wrong…”

“It’s okay Gizmo. Seriously.  I figured out the gryphon’s schedule on my own and look what I got.” I lead Gizmo to the place where I had left the animals.  Gizmo gasped. ”How did you kill all of these, especially that deer?” I recounted my adventure out in the woods to her and Gizmo was happy to listen.

“That’s great, Shrimp.  You can keep this smaller rabbit and the deer,” she said, handing me the older of the two rabbits and the deer. “I’ll turn this other rabbit into the Mistress as your payment for using the guild’s hunting equipment,” Gizmo said in a matter-of-fact tone. “But really, this is impressive for your first time hunting.  Let’s get you out of that gear so we can go back to the guild and celebrate.”

As Gizmo helped me out of the tight hunting attire, I thought to myself.   ‘A deer and a rabbit.  Looks like someone will be taking TWO days off.’  A smile crept onto my face.   I was ready to return home with my prizes until I heard Gizmo make a choking sound.  I turned around to see what was the matter and all she could do was point at me.  What, did she just realize that I’m short or something?

Gizmo stopped gawking at me long enough to say, “Look at your flank.”

I turned my head around and noticed, to my great surprise, that my cutie mark had appeared.  The cutie mark took the shape of a barbed arrow.

I was practically radiating happiness.  I had been the one of the oldest ponies without my cutie mark (which is pretty embarrassing to say the least).  “Looks like I’m going to be hunting more often,” I said with a smirk and I ran as fast as I could back to the guild.