Jester’s Paradise - Chapter 4 An Attemp

Putting on a glove, Cas feels like his fingers can still breathe and inspects the gloves a little bit closer. Clearly threaded together, looking handmade, they have a grey-black color, and a nice little design in the middle.

Cas, tracing his fingers with his open hand over the logo, a neatly written T with an ouroboros around it, seemingly engraved into the glove. “These are…?” he asks.

“Target Gloves. Put both on and say Bind.”

Listening to her, he puts on the other one on and speaks. “Bind..”

Feeling a prick on his finger, he looks down and sees the Target Gloves turn a dark, blood red color. Which he assumes means it has absorbed a little bit of blood. Looking to Levie, she says “They’re now Bound to you. That means two things. One: You can’t have a refund.” She says proudly, smirking before continuing “And Two: They’re solely yours. No one else can use them. You can change their shape, texture, etc, but they will retain the same hardness and always be wrapped around your fingers. More of a visual thing.”

Not waiting for Cas to ask any more questions, she continues with “They’re called Target Gloves because by tapping the T on the back after binding, they can listen to two commands.” Floating away, she queues me to follow and continues while walking towards the Range. “One of the commands, Weight, is to add weight to the Gloves. For example: Weight – 5. By saying the command and then the Index up to 300, you can add difficulty to the simplest of tasks. Which, by the way, is a form of training you will be required to do in the future.”

Moving on, Levie leads into the Range. Instead of the giant range with multiple people Cas expected, it’s divided into individual rooms encased with metal. No size manipulation. Inside of the rooms, there’s an elevator that takes you down 3 possible levels..

While getting in the elevator and tapping on the 4, Levie finishes her explanation. “And Target. Saying ‘Target’ after touching the T will materialize 3 golf ball sized floating objects. You can move them however you’d like in the air or on the ground, but they will stay in the position you put them. One you move them to where you’d like, say ‘Lock On’ and they’ll unfold into targets.”

Finally, as the elevator opens, she says her finishing statement. “And to get everything back to normal, just say Reset.” Nodding towards me, she floats back and forth, playing around with her power looking as if she’s on waves while moving forwards.

Moving into a stainless white hall with Vases and Flowers, Levie says “Room, Fold”.

Expecting nothing to happen, the room that was full of miscellaneous things empties, leaving white everywhere except the Grey colored elevator, leaving Cas a little shocked. He’d heard about technology on this level, but had never seen it in real life. They’re normally only in closed off areas.

“Try it.” she says, not even looking at me.

“Alright.”

Touching the T, it lights up from the dark blood red, to a nice, smooth white contrasting nicely with the rest of the glove.

“Target.”

Three objects, black in color, looking like 20 sided Dice float out of the ouroboros on the glove float into the air, sticking neatly in the air directly where he was standing. Without waiting for her to say anything, he grabs them and walks forward a little bit.

“Room, Markings.” Levie says, glancing at his actions.

On the floor, markings (obviously) appear like a Ruler, except only one every Yard and Foot. Instead of them all being the same color, a yellow highlight was around the 5th Yard, 9th Yard, 12th, etc. Placing the Targets the same level as his shoulders, he left them on 5, 12, and 18. It looked a little off, but he liked it. Jogging a little back to the position before the Ruler starts, Cas look towards the Target Gloves and say “Lock On.”

Unfolding a few too many times for comfort, 3 black and white targets appear, looking slick. Cas walks up to the first target and inspects it a little bit, and it’s the same as the normal archery targets he’d seen online. The only difference was the color scheme, 10 or so Circles, with black on the outside and it gets brighter as it comes in. with an angelic white as the Bulls eye.

Turning to Levie, who’d been having his new Bow float by her side as she did some random task by the side, she flicks her finger and along with the bow comes a Quiver with 20 arrows. Apparently it came with the purchase of the bow, but any more being bought would be quite expensive.

Seeing how he had everything ready, Cas takes a stance that he’d seen before, with his left hip a little forward, feet positioned correctly, and the Bow in his left hand and knocking it with his dominant hand, the Right.

Rubbing his thumb on the arrow between my fingers, Cas does a full draw with his right hand just by my ear, feeling the pressure he’s putting on the String before adjusting his aim, trajectory, and holding position a little bit. Albeit, while doing so he messed himself up a little bit. Towards what he saw as the middle of the 5 Yard Target

Whoosh

Savoring the sound of the arrow flying, Cas hears the dull thud of the arrow. Opening his eyes further, instead of seeing it on the target piece, it landed on the outer rims of the target, just barely holding on. Feeling quite upset, he thought about what happened.

Instead of holding it by his ear, he could draw it right below his eyes so as to see the trajectory more accurately, as he was acutely aware of what he THOUGHT would happen to the arrow due to where he was aiming.

Changing his posture, he shot again. With his arrow right under the eye, he noticed how unsteady his hand was. Nasty.

Whoosh

And again, he adjusts a little bit.

Whoosh

And again…

Whoosh

Whoosh

Whoosh

Shooting back to back, he changes something a little bit every time until he find a level of comfort in a certain stance. Shooting about 4 arrows ever minute, and seeing how he’d gone through 2 Quivers of arrows (by collecting once), he’d spent around 10 or so minutes just finding a comfort zone.

Feeling that searing pain in his right arm, and a little stiffness in his left, he was about to Reset his targets when Levie speaks up.

“Don’t leave until shooting 100. Best not to leave unfinished.”

Feeling a little bit of annoyance at her statement, Cas almost talks back before remembering how she flung around those items, and thinking that she couldn’t have gotten where she was without a good work Ethic.

So, he shoots once more.

Whoosh

Whoosh

Whoo…

– – – – – – –

Whoosh.

‘That’s… one hundred.’

Letting his right arm droop, Cas was ready to cry. He’d worked out on occasion by that was just running and a few (10) push-ups and sit-ups before deciding that was enough. Not to mention his lack of dieting. Though, he does love Apples.

Putting the Quiver and Bow on his back, he feels phantom pains around his body due to the mental fatigue of focusing all 100 shots just to improve a little bit. Though, he does feel a certain level of connection with his bow and a very, very small one with the arrows in the Quiver.

“So, can I go now?”

Levie, looking at him with a little bit of approval for his 30 minutes of hard work, responds “Good, I’ve been waiting. How do you think I’d work the Register if I was here all day?” Not faltering once before she walks towards the elevator.

Cas, who was walking with an aching body paused at that statement, thinking ‘How would she work at the register while I was down here?’ but decided not to follow that train of thought. He’s decided he’d asked enough.

Getting back to the surface floor and walking out of the Range, he feels refreshed at the scent of sawdust and some other sweet scent permeating the air, giving off a workshop vibe instead of just a store. Walking out the store, Cas, who was only feeling pain inside of his arms was now starting to feel something in his chest, back, and core. ‘Ah shit.’

Speeding up his walking a little bit, he made his way home. Flopping on the recliner he’d set in his living room, he dozed off, wishing he’d bought a TV with that money.

– – – – – –

Someone pointed out to me as an author that I didn’t make something clear, and I totally get that. If something like that happens in the future, please feel free to let me know if you don’t understand something I wasn’t able to get across.

If I can’t get something to you with my words in the book, then I’m doing something wrong and it’s my responsibility to fix that.

SO! Just to clarify his (or her) problem, I’d like to put it at the end of this chapter on the queue of him wishing he’d bought a TV. The Main Character is a generally proactive and aspiring person, but the ability he’d gained HAS effected his personality to being more laid back or easygoing.