Ranger's Journal  

 

Ranger's Journal

Day 8
I am glad I shared the flour I had, he is making much better food now.

I noticed today that these treants we fought had some branches that looked perfect for making a bow. I bet with my planing tool I could shape it properly.

Day 9
It seems that while they make good bow staves, they just do not work well with normal string. I found that I had some shimmering steel thread in my packs, so decided to try it. After some experimentation, I found that twisting two lengths of shimmering steel thread works. You also have to wrap some spider silk thread around the nock point in order to not cut your fingers on the steel thread, but it makes for a much better pull than one would expect from a metal string.

Day 10
We stopped by Arcstone today, and while I was talking to the nervous gnome we came up with another idea for how we can use the branches from the treants. I had accidentally found that layering the wood made for a stronger pull, but I needed the wood to be more flat. Despite his nervous nature, he is a smart little guy and in just a few minutes, he made me a device that works great.

I attached the device to my fletching kit for stability, and fit a blade into the device. Then using the crank. I feed it a piece of wood and it makes two long flat pieces of wood.

Day 10: Later.
Ok, I need to glue the pieces of flat wood together for a better result. I found that a glue made with horse hooves works great. I simply grind the hoof and distill it in acid wash, then add limestone and firewater. Once much of the liquid has evaporated off, it makes a good flexible but strong glue.

The gnome was kind enough to modify the device a bit, and now with the addition of a roller instead of the blade, I can take three of the flat pieces, with some glue and make a good strong flexible bow stave.

Day 11
They are starting to complain because I seem to be more obsessed with making different types of bows than I am with hunting. They may not be totally wrong, but I just can't get it out of my head.

I wanted to try some bow cams, but I just cannot seem to get the grease that the gnome needs to do this. He did show me though that with a second roller in the device, I can make the laminate in a recurve shape. This is much more delicate work, but it makes a much better draw on the bow.

Day 13
I found some interesting metal today, and I showed it to the gnome. He found that with this metal he did not need to use any special grease and instead could use the simple and easy to find grease. The metal looks like it used to be a blade of some sort, but is now broken and useless as weapon. He was able to melt it down into the cam parts mold, and make a useable cam

The original simple staves I made with the treant branches, and the recurved staves made from the wood slats work well with either one or two cams. The straight stave made with the wood slats tends to splinter the stave apart, so it just does not work properly.

Day 16
I was looking at the wood slats, and I noticed that the grains from the three different types of wood I have found look to compliment each other. After a bit of trial and error, and spilling one of the enchanter's mana vials in my glue, and trying to clean it up, I think I found the answer. I need two supple slats, a dry slat, and one in between those two slates. Use that in the device with a glue that has some pure mana instead of firewater, and a horse skin dissolved with the hoof, and you get a bow stave of a quality I have never seen.

Day 20
The bow made with the multiple types of wood has this tendency to steal life from the target. The feeling just gives me shivers. After much experimenting, I found that if I ground dried root, berries, fruit, and vegetables and mixed it with some water with a hint of age, I get a solution that can be rubbed on the bow to make it stop it's life stealing.