Rajit: Level 13: Mixology

Sweat drips onto a small workbench as a thin halfling with drooping blonde hair in need of a wash exerts all of her fine motor skills in tracing the nearly minute runes carved into the haft of an elven crossbow. “I just can’t figure out how this thing works. You aim it and it hones in on targets like what you pointed at but it doesn’t seem to be these runes, the filigree, or mechanism that drives it.” Rajit mops her forehead, then pulls her hair out of a grimy bun and shakes it out. She bundles the dark blonde tresses up, and then ties it again, getting the worst strays out of her face for the time. “Ugh, I really need to get a haircut.” She grabs the tiny needle-like tool she was tracing with, and tries to get focus with a magnifying glass. “And new glasses!”
 
At last the needle like tool hooks into the bottom of a letter, catching a small groove and with a click the crossbow mechanism unlatches, the butt of the crossbow coming separate as a small column of quartz clatters to the table. “Ah, a focus embedded in the body. Probably channeled when aligned to a target and focus exerted.” Rajit unceremoniously drops the finely crafted elven-worked crossbow mechanism to the table as she starts to look the quartz over under the magnifying glass. “Nearly transparent, I’d almost think this was glass if it was cleaned up and polished…” Rajit rolls the focus in her hands getting a feel for the weight and balance. “Hmm, I wonder…”
 
Rajit digs out some glass polish and a couple of very sharp and very hard tools. She begins by smoothing out the cylinder’s circumference, carefully sanding off any excess and following it with a generous amount of polish. The ends she begins to smooth into domes, a small dome not too different than her magnifying glass at each end. The work goes slowly, but the focus slowly yields to her tools and magical influence. “And now something to encase it…” Rajit grabs a few loops of copper and builds a tube. She brackets that to a pair of sturdy risers and then screws those into her copper looped crossbow. She peers down the quartz focus in the tube, and grins crookedly at the magnified image she sees. “Kind of disorienting looking through two lenses, though…” She fiddles with her glasses, before lifting one side up and peering through a few times. “Ugh, awkward. Well at least it works!”
 
“Now for some new bolts... “ Rajit begins to tinker with minor magical items, considering her options. “Those witches tried to seize up Crixus and I. If I hadn’t taken care of them they might have gotten us, they definitely seem to prefer attacking the helpless.” Rajit begins considering ways to disrupt magic and casters in the field. “Material, Somatic, Verbal. I can’t disarm them without a lucky shot, and a net on an arrow is just too heavy. Verbal though... “ Rajit sighs as she remembers the last time she gagged a wizard and the trouble that wrought in court. “The web fluid worked well but was unreliable and the canisters are just too heavy.” Rajit drums her fingers on her desk and idles flicks a spring which begins to oscillate with a vibrating whine. She tilts an ear as she flicks it again.
 
“Hehehehee.” Two small halfling fingers work furiously as they wind a flexible bit of twine around a bolt shaft. A simple spring is pushed down over the wrapped twine, and the notch of the arrow is fitted with simple tin prongs giving it a comical look. “Now just give it a whirl…” She spins the bolt in her hands like a stick used to start a fire. The twine begins to unravel and as it does so the compressed spring releases tension, causing the prongs to vibrate and give off a whine like a tuning fork. “Perfect.”
 
Rajit has used a tracking and hunting focus from a crossbow taken from The Pack to enhance her crossbow design, twisting it into a magnifying scope far beyond what the elves may have imagined for the focus at its inception. Additionally she has invented a new bolt using a tuning fork which puts off a disruptive field of sound, silencing verbal spell components...
 
The next morning Gilbert and Rajit are practicing as Rajit calibrates her new sight. Gilbert sweeps his flail through the training dummy, the head of the flail hardly deflected by the first target as it sweeps into the second. Bolts whiz past him as his mistress fires into the bodies of the targets, each one offering an opportunity to Gilbert. He bashes his shield into one target, shoving the bolt further in, a quick step in letting him shove the dummy to the ground, where he plants a heavy armored foot on another bolt as he stomps it in. THUNK Gilbert whirls in response, his flail head hammering in the bolt that just struck like a nail yielding to a hammer. A quick headbutt on the same target and the morning training was done, there were no targets left. “Good job big guy, I think we’re getting better.”
 
“Hoo, hoo! Haa! Aah-aa Huha!” Gilbert vocalizes a response as he knucklewalks away from the targets, heading towards Rajit “Yeah, you really swing that thing like it’s part of you.” Gilbert loops the chain of his flail and hooks it to his belt as he unstraps his shield. He gives a big stretch and then scratches his chest and ribs enjoying the feeling of the sun. It would be lunch before long, and that meant lager and a sack of fruit and vegetables topping 15 pounds. He liked training, the exercise was good, and he didn’t have to wear his armor. His body had responded well to it, and he’d been putting on muscle for some time. “You know Gil you about look like you’re made of iron these days. Here.” Rajit offers him an unusual piece of fruit. “Hoo?” Gilbert gives it a sniff. “Something new for you. Some fruit from way far away called dates. What do you think?” Gilbert daintily nibbles at the date finding it to be sweet, chewy and unpleasantly dry. “Huu-uck.” Gilbert turns his head from the fruit. “Not a fan, huh? Well I’ll just have to make it up to you at Gunther’s. Early lunch?”
 
The two head off to Gunther’s, ready for the next adventure.
 
Rajit reaches level 13, taking her 6th level in Beast Conclave Revised Ranger. Her tinkering with magic bolts has lead to her developing a method of infusing an area with Silence. The continuing modification of her crossbow has made it difficult to make on-the-spot adjustments, and she stops using Tune Up (Hunter’s Mark) to use the Silence arrows. Rajit’s earlier experiments and continued work with fiendish blood and other components have given her insight towards fighting fiends and demons, as she selects Fiends for her Greater Favored Enemy. The recent exercise has been doing Rajit and Gilbert both some good as they gain increased potency in their proficient skills and abilities, their teamwork having recently become much more effective.