The first suggestion Kaylie had was to make flaming arrows. Since our goal wasn’t to kill people but to create chaos, the rest of us agreed. We got to work, digging out arrows from my magic bag and altering them to be more flammable. Making fire arrows was similar to making a torch. We had to pack fuel onto the arrowhead so it could burn long enough to deliver the fire onto the enemy base.

  The group began gathering dried grass while I stitched them onto the arrowheads. My thread and needle were a souvenir I got before I left the Hidden Falls Village. Clothes in this era weren’t the most durable, as the stitching usually broke. So I thought it was necessary to carry some needles and thread with me in case we needed to mend our clothing. In my world, we had cross-stitched and double-stitched with more durable thread to ensure this didn’t happen. In general, modern clothes were thinner but still more durable and comfortable.

  When we had enough dried grass, Sana volunteered to keep watch for our hideout. She hadn’t seen any scouts, but that didn't mean they hadn't seen us. However, with no alarm raised, we assumed we had done a good job of staying hidden. The rest of us took the thread and stitched dried grass wrapped in leaves to the arrowheads, hoping it would be enough to catch fire.

  “Why don’t armies always use fire arrows?” I asked Kaylie.

  Kaylie smiled. “With that mess of grass on the end, accuracy’s gone, but it’s not like you can shoot an arrow straight anyway.”

  “Hey,” I said reflexively, then admitted, “I really do suck at shooting. But with an arrow that large, I doubt it would fly right anyway.”

  “It’s not the size that matters,” Kaylie said with a wink, while her fingers tied the grass together, knotting the end with quick motions. “My relatives fire thick arrows that punch right through armor. It takes more power, but it needs to be heavy and balanced—not… whatever this is.”

  “Even if they were accurate, fire arrows are useless against people,” Saresh began. “Why would you need fire on an arrow when it hits someone? A metal-tipped arrow is already perfectly capable of inflicting a fatal wound. It’s not like people are made of something flammable like the tents and battlements below.”

  Saresh seemed to be struggling just as much as I was, trying to attach the dried grass to the ends of the arrows. Eventually, though, I received a prompt:

  Congratulations, you have learned Crafting level 1. “Crafting, it isn’t just for beer. But beer is made for true crafters.”

  Bonuses:

  Additional 2% of Magical Retention per level.

  Eventually, I made my way back to the cliff edge. The next step was to secure my rope to a sturdy tree with roots that were deep enough to ensure it would hold firm. Sana was already leaning against it, having wrapped the rope around the trunk twice. It only took her a few minutes to knot it securely, but with my life depending on it, I wanted to double and triple-check. The knot had a clever design—a loose ringlet that could be pulled to easily unweave it when we needed to reclaim the rope. Yet, any tug from another angle held it tight. I made sure Rabbit was watching, so we’d know how to recreate it in the future.

  “The knot will hold, you can trust me on that,” Sana assured me. “The only issue is if it rains, the rope may swell and you won’t get your rope back.”

  That was the least of my concerns. The rope had come in handy several times, but I could always obtain more if needed.

  The plan was this. I had figured that no one had a magical bag like mine, so the camp wouldn’t expect anyone to have as many arrows as I did. I had around a thousand of them—give or take a few hundred. I had stolen these arrows from the Black Rock Islanders’ armory, where they were likely meant to defend the port against a siege. As long as we fired enough arrows at once, the camp would think they were under attack by an army. Luckily, Sophia hadn’t confiscated my arrows, thinking they weren’t a threat to her village since a bow could only fire one at a time.

  She was right. Bows were too slow, but we didn’t need accuracy, so our plan wouldn’t use them. Instead, Sana would use her Air Magic to carry the arrows.

  “Firing so many with Air Magic will make them wildly inaccurate,” she reminded me. “Our enemy might suspect something if they notice.”

  “That’s why Kaylie suggested we use fire arrows,” I replied. “That’ll add a terrifying element to our attack. They’ll be too afraid of their camp burning down to suspect our trickery.” Every old-fashioned movie I ever watched had fire arrows. They would hit the enemy, and they would flee in terror as their entire town burned. Since we had a lot of projectiles, it was likely to start a couple of fires.

  "Remember to be quick so the camp doesn’t burn down while you and Jack are inside."

  I had never seen Sana this concerned for me before. She’d always seemed indifferent, but there and then, it felt like she genuinely wanted this plan to succeed.

  We all worked until the sun was behind us. Rabbit had suggested we attack then, using the sun’s glare to mask our numbers on the hilltop. Those in the camp's shadow, away from the blinding light, wouldn’t be able to see most of the hilltop due to the angle. Both light and shadow would help trick our enemy.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  When the sun reached the pinnacle and we had enough arrows, we all moved to the cliff’s edge.

  “Now or never,” I declared.

  Sana cast a word of power, and the wind picked up in a circle around her. Saresh, Bass, and I unraveled the bundles and then tossed them into the air, letting Sana’s spell catch them. Each batch of arrows was trapped in the wind tunnel she created, and we watched the arrows pick up and start spinning around her instead of going straight.

  I was the first casualty as the arrows flew around. One came spinning out, shot directly at me, and bounced off my armor. Everyone but Sana crouched low in case more arrows flew out randomly. Still, Saresh, Bass, and I did our job and kept feeding ammunition to the whirlwind while Kaylie stood behind a tree and waited. At the same moment, we were sure that the camp below would start to notice the howling wind above them and the dust it scattered. Though I doubted they could see us and what we were doing because of the steep angle and the sun blinding their eyes.

  When we had hundreds of arrows in the whirlwind, Kaylie spoke a word of power and put her hands up, making the most massive ball of fire I had ever seen. Once it had fully grown, Sana started releasing volley after volley of arrows into the fireball.

  Saresh, Bass, and I continued to load more and more into the whirlwind, hoping to keep the stream going for as long as we could. All in all, we pushed out about 90% of my arrows.

  It was a beautiful sight to behold, but not perfect. As the arrows sailed out of the fireball, some were lit as we had planned, while others had their incendiaries burned to cinders or knocked off by the wind. They then went in every direction as if these were billiard balls, struck by someone who had never played.

  Sana ordered us to cease loading arrows before halting her whirlwind. She had exhausted her mana as Kaylie’s fire had started weakening. It took her a moment to fully stop, as she had to push the remaining arrows from her whirlwind into Kaylie's fireball, ensuring they would strike the camp instead of flying in random directions. Once she stopped, I gathered the remaining arrows and stored them back in my bag.

  Kaylie and Sana rested under a tree while Bass lay on his belly and looked over the edge to see the results. We could hear the bells below, but we needed to know what that meant. Were they retreating, trying to put out the fires, or sending soldiers after us?

  “They’re leaving the camp,” Bass said with his strong brogue.

  “My turn, I guess,” I said with a grimace.

  This was where the plan fell apart in all of our estimations. I would have to scale halfway down the hill, as far as my rope allowed me, and then let go and hope I didn’t die. When looking at the fall, most of us agreed that I would likely survive. But how would I end up after falling? The consensus fell somewhere between nearly all my bones breaking and just enough fractures to let me limp into the commander’s tent to save Jack.

  All in all, I wasn’t happy with my odds. What if I fell the wrong way and hit my head or snapped my neck? I tried not to think about the worst since it was our only chance. No one else possessed my body’s fast regeneration. So, if I survived, even if I got injured, I’d recover eventually. I’d have a second bite at the apple, in a manner of speaking.

  I went to the tree where Sana had tied the rope. I tugged at one end to make sure it was stable. I had checked it several times so far, but I couldn’t be too cautious when my life was at stake.

  I then grabbed the other end, turned my back to the camp, and stepped over the abyss. I slowly lowered myself, keeping my feet on the cliff wall so I wouldn’t get pushed by the wind, and couldn’t resist the urge to look down. If I let go from this height, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I would die. Knowing that made my mouth go dry. As I steadied my breathing, I descended, walking backward down the cliff wall.

  “Boo!” I heard in my head before he mockingly laughed. The scare made me jump and almost let go of the rope. “I got you. I got you good.”

  “I am going to kill you, Rabbit,” I said with actual intent to murder him. “I almost let go.”

  “If you wanted me dead, all you would have to do is drop,” he replied, and then I realized he was right. The only way to harm him was to hurt myself. Ugh, life seemed so unfair sometimes. “Anyway, you probably want to get down faster. Someone is bound to see you if you keep shimmying down the mountainside all day.”

  “Do you know a faster way?” I asked while making a good pace walking down the wall, making sure I didn’t fall to my death.

  “Yeah, try bouncing down and loosening your grip. You can go a lot faster,” Rabbit replied.

  “I know what you are talking about. That is for someone with gloves and a harness. As I don’t have either, I would go down fast enough to not be able to stop myself,” I added.

  “That is debatable. Normally, your hands wouldn’t be pretty afterward, but you could do it. Now, with your skin reinforced with Biodium, even that won’t be a problem. It will be like when you mixed up the Icy Hot and lube. I mean, how did you not notice when you put it in your hand?”

  “It was supposed to be flavored. I thought it had a little tingle to it!” I shouted back.

  “I bet that wasn’t the only thing that tingled a little.”

  I snapped, “That burned for a week every time I took a leak.” Looking at where I was, I continued, “I don’t have time for this.”

  As much as I hated him, I followed Rabbit’s advice and jumped back away from the cliff, loosening my grip and gliding down. My hands ran quickly along the rope, making a sharp zipping noise. The pain I expected didn’t hit immediately—but then a second later, it started. The friction made my skin feel as if it were burning. Still, I held on, too afraid of falling to my death. I quickly reached the end of the rope. Then I held on to get myself to a stop. I dangled for a moment, feeling my heart race, gathering the nerve to let go.

  I emptied my mind of my worries and released. I dropped a good 30 feet before hitting the curve of the hillside, then started tumbling. When I finally slowed to a stop, I was still conscious. I panted, feeling my heart race, and then did a self-check. Nothing seemed broken. Surprised and relieved, I got to my feet, only feeling pain in my hands and ankle.

  “I think you hurt it landing at a wrong angle,” Rabbit observed. “Your new body reinforcement is stronger than I thought. I was expecting at least some broken bones.”

  Limping away made me question what hurt worse: my hands or my ankle. The former didn’t look damaged at all, but I could still feel the burning. “My hands look perfect. Why do they still hurt?”

  “What caused the damage was the heat from friction,” Rabbit replied, “not the tearing away of skin. Even though metals have higher melting points than skin, that doesn’t mean they don’t absorb heat. I wouldn’t worry too much, as it’s already spreading through the rest of your body. Metals are excellent conductors of heat, after all.”