„Wow, this is exhausting!“ Drawing a catapult isn’t even easy for a higher level heroine. The manufactured catapults have attracted her interest. That’s why she decided to find out in the Workshop during a village celebration just how a catapult is built and used.
A workshop in the Workshop
In honor of 50 newly-built catapults the whole village is holding a little Saturday night party. Another reason to drink muslum* ! Of course there wasn’t only meat and drink! Patronius the artillerist offered a tour of the workshop, in order to demonstrate to the villagers how to fire a catapult.
Innovatius the master mechanic builds „onagers“*, a type of Fire Catapult. When talking to him, you can easily see that he is fired up whenever he is allowed to build a Fire Catapult. Unfortunately I can’t quite keep up with his professional jargon! I feel quite uneasy when I hear words like „torsion engine“, „limb“, „crossbar“ or „buffer“, especially when it’s after two pitchers of muslum!
Getting the ball rolling
After Innovatius allowed us a glimpse into the world of the slingshot, we got straight down to the nitty-gritty: Under strict supervision, each villager was able to fire off a burning stone. Disastrously, little Lucuis played a trick on the half-drunk catapult shooter and tickled him the moment the projectile was discharged. The artillerist Patronius stumbled and together with two other soldiers bumped into the Fire Catapult, changing the direction it was firing at. This is how the burning stone only narrowly missed a friendly village. Let’s hope that no one noticed.
So who did cast the first stone?
What luck! Our neighboring village was celebrating an anniversary on the same evening. One of their hungover scouts came over this morning and spoke of an unknown enemy that seemed to have wanted to hit their village with a catapult projectile. He also said that none of the guards were really able to say from which direction the stone came and asked if we would be able to help them find out. At least they, too, were not free from giddiness owed to the mead they drank.
Of course we offered our help straight away, despite already knowing the culprit. But what the scout doesn’t know won’t hurt him!
Following this incident, Innovatius received the neighboring village’s order to construct as many Fire Catapults as he could possibly build from the resources they sent along. Hence Lucius, the boy who caused all this, wasn’t grounded. By the Gods, what comedy! A schoolboy’s prank kick-starting the economy of a whole village!
* Honey-wine mixture; common drink in ancient Rome
* Onager: late antique catapult; translates as „wild donkey“
There’s certainly a great deal to learn about this topic. I really like all of the points you have made.|