And Again I Fish
From Atlantic Roleplay Wiki
Title: And Again I Fish
Author: Garrett Granth
In my long lifetime I have mastered and forgotten many a skill - in years past I was once a sorcerer, a scribner, an alchemist. Then my young mind became an older mind, soaked itself in gin.
I set out into the wilds, learning tracking and fishing, camping, lumberjacking and archery.
I found that my skills with bandages and an axe suited themselves to the life of a warrior, and I picked up a shield, wore heavy armor, and for years I wandered the lands on boat and foot and by magic, striking down foes with my axe, parrying the blows of others, discovering exciting tactics and the details of anatomy, brought to life at the point of a sword.
And yet I grew bored with it, though my aim remained true and my sword arm strong, and I distinguished myself with my skills as a healer. I was able to defend myself and travel alone, able to ride the wide lands, but there were still things I had not done - spells I had not mastered, fish I had not caught, and I hung my katana up above my fireplace, and picked up a fishing pole in Moonglow.
My trusty vessel, the Codex Mathematica, though she was small and single-masted, my trusty tillerman guided her out of the Moonglow bay, sinking crossbow bolts into the pair of water elementals that tried to hem me in until they began to back off, at which point I unleashed my not-so-practiced magery upon them, reading from scrolls as I strove to maintain my focus.
As I have insinuated, I am a man of many talents who has mastered many skills with an unnerving ease, forgetting more things than most men learn in a lifetime, from anatomy to the resistance of spells.
Fishing, I imagined, would be a breeze. I threw the first bit of bait and...
Waited. Oh I waited. Me, a man who has sat with a spellbook and scribed piles of recall scrolls for money. Me, who has transcribed libraries of forgotten lore, Garrett Granth, the man who sat in front of an alchemists bench grinding for days until me fingers were stained with blood pearls - Garrett Granth, the man who spent a year hacking lumber until he had mastered the skills required to cleave a single limb in a single swipe!
I grew bored! I had never found myself bored before, never wound up watching a single bit of bait that did nothing for hours upon end.
So I threw the bait back out, listening to the endless tales of the tillerman. "Did I tell ye the time I..." "Why did I you ever hear about the woman with the ferrett in Serpents Hold?" "Well one time I sailed..."
I was mere moments from stifling him with my bait, And slowly I gained some skill. I learned when to jerk the fish up to set the hook, I learned when to let the line plummet to catch different beasts, and one day when I had least expected it, I reached a mastery of the fishing form, pulling a tremendous sea serpent from the waves, pulling until the giant form broke the waves, the water gushing from each slab-like side. I reached for my trusty katana, and dashed forward to cut the beast across the chin as I had done so many times in the past.
I missed. I never missed!
Then, I realized what all the fishing had done to my sword-arm, atrophying it to a state of disuse, my fine nerves and tendons losing the skills they had once contained.
I was doomed! The beast crashed into the deck, firing magical projectiles. Then, I remembered how to shoot the crossbow.
Now I fish again, and it's a little more exciting these days.