6th footnote [text] target practice

[likesfootnotes]

I have a couple of suggestions for the would-be marksmen fervently preparing for the upcoming tournament:

1. Magicians are widely considered to be the best choice for target practice. Unfit and unfashionable, they can be seen at a thousand paces in their gaudy attire and offer a moving target. ¹ I suggest saving a target and using a magician!
   
   
2. Don't bother entering the actual contest. Instead, list your wishes here and I might deign to grant them once I've been declared Lord for a day.

1 - Don't worry about one outrunning your shot. Magicians are too fond of their food to be anything but slow and rotund. The majority of them mask this by wearing cleverly designed pants that are thirteen sizes too small and somehow conceal all that extra flesh. It's not a pleasant sight.

Comments

[thenotmagician]

[Zeke is currently just laughing his ass off.]

[likesfootnotes]

[Practicing your evil laugh for when he triumphs and names you Chef Zeke, second in command of the Keep for the day?]

[thenotmagician]

[Oh totally. Listen to that cackle! It's terrifying.]

mMost accurate description if I ever head one.

[likesfootnotes]

[Deepen it a bit and let it flow from the throat and you'll have ever hero in a ten-mile radius shuddering with unease.]

It's nice to hear some appreciation for the basic facts of life!

Are you going to be one of these so-called archers I'll just have to best?

[thenotmagician]

Nah, I'm just a chef. Just gonna kick back and watch.

[likesfootnotes]

Good man! You can recognise that you don't stand a chance and toss in the towel accordingly. Magicians everywhere could stand to learn from you.

[thenotmagician]

Sure, y'could say that.

[audio]

[needsnobottle]

And what's the catch?

[audio]

[likesfootnotes]

An arrow, if you're the targeted magician.

(Though, but the skills of some around here, I doubt targets are in much danger.)

[audio]

[needsnobottle]

I meant for the wish. [and she bites off her sarcastic name calling! There will be no bridge burning when he might still be able to burn a different bridge for her.]

[audio]

[likesfootnotes]

There's no catch! Unless you're a magician, at which point we go back to the first catch.

[audio]

[needsnobottle]

That being fair game for a bullseye and target practice?

[audio]

[likesfootnotes]

Of course! They deserve it, after all.

[Audio]

[3wayforjustice]

Excuse me?

[Audio]

[likesfootnotes]

That depends on what I'm excusing.

[Audio]

[3wayforjustice]

You sound as if you've a problem with mages.

[Audio]

[likesfootnotes]

You would too, if the stuffy, self-important louses kept waking you up in the middle of a multi-decade nap.

I don't think problem with really does it justice though. Vendetta against, maybe? (They deserve it, too.)

[Audio]

[3wayforjustice]

A vendetta. We deserve to be used as target practice because you feel we're an inconvenience?

[Audio]

[likesfootnotes]

Exactly! Good to see that you're catching on!

[Pause. We? We?]

Oh. You're one of them.

[Deadpan.]

I knew there had to be more. You're worse than that really nasty fungus that grows between toes. No matter how one scrubs his essence, there's always more.

[Audio]

[angleofscience]

[Honestly. You can probably hear the disapproving frown in his voice.]

Using actual, living individuals for target practice with live weapons should only occur in actual battle.

[Audio]

[likesfootnotes]

[Conscience, is that you? It's been a while! Bartimaeus is pretty sure you gave up on him centuries ago.]

Where's the fun in that? The magicians would never show up in a real battle. [Natty-boy, you are a strange, happens once-in-ten-lifetimes type; no, he will not repeat that, no even under pain of rosemary.] It defeats the purpose of using them!

[Audio]

[angleofscience]

[Yep, this is totally your disembodied conscience. These things always come back to you in the end, you see.]

I doubt "fun" has anything to do with it, and whether or not they would show up in a "real" battle or not, out of battle, they... no matter who or what they are, should be afforded some basic respect in regards to their person.

[Aka, don't encourage using people as target practice, Bartimaeus.]

[Audio]

[likesfootnotes]

There's no point in affording them anything. They don't respect my essence, after all. They tromp all over it and expose it to far worse than a few prickly arrows.

[Obviously he needs to introduce you to a few magicians. Nothing like a spell of experience to make one truly appreciate the pain in one's backside that these humans can be.]

[Audio]

[angleofscience]

... If they truly do not respect your right to freedom, that is one thing, but I certainly wouldn't think they all, as a class, do so. Given that such a thing as a "magician" can and would exist in any given world, there would also be other worlds... I doubt they all, even those from your own, would disregard your self and independence thus.

[He'll do well without being introduced to any more magic, really. And humans are humans, as varied as any other species.]

Re: [Audio]

[likesfootnotes]

You obviously have never met an actual magician. Their lot transcend worlds, I guarantee it.