From the Chronicles of Cool Bob Studios
It was the height of summer on the mountain.
The sun pressed down like a forge hammer, and the granite slabs above Cool Bob’s studio shimmered in the heat. Grass crackled underfoot. The wind had gone still weeks ago, and even the pines stood stiff in the swelter, like tall, patient sentinels waiting for a storm that never came.
Inside the studio—half cave, half cathedral—Cool Bob worked in the shade, shirt unbuttoned, silver dust clinging to his forearms like ash. His chimes had stopped ringing days earlier, silenced by the thick, unmoving air. The only sound was the rhythmic scratch of a file on silver.
Then the problems arrived.
Not the usual kind. These weren’t snapped tool handles or unexpected lightning storms. No, these were capital-P Problems—the kind that came with claw marks, arcane smoke, and the stench of malevolent intent.
They arrived together, unannounced, just after dusk.
The dark magic witch floated above the trail like a silk-draped ember, her eyes smoldering, her voice whispering curses in a forgotten tongue. The vampire, lean and ageless, stalked behind her like a broken shadow, his grin all canines and cold hunger. And towering above them both was the werewolf—a mangled beast with matted fur and breath like rusted iron, every movement oozing menace.
They had come to test the mountain.
Or more precisely, they had come to test Cool Bob.
For years, Bob’s silver talismans had quietly protected this stretch of high country. Worn by rangers and wanderers. Hung above hearths in cabins carved from history. Each one imbued with protection, balance, and a stubborn streak of mountain magic. It kept the worst at bay.
But these three weren’t just random chaos. They were agents of something older, something that hated the peace Cool Bob had etched into every line of his craft.
At first, Bob simply strengthened the wards. Reinforced the talismans. Sat in silent vigil with a cup of tea and a shotgun that never left the wall.
But even a master has his limits.
By the third night, the vampire had chased a pair of elk off the ridge. The werewolf had clawed runes into the ancient bristlecone. The witch—worst of all—cursed the rain to stay away.
Cool Bob stood from his workbench. He set down his engraving tools. Pulled the long leather string to close the bellows. The studio went still.
He breathed deep. Something old stirred in his blood.
He remembered the days before the studio. Before he was Cool Bob, the artisan. Back when he was just Bob: mountain man, wanderer, bear-wrestler, mystic troublemaker, and student of the wild.
And Bob remembered how to hunt.
At dawn, he hiked up to the yew grove—a sacred clutch of Taxus brevifolia tucked along the high ridge, where the trees grew gnarled and wise. He approached with reverence, offered a breath of song and a pinch of cedar ash, then carefully selected three branches.
Back in the studio, he sanded each shaft by hand, shaping the wood to memory, to rhythm, to the old songs. He carved faint spirals along their length—binding energy to intention.
He fletched them with raven feathers, gifts from a trickster bird he once buried beneath a cairn near the thunder basin. The feathers held secrets, and secrets made excellent arrows.
And then came the heads.
He forged them from pure silver, pounded flat in broad, razor-like triangles—an homage to the old English war arrows. But Bob didn’t just hammer metal. He folded in layers of runes between strikes. Bathed each piece in melted snow and moonlight. Let them cool in the ashes of burnt sage and salt.
They shimmered like mirrors in the half-light—already hungry for trouble.
But Bob knew even silver would not be enough. Not against these beings.
They weren’t just monsters—they were myth-bound, children of ancient chaos.
He needed something more.
That night, with the studio freshly smudged and humming with unseen frequencies, Bob slipped on his quantum bangle and matching ring, adjusted the energy dial to “interdimensional with flair,” and opened a rip in the weave of time and space.
He stepped through.
The veil tore like silk.
In the blink of a heartbeat, Bob stood in the golden fields of Asgard.
Thunder rolled overhead. The scent of ozone and mead filled the air. Gods bellowed and toasted beneath a sky that burned with stars.
Bob was welcomed like a brother.
He found Thor leaning against a long table made of petrified oak, draining his horn with a laugh that shook the air. Bob laid out the tale—witches, vampires, meddlesome wolves.
Thor slammed the horn down and nodded solemnly.
“You need a stone,” he said, “that the earth remembers. Something the chaos can’t digest.”
Bob raised an eyebrow.
“Jade,” said Thor. “It’s harmony bound in mineral. Oldest trick in the book.”
They drank on it. Laughed about the time Bob beat Loki in a riddle match. Then, with a slap on the back and a pouch of green firestones, Bob leapt back across dimensions.
Back in his studio, the jade glowed softly under candlelight.
He inlaid each silver broadhead with a single polished cabochon of jade, setting it flush in the center like a third eye. The moment he pressed the last one into place, the feathers stirred. The wind returned.
The arrows were ready.
The chaos resumed the next night.
Fog rolled in unnaturally. The moon shivered behind a veil of clouds. From the shadows crept the three.
But Cool Bob was already outside.
He slipped through the back window, bow in hand, breath steady, boots silent on stone. The forest was still, watching.
The werewolf, as expected, made for the chicken coop.
As the beast lunged, Cool Bob raised his yew bow.
One breath. One draw.
The arrow loosed.
It flew like a beam of moonlight, crackling with silent thunder, slicing the air between worlds.
The broadhead struck. The jade shimmered.
In a single flash of brilliance, the werewolf didn’t die.
He simply ceased to be.
Gone. Unmade. Phased into some forgotten dimension where claws no longer mattered.
The forest went silent.
The witch hissed. The vampire growled.
But they had seen enough.
They vanished into the dark, their shadows peeling off the trees like smoke. They never returned.
Now, a single Silver Broadhead remains—mounted in a shadowbox behind Cool Bob’s bench. Jade gleaming. Feathers still whispering to passing spirits.
Some say it hums on solstice nights. Others swear it glows when liars enter the room.
But everyone who knows the mountain knows one truth:
Cool Bob’s arrows don’t miss.
And you never bring chaos to his door.