Slinging

Opening Slinging

Slinging opens with the shepherd’s sling and the scrip of smooth stones that Elyakim gives at the end of the quest David and Goliath, once you have reached Knowledge level 7. Until both are true the Skills tab says what Slinging still needs.

Wear the sling (weapon slot) to sling. Your stones are carried in your bag, as arrows are: each kind of stone in one slot, as many as you like. If you lose the sling, Elyakim gives you another.

Shepherds on these hills keep a sling to guard their flocks. Scripture remembers the slingers of Benjamin, every one of whom "every one could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss." (Judges 20:16).

The slingers’ ground

Climb the olive terraces above the village, west of the way up to the cave and above Elyakim’s house. At the quiet end of the terrace you find the slingers’ stone, a flat slab of basalt to stand on, with the marks along the slope to the west.

A brook runs down from a spring among the rocks to a little pool. The shepherds’ fold, a ring of dry stone with a wattle gate, stands at the far end. Below the terrace a hungry gleaner sits under a fig tree, and at the end of the shore road, by the reeds, wooden floats drift on the shallows.

Click a mark to sling at it, or face a mark in your reach and press E (A on a controller), or open Marks in the Slinging box at the top left and choose one. You walk into reach first if you need to, then throw again and again until you walk away, choose Stop, run out of stones or the mark is gone. Right click (or hold) a mark for its menu and Examine.

The marks

Marks on the wall (level 1)

6 Slinging XP a hit. The first mark: a stone that strikes it knocks a puff of lime from the wall.

Pots on posts (level 10)

12 Slinging XP a hit. A pot struck bursts into sherds, and another is set on the post.

Ripe figs (level 15)

15 Slinging XP a hit and 20 Righteousness XP. Struck down, the figs fall to the hungry gleaner beneath the tree: Righteousness as well as Slinging. They ripen again after a minute.

Swinging gourd (level 25)

22 Slinging XP a hit. A moving mark: struck, the gourd jumps on its cord with a hollow knock.

Latch of the fold (level 30)

25 Slinging XP a hit. A switch: struck, the peg flies out and the gate of the shepherds' fold swings open for a while. Inside is their heap of chosen stones.

Floats on the shallows (level 40)

34 Slinging XP a hit. Moving marks on the water at the end of the shore road: struck, a float jumps and splashes.

Far bell (level 55)

50 Slinging XP a hit. Struck, it rings out over the hillside.

Hair's breadth (level 100)

90 Slinging XP a hit. The finest mark of all, for a master slinger: struck, the hair parts and the wool tuft flies.

Stones

Stand at the brook and choose Gather stones (or press E there): you pick up one stone at a time, and keep gathering while you stay. Each goes into your bag as a Brook stone, onto the stack already there. There is no limit to how many you carry, but a new stack needs a free slot. As a shepherd once "chose him five smooth stones out of the brook" (1 Samuel 17:40).

Every throw uses one stone from your bag, whether it hits or misses, at a mark, a switch or a spirit. With none left: “You have no sling stones. Gather some from a brook.”

Smooth sling stones (Slinging level 30) fly truer than brook stones. The shepherds keep a heap of them inside their fold: knock out the latch of its gate with a stone to get in. Your sling uses them first while you carry any.

Sling stones are common: drop them, keep them in the storehouse or trade them like any other item. They are not the smooth stones of the quest David and Goliath, which stay in the quest.

Brook stone

Slinging level 1. Stones out of the brook, rounded by the water, a good weight for the sling.

Smooth sling stone

Slinging level 30. Stones round as eggs and all of a weight, chosen by the shepherds and heaped in their fold to drive off wild beasts.

The fold’s latch: a switch

The latch peg sits high on the inside of the fold’s gate. Strike it with a stone and it flies out: the gate swings open for 45 seconds, long enough to walk in to the heap. It shuts again by itself once nobody stands in the gateway.

Figs for the hungry

The ripe figs hang out of the gleaner’s reach. Knock them down and they fall into his lap: you gain Slinging and Righteousness experience together. The tree takes 60 seconds to ripen more for you.

Accuracy and reach

A throw is made every 2.4 seconds. Whether it strikes is decided by the game’s server, by your Slinging level against how hard the mark is to hit: small, far and moving marks are harder. At a mark’s own level you strike it about 64 times in 100 at the first mark and a little over half the time at the others; every level makes it a little more.

Your sling reaches 8 metres at level 1 and 22.85 metres at level 100. A mark beyond your reach is walked towards first.

Experience comes only for a stone that strikes. Like every skill, Slinging has no daily limit: sling as long as you like.

In a fight

Right click (or hold) a spirit and choose Sling a stone, or, when a spirit is in your reach, choose Sling at in the Slinging box at the top left. A stone that strikes a spirit makes it reel: it cannot strike until 2.4 seconds after the stone lands, and a blow of its already on the way falls short. The experience is 11 and more by the spirit’s level, up to 50.

This works on the spirits of the cave and of the High Place whether you play alone or with others (with others, the game’s server makes the spirit reel for everyone there), and on the lesser spirits of The Buried Gate.

The spirit of pride on the High Place keeps a dark shield about it. Once its servants on the terraces are gone, a stone that strikes it breaks the shield until 3.5999999999999996 seconds after the stone lands: speak the Word then and it gets through. Before then the stone still makes it reel, but the shield holds.

A stone does not shake everything. A world boss and the spirit of the gate in The Buried Gate do not falter at a stone, and the dark shield about the spirit of the gate in its last phase holds: only its three lamp stands held lit together break it. A stone that strikes any of them still counts for Slinging, and the Game tab always says what your stone did.

Stones are only ever slung at marks and at spirits. They are never slung at a person or a creature.

Level 100

At level 100 the hair’s breadth opens, the finest mark of all, and your stones never miss the marks, like the slingers of Benjamin: "Among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men lefthanded; every one could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss." (Judges 20:16). A spirit in a fight is still not always struck.

Mantle of the slingers, worn only by those at level 100, and the title Slinger of Benjamin by your name on the hiscores.

Slings and stones made later

• Plaited flax sling (level 30): truer, and it reaches further. Made by hand in a later update.
• Goat hair sling (level 50): truer, and it reaches further. Made by hand in a later update.
• Long sling (level 70): truer, and it reaches further. Made by hand in a later update.
• Shaped basalt stones (level 45): truer still. Made by hand in a later update.
• Lead sling bullets (level 60): truer still. Made by hand in a later update.