Day 3 – Part 2

So I fell out of my tree. However, falling is faster than climbing which made the tumble to the ground all part of my grand plan. You see, Centipedes have antennae which can detect distant vibrations and the one stalking the base of my tree had antennae longer than my arm. I gave it some vibrations in the form of a wadded buffalo bills tee thrown at a nearby bush. The oversized arthropod investigated the unfortunate shrub by tackling it. I made my daring escape while it was distracted.

Turns out 28 legs don’t beat 2 in a straight footrace and I quickly got out reach. Don’t get me wrong, in short bursts the creature was incredibly quick and agile but over distance I was faster. The disparity in speed got me thinking. I left my spear only a short ways away, and I’ve played enough RPGs to be familiar with kiting and positioning. If I was careful, the centipede would never get close to me and I’d bring it down with a flurry of spear jabs. I’m convinced. I can do this. Time to become the hunter.

Day 3 – Part 3

Crap! What the hell kind of centipede has wings?!

Day 3 – Part 4

I’ll be the first to admit, my battle prowess was somewhat mixed. While I spent the majority of the fight screaming and running in terror, it’s really the results that matter. Adam one; Dracopede zero.

So here is how the fight went down. After falling from the tree and running away. I psyched myself up past the point of reason and returned to the forest. The Dracopede was still there. I sprinted past it and brandished the spear. In retrospect, I’m not sure why I expected the whittled spear tip to penetrate the red armored carapace. Thing’s called an exoskeleton for a reason after all. Yeah, turns out its really thick and covered both the top and bottom. The sharpened wooden point did practically nothing. I had more success targeting the leg joints however. I planted my feet firmly to the ground, grasped the pole in two hands and swung to the clear the bases. That’s when things went to hell.

Translucent dragonfly wings spread from the creature’s upper body and the Dracopede took to the air. Ungainly in flight but fast, I was completely outmatched. As my old pappy used to say if an alligator, U-Boat or giant flying centipede is on your tail, zigzag so they can’t run ya down. And that’s just what I did. Dodge, dip, duck, dive and dodge.

The chase took me out of the forest and into the meadow. As the Dracopede closed in for the kill, I shifted direction and leapt backwards off to the side. It overshot me by inches and presented its wings in the middle of the strike zone. You had better believe I swung for the fences.

Its wings clipped, my quarry crashed to the earth. From there I resumed the earlier tactic of poking it to maintain distance and sidestepping around and smacking it on the legs with my spear shaft. One by one, its legs went limp and hung useless to the side. Eventually the Dracopede curled into a ball. I went medieval on it for twenty minutes until it stopped moving. Cue fanfare.

Day 4

Time for a detail I predict nobody wanted to know. Dracopede tastes like a mix between fish and chickpeas and had the consistency of crab. Even with my limited tools, butchering it wasn’t as hard as I expected. My hand axe was sufficient to cut it along the leg segments. Once I removed the limbs, the armored top carapace simply slid off. For a creature eight feet long, I didn’t get quite as much meat off as I expected. But, I had enough to gorge myself that night and I still had a little left over for a side project.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

In the morning, I roasted the remaining meat and went to the forest using a carapace segments as a platter. Once the granite ridge and Dogkin den came to sight, I set the meat on the ground just outside of tree cover. With my best imitation of their barking sounds, a dozen Dogkin stormed outside. I puffed up my chest and shoulder to act big.

They approached cautiously. When they got within a dozen yards, I tapped the platter of food with my foot and pantomimed handing an item from one hand to another. The lead doggo, a female towering a full head higher than the others, seemed to understand. She barked at one of her smaller pack mates. That Dogkin dashed into the den and returned with a ragged fur pelt. I shook my head and spread my arms wider. With a yelp, it fetched a second fur. I nodded and pushed the meat towards them.

The Alpha promptly dumped the Dracopede meat on the ground. She licked and caressed the red carapace while the rest of the pack crowded around to admire it. Apparently, they have higher food standards than I do. Anyways, Achievement Get! I completed my first trade in this crazy new world. I wasn’t sure what I’d get, but two small furs were fantastic. I’m going to try to make shoes because my feet are looking pretty blistered and messed up right now.

Day 5

Sigh, I discovered where the Dracopede came from. Some time between finishing my trade with the Dogkin and dozing off for the night, a thought came. Humanoid Canines aside, the ecosystem around my camp seemed analogous to what I expected in similar environments on Earth. I’ve seen birds and fish as well as signs of game: scratched trees, trampled plants and the like. More relevantly, all the bugs and spiders are normal sized. So how exactly does an eight-foot flying armored centipede fit?

Short answer, it doesn’t. At the next sunrise I returned to the spot where the Dracopede tried to jump me. Now that I was searching for them, signs of the creature’s rampage through the forest were brutally apparent. At places, underbrush was shredded. Within a few minutes, I passed the remains of a burrow. Probably the former home of a fox or a badger or some other woodland creature, it tore the earth wide open and flung debris thirty feet away. The destruction was so complete; who knows what it once was.

I followed the carnage another half hour until the forest changed. My green and healthy forest lay on one side. There was nothing but skeletal dead trees on the other. My first tentative step into the deadwood was almost painful. The dirt across the line was downright frigid. It’s springtime; the sun is shining bright and clear. Cold dirt is the last thing I’d expect. In fact, when I stretched my arm over the divide, the sun left barely any warmth on my fingers while the rest of my body sweated. That isn’t natural.

I’m not sure why I pressed on. I want to say my natural curiosity, which often as of late drove me into dangerous situations. But, I really can’t shake the feeling that something out there spurred me along. Whichever it was, I ventured deeper into the deadwood. I didn’t go far before I was unable to continue. Ahead the barren forest vanished. The earth by my feet lay open as a dark gaping maw.

Best guess is the sinkhole stretched the diameter of a football field. The sides were completely smooth with no apparent way to walk deeper into the pit. On the bright side, there was no apparent way for anything to walk out either. Maybe it’s some trick of the wind, but I swear whenever I went near the rim there was a faint whisper in the air.

I decided I’d seen enough. But as I turned away, an out-of-place object caught my attention. It was a wheel. Nearby I located its companion which was a wheelbarrow turned on its side.

For the longest time I had wondered if I was dropped off somewhere in the Stone Age, but this was confirmation that civilization existed somewhere. Unfortunately, based off the state of the artifacts in front of me, that civilization wasn’t coming back anytime soon. I played archeologist for an hour and pieced together what seemed like a reasonable course of events.

At some point in the past decade, small human like creatures camped at the rim of the sinkhole. Defying anything resembling sense and reason, they excavated a way inside. Looking carefully, I found stone steps descending around the edge and disappearing down in the darkness. I found bone fragments from donkeys or ponies, but no trace of the would-be miners. They were probably killed somewhere down the sinkhole and their camp fell into disrepair.

Eager to leave that evil place, I dropped whatever small items I recovered into the wheelbarrow and went back the way I came. There were many useful things, but this whole day has been utterly draining. I’ll look them over later.