My first reaction to the sight of the centipedes biting the trunk of the tree was, they can do that?

Evidently, the answer was yes, and right now the "why" or "how" of what they were doing was not as important as the question of what I was going to do about it. I didn't need to ponder that question; I immediately began swinging down branches until I was barely above them, then exhaled [noxious breath].

SP: 9/16

That was enough to get them to skitter a short distance away. They didn't flee completely — they hovered at the edge of the gas cloud — but at least they were no longer chowing down on the tree trunk. A quick mental calculation told me that if my [noxious breath] was the only deterrent I employed, I would likely barely keep them at bay long enough to survive until Octavia returned. However, that was contingent on her making her fruit delivery (and then coming back to retrieve me) as quickly as possible. I hoped she wasn't pausing to watch the action.

Making use of the break afforded by my gas cloud, I climbed to the top of the tree. "All good down here!" I called. She didn't say anything in response, but I saw her wave a leg in what looked like affirmation. Content that she seemed to have gotten the message, I went back down to see what I could do about the centipede problem. By the time I got back down to the lowest branch, my gas cloud had already dissipated, and the centipedes were once again approaching the trunk of the tree, getting too close for comfort. I was tempted to hit the area with another breath attack — but mere discomfort wasn't enough to force my hand (or throat) here. If I was expecting to squeeze by with a narrow margin, I might as well wait until the last possible moment to exhale.

The bravest of the centipedes approached the trunk and bit it, and the others apparently took that as a cue to respond in kind. Before there was time for a second bite, I hit them with another round of [noxious breath].

SP: 8/16

As the centipedes skittered away, I leapt from the tree, hoping to strike or otherwise immobilize one of them, but the centipedes' movement was too erratic (and my leap from the trees was too telegraphed) for me to hit anything but rock and soil as I hit the ground. I immediately clamored back onto the lowest branch — even with the gas cloud enveloping me, I didn't like the idea of being on the ground with this many centipedes around. These were fierce predators, and I had counted half a dozen of them. The armor-piercing nature of their bite had given some hint as to the threat they posed; it could very well be that if they rushed me simultaneously, all it would take was several bites from each of them to break me. (If one centipede bite was enough to defeat an armored ant, what would a dozen or more centipede bites do to a young dragon?)

For that matter, what would their bites do to a tree of this size? I inspected the bite mark left by the one centipede that had gotten close. It had left a noticeable dent, but it would take more than a single bite to cut this tree down. How many bites would it take? A hundred, perhaps? Fifty? Even if those did seem like large numbers, a centipede swarm of this size could collectively make that many bites in less than a minute of concerted effort. It did leave me a slight bit of buffer to work with.

It seemed unfair, somehow, that these centipedes' mandibles were so well-adapted to biting through trees. This was supposed to be the domain of termites and other herbivores, not predators. Teeth were supposed to be adapted for some specific ecological niche depending on whether they needed to pierce (fangs), tear (canines), or nipping (incisors). That was why omnivores (like humans) had teeth that came in such a wide variety of shapes. These centipedes had a single set of mandibles that could do it all, apparently, but that wasn't how teeth worked in the real world.

This is the real world now, Octavia probably would have told me if she had been here. "Supposed to" was my own value judgment, and thinking that this world and its creatures ought to be a certain way wouldn't change the world I was living in. I had to live in the world as it was, and the world that I lived in was one where half a dozen centipedes with lethally venomous bites were threatening to cut down the tree I was perched in. If I didn't like the status quo, I had to act to change it.

I could always bail on this tree and try to seek refuge in another — if it took them a minute or more to chew through a tree trunk, then hopping to a different tree meant that any time they spent attacking this tree was effectively wasted. I could buy myself time that way. But this tree was special: it was the one directly below Octavia's rappel point. It would do no good if she lowered herself and found nothing but a stump below her. She might be able to swing to a different tree, but it was probably better to save her the trouble: if I was going to abandon trees and treat them as disposable, this tree — our "home tree" — was the least disposable.

I glanced at the trees around me. For a moment, I judged the distance between "home tree" and the next one over, debating whether I could make a jump from one set of branches to the next, until I realized how unnecessary the idea was. I already had a way of crossing from one tree to the next without being attacked, and it didn't involve flinging myself through the air.

I swung onto the lowest branch, and dropped to the ground just as my [noxious breath] was nearly fully dissipated. I walked to the edge of the gas cloud, and spewed another, big enough that it enveloped both "home tree" and the big tree next to it.

SP: 7/16

I scurried up the Big Tree — my first attempt to leap into the lowest branch was unsuccessful, so I settled for digging my claws into the bark and hoisting myself up that way.

This gave me a more comfortable buffer to work with. "Big tree" had a thicker trunk, so it would take the centipedes longer to chew through it when they did start. But maybe there was a way for me to prevent them from starting. Their biting might leave them vulnerable. It might not be wise to tussle with them directly, but I could come at them indirectly. I wasn't above exploiting an unfair advantage, and what I was above was the centipedes themselves: I'd used gravitational potential energy to my advantage once before.

Stolen story; please report.

I climbed to the upper branches, testing the strength of each one until I found one that was thin — too thin to support my weight. I tried biting through it. I quickly realized that my teeth were optimized for tearing, and not for gnawing or chewing through wood. Well, if I had to rip and tear, then that's what I would do. I used my mouth's grip on the weak upper branch to jerk it downward, trying to snap it off. No dice. Hmm, if the branch's attachment to the trunk of the tree represented a fulcrum, and the branch's center of mass represented its load, then to gain maximum leverage…

I wandered further out, gripping the weak upper branch with my foreclaws while my hind claws and tail gripped the stronger branch below me, and I inched out further away from the trunch until I was grasping the weaker branch near its tip. I sunk my own teeth into the end of the branch. The branch's center of mass (load) was now halfway between my grip (force) and tree trunk (fulcrum). That's a class two lever, baby. I yanked the branch downward, and the mechanical advantage was enough to snap the branch clean off.

By now, the gas cloud had nearly dissipated. I watched the centipedes below, waiting for them to get close enough to the tree that I could drop the branch on them. My chances of catching one of them unawares would probably be highest if I waited until their mandibles were buried in the tree. I watched as they approached the tree trunk. They circled it for a moment, then one of them approached the tree — but rather than attempt to bite it, it began climbing.

They can do that?

Apparently, the centipedes had no interest in trying to cut down the Big Tree. I gripped the branch in my tooth, brandishing it like a weapon, feeling uneasy as I did so: would a big stick be any defense against the centipedes? I could always resort to my breath attacks, but if this was a war of attrition, I wanted to conserve my SP as much as possible. Branch still in mouth, I gripped one of the upper branches with my hind claws and swung downward, sinking my foreclaws into the bark several feet below where my hind legs gripped the tree. I was looking down at the centipedes, head first. I twisted my neck back and forth, swinging the loose tree branch back and forth. The first centipede crawled directly toward me — and then disappeared around the trunk of the tree. There was no way for my ineffectual branch defense to cover the entire circumference of the tree trunk. I dropped the branch, which bounced off the trunk and fell to the ground without hitting any of the centipedes. I felt something brush against my tail, and in a moment of panic, I exhaled [noxious breath].

SP: 6/16

The centipede that had been nearest me seemingly released its grip on the tree, and fell to the ground below. For a moment, I was hopeful that the fall might have inflicted enough damage to kill the centipede, but a moment after it hit the ground, it began skittering around in circles. I wasn't sure if it was angry or something else, but the centipedes were all clinging to the bark of the tree, just outside the radius of where my gas cloud hung in the upper branches.

I had worked myself into an extremely inopportune position: the centipedes seemed much more capable of maneuvering around the tree than I did, clinging to its side with much greater ease. My strategy of "flee into the trees" had backfired: it was like I had my back against a wall, where the wall was the sky. Fitting, for an environment where everything was backward: the centipedes that I could see the most clearly were the ones closest to the ground, near where the glowstone illuminated them, while the ones further from the ground had more shadows to hide in. So much for "creative problem solving." If I was going to tussle with these centipedes (a prospect which I still wasn't keen on), the canopy seemed like the worst place to do it. I climbed down to the lowest point that my gas cloud covered. The centipedes seemed to flinch back as I approached. They skittered around the trunk, but didn't get any closer. I took a few tentative claw swipes (which didn't come anywhere close to landing), and waited.

After the gas cloud cleared, I once again hit them with [noxious breath], and this time I was close enough to the ground to blanket the forest floor. [SP: 5/16] The centipedes left the tree (some of them, skittering down the trunk, with others simply dropping off), and they fled to a safe distance. I climbed down from the tree and turned to face them, pacing back in forth in the small clearing between Big Tree and Home Tree, debating whether to try using my gas cloud as a defensive cloak from which to launch an offensive strike, as I had against the fire ants the first time they'd invaded my plateau. As I considered whether to start getting my claws messy or continue playing the waiting game, the centipedes skittered away.

I eyed them cautiously, trying my best to follow them with my eyes, and then I climbed onto the lower branch of Home Tree, just to get a better idea of where they were going. Going to rally more troops? No, something else had caught their attention: I could see shadows dancing. The light of glowstone was moving across the forest floor, moving with a rhythmic pattern as if someone was picking up chunks of glowstone and was carrying them. I spotted three glowing chunks moving, and then two more, and then four more, and…at least a dozen pieces of glowstone, flowing along through the grass and fern-like leaves that covered the floor of the Shimmergrove. And, after squinting at the glowing movement for several seconds, I realized that was exactly what was happening. There were glowstone chunks, moving through the underbrush, carried by armored ants, just as easily as if they were carrying pieces of fruit. Why…?

I couldn't begin to guess at why there were ants carrying glowstone away with them, but the movement of the ants at least answered the question of why the centipedes had given up on trying to corner me: why hunt big prey that put up a fight when there was much easier prey that was doing you the courtesy of carrying a glowing beacon telling you exactly where it was? The centipedes went to work on the armored ants, and several of the glowstone chunks fell to the ground, but there was only so much that half a dozen centipedes could do against a marching procession of dozens of ants: the centipedes were here for a meal, and seemed perfectly content to let most of the armored ants march along on their way as they picked off the stragglers.

I myself was tempted to enter the fray, but I remembered that my claws weren't strong enough to do anything about the armored ants, even if I wanted to, so I clambered up to the upper branches of what I had designated as Home Tree (thankfully, nothing followed me), and I remained perched there, waiting for Octavia's return. I looked up, and saw that she had finished her melon delivery and had just started her return trip.

I scanned the floor of the Shimmergrove for signs of threatening activity, then cast my gaze upward, hoping that the return portion of Octavia's journey would be faster than her departure.