“How Large are we talking?” Viper raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“I would say a good ten feet tall with glowing red eyes, and crimson spikes growing out of its back.” I responded casually

“That definitely sounds like a boss monster.” Luna stated, staring at me in awe.

“It’s good to know it's out here, let's go hunting and make sure to keep an eye out for it. I don't want to get caught unaware.” Morgan gestured for everyone to stand, so we all did. Morgan seemed to have taken the role of leader which no one seemed to argue with but Morgan wasn’t one to lead alone. Soon we would find out who he wanted to be the co-leader of the group. Our party started to walk farther away from town to find something to hunt. We walked for about twenty minutes through trees that were about four to six foot wide and thirty to sixty feet tall. The forest was made out of what seemed to be oak trees with a moderate canopy that obscured vision but allowed plenty of light to filter through. After the twenty minutes we heard the sound of chitin rubbing against wood.

“Oh great they are here too.” Viper drew his katana and the rest of the party following suit, except for me I fell into my fighting stance and looked up. My vision fell onto a large centipede or maybe a millipede about forty feet up a tree. It must have been about four foot wide and about twenty foot long. Its chitin was a dark black except for its legs and its pincers which were crimson like the wolf I had seen. As we saw it the creature's head turned towards us, seconds later it was almost to the forest floor. Nora charged at the creature with a loud battlecry that indicated her rage had been activated. Viper slipped to the left behind a tree and I lost sight of him. Nora started to chant and draw green growing runes into the air. Morgan simply sat and watched everyone trying to keep track of the battle. I took off to the right to try to flank the centipede with Nora. It met Nora with half of its body still on the tree it snapped its mandibles at her but she had already begun to swing her axe, its mandibles sunk into Nora's torso while her axe came down on its head cracking its chitin and causing it to release her. Its wound bled but so did Nora’s, The Centipedes blood was a dark purple liquid that had spots of glowing crimson in it. That’s when I arrived I jumped into the air. I used some of my qi and brought my right foot down with an empowered axe kick. The chitin shattered under my blow spraying purple blood into the air as the centipede now had a crater in one of its middle segments. The next two strikes happened at the same time. The grass around its many legs grew vines that wrapped around its legs holding it still. Viper dropped from the sky sinking his katana into its head though it didn’t penetrate well. Morgan finally moved; they drew a sign in the air with a hand that had been cut by their own dagger. The blood of the centipede started to flow out of it from its different wounds forming a warhammer in the air above Viper.

“Viper move now.” Nora yelled at him. He didn’t wait to see why simply dodging off of the centipede leaving his blade stuck in its head. The hammer came down on the back of the blade with almost no sound but the blade was driven further into the centipede's head and the creature stopped moving. The whole fight took about ten seconds. Morgan walked up to Nora and drew a small symbol in the air and her wounds knitted themselves closed. Viper went to retrieve his katana, pulling it out and shaking it to make sure it wasn’t damaged. The blade broke at the tang and fell to the ground.

“Seriously Morgan, you owe me a new blade dude.” He looked pointedly at Morgan.

“Sorry about that, I didn't think it would put that much force on the blade.” Morgan scratched the back of his head while grinning. “Don’t worry, I'll make you a new one.” I walked towards the front of the centipede and pulled my tiny skinning knife. I set to work on one of the mandibles. It was tougher to get through than i thought then i found the joint and was able to cut it off there. As soon as I finished removing the mandible I got a notification that my harvesting skill had leveled up. I made a mental note to see what that does later then closed the notification and began on the second mandible, this one coming off quicker and cleaner.

“You're already looting huh Odhran.” I turned to see Nora behind me.

“Yeah I feel like it might take awhile to get through this one.” I noticed the other three were talking a couple feet away.

“Want me to help.” Nora didn’t wait for an answer and pulled out her skinning knife and started on the antenna. While she worked on those and went and started separating the chitin from the torso on the first segment. In the time it took me to get the first segment of chitin off Nora had already managed to get both antenna off and was starting on the segment behind me.

Eventually the others came to help us, it still took about six minutes to get all the chitin off of the centipede. By the time we were done I had reached level two in skinning as well. We got all the parts together. We had one rank D mandible and one rank C mandible as well as thirteen rank D chitin plates and twenty rank D+ chitin plates. I checked my inventory and found I had my skinning knife which was down to forty six percent durability as well as one giant centipede mandible rank D and another rank C as well as thirteen giant centipede chitin rank D and another twenty rank D+. I also had the three wolf pelts rank D, the one dire wolf pelt rank D, and the twenty nine pounds of wolf meat rank D. I had taken all the parts because I was trying to figure out how much space we had in our bags and I noticed mine was almost full at one hundred and ten pounds out of one hundred and fifty. The mandibles weighed one pound each. The chitin was two pounds each, the wolf pelts were three pounds each, the dire wolf pelt was five pounds, and the wolf meat was twenty nine pounds, the skinning knife seemed to be weightless. As I closed my inventory Morgan was in the middle of telling everyone we better head back to town before night fell, so we began the trek back. It took a little over half an hour to reach town again, just as the sun was setting, we all filed into the town hall and found five cots set up in a spare room that looked like it used to be used for storage.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

“We should sleep tonight and tackle some stuff tomorrow.” Morgan said as we entered the room. “Is there anything specific anyone wants to do? I’ll be talking to the smith tomorrow to see if I can use his forge to make some new stuff for the group.”

“You mean like making me a new blade?” Viper asked, obviously still upset at the loss of his sword.

“Yes, that is on the top of the list I promise.”

“I think we should all sit down and go over our skills so we can better coordinate during combat.” I suggested.

“I agree with that.” Luna chimed in.

“I want to go see the merchant and see what some of this stuff sells for.” Nora said.

“I'll probably do that as well.” I acknowledge.

“Before you do that, can you stop by the smith with me so I can use some of those materials?” Morgan asked.

“Yeah I can do that.” I sat down in one of the cots and we sat in silence for a couple of seconds to see if there was anything else from anyone else. When it was obvious that there were no other suggestions we all quietly laid down. I had some trouble sleeping and when I believed everyone else was asleep I slid out of my cot and made my way outside. As I came out of the door I turned right and walked over to a small patch of vegetation that included one tree that was six feet wide and at least fifty feet tall as well as a small patch of grass filled with flowers. I sat down at the base of the tree and fell into my meditation stance and started to regain my qi. I could feel the energy of the world flowing into me and filling what felt like an empty hole inside of me.

“Having fun?” Morgan asked, shaking me out of my meditation a mere five minutes into it.

“I hadn’t realized anyone else was awake.” I patted a spot on the ground beside me.

“Couldn’t sleep, I have too much to think about.” Morgan walked over and sat down accepting my invitation. “Odhran I don’t know if you have noticed but I seem to have been elected the leader of our little group.” Morgan looked over at me, then away again.

“I had noticed but I think that had been decided before we started playing. You were the one who got us into the game anyway.” I said staring up at the slow moving clouds, they looked like light gray brush strokes against a dark sky filled with stars.

“I guess you're right on that point.” Morgan chuckled lightly. “Anyways, I had a question I wanted to ask you.”

“Oh and what was that?” A sense of dread settled on me, I had a good idea of what they were about to ask.

“Would you mind helping me lead this group in our future adventures?” They looked at me and smiled like they didn’t just ask me to take on a huge load of work.

“I knew you were going to ask that.” I sighed “I guess I can help you yeah, I can’t promise anything but I'll do my best.”

“I can’t thank you enough and don’t worry I think you’ll be a great help.” Morgan sat and stared at the sky with me for another ten minutes before standing and turning to look at me. “Thanks again, I think I’ll be able to sleep now.” Then they left. I settled back into a meditation stance and sat for another half an hour under the tree and the night sky even though it only took me fifteen to be at full qi. After that I got up and walked back into the town hall. As I re-entered our makeshift room I noticed someone else was awake now that Morgan was asleep. Viper stared at me as I entered the room.

“What are you doing up?” He asked.

“Couldn’t sleep, went out to look at the stars, how about you.”

“I only have to meditate for two hours instead of sleep.”

“Oh yeah, That must be nice huh.”

“Kinda but I don't know what I will do with my extra time yet.”

“At least you aren’t helping Morgan lead the group.”

“Is that what he went out to ask you? Yeah I’m glad I dodged that bullet, but if you need any help feel free to ask. We are a team after all.”

“Thanks I appreciate that but right now what I need is sleep.”

“Fair enough.” With our conversation over I laid down, sleep finding me easily.