I thought it was kind of strange that the Guild would let a newbie rank E take on a rank C quest right out of the gate, but I guess with the deposit it became a quick and easy money maker for them and weeded out the weaker Adventurers. I was running at, what felt to me, the speed of a galloping horse. By the time that most predators or beasts were aware of my presence, I was already past them, so the trip was rather uneventful.

The Adventurer tag included some extra functions in addition to tracking stats and identification. It seemed to have a calculator and exchange rate function to help with finances and trading money across borders, a member’s guide to various taverns and inns across the country where you could get Guild member discounts, a simple compass, and even a basic distance tracker to your target quest start point. I really needed to figure out some sort of mapping software. If I could combine the two functions via some sort of API, or Application Program Interface, calls that would be really useful. An API basically let two different computer systems talk to each other so that you could pull in the data from one system into your own system. It was possible that higher ranked Guild cards had better functions, but I would still be sure to investigate and copy the programs on it when I had the time.

According to the tracker function I was only a couple kilometers away from my quest start point, so I put away the tag and kept an eye out for my target. I didn’t know anything about the beast I was supposed to be hunting other than it was attacking travelers on the road here. Was it attacking single travelers, caravans, knights? Was it a small creature? I had no idea, so I slowed down to a walk in hopes of making myself a good target. If the creature was attacking people, then it was possible that its nest was nearby and it had eggs it was protecting... or feeding. As I looked around, I started seeing signs of fire damage around. Nothing forest fire level, but the occasional burned area or side of a tree could be seen.

I could see smoke from something burning up ahead, so I picked my pace back up and drew my swords as I raced onward. I crested a hill and below me I could see a carriage that had been overturned and was on fire, the horses were panicking while still attached, and the sounds of coughing and crying could be heard from inside. A man holding a flaming branch and a simple sword was trying to keep the centipede back and away from the flaming carriage. The centipede was way bigger than I was expecting. If I had to guess, it was at least three car lengths long and each segment was the size of a car tire with a little jet of fire shooting up out of each shoulder where a leg was attached. Its carapace was a deep blood red with a golden underside that I could see as it reared up to snap at the defending man.

It lunged at the man like a viper with its mandibles open wide. At my body speed, swords wouldn’t be as effective as blunt force to change the Centipede’s attack direction, so I threw my shoulder into it, sending it crashing into the ground. I tumbled over it, coming up on my feet with my swords ready. The beast shook its head and looked at the man then at me. I hoped that I appeared to be the bigger threat.

“Get the people still in the carriage to safety!” I yelled. The man nodded and threw down his branch and rushed off to help the people that were trapped inside. I wanted to end this quickly so that I could see to the others as well rather than draw the fight out and test Carnivac’s abilities. I cast shadowCloud around the creature’s eyes to blind it and slashed at it. Its shell was as tough as steel and my swords didn’t make so much as a scratch. Blinded, the centipede began thrashing around violently in an attempt to dispel the blindness. I was trying to keep an eye on its head to make sure that those nasty chompers didn’t find me, but instead I got smashed from behind by the tail end of it. The force of the blow wasn’t terrible, but it did send me face first into the dirt. I pulled myself back up to my feet as the centipede flowed in my direction. It brushed against me, spinning me around as I was knocked back to the ground. Rather than attempt another attack, it looked like it was going to try and flee and was heading for the tree line. Luckily for me, its long body continued to flow past me, giving me plenty of time to hop on.

I grabbed for a spot between the segments and tried to avoid the little fire jets. This thing was surprisingly fast, but it was still blind and kept crashing into trees and over things. With my free sword-hand I slid the blade through the space between the segments and pushed down as hard as I could. Suddenly the segments I was on stopped as my blade went through its body and into the ground like a big push pin. The sudden brakes caused the segments to nearly rip apart where my blade had gone through, and the portion of its body ahead of me flung backward like a rubber band. Its head smacked into me, knocking me loose and back onto the ground, though this time with one less sword. It must have figured out where I was and smashed its forward body down on top of me. I managed to get my free arm up and under it to hold it off, but its snapping mandibles were just inches from my face. One of its dagger-like limbs had punctured my shoulder, and I was grateful that it didn’t hit my main body and that I didn’t feel pain like organic beings did.

The drool from its pincers was glowing like magma and I could feel intense heat coming from it. When it pulled back to attempt another biting attack, I got my legs up under it to push it a little further up and create enough space for me to shove my remaining sword between the head segment and the rest of the body. I hit something on the other end, so the tip was somewhere inside the head. I pushed hard to the side, partially severing the head and rolling out from under it. It continued thrashing around, but I managed to take the rest of the head off. The rest of the body was still thrashing around and would likely take a while to fully realize it was dead, but with my other sword pinning it to the ground, it wasn’t going anywhere. I noticed the man from before along with a Feline beastkin woman and two kitten children looking at me, so I made a show of appearing to be out of breath and resting my hands on my knees.

“Everybody okay?” I asked.