as she landed on it she shoved her sword deep between two pieces of its armor. The warpede loosed a terrible whine and flailed violently, bucking Calan from its back. Remtall regained his feet, followed quickly by Adacon; not a moment was wasted as together they stuck their blades deep into the unarmored belly of the warpede. It screeched again its high-pitched cry, and suddenly the Feral beast went berserk, contorting its worm-body wildly, knocking trees down in every direction. The ancient bark cracked and fell in every direction, and Iirevale jumped, narrowly avoiding heavy debris. Calan rose from where she had fallen, ready to finish the evil beast; the warpede seemed unfazed by its leaking wounds. The warpede tempered its fury to strike at her with its right row of dagger legs; quickly she drew up her shield, just in time, and several of the centipede’s legs bore through the elven wood, scratching her chest. The warpede withdrew its body, dragging Calan’s shield away with it. Defenseless, she jumped behind Adacon where he held his wooden shield high. The warpede rose above them again to glare down before an assault, wiggling its gold-spike feet, dripping the black sludge of its blood upon their heads.
“Stand back!” Remtall cried, stepping in front of them as the warpede shot down, jaw wide. Adacon and Calan fell back at Remtall’s push, and the Gazaran smashed directly on top of Remtall; the tiny gnome vanished from sight.
“No!” shouted Adacon. Iirevale joined them as the warpede lifted itself up, preparing for another attack; to their amazement, Remtall clung to the underbelly of the centipede. It appeared that the tiny gnome had managed to dig both his sword and dagger into the belly of the warpede between armor creases, and slowly the creature drained of its gelatinous blood; underneath, clinging, Remtall became a faucet of pus. Despite its gushing wounds, the warpede showed no signs of relinquishing its life-force; it used the girth of its plated form again, its body acting as a whip, catching everyone with great force, knocking them each to the debris-covered ground in a cloud of dust and leaves.
“I’ll teach you—maggot-fiend—to tread upon my road—demon of the forest—meet the demon of the sea!” Remtall stammered, struggling to cling to the belly of the beast. Quickly he released his right arm, thrusting his dagger again and again into the belly of the warpede, dangling by his elven sword from its underside. The beast rose up on its back legs, high into the treetops, still unhurt from loss of blood. It shook violently as the tiny gnome struggled to stay on, mercilessly piercing its gut over and over, showering the fallen comrades below; finally the monster shook so violently that Remtall was thrown from a height of fifteen yards, crashing to the earth upon a pile of upheaved foliage. Grabbing his head where it throbbed, Remtall tried to open his eyes, half-consciously, but he felt overcome by a grey dimness. Calan, Adacon, and Iirevale did not move from where they lay. The warpede shot down toward its paralyzed victims; it dove at Remtall with all the power it had, intent to destroy the gnome that had stung it so many times.
Remtall surrendered—his body was ravaged; it ached from every pore—he decided that he had produced a valiant fight, one worthy of song. Suddenly a flash of clarity overtook the strengthless gnome—something flashed before his mind’s eye: was it Krem? He remembered the summoning stone; with energy not his own, he reached into his pocket and removed the tiny globe, and unknowing of how to use it, threw it at the warpede blazing down on him: the stone shattered, cracking upon the armor of the warpede. A choking cloud formed instantly, suffocating smoke of red and green that erupted from the stone’s point of impact on the gold armor. Out of the smoke a miraculous apparition overtook Remtall’s eyes, and soon it was no longer an apparition at all but a drake emerging from colored fog: a dragon the size of two grown men. It immediately belted a blue flame in the direction of the warpede, which had recoiled away from the smoke. Shades of green and red smoke were lit blue-white by the power of the drake’s fire, and the warpede began a dreadful hiss.
“Amazing,” Adacon said, awakening to the sight of the drake attacking the gold-armored centipede. Soon Calan and Iirevale were up next to him, and together they rushed to Remtall, well