Even though the sign said it was a farm, Damion did not see much in the way of crops. Most of the fields were overgrown with weeds or appeared to have been burned and were filled with ash. The only field that appeared to be producing crops was the one directly in front of the house, that had a wall of brick, about a foot high, all the way around it. The producing field had several rows of tomato plants growing as well as a few other vegetables in neat rows.
Ethan pulled the PTV up to right outside the house and almost as soon as they came to a stop, the door to the house opened and outstepped an old man. The man looked quite frail, with leathery skin and a long grey beard.
“You boys here to kill more scorpions?” The man asked as he gingerly stepped out of his house with the help of a cane.
“Yes sir, Mr. Galen” Ethan answered. “This is my friend Damion. It is his first hunting mission, so I thought we’d come here and help you out a bit.”
“Well, go and get on with it,” Mr. Galen said. “You know where they are.”
“Come on,” Ethan said as he climbed out of the PTV.
Ethan led Damion around the house and into the backyard which, just like most of the fields in front of the house, was a burned ruin.
“Did Mr. Galen try and burn out the Fire Scorpions?” Damion asked Ethan as he looked over the destroyed yard.
“No, the Fire Scorpions did this. Mr. Galen is lucky his house was built of stone and not wood, or he probably would have been driven out of here by the beasts.”
“They can cause fires? I guess that explains why they are called ‘Fire’ Scorpions,” Damion surmised.
“Yep, look there is one,” Ethan said as he pointed to something moving in the corner of the yard.
Damion and Ethan moved closer and Damion got his first look at a Fire Scorpion. The creature measured no more than 17 centimeters but looked larger due to its segmented tail that curved up over its body and was tipped with a stinger. The Fire Scorpion also had a pair of formidable looking pincers on its front arms, making Damion wary of getting closer. Damion could not tell the coloring, due to the ash and soot it was walking through, but it looked to be either a reddish brown or a dark orange color.
As Damion was studying the appearance of the Fire Scorpion, another appeared not too far away, crawling out of a burrow. Damion started to move closer, but Ethan grabbed his shoulder, holding him back.
“You don’t want to take them head on,” Ethan told him.
Just as Ethan was speaking the closer of the Fire Scorpions pointed its tailed stinger at them and sprayed out what Damion thought was going to be some short of poison. However, the spray quickly burst into spray of fire. The small puff of a fireball did not last long, but Damion quickly understood why Mr. Galen’s fields were all burned.
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“Where did these things come from?” Damion asked. He was sure Mr. Galen would not have built his home so close to fire spraying monsters.
“They showed up after the last beast wave. Either forced out of wherever they were living before, or maybe they came from a breach. That’s more of a question to be answered by B and A Rankers.”
“What’s a breach?” Damion asked, never having heard the word before.
“Uh,” Ethan suddenly looked quite nervous. “I thought you had an A Rank mage as a teacher.”
“I do, but she never mentioned a… breach.”
“Look forget I mentioned it. You’ll have to ask her about it and please don’t mention that I blabbed.”
Damion looked at Ethan and realized that his friend had accidently let something slip. Whatever a breach was, Damion guessed Ethan was not supposed to know either and he must have learned about it from his father. This told Damion it was something known by higher ranked knights and mages but was kept from the low rankers and the general public.
“Sure, I’ll just say I overheard someone in the Association talking when I ask,” Damion assured Ethan. “Alright, so how do we fight these things. I mean I could pretty easily just step on one to kill it, but I don’t particularly want to have my pants set on fire by doing that.”
“Yeah, stepping on one is a sure way to get burns. The easiest way is to use ranged attacks, but your sword’s fire attack probably won’t be very effective. Next best is to come up behind one and stab it with your sword.”
“You want to play bait while I circle around behind,” Damion suggested.
Ethan thought about it for a moment and then nodded. He had two daggers and usually, he threw one to kill a Fire Scorpion from a distance and then collected it. But this way, he could get the Fire Scorpion’s attention and Damion could just stab down on them from behind. Fire Scorpions did not turn very quickly, and their fire spray only had a range of about a meter, so both of them would be fairly safe with this approach. As long as they did not let one sneak up behind them.
After grabbing a long stick, Ethan began to tap the ground in front of the Fire Scorpions. The creatures spat a few fire sprays in Ethan’s direction, but he was out of their range. Ethan kept poking at them, annoying them with the stick, the closer one tried and failed to latch onto the stick with its pincher just as Damion stabbed his sword down.
Damion’s sword easily pierced the carapace of the Fire Scorpion. When Damion pulled his sword up, the Fire Scorpion was impaled on the tip of his sword, its legs and pinchers still moving. After a few seconds the Fire Scorpion succumbed to its wound. However, Damion did not notice as he was already stabbing down on the second one.
“Nice work,” Ethan said as Damion was using the sole of his shoe to push the Fire Scorpions off his sword. “We need to cut off the stingers to take back as proof of our kills.”
“Right,” Damion said as he quickly sliced the end of the stingers.
As Damion’s sword sliced through the Fire Scorpion tails a liquid flowed out that Damion first thought was blood, but when it burst into flames. Damion did a quick jump back, causing Ethan to let out a laugh. Just as Damion was about to say something, the flames died out and Damion looked to Ethan for an explanation.
“They spray out a liquid from their stingers that reacts with the air and causes it to ignite.”
“What happens if they sting you instead of just spray fire at you?”
“Your foot, or leg, whatever got stung, will rot from the inside out. I’m told it burns, like you are being burned from the inside out. Don’t get stung,” Ethan warned.
“Thanks for the sage advice,” Damion shot back.
For the next hour the pair hunted Fire Scorpions in Mr. Galen’s backyard on the edge of Benault Forest. It did not take long for each of them to complete the mission, but Ethan informed Damion that they could turn in more for a larger reward, so the two continued to kill Fire Scorpions.
In the end, they had a pile of thirty Fire Scorpion corpses and fifteen stingers apiece to turn in for the mission. As the pair were getting ready to bury the corpses for Mr. Galen, as they did not want to leave a mess in his backyard that would attract other monsters, Ethan pushed Damion to the ground near the pile as a shadow swooped overhead.