Merchant Crab

Night had long settled over the pond, its access road empty and in a silence only broken by the chirping of a cricket or the soft breeze passing through the rustling leaves of a nearby bush. The sky was overcast and hid the moon’s glow from the land, leaving the small sparkles of fireflies that danced over the plains as the sole lights in the darkness, tiny dots of yellow so dim they illuminated little more than the blades of grass around them.

Without so much as a footstep sound preceding it, light erupted from the dark over the stone road, a flame lighting a small iron lantern held by a figure dressed entirely in black leathers, with only a small window between the hood and mask revealing his eyes.

From behind him, two other figures appeared, equally dressed in stealthy gear that muffled their movements and allowed them to blend in with their nighttime surroundings.

One was a stocky man with very broad shoulders who wore nothing over his completely bald head, while the other was a slim woman of small stature, only made smaller by standing next to the man accompanying her.

The one holding the lantern spoke first, in a hushed tone that reached no further than the ears it was meant for. “Alright, this is the place. Remember, we can take whatever we want, but we gotta make sure we don’t leave without planting the medallion somewhere.”

“And if the crab or the goblin wake up?” the other man asked, in a low and deep voice.

“Knock them out if necessary, but no killing. Client says that would get half the Adventurers Guild to look into what happened, and we don’t need that kind of attention either.”

“Who’s the client and why do they care so much about this stupid crab, anyway?” asked the woman.

“Don’t know,” the leader of the trio said, “and considering how much gold he put in our hands, I don’t care to know either. Now let’s get in and get this done.”

The man snuffed out the light from the lantern and the three of them quietly moved into the area surrounding the pond.

Pointing two fingers to his own eyes and then to the center islet, the leader ordered the larger man to go there and keep watch. The other nodded and started crossing the bridge, a large club held tight in his hands, while doing his best not to make the wooden floorboards creak.

The woman moved in between a group of crates, looking for one not sealed, while her boss began looking for a good spot on the shelves to place the gold medallion held in his left hand.

As the lookout reached the center of the pond, he saw a very dim light coming from inside the tent. With careful steps, he approached and peered inside, where he saw the back of a gray carapace, quietly resting on a large purple cushion, barely illuminated by a small oil lantern sitting in the corner.

As he began backing away from the seemingly sleeping crab, something caught his attention. Something that wasn’t right about that shell, and as he squinted and tried looking closer amid the surrounding darkness, he made out the details on the edge of the chitin, like cracks and fissures. His eyes widened as he saw it hollow. The shell was empty.

Meanwhile, the small thief was trying to quietly pry open a crate when a small shuffling sound made her turn around.

But nothing was there.

Still suspicious, she turned back to the crate, when the same noise came again, except much closer this time, and accompanied by a sudden orange light appearing behind her back.

She quickly turned to the flame of a lit torch dancing in front of her, forcing the woman to take a moment to readjust her eyes to the sudden brightness. As she looked past the flame, she saw a goblin, its head barely higher than her waist level, but made to look slightly taller by a worn out wizard hat on its head. The creature smiled at her with sharp yellow teeth. “Helloooo!”

The woman yelled, disgust on her face as she rapidly drew a dagger and swiped at the goblin, but the creature was gone, leaving only the bright flame of the torch burning on the dirt floor.

Alerted by the scream, the thief in command stood up from the shelves, looking for the cause of the commotion, when his attention was captured by the man on the other side of the bridge, waving his club up in the air. “It’s a trap!”

Quickly stuffing the medallion in one of his pockets, the thief noticed something moving around the tree behind his partner on the opposite shore. A strange glow, something reflecting the tiny amount of moonlight that passed between the clouds. Something shiny and golden.

“Behind you!” the leader shouted.

The other thief turned to see the large golden crab appearing from behind the thick tree trunk that separated them, two large pincers held open, one much larger than the other, but both with a metal shine to them.

“We’re closed now. You should come back tomorrow!”

With a quick jab, Balthazar wrapped his iron pincer around the large man’s shin and squeezed.

The thief howled in pain and faltered, but did not fall down.

“Huh. Feels like steel plates under that. Lucky,” Balthazar said, before shouting past the thief holding his leg in pain. “Bouldy, light the fire now!”

With a quick turn, the thief’s leader looked past the shelves, trying to identify what was causing such loud shifting noises. With fumbling fingers, the man lit his lantern back up, just in time to see a thick arm made of stone reach past him and hold its hand above a fire pit composed of several wooden logs covered with thick oil and surrounded by a circle of stones. The hand struck two of its rocky fingers together, producing several orange sparks that fell over the wood and set it ablaze with a fiery roar.

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As the flames from the pit lit the surrounding trading post, the baffled prowler followed the length of the stone arm all the way up to its head, standing nearly twice as tall as his own. A wide face of stone looked down at him with two smooth orbs reflecting the orange brightness from the fire. The rock smiled, and the man stepped backwards, tripping on his own feet and falling on his back.

Opposite of him, the small frame of the woman thief was frantically looking around, searching for the goblin. “I freaking hate goblins! Where are you?!”

“Druma magics you!” the small creature yelled, as he jumped on top of a crate, staff in hand, pointed at his target.

The nimble thief tried rolling for cover behind a rock, but the glowing green bolts that came shooting out of the staff hit her mid-jump, sending her flying straight into the pond with a loud splash.

“Yes! Druma magic! Druma get thief!” the goblin yelled, jumping up and down on the crate in celebration.

Stumbling back to his feet, the leader of the thugs tried to run for the exit.

“Don’t let him get away!” Balthazar shouted to the golem from the other side. “Grab him!”

As the panicking thief turned to face the road, a stone hand grabbed him by the foot and lifted him up with great ease, holding his upside down face in front of the golem’s friendly smile. “Friend?”

“No, you dolt, he’s not a frien—”

Balthazar barely had time to skitter back and narrowly avoid the strike from the man who was no longer holding his leg in pain, and was now limping his way towards the crab with rage in his eyes, and a very thick club in his hands.

“That pincer… really… hurt,” the panting man said. “Can’t wait to rip it out of you and see how much it will sell for.”

With a much quicker motion than his stature would suggest, the man lifted his club and smacked it down on the ground in front of Balthazar, who barely managed to dodge it.

“A little help over here?!” Balthazar yelled. “I don’t wanna become crab soup tonight!”

Bouldy lifted his gaze from the man he was still holding upside down and looked towards the crab with his back against the tent’s wall, and the burly thief approaching with his club held high, ready to bring it down once within reach.

“Friend!”

Dropping the leader of the thieves on the ground like a sack of rocks, the golem broke into a sprint, making the ground shake with each step as he rushed to the center islet.

Stumbling from the quickly approaching quake, the club-wielding man looked back just in time to see a huge backhand of stone coming right for his chest, swatting him away like a pestering mosquito, and launching him against the tree’s bark with a loud crash that caused the old trunk to shake and several leaves to break off from their branches. The thief landed on his face, motionless.

“Wow, Bouldy… you actually—“

A sloshing sound cut Balthazar’s words short as he turned to see a soaked woman emerging from the shore, dagger in hand, blade held forward in his direction.

She was moving too quickly and Balthazar had nowhere to back away to.

“You crabby son of a—”

The crab recoiled, putting his pincers up in front of his eyes and hoping she wouldn’t strike anything vital.

“Hmmrph!”

Balthazar peeked over his iron claw.

The woman was clawing at her own face, struggling to untangle herself from a piece of tattered, worn out undergarments that had just fallen from the branches above them and right on the thief’s head.

“I can’t believe those bloomers were still up there!” Balthazar exclaimed.

“You leave boss alone, thief!”

Coming out of the corner of his eye, Balthazar watched as Druma kicked the blinded thief on her shin, before smacking her knee with his wooden staff, causing her to fall to the ground, unmentionables still wrapped around her head.

“Druma got you now,” the goblin said, while taking a coil of rope off his shoulder and quickly beginning to wrap it around the thief’s arms.

Remembering there was still one thief left, Balthazar scanned the shoreline opposite the islet until he spotted the leader of the gang, trying to stand up and make his way to the road.

“Bouldy, don’t let him get away. Grab him!” Balthazar ordered, pincer firmly pointed at the man.

With a nod, the walking boulder quickly crossed the water to the other side and pinned the fleeing criminal to the ground with one rocky hand.

“Yes! Good job!” Balthazar cheered, both pincers held high in victory. “We got them. Druma, help me tie the big one before—“

As the crab rotated to face the previously unconscious man under the tree, he saw a shadow loom over him, a bulky figure rising with one arm up, club in hand.

“Screw this job.”

Before Balthazar could react, the blunt weapon fell upon him, hitting his shell right above the eyes, and the world went spinning away.

[Health: 5/100]

[He~?th: #/¿0$]

[System Failure]

[…]

Balthazar couldn’t see anything other than the text in his eyes.

[System Restoring…]

All he could hear was the familiar sound of his pond’s waterfall, always present in his daily life. Except more distant, and somewhat… distorted.

[System Error]

“Ow… shut up, stupid system thing, my head hurts.”

[System anomaly detected]

“No, you’re an anomaly!”

[Unidentified parameters]

[Checking System…]

“Why do you gotta be so chatty now of all times? When I actually want information, you never explain anything!”

[System version out of date]

Balthazar could swear he was feeling the smell of fresh pie.

[Attempting update…]

“Yes, please. Some pie would be great right about now...”

[Update failed]

“Huh?”

[System connection failed]

Balthazar strained to see through the darkness around the text, but nothing was there, only an approaching sound, like tiny feet... no, nails, tapping their way closer.

[…]

“Ow!” Balthazar felt something… pecking at his shell.

“Oh no, anything but the stupid birds!”

Still unable to see anything or move, Balthazar listened closely, until a sound of rustling feathers took off, followed by the fading sound of wings flapping away.

[System Rebooting...]

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