Merchant Crab

Another morning, another day of business.

Balthazar made his way across the wooden bridge as usual, the calm waters of his pond slowly flowing underneath him, the sun shining on his golden carapace. It was just another day at the crab’s pond.

Except, perhaps, for the broken railing on the side of his trading post’s platform, and the destroyed shelves and tables near it. An eyesore for the merchant.

And as if one eyesore wasn’t enough, he also found another unpleasant sight by the entrance.

A man’s body was hanging from the fence, his legs on the outside, his upper body toppled over to the inside, both arms swinging next to his upside down head. He looked like a rug left out to dry under the sun, and he had the appearance to match.

“Oh, hell, just what I needed,” Balthazar complained. “Another dead adventurer around my house. They just can’t help themselves, can they? They see my nice pond and they have to go and get themselves killed here, just to spite me. What a bother.”

The bemoaning crab approached the hanging figure. He wore old clothes, their colors faded, and the fabric worn out, like something that had once been nice and of good quality, but had seen too much use over the years.

“Well, it’s not stealing if they’re dead,” Balthazar said with a shrug, as he reached for a pocket. “It’s just ethical looting.”

As his pincer tugged on the man’s pocket, he suddenly flailed his arms and yelled. “LeRtGuoMi!”

“BAH!” the startled merchant screamed, as he stumbled back into a group of boxes, knocking them over.

“I’m fine! I’m fine!” the suddenly very animated man shouted, standing back on his feet and looking around in confusion. “I’m awake! No need to kick me out! I know my way home!”

He had wild curly hair, messy and unkempt, mostly grizzly, with a few remnants of a former blond tone. His face was unshaven, with a five o’clock shadow that looked closer to fifteen, and baggy eyes and cheeks that hinted at an individual who had lost a lot of weight very quickly. He was an absolute mess.

“Waaait, what part of town is thish? How do I get home from here?” he said, slurring his words. “Oh wait, that’sh right. Hic! I don’t have a home ‘nymore. Heh.”

“Oh, great, a drunk,” the upset crab said, standing back up from the boxes and dusting himself off. “Just what I needed to start my morning.”

“It’sh morning?!” said the drunkard, staring up at the sky with a hand over his forehead and his upper lip and nose scrunched up. “Yeeep! That’sh no moon. H’lo sun!”

The man suddenly took his hand off his face and looked down at Balthazar with a bewildered expression.

“Didsha just talk?”

“I guess we’re doing this…” the crab groaned, rolling his eye stalks. “Yes, I did. It’s not the booze talking, it’s me, I can talk.”

“Ohhh, man. I can’t believe it! A real talking lobshter!”

“Hey! Watch the insults! I’m a crab, not a lobster.”

“Well, eeeeexcush me, mister crab! If you couldn’t tell, I’m just a tiny, weeny bitty tipsy, shooo… lobshter, crab…” He shrugged. “Shame thing.”

“Yes, I think I noticed,” Balthazar said. “Now, can you get going and leave my place? You’re going to scare away the clientele.”

“C’moooon, crab!” the drunk said, leaning over the fence. “Just one more round! Drinksh on you, though. I don’t got any more coin left. Waitress!”

He raised one arm in the air, as if calling for someone to take his order, despite there being nobody else around them.

“This isn’t a tavern, you drunkard. This is my trading post. Now go on, get on out of here already.”

“Blah! Sho rude!” the other said, still leaning on the guardrail, doing his best to stay on his feet. “Back in the day, nobody would ever treat me like that! I was a merchant too, you know? Besssht one there was! Tristan, the merchant! Everybody loved me!”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure you were,” the crab said, running out of patience for the inebriated man. “And I was a renown tap dancer until a knee injury threw me into the life of trading. Now can you get…”

The man let go of the railing and sat on the ground, sobbing uncontrollably.

“What… what are you doing?” Balthazar said.

“Eeeeeeverybody loved Tristan!” he yelled between sobs. “I was at the top of the worrrld! Whyyyy didsh you have to do that to meeee?! We werrre friendsh! Partnersss!”

“Can you not cry so loud, please?” the crab pleaded, looking around to make sure no clients were arriving. “Just… just go cry somewhere else, will you?”

“I trushted him like a brother, you know?” Tristan cried, turning his bloodshot eyes to Balthazar. “But he was never satisfied. It was never enough. He couldn’t accept anyone else but himself being the guildmaster. Noooo, it had to be him, no matter who he had to shtep over to get it.”

“That’s very sad, but really, if you don’t leave you’re going to get tossed out by a rock…” Balthazar stopped talking and his eyes went wide. “Hold on. What did you just say? Guildmaster? Who exactly are you talking about?”

“Antoine!” the weeping man yelled. “That shnake! Never should have trushted him!”

“You know him? Antoine?” the suddenly much more interested crab inquired, as he gave him a quick check through his monocle, just in case.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

[Level 10 Town Drunk]

Apparently, being a town drunk was a class of its own to that system. Because of course it was.

“Know him? Hah! Let me tell you,” Tristan said, struggling to stand back to his feet, sobbing suddenly gone. “Me an’ him were insheparable! We came from nothing. Shtarted our busshinessh together.”

The intoxicated man threw himself over the fence as he continued talking, seemingly unfazed by the fact that he landed on his chin. Wriggling his way to a nearby stool, he made himself comfortable by sitting awkwardly on it.

“Please don’t start telling me your life’s story,” Balthazar muttered under his breath.

“Let me tell you my life’sh shtory, little crabby,” said the drunk, propping a leg up onto his knee and nearly falling backwards.

The crab sighed.

“I was born and raished in Ardville. Dirt poor! Came from humble beginningsh. All I had was my besht friend, Antoine. We were alwaysh together, dreaming and planning how we’d become powerful and influential one day. Rule over the whole city! Then, when we came of age, we made a partnership, shtarted our trading bushinessh with a shmall loan of ten thoushand gold from my father.”

“Wait,” Balthazar interrupted. “Didn't you just say you were dirt poor?”

“Shhhhhhh! Shush it, crab. You’re ruining my shtory!”

Tristan closed his eyes for a moment and held a deep breath. Balthazar glanced at a bucket on the other side of the platform and wondered if he’d be able to reach it in time if the man suddenly decided to throw up. He did not like his odds.

“Where was I?” he finally said, with a long exhale. “Right, bishnessssh. We were the perfect team. I had all the charishma, everyone loved me. I could sell alchemy flowersh to a blackshmith, forging tools to an alchemisht, and then I’d mediate a trade between them and take a perchentage. Antoine was the brainsh. He had all the cunning, knew all the insh and outsh, could smell a good deal like no one else. We complimented each other perfectly.”

“Don’t you mean you two complemented each other?” the crab asked.

“No. I meant we complimented each other perfectly. And often. I’d mention how neatly trimmed hish mushtache was that day. He’d point out how well my shoes matched my undercoat. You know, nice thingsh like that. Now shtop interrupting my shtory!”

Balthazar rolled his eyes. Hopefully enduring all that would lead to learning something useful.

“And over the yearsh, we kept moving up the ladder,” Tristan carried on. “Eventshually we opened our A&T Emporium. Biggesht shtore in town! But he didn’t like the name. He alwaysh wanted hish own name on it. That’sh why the firsht thing he did when he got rid of me was change the name. The backshtabber.”

“Yes, yes, but how did he betray you? Can we get to that?” the impatient crustacean asked.

“Alright, alright, fine!” the man agreed. “It was one night, at a party at the mayor’sh house. You shee, I was very liked by all the noblesh in town, very popular, and all but guaranteed to be voted the next mashter of the guild of merchantsh. Antoine… well, he was smart, and cunning, but alsho foul-tempered and not the mosht… friendly. What I’m trying to shay is, nobody liked really liked him, they jusht tolerated him. And I thought he would be happy for me. What a fool I was…”

The drunken man’s head slowly began tilting down, in what at first seemed to be a new fit of tears, but quickly became the start of a nap.

“Hey! Stay with here me!” Balthazar yelled, snapping a pincer in front of the man’s face. “You can sleep after you finish telling me about Antoine.”

“Huh? What?! Oh, right, right,” the inebriated storyteller said. “Party at the mayor’sh houshe. Everyone important was there. Every noble, bushinessh owner, politichians… you name it. And little did I know, Antoine already had a plan to ruin my reputation. We knew each other like no one elsh. I knew hish shcretsh, he knew my weaknesshesh. He got me drinking. A lot. I got… a little too drunk. And then he took me away from the party hall, all friendly and joking. We shneaked out to the mayor’sh botanical garden. Big fan of gardening, that one. And…”

Tristan’s face became somber, and his lower lip quivering.

“In my drunken shtate, he… he made me do shomething I regret to thish day.”

He started sobbing again.

“What did you do, man?! Just tell me already!” the exasperated crab said.

“The mayor’sh pride and joy,” Tristan said between hiccups and loud sobbing. “Sho beautiful, and I… I… what was I thinking?!”

Balthazar’s anticipation was killing him. Could Antoine really have gone that far? Had he made his friend commit some unforgivable act? Was there a murder behind Antoine’s ascension to power?

“Who, damn it?! The mayor’s pride and joy, Tristan!” the manic crab demanded. “Give me a name!”

The inebriated man bawled as tears rolled down his face, mumbling unintelligible words. Between his sobbing, all Balthazar could make out was one word. “Camellia.”

“What? Camellia? Who was that? The mayor’s wife? Daughter? What did you do to her? Did you hurt her, Tristan? Did Antoine make you kill someone?!”

The man’s sobbing suddenly stopped, and he lifted his face from his soaked hands, looking at the crab with confusion.

“W-what? Kill shomeone?” the befuddled drunk said. “What are you talking about? Camelliash are shrubs that bloom beautiful flowersh. The mayor had a rare, huge camellia at the center of hish garden, it was hish mosht prized treashure.”

“A… shrub?” Balthazar repeated in disbelief. “You’re joking, right? This whole story, and it was about a plant?”

“You don’t undershtand!” Tristan cried out, burying his face back in his hands. “My reputation was ruined after that night. The mayor was furioush, everyone shaw it, I was publicly humiliated!”

“Wait,” the still irritated crab said. “What was it you actually did, though?”

“I… I was drunk, a little too happy,” the man whispered sheepishly. “Antoine dared me, like it was a fun little joke, and I… I…” His gaze went to the floor, his voice down to an ashamed murmur. “I urinated on the bush.”

Balthazar stared at the former merchant for a long moment, his expression unable to decide between being mad, or bursting out laughing. The result was a slightly manic chuckle that slowly grew as the crab abandoned all attempts at remaining sane.

“You… you peed on the mayor’s prized bush?” the crab said, between nervous laughter. “That’s how Antoine ruined your reputation?”

“It’sh not funny!” Tristan cried out. “I had so much to drink, all the flowersh wilted by the time Antoine got all the guestsh to catch me in the act. That shrub never gave a shingle flower again.”

The man continued bawling his eyes out.

“I can’t believe this,” said Balthazar. “I’m over here thinking you were someone with a good reason to want to get back at Antoine, but you’re just a drunk who peed on some flowers and got in trouble for it.”

“What?!” the man quickly said, his crying coming to a sudden stop as he tried to stand back up. “You don’t think I want revenge on that backstabber more than anything in this world? I was going to be the next guildmaster of the merchants. I worked for years to get there. And he took all I earned away from me with one dirty rug pull. If I had a shred of power left, I’d be doing everything to get back at him, instead of drinking myself into a stupor every night to forget my woes.”

Balthazar couldn’t help but stare in surprise at the man, his speech suddenly no longer slurred, determination in his eyes. Whatever feelings he had towards his former business partner, they were strong enough to even sober him up.

An idea surged in the crab’s mind. It was a tempting one, but he still had his doubts about the risks of it.

He wanted to get back at Antoine for what he was doing to Madeleine. A former associate of his with a grudge against him was a good asset to have. He also wanted to find someone to represent him in town, and that wouldn’t be suitable for Rye, or a common thief like Rob. A drunk would also not be a good choice, but according to his story, it seems Tristan used to be a successful merchant. Question was whether that merchant was still there, under all the booze and self-pity.

There was only one way for the crab to find out.

“Hey, Tristan, how would you like a chance at remaking your reputation and getting payback on Antoine?”

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