“Nothing better than a good nap!”
The sun was at its highest in the sky, and the water of the pond was warm and comfortable on the surface, while cool and refreshing near the bottom. At the center of it all, an old and rugged acacia tree with grayish bark grew out of a small islet, its sparse leaves swaying ever so lightly in the gentle summer breeze. All that could be heard in the morning air were the birds singing, and the calm, continuous flow of water rolling down the cliff-side rocks.
Right by the edge of the pond, a steady stream of little bubbles would occasionally surface from where the large crab had buried himself, leaving just the top of his gray carapace exposed to the sun’s rays.
“I would not trade this for anything.”
Balthazar was big and hard-shelled, truly a magnificent specimen to behold, but one that still appreciated life’s small pleasures, such as peacefully napping in the water while the sun warmed his back in the afternoon, or angrily snapping his claws at the small birds that landed around his pond in the morning. Napping and snapping, that was the life.
And life was good at the little corner of paradise that was his pond, a modest waterfall feeding it from the much larger river that surrounded the snowcapped mountain above, the imposing branches of the central tree overlooking the peaceful surface, as a myriad of fish swam below and insects buzzed above it. And no one to disturb Balthazar’s solitude.
Except for the occasional birds.
The pesky, smug little feathery balls, mocking him from high up. He’d nab one, some day, and that would show them.
There were no other crabs at that pond, only Balthazar. Ever since he could remember, it had just been him. And he had no complaints, that’s how he liked it.
Better alone than in bad company, he always said.
To himself.
Because it’s not like he had anyone else to say it to.
He wasn’t the sociable type, he didn’t want to have to share his favorite sunbathing spots. Having company was highly overrated.
He was a crab, after all. He had no concept of boredom. No, of course not. That was beneath him.
Just as the lonely crustacean was dozing off, amid thrilling thoughts of what color of fish he would snack on later, something nearby disturbed Balthazar’s rest.
Stomping echoed into his shell and jolted him away from his pondering. Rolling his eyes from under the sand, he tried to shake off the blurriness of the sunlight. The stomping continued growing louder, now accompanied by the rattling of metals. It was getting closer, and it was coming from the road.
Growing irritated, the sleepy crab raised himself from his muddy resting spot, just enough for his eyes to surface and spy his surroundings.
A figure was fumbling his way up the stony path that crossed in front of the pond, erratically swaying to the left one moment, and then to the right the next, struggling to keep a straight line forward under the weight of a massive pack sitting atop his shoulders, nearly the same size as the man himself. The leather sack was almost bursting at the seams, with all manner of clutter sticking out of it from every side, from pointy weapon handles, to rolled up fabrics of unknown types.
“Adventurers. Urgh.”
Of all bothersome types, Balthazar held a special disdain for adventurers. Only slightly below birds. Maybe.
He would see them from afar now and then, traveling up and down the rocky road, always loud and proud, stomping left and right, in a trot, as if they were in a rush to go somewhere. He never understood where anyone could possibly need to go so often and so hastily. Sometimes alone, sometimes in a group. Some wore colorful clothes and leathers, others bulky metals, but they were always a nuisance to his peace.
They hardly ever bothered him directly, as they had little reason to come down to the water on their way to… whatever it was their kind did. Sometimes one would stray off the path and come down to the shore, but they would quickly scan their surroundings, see nothing that interested them, and return to the road. The rudeness of just walking up to someone’s home, checking it out, and then leaving without so much as a proper greeting to the gracious host who generously allowed their presence. Not that he needed their greetings, of course, but still, manners and all.
The man continued making his way up the road, or at least trying to, slowly. He was wearing a dull metal helmet that resembled the bottom of a kettle, with its strap hanging loose under his sweating chin, a mismatched set of leather pieces protecting most of his body, and a pair of almost worn out tall boots with cheap metal plates covering his shins.
Balthazar was finding it entertaining to take bets with himself on whether the next wild sway to the side would be the one that would finally topple the overburdened adventurer, as he desperately tried kicking a leg in the opposite direction to counterbalance the weight. If he eventually won the bet, he would pay himself up with a nice fishy treat afterwards. And if he lost the bet… well, he’d still have to pay himself with that treat anyway. Such were the perks of betting with yourself, you could never lose. “Heh, clever,” Balthazar thought to himself, with a soft tap of his claw to the top of his shell.
As the adventurer neared the pond, Balthazar noticed his erratic path veering him closer to the shore the observing crab was resting on.
“Right, I’m just going to pretend I don’t see him there, he will walk on by like all the others, and then everything will be nice and quiet again,” the crab told himself, while submerging his body back into the sand, one eye left sticking out to follow the figure of the man.
The man tried to keep a steady pace, avoiding the puddles that challenged him, carefully choosing each step while grumbling between grinding teeth.
“Curse this encumbrance debuff!” the adventurer exclaimed to himself. “I hate, hate carrying capacity mechanics! But I’ll be damned if I’m going to drop any of this loot. No, no, no, no, if I’ve made it this far, then I’ll make it back into town. These bull horns may be heavy, but I’m sure they will fetch me a good price. They have to. Just a little more and I’ll make it…” With angry determination, he adjusted the leather straps of his pack, pulling the overwhelming weight back up onto his shoulders, and landed one trembling step forward on the next stone.
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As Balthazar watched the adventurer’s approach from under the water, he kept internally willing him to lean in the other direction.
“Don’t you dare, you fool…” the crab kept muttering. “Go away…”
The heavy stomping kept resonating closer, one foot on a rock, another on solid dirt, skipping over the puddles.
“You’d better not—”
Balthazar buckled within his shell as his body caved into the sand under the weight of the overburdened man, who had just stepped on his shell as if it was just another rock. And just as soon as he felt himself pushed down, the weight lifted and the rude boot carried on stepping forward to the next stone, as if nothing had happened.
“That does it!”
It’s not as if the weight of the man even hurt him. No, he was a big, strong, hard-shelled crab, he could take it. The damage wasn’t physical, the damage was to his pride.
With a rushing stream of bubbles, Balthazar lifted himself from his lair, emerging from the surface with the anger of an ancient sea monster being awakened off the deepest of oceans from a centuries long slumber, water rolling down the sides of his shell, determination in his beady eyes.
As the mighty lord of that domain turned to the foolish offender, the man continued trying to find his footing on the nearby rocks, still clueless about his rude behavior. The crab stood proudly on all of his eight legs, tall enough to pass a grown man’s waist, and twice as wide, two thick pincers flexed in front of himself in an intimidating manner he knew to always strike fear into the hearts of all the songbirds that dared land on his shell.
“Take that!”
Balthazar lifted his right claw up in the air, the bright light of the sun shining on it like an instrument of righteous vindication, and with one swift downward motion he took a swipe at the man’s right shin, the metal plate protecting it crumpling between his claw.
“What the—OW!” the adventurer cried, as he tried to turn around and face the consequences of his own actions, but with his right leg firmly held in place by the mighty pincer of karma, he finally lost his balance.
With widening eyes, the doomed adventurer found himself falling over to the side, his helmet flying off his head, surprise and shock painted on his expression, as he was diving face first into a group of rocks that cluttered the sides of the pond.
The adventurer’s head hit the stones with a loud crack, his ugly helmet splashed onto the water and floated upside down, his leather pack finally burst open spilling its contents everywhere, and the crab stood there, claw still tightly holding the man’s now limp ankle. He stared down, slightly confused, and gave it a small shake, as if looking for a reaction.
“Well, serves him right!” Balthazar finally said, letting go of the leg.
The rudeness of these adventurers. Not only do they run up and down the path in front of his pond all day with no consideration for how much of a disturbance they cause, but now they would even step on him like some common stone on the road? No way, he would not take that lying down, even if that was his favorite position to be for most of the day.
Balthazar turned and looked at the aftermath of the ruptured pack. There were all sorts of random trinkets and doodads scattered around his precious slice of heaven. A large cooking pot had landed upside down on the road, a sword that went flying was now firmly stuck with its tip between some rocks, books of all types scattered by the shore, and even some form of undergarments had somehow gotten stuck all the way up on a branch of the central tree, blowing in the wind like an embarrassing flag.
An absolute mess. The more he looked, the more chaos he spotted.
“Look at what you’ve done, you idiot!” Balthazar poked angrily at the sole of the adventurer’s boot. As was to be expected, he gave no response. Typical irresponsible adventurer behavior.
As he was shaking his shell in disapproval at the man whose face remained firmly buried between the rocks like some lazy child who didn’t want to wake up in the morning, Balthazar’s eyes caught something, a hint of a glint, something small shining from a small brown purse lying on the ground near to where they both were. The sunlight was hitting it directly and reflecting in an even more intense yellow that was ever so captivating for the crab. He had always loved shiny things. Ever since he was a wee little crab playing around in the sand, anything that shined brightly would always grab his attention. He had a very dull childhood, one could say.
As he approached the mysterious source of the glow, he saw it was not one thing, but multiple items that had spilled out of the purse. Perfectly round, thick slices of a yellow metal with some kind of figure carved on its surface, all identical in size, shape, and design. Balthazar had never seen such a thing before, but he knew in that moment that they were simply… beautiful.
With the care and precision his massive pincers allowed, he started dutifully pushing his precious new treasures back into the purse, where their beautiful glint couldn’t capture anyone else’s greedy eye.
The crab turned and scanned the treetops, his eyes squinting in suspicion. They were there, always there, with their bird’s-eye view, watching and plotting. He knew it well enough, but not this time, little ones, not this time.
As he turned back to the now closed purse, he saw something else fall out of the adventurer’s pack. Some kind of rolled up tube of a smooth, pale material. It didn’t shine or reflect any light, but it still looked curious. It also didn’t look much like food to him, but he reached one arm forward to get a feel for what that peculiar thing might be.
“Ah!” Balthazar screamed, and jumped a couple of paces back, which in itself was quite the surprising event, seeing as until then he didn’t even know crabs could jump.
But the bigger surprise came from the mysterious roll, which had reacted to his claw’s touch by lifting itself up into the air, hovering slightly above the ground, while glowing with an intense, humming white light.
This crab had seen many crazy things in his life, but never anything like this.
Fine, maybe he hadn’t exactly seen that many crazy things in his mostly sheltered life spent sunbathing in a pond, but even then, he was quite certain that ranked fairly high in terms of insane things to happen to a crab.
Despite his apprehension, Balthazar slowly approached the glowing item again. After all, it wasn’t doing anything, except hover there and ruin the decor.
His curiosity took charge, and he stretched a firm, clenched pincer towards the object a second time. He touched it, and a slight shiver ran down his arm, as the tube unrolled itself, revealing a white, bright page, and a set of words appeared, glowing on its surface:
[Scroll of Character Creation]
[Allocate attribute points: 10]
Balthazar remained immobile, staring at the bright, glowing object floating in front of him, one arm still outstretched, as if frozen in time, his eyes dilated, his mouth slightly ajar, as the unfurled roll’s light continued to shine over him, with a soft, low humming sound.
He was in utter shock. It was simply unbelievable, yet… there it was. How could it possibly be? The confusion and questions bubbling up his thoughts into a turmoil, until they finally reached the breaking point and he broke out of his catatonic state.
“Since when can I freaking read?!” the crab finally said, an involuntary squeal coming out of him as his tensed up appendages stretched out in an expression of exasperation.
Balthazar was sure he had learned many useful things in his life, such as how to roll perfectly round balls of sand, or the most efficient way to slice an apple with his pincer, but reading was absolutely not one of them, yet now he found himself perfectly able to read the words right in front of him as if it was the most natural thing ever. Well, it damn well wasn’t.
“And what’s this nonsense supposed to be about anyway?” Balthazar wondered, approaching the glowing scroll in order to inspect the words closer. “Attribute points?”
As he neared the mysterious item, a few more lines appeared on the surface. Balthazar raised his eye stalks in curious surprise and read the new words. Still without a clue how he was doing that.
[Scroll of Character Creation]
[Allocate attribute points: 10]
[Name: Balthazar]
[Race: Crab]
[Class: Undefined]
[Strength: 3] [+]
[Agility: 2] [+]
[Intelligence: 1] [+]
He read the lines once, twice, and then again. Not because he was finding his newly found reading abilities fun, but because he was trying to process what all that was supposed to mean. And maybe also because he was finding reading to be kind of fun.
“Balthazar,” he said, pointing at himself with his right claw, “that’s me. And I am certainly a crab, that much I know. I don’t know what a ‘class’ is, but apparently neither does this thing.”
The crab scratched his chin with his pincer, pondering on the rest of the text.
“Strength, agility, and intelligence,” he repeated to himself, “yep, those are all things I have. But these values next to them… are they supposed to represent how much of each I have?”
Balthazar felt a slight outrage within him.
“I’m strong, no doubt about it,” He said, puffing himself up, “Am I as agile as I am strong? Maybe not, but still pretty agile, I’d say. But… 1 Intelligence? What is that supposed to mean?!”
Was the scroll calling him dumb? Balthazar had half a mind to give the thin piece of parchment a good snip and show it who was the dumb one there. But then again, clawing angrily at an—apparently—inanimate object sounded quite dumb, so he restrained himself.
“Hmm, 10 points…” he slowly considered, “so does that mean that if I press this…”
Reluctantly, Balthazar touched the plus sign next to the Intelligence level on the scroll, and the value changed from 1 to 2.
“Oh!” Balthazar exclaimed, with excitement in his eyes. “And I still have nine points left now.”
The crab crossed his arms in deep consideration.
“I could spread them evenly,” he began, opening one arm in one direction, as if weighing an invisible object. “Or I could focus on one attribute.”
He stared back at his Intelligence value on the scroll, the low number taunting him.
“Ah, to hell with it, calling me dumb!” the crab shouted, throwing both claws up angrily.
With fierce determination, he tapped the sign next to the Intelligence stat until there were no attribute points left.
[Scroll of Character Creation]
[Allocate attribute points: 0]
[Name: Balthazar]
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[Race: Crab]
[Class: Undefined]
[Strength: 3]
[Agility: 2]
[Intelligence: 11]
[Confirm?]
“Damn right I confirm,” Balthazar said proudly. “I confirm that I’m intelligent as hell, baby.”
With a smug look, he reached out with his pincer and touched the confirmation prompt on the scroll.
“Gah!”
A torrent of invading thoughts rammed into the crab’s brain like a speeding truck had just hit him. His body felt as if being struck by lightning, and a million questions assaulted his mind. Questions such as “what is the meaning of life?” or “what the hell is a truck?” ran through him at dizzying speeds.
And just as quick as it started, the feeling subsided all at once, leaving a prostrated crab on the ground, each leg spread in a different direction, mouth drooling off the side, eyes still spinning.
“I did not enjoy that,” Balthazar said, while trying to stand up and regain his composure.
The scroll had rolled itself back and dropped on the sand, immobile, as if it had been nothing more than a harmless object. Balthazar poked at it a couple of times, but with no results.
As he lifted his eyes from the cursed thing, Balthazar gazed upon his surroundings—the pond, with its calm, rippling water, the ancient, wise tree overseeing it, the many moss-covered boulders around him, the open plains stretching far into the horizon in front of his eyes, the warm, powerful sunlight hitting his face, forcing him to put a claw up to shield himself from the brightness—all of it, he was taking it in as if for the first time, and with a sigh he felt like…
“Nope, everything feels the same,” the crab said with a shrug.
He turned around, grabbed the small pouch containing the shiny metal circles with one pincer, picked up the scroll with the other, and started walking towards the small patch of land at the center of the pond, where the large tree was.
“What an absolute waste of time,” he complained, while carefully holding his arms up to not get the pouch and scroll wet as he crossed the shallow waters.
“For now, I’ll be keeping these safe here,” Balthazar said, while depositing the two items inside the small hole in the ground where he kept all his precious belongings: his collection of oddly shaped pebbles and a dried up pine cone he used to play with in his younger days. All covered up with a flat piece of driftwood, guaranteed to keep nosy birds out. Not really the safest of spots to keep things, now that he really thought about it.
“I could have at least gained something from that traumatizing experience,” Balthazar continued, while crossing back to the other side. “But no, I can’t even seem to read anymore.”
He held up one of the books that had spilled over from the adventurer’s pack and stared at its cover, puzzled, trying to make sense of each unknown glyph written upon it, but with no success.
“Bah, pointless!”
With one frustrated thrust, he threw the book, which landed squarely on the stones at the edge of the road.
Looking back at the dead adventurer still lying between his bed of rocks, burst pack hanging loose from his shoulders, the crab released one more sigh.
“Well, you’re surely not going to help me clean up this mess, are you—”
“No way!”
Balthazar jumped in place, startled by the loud exclamation.
As he turned, he saw a young, skinny man wearing long gray robes and a tall pointy hat rushing up the road from the same direction the recently deceased (by his own fault) adventurer had arrived earlier.
“I can’t believe it,” the overly excited young man said, “it really is a Tome of Levitation!”
The odd fellow picked up the book Balthazar had cast aside just moments before off the ground and marveled at it, holding it with arms stretched, mouth open into a goofy smile.
“I’ve been looking for one for ages, and then I find it just like this, at a randomly generated roadside event of all places.”
The man was so captivated by the book in his hand that he was completely ignoring the fact that there was a crab standing not too far off to the side, staring at him in confusion and disbelief.
As if this day hadn’t been bizarre enough so far, Balthazar now had to put up with yet another lunatic adventurer.
The young man began frantically leafing through the pages of the book, his eyes darting from one direction to the other, running through the length of each page like someone afraid the book would be taken away from him at any moment.
It was nice that at least he seemed able to read it. Balthazar pondered whether he should try to approach and learn more about the mysterious texts, or simply hope the annoyingly excitable man would just leave on his own, when the loud slamming sound of the book being closed cut his thoughts short.
“Eureka! Ha-ha-ha! I finally have it,” the young man said excitedly, book still in one hand, while shaking the other wrist out of his oversized sleeve and assuming a ready stance.
Balthazar watched as he murmured something unintelligible, snapped his fingers, and slowly began rising from the ground, as if being lifted by the shoulders.
“Magnificent!” the young man roared as he continued ascending.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Balthazar said to himself, as he continued watching the robed figure going up, already floating higher than the top of the old tree of the pond.
Balthazar wasn’t exactly jealous of the man, not only because he had never really wished to fly—flying was for puny birds, not for mighty crabs—but also because if he was going to feel anything of that sort it would be envy, not jealousy. He wasn’t exactly sure when or how he had learned the difference between those two, but that didn’t really matter right then, because something else up above was recapturing Balthazar’s attention.
The small figure in the sky had changed demeanor and had gone from excited joy to frantic concern.
“Oh crap, crap, crap,” the young man shouted, “what was the duration of this thing? I didn’t even check.”
He was quickly turning the pages of the book back and forth, desperately looking for what he couldn’t find, while trying to maintain his balance with no surface to hang on to.
“Please tell me this also gave me immunity to fall damage, please, please, please,” he pleaded to nobody in particular.
Balthazar watched from below with one claw in front of his non-existent forehead and his eyes squinting with equally nonexistent eyelids.
“Damn it,” the speck far up in the sky echoed in frustration, “where is the part about maneuvering this stupid—oh no.”
Without warning, the slow ascension ceased, being replaced with the high-pitched screams of the robed young man as the gravity of the situation came down on him, just as he was now coming down towards the ground at an alarming speed.
“Heh, the gravity of the situation,” Balthazar chuckled to himself. “Nice one.”
The crab focused back on the falling figure just in time to watch him slam into the ground with a loud crash and a cloud of dust, the book flying off and landing in one direction, and his pointy hat in another.
Balthazar approached the mangled figure now carved into the ground slowly and gave his foot a small shake.
“Well, this one is not flying again anytime soon.”
Just as Balthazar finished his sentence, a bright, bold block of text popped out of nowhere in front of his sight, causing him to stumble back and fall upside down on his shell, squeaking in a fright.
“WHAT! GET AWAY! SHOO!”
He desperately waved his claws all over, punching nothing but air, while trying to tilt himself back onto his feet.
Once the crab finally regained his footing, he continued looking in all directions, trying to shake off the intruder in his eyes, but no matter where he looked, the text followed.
[Opponent killed, experience gained]
[Level 7 Wizard slain by [cleverly placed trap]]
[You have reached Level 2!]
“Now I can read again?!”
As Balthazar regained his breath and composed himself, looking around to ensure no birds or adventurers were around to laugh at his embarrassing moment, he focused back on the floating text covering the center of his eyesight. It was similar to the one from the scroll, except that had existed as if projected from the parchment, floating in the air, while this was clearly inside Balthazar’s eyes, as every time he tried to grab at it his claw did nothing but pinch the empty air in front of him.
[Opponent killed, experience gained]
“Opponent?! And what in the world is this ‘experience’ anyway?” the crab asked, puzzled.
[Level 7 Wizard slain by [cleverly placed trap]]
“Wizard… that must be this guy,” he said, tapping the tip of the wizard’s shoe, who remained firmly stuck in his crater. “And what does this mean? What trap?”
Balthazar raised his eye stalks in realization, looked around, first at the dead wizard, then up at the sky where he had been floating just moments ago, and finally at the book that was now lying back on the ground, not too far off from where he had tossed it before the young man appeared.
“Is this thing blaming me for his death?” Balthazar finally said. “Hey now, wait just a moment, I didn’t… I couldn’t possibly know… it was his own fault. I did nothing!”
He paced from side to side, the words in front of him unchanging, ignoring his pleas of innocence.
[You have reached Level 2!]
“And what’s this supposed to mean?” Balthazar said, finally focusing on the last line of text.
He wasn’t sure what a level was supposed to mean here, only that whatever it was, the wizard had been a seven, which Balthazar knew was more than two. Yes, he may have been just a crab, but he still knew how to count, it’s a vital skill to anyone with as many legs as he has, never know when you might get into a scuffle and walk away unsure if you still got all your appendages.
“Well, he doesn’t look that superior to me now,” the crab said with a disdainful look at the young wizard’s twisted expression of horror still stuck to his face.
“Again, not that it was me who did this to him, of course!” he hurriedly added, to nobody in particular.
The block of text remained in his sight, and Balthazar began wondering if it would ever go away, or if he was stuck like that forever. Whatever it was, it was inside his head, inside his mind, so he tried to concentrate on pushing it away. The task would have been so much easier if he had the ability to blink.
Just as Balthazar began considering rubbing his eyes in the sand, his focus on the last line of text caused a small click and the words disappeared with a smooth slide to the side, as a new block appeared from the opposite direction:
[Level 2]
[Attribute Points: 1]
[Skill Points: 1]
[Strength: 3] [+]
[Agility: 2] [+]
[Intelligence: 11] [+]
[Skills]
“Huh, this again,” Balthazar said, staring out into the open, reading the new words only he could see.
He scanned each line carefully, rubbing his chin with the back of one claw.
“These attributes I’ve seen before, but skills are something new. And it would seem like I can increase one of these three again.”
He pondered on whether he should select Strength this time, but he never felt himself to be weak. He was the strongest around, no fish or bird ever dared stand up to him. And clearly, even these pesky adventurers were no match for him. One met his own demise after Balthazar did nothing more than give him an attitude-correcting pinch, and now this thing in front of him had just claimed he killed that wizard without so much as even touching him. He was clearly a powerhouse. He didn’t need to be stronger.
He could go for Agility, but he also failed to come up with a reason why he would need to be more agile. He already was agile enough to catch his lunch every day in his favorite feeding puddle. Sure, he never caught any of the annoying little feathery pests that provoked him on the daily, but that wasn’t due to lack of agility, it was just because they could fly, and that was obviously cheating.
The more he thought about it, the more he concluded that Intelligence was once again the way to go. You could never have too much of the stuff. Just look at that wizard guy. He was clearly very focused on Intelligence, with all that speed reading, magic casting, and whatever, yet, look where that landed him. He wasn’t smart enough to avoid falling to his doom. Clearly, you could always use being a bit more intelligent.
“That settles it,” Balthazar said, and with redoubled focus, he concentrated on the plus sign next to his Intelligence level, making it tick up from eleven to twelve.
As he was focusing his sight on the option, something behind it caught his attention, a reflection of light coming from the young wizard’s chest. Tilting himself slightly to look around the text, he spotted something small in between the folds of the wizard’s robes.
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Excited at the possibility of finding more of those beautiful, shiny pieces of metal he stashed away with the scroll earlier, Balthazar navigated his way around the small crater, trying to see his path while still having the attributes screen taking a portion of his view. With great care, he reached a pincer into the dead man’s robe in order to retrieve the source of the reflection.
As he pulled his arm back, he found what it brought between his pincers: a single, small, perfectly circular piece of transparent glass within a delicate silver rim, with a thin chain hanging from it.
“What’s this thing supposed to be?” Balthazar asked himself, looking down at the strange item between the many words still floating in front of him.
“Come on,” a man’s voice said from down the road, “we’re almost there, we can make it.”
Balthazar broke into a small panic, feeling like someone being caught with their pants down, which was an odd choice of feeling for someone who had never worn pants in their life.
He turned to the dead wizard, then to the other dead adventurer, the tiny lens in his claw, the attributes screen still covering his eyes, and the crab didn’t know what to do.
“I wish at least this damnable thing wasn’t blocking my view,” he said, vigorously shaking his shell. As he did it, the block of text flew down his field of view, disappearing into a tiny upward arrow that now sat at the very corner of Balthazar’s eye.
“Well, that wasn’t so difficult,” he said, turning to look down the road, where the top of two adventurer’s heads were coming into view.
Looking back at his right claw, still holding the strange small object he looted from the wizard, Balthazar darted towards the center tree, hurriedly crossing the water and reaching for his hidden stash. With a quick motion, he lifted the chunk of wood covering it and tossed the piece of glass inside where the small purse and scroll already were. He moved the makeshift cover back down before stopping and staring at the tree’s bark.
“What am I doing?” he said. “I did nothing wrong. I don’t owe anyone anything. Those two idiots out there got themselves killed, and it’s not like I was looting the dead or anything. Well, maybe just a little, but that’s exactly what those adventurers do all day. Who are they to judge?”
Balthazar turned back to face the road.
“Besides, they’re the ones who keep stepping on my residence, causing all sorts of chaos and mess, dying all over the place, like this is their home. Well, it’s not, and if they’re going to keep trespassing, I say it’s only fair whatever they leave behind becomes my property, as a form of compensation, if nothing else.”
As the now fully determined crab looked back at the road, he saw the duo of adventurers now walking the path in full view. They both carried large leather packs on their backs, not as large as the one the first adventurer from earlier had, but still full and heavy enough to make them show signs of strain while carrying them.
The one at the front was a young man with dark brown hair that looked like he had been wearing a helmet for hours for how messy it was. Sturdy steel armor covered most of his body, and he had a bold smile on his face that matched his confident walk.
Right behind him was a young woman, wearing a mix of leather and steel, slightly lighter brown hair tied into a ponytail, and a much less enthusiastic expression on her sweating face that matched her slouched posture as she struggled to continue walking.
“You promised this was going to be a quick run, Jack,” the young woman said. “It’s been two days now, and we’re only going back because we can’t carry any more loot. I swear, this is the last… hey, are you even listening?”
The young man was clearly not paying her any attention, as he struggled to step on top of two stones, trying to get closer to one of the swords that had gone flying out of the bursting pack earlier, the one that was stuck between two large rocks.
“Leah, look, it’s an enchanted sword!” he exclaimed, pointing at the sword, which seemed to have a thin layer of color glowing across the surface of its blade, waving and pulsating slowly.
“Oh, come on, you know we’re overburdened as is,” his partner said, taking a step around the body of the adventurer with the ruptured pack whose face remained firmly planted into the rocks, “do you want to end up like this guy?”
“Yes, I know, but I can’t let this opportunity pass, I have a good feeling about this one,” Jack said, without looking back, and while trying to devise a way to better reach the rocks holding the sword in place.
“I’m not carrying it, that’s for sure,” Leah declared, with the expression of someone who was already tired of the situation.
Balthazar was still standing on his small islet at the center of the pond, watching the pair bickering, annoyance growing in him.
He was really getting tired of all those adventurers. First one steps on him and spills trash all over his beautiful home, then another comes by and decides to make an ugly crater in his front garden, and now those two show up, ignore him completely, and begin pillaging his residence? It might have been trash, but it was his trash now, and this crab just about had it with their kind. No more standing idly by, expecting things to sort themselves out. He was taking matters into his own hands. Claws. Pincers. Whatever! He was going to show he’s not a crab to be messed with!
With determination in his eyes and shell held high, Balthazar stepped across the shallow water to the edge of the pond, and straight towards the steel-clad man trying to reach the sword still stuck in the stones.
“Hey, you, listen here,” the crab shouted at the young man, “I’ve had a very stressful day, and my patience is running thin, so you and your friend better scram and leave my stuff alone!”
The two adventurers turned their heads to face the angry crab.
“Look what you’ve done,” Leah said, “now you aggroed a crab on us.”
“Why… why is it squealing and waving its arms like that?” the man asked, confused.
“How should I know? Do I look like I speak crab?” she responded.
“Fiends! No manners! No respect!” the crab continued.
“Let’s just go, I’m way too exhausted to fight even just a crab,” the tired woman said over the crab’s continuous squealing.
“Wait, hold on, I think I have an idea,” said the confident adventurer.
“So you leave my stuff where it is, take yourselves up that road to wherever you were going, and leave my pond alone!” Balthazar said, agitation spilling from him.
But it was to no avail. He could tell they weren’t understanding a thing of what he was saying. He knew already that adventurers weren’t exactly the brightest kind, as demonstrated by the two previous specimens already cluttering his residence, but he hadn’t realized their education was so appallingly bad that they didn’t even learn crab language. Truly a primitive and simpleton race, they were.
While Balthazar reflected on the faults of the adventurer education system, the young man in front of him had taken his pack off, placed it on the ground, and was now squatting down, hastily looking for something within it.
The crab put both of his claws up and tensed up his legs. So there was to be a fight, it seemed. He had already dispatched two adventurers today (sort of), what was one more to add to the list (surely the one by the road would run away in fear once she saw him defeat her friend, right?), all he had to do was give him a good slash and a smash (through his solid steel armor… that sure looked pretty thick, now that he looked at it up close).
Balthazar began wondering if tossing that book the wizard picked up earlier would work a second time.
“Aha! Here it is,” the smiling man said, pulling something out of his bag.
As he stood up from his pack, he held a small object in his right hand, wrapped in a simple white cloth, and began unwrapping it with his left hand.
“Here you go, buddy, don’t be grumpy. I’ll trade you this for that sword. How’s that?” Jack offered, with a wide smile on his face, as he placed the open cloth down on the ground in front of the crab.
Balthazar stood with claws still ready, cautiously looking at what the man had just laid out in front of him, when a smell reached him, a smell he had never felt before, but that filled him with the purest of joys and happiness. He did not know what that triangular piece of soft looking… something was, but he instantly knew he must taste it.
Completely disregarding the two adventurers, Balthazar lunged forward at the unknown piece of food and tore a small piece of it off with the tip of his pincer, and brought it up to his mouth. The whole world turned brighter around him and he was sure stars could be seen dancing in his eyes. It was soft and slightly humid, with the tiniest crumbly feeling on his tongue. And the taste… he had tasted fruits before, from bushes and small trees around the area, when the season was right, but this was like something else entirely. Sweet, smooth, with a rush at every bite.
“Seriously, you’re feeding apple pie to the crab?” the female adventurer said to her partner with disdain.
“It worked, didn’t it?” he responded. “Look how happy he is with it.”
Without the weight of his pack, the young man climbed up to the stone where the sword was, and with an imposing posture stuck both of his feet firmly to his sides, grasping the hilt with both hands, and with a sharp exhale pulled the blade out of the rocks, lifting it up to the skies with his right hand, its edge shining against the sunlight, a huge victory smile stamped on his face.
“Yay, hooray, congratulations, chosen one, wahoo,” his companion said in a sarcastic tone. “Can we go now?”
“Mock all you want, I’m telling you, I have a good feeling about this sword,” Jack said with conviction, while jumping down from the rocks. “And yes, let’s go now.”
As the two adventurers carried on up the road, Balthazar finished eating his slice of pie, no longer caring about them or any silly sword. That had been a life-changing experience. He felt a satisfaction he had never experienced before. His mouth could still taste the subtle delight that had just gone through it. All he wanted to do was lie down, take a nap, and dream about that delicious treat.
As he smiled and his vision began to blur, a sudden block of glowing text assaulted his eyes:
[High-value item traded. Experience gained.]
[[Sword of Heavy Might] traded for [Slice of Apple Pie]]
[You have reached Level 3!]
“Gah! Son of a…”
