Merchant Crab

“Well? Go on, tell me!” the anxious crab asked. “What do we need to repair Bouldy? A big hammer? Tears from a phoenix? Golem glue?!”

“Hmm… Mhmm… Uh-huh,” Tweedus mumbled as he read through the pages. “No, none of that. You just need to mend the core in the fires of a Golem Forge. Easy-peasy!”

“Alright…” Balthazar said. “Do you have one of those here?”

“Ha… Haha! Haaahahaha,” the wizard laughed. “Good one, crab. No, of course I don’t. A Golem Forge is a huge structure, several times larger than this cave.”

“Right, and is there maybe one near here?”

The old man slapped his knee and laughed again, even louder this time.

“Hah! Not a chance! There’s only one known Golem Forge in the entire continent.”

The traveling merchant scowled. “So you—”

“And its exact location has been lost to the ages.”

“Easy is relative,” Tweedus said with a wise flair that didn’t convince Balthazar at all.

“Great. So I need to go to a forge, except there’s no one left that has been there to know where it is. Just… great.”

“Oh, I’ve been there,” said the wizard in a bathrobe. “Ages ago. Back when I was much younger. Ah, to be 80 years old and spry again…”

Balthazar threw his pincers out in exasperation. “Then you must know where this forge is, right?!”

“Nope.”

“What? How?!”

“Because I forgot where it was. It was a long time ago,” the old man said casually. “Like I said, lost to the ages!”

The crab threw his pincers down, feeling frustrated and defeated. Always a setback, never a straight path.

“Hey now, don’t feel down, crab,” Tweedus said.

“You don’t get it,” said Balthazar. “I need to find this forge. I need to repair this core. To bring back my friend. It was my fault his core was destroyed. He was protecting me. I need to make it right. I need to bring him back. I… I miss him.”

The old adventurer looked at the crab with his bushy eyebrows twisted into an expression of pity. For a brief moment, his eyes didn’t seem as deranged or wacky like they usually did.

“Bah, don’t worry,” Tweedus suddenly exclaimed, returning to his usual loud and crazy tone. “I’m sure it will come back to me if we wait long enough. Why don’t you stick around for a bit while I try to jog my memory? Sit down, make yourself at home. We could… play board games, to pass the time! I’ve got a whole collection of them just gathering dust around here somewhere.”

The merchant looked at the weird man with a cocked eyestalk.

“Thanks, but I’m kind of in a hurry,” he awkwardly said. “Lots of things to do, plenty of places to go. How long do you think it would take you to remember?”

“Who knows! Maybe it will hit me in five minutes. Maybe I’ll be combing my beard in five years and suddenly remember where the forge is. There’s no telling!”

Balthazar exhaled loudly. “Argh. We don’t have five years!”

As he dropped his shell in frustration, the crab looked at his goblin assistant again, who was still grinning at the sight of his caped reflection.

“Well, at least you’re looking good,” the merchant said, before turning to the old man again. “Does it do anything?”

“The cape? Probably. Why don’t you tell me?”

The crab looked up at him with mild confusion. “Uh… how?”

Tweedus looked down at the crustacean, his brow furrowing. “Hmm… Wait, there’s something different about you since I saw you last, isn’t there?”

“Oh, you mean my golden shell? Yeah, that—”

“Nah, I don’t mean your tacky fashion choices!” the wizard interrupted. “I mean the nifty little monocle you used to wear. Where is it?”

“Oh, my Monocle of Examination…” Balthazar muttered, his eyes going down to the floor. “It… shattered and I lost it. Right around the time Bouldy was destroyed too. I miss that thing…”

“Bah, poppycock!” Tweedus blurted. “A crab wearing a monocle looks much more dapper!”

His long beard swung around wildly as the old man moved to a large chest at the other end of the chamber. After flipping the lid open, he leaned over the chest until the top half of his body was completely gone inside it, his slippers hanging precariously from his feet as he searched the container.

After tossing out a confusing amount of items from inside the chest, including a few teabags, several empty potion bottles, a strange-looking smoking pipe that resembled an alembic, and even a purple-feathered chicken, the old man finally bounced back out.

“Here, try this on!” he said, holding out a small round lens with a shiny golden rim and chain to the crab.

Balthazar’s eyestalks perked up at the sight of the monocle. It was a lot like his old silver one but somehow even prettier, mainly because of its gold finish. And as with everything shiny and golden, the crab already loved it.

With eyes sparkling about as much as the goblin’s a few moments before, the crab took the monocle into his pincer and brought it up to his left eyestalk.

It was like slipping into comfortable slippers after a long day. Which was an odd thing for Balthazar to feel, given how he had never worn slippers.

The delicate lens adjusted itself perfectly in front of his eye as he let go of it, the thin chain magically linking itself to the edge of his shell without him having to do anything.

[Monocle of Exposition equipped]

The merchant looked around the room, the world somehow feeling crispier and much more clear through the lens than it had ever been. As his gaze landed on Tweedus, a familiar line of text appeared above the human’s head.

[Arcane High Wizard - Level 68]

“So, how do ya like it?” the grinning adventurer asked.

“It’s… great! I missed having one of these so much!”

“Hah! It’s my own little modification on the boring old Monocle of Examination,” Tweedus explained. “I call it the Monocle of Exposition, although I’ve been told that the name is a bit too on the nose.”

“Uh… I don’t have a nose,” the confused crab said.

“Excellent! Then you don’t need to worry about it!” said the wizard. “Anyway, it has a few extra tricks on top of the regular functions you were already used to. Depending on the level and status of your target, you might get to see a bit of extra information on them.”

Balthazar turned around to look at Druma, who was still admiring his new cape.

[Goblin - Level 3]

[Status effect: Elated]

“Try it on an item too!” Tweedus said.

The crab focused on his assistant’s hat and then on the raggedy cape he was wearing.

[Wizard Hat of Enlightenment]

[+2 Intellect]

[Ancient Arcane Cape of the Novice]

[Arcane spells cost 10 less mana to cast]

“Yep. That checks out.”

Eager to test it some more, Balthazar pulled his Backpack of Holding down and hastily retrieved one of the slices of pie he had brought from Marquessa.

[Slice of Mango Pie]

[Slightly stale but still delicious]

[Restores 5 mana over 60 seconds]

“Neat!”

As he put the pie back in his backpack, the crab noticed the monocle’s description for it too.

[Backpack of Holding]

[Can hold a nearly unlimited amount of items, but each one will still weigh 1% of its original weight.]

[Unknown effect]

“Hang on,” the merchant said, frowning at the bag. “What’s this about an unknown effect on my backpack?”

“Oooh, exciting!” Tweedus said, leaning over the crab’s shell and looking at the item too. “You’ve got a secondary effect on your enchanted bag?”

“I never noticed that.”

The wizard rubbed the smooth white hair on his chin. “There are a few ways something like that can happen.”

“Alright, but how do I find out what it is?” Balthazar asked. “I don’t want to be running around with an unknown enchantment on my back. What if it’s a curse?!”

“Hmm, you could travel to a nearby Altar of Revealing and use a tome of—”

“Nope! No more side quests, please,” the merchant exclaimed.

“Ah, you’re right,” the old man said. “You’ve probably already gotten sidetracked enough for one book.”

Balthazar frowned. “What?”

“What?!” the wizard yelled. “Never mind that. There’s another way to reveal an item’s hidden effects. Fairies are pretty good at it!”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The robed man walked over to the entrance of his cave and cupped both hands around his mouth.

“Hey, Rada!” he yelled out.

“Uh…” said the crab as the adventurer walked back to his desk. “Do we just wait for her to—Ah!”

With a sudden and loud plink, the pink fairy from before appeared fluttering in a small burst of sparkles, right between the merchant and the mage.

“Whaddup, Tweeds? You rang?” the sprite said.

“Heyo, little fairy-o,” the human replied. “We got a mystery item over here. Think you can reveal what’s the hidden effect on that backpack?”

Rada fluttered over to the bag on the floor. “Sure thing, old man. Gimme just a moment to do my thang here.”

Realizing it wasn’t chattering buzzing he was hearing coming out of the fairy’s mouth despite the effects of his language skill having expired several minutes ago, the crab frowned in confusion.

“Hey, hang on, how come you’re not talking fairy language now?!”

“I never said I didn’t speak the common tongue,” the small sprite responded. “It was an elective in fairy school. But it was way funnier watching a crab buzzing.”

The merchant glowered at her, but decided it would be in his best interest not to antagonize the fairy by saying what he was thinking.

“You’re pretty close with the fae, eh?” Balthazar muttered to the wizard as the tiny creature looked at the backpack from every angle.

“Oooh, you have no idea. The fairies and I go way back. We are tight. Rada over here? I’m her wizard godfather on her mother’s side.”

“A’ight, all done, T,” the fairy said, flying back to them. “Gotta go now. We burning up some witch’s hair your boyo over here gifted us and I don’t wanna be gone for too long. Smell ya later!”

Throwing two finger guns at the wizard, the fairy disappeared in another burst of pink sparkles.

“Alright, try examining it again!” Tweedus said.

The crab looked at the backpack through his new Monocle of Exposition once more.

[Backpack of Holding Stuff & Things]

[Can hold a nearly unlimited amount of items, but each one will still weigh 1% of its original weight.]

[Once a day, you may reach into the backpack to find a new item has appeared inside. The item’s usefulness may be questionable but never fully random.]

“The hell?!” Balthazar said, before reading the description to the wizard. “Is that why I’ve been finding all sorts of junk in it that I don’t remember bringing with me before?”

“Probably,” Tweedus said, nodding as he stroked his beard thoughtfully.

“This backpack was made from a regular Bag of Holding. How in the world did it somehow gain this weird new effect?”

The old adventurer chuckled. “Ah, who knows? Maybe it was something you did. Maybe it’s something you are.” He winked playfully at the crab. “I’m sure you never experienced odd things happening around you that you couldn’t exactly explain, right?”

Balthazar looked up at the smirking wizard. “I…”

He thought back to all the strange things that kept happening around his pond back when he started his trading business. The coincidences, the things he’d make up on the spot and then somehow came to be true, all the events he could never quite make sense of.

The crab had thought all of that ended after the crow appeared and stripped him of his old system access.

“You think I have an influence on things around me without even noticing?” Balthazar finally asked.

“Maybe, maybe…” the wizard said, flicking his uneven eyes at the merchant like he was sizing him up. “You already know you’re a pretty unique case, is it really that crazy to think that there’s more to it than what you thought?”

The eight-legged traveler pondered the old man’s words. He usually cared little for anything that didn’t help him get more pastries or gold. Why did he have to keep getting saddled with baggage he did not want? Especially the kind that he did not fully understand or know how to fully benefit from.

“And how the hell do I figure out how to use that?” the crab asked.

“That, my crabby friend, not even I know.” The old man started walking in circles around Balthazar, looking at him with squinting eyes. “There are all sorts of odd things about you that I’ve never seen before. And I’ve been around for a long time and seen a lot of weird stuff! Seriously, the amount of strange auras and traces around you is off the charts.”

“Alright,” said Balthazar. “But can you stop looking at me like you’re sizing me up for a stew? Feeling pretty uncomfortable right now.”

Tweedus stopped and leaned down suddenly. After taking a couple of loud sniffs, his expression turned into a scowl.

“Really uncomfortable now,” the crab muttered.

“Those birdwatching kids you mentioned,” the wizard said, still frowning. “Did they do anything to you when you met them? Anything magic?”

“What? No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“Did they give you anything? An artifact, an item of some kind?”

“An item? No, just a few slices of pie. Was pretty decent pie, to be—”

“No, that wouldn’t be it,” the other interrupted. “Think, crab. Was there anything else?”

“No, nothing. Well, Ruby did touch up my map so it would show me my target destination at all times. But what’s all this about any—”

“Your map, show it to me!”

The wizard’s urgency was starting to worry Balthazar so he did as requested and handed him his map.

“I knew it!” Tweedus exclaimed after glancing at the piece of parchment for no more than a second. “A tracer enchantment. Tricky little she-devil, that one…”

“What does that mean?!” the confused crustacean asked.

“It means your backpack wasn’t the only baggage you brought.”

Tweedus walked past the merchant, his gaze fixed on the dimly lit cave entrance.

“What are you…” Balthazar started, but his words trailed off as he heard footsteps and saw the vague shapes of people approaching from the dark tunnel.

“Hello, Tweedus,” a woman’s voice said. “It’s been a long time.”

Blue, who had spent the last few minutes sniffing around the workshop for the chicken that had escaped from the nearby chest, jumped in place at the sudden appearance of the group of adventurers. Baring her fangs at them, she quickly retreated to Druma’s and Balthazar’s side.

The old wizard stared the woman in scarlet robes down with a defiant look in his deranged eyes. “It has? To me, it feels like it was just the other day that you were that girl barely out of her novice robes.”

Using his brand-new Monocle of Exposition, the crab scanned the entrance into the chamber.

[Enchantress - Level 35]

Behind the woman he could see lines appear over the heads of the adventurers accompanying her, all a few levels below hers.

“Hey, what the hell is this?!” an outraged Balthazar said, stepping forward. “I thought our agreement was I’d find Tweedus and talk to him about your request, not for you to stick some magic tracking thing on me!”

Ruby looked at the crab through her red-tinted glasses.

“I’m sorry, Balthazar, but we have too much on the line to rely solely on the word of a local. Even one as… unique as you. But you have my thanks. If you hadn’t traced us a clear path here we’d likely never have made it anywhere near Tweedus.”

The merchant glowered at the enchantress with both pincers on the sides of his shell. “Well, pretty rude behavior, I’ll have you know! You could have at least waited for me to finish my business with him before barging in!”

“Hah!” the arcane wizard laughed. “You didn’t get it yet? They don’t care about your problems or what you want. Ruby and her merry bunch only care about their own goals. Everyone else is just a pawn in their eyes.”

Ruby raised a closed fist in front of her chest. “A pawn of this world’s system! The same one you refuse to help us bring down.”

The old man in a bathrobe scoffed.

“So I can end up like Amil? His obsession was his undoing, and you’re just carrying that same torch now. Do the wise thing for once and drop all that revolution nonsense, go pursue a less dangerous life goal. Like surfing on the back of lava elementals. I can definitely recommend it. Lots of fun!”

Ruby’s expression, usually so calm and collected, showed signs of a bitter anger hiding underneath the curl on the corner of her lips and the slight inward twist of her brow.

“His undoing was on you for abandoning him when his research was so close to finding an answer to what’s really behind this charade of a world. How could you? He needed you and you failed him. He was our biggest hope and you walked away. You are a coward! He was my mentor!”

“He was my best friend!” the old wizard yelled, his voice briefly bereft of its usual madcap glee. “I did all I could to pull him away from that abyss he kept courting. He wouldn’t listen, and I couldn’t keep watching it go on. Just like I have no interest watching you idiots make the same mistakes!”

“We are this close from getting answers,” the enchantress said between grinding teeth. “From finally learning who brought our souls into this world. Why and what fo—”

“Who cares!” Tweedus shouted, throwing his arms out. “It’s not like that will take us back to wherever we came from that we don’t even remember anymore. Leave it alone and put all that effort into enjoying the one life you have here, ya muppet!”

The crab and his two friends watched the heated exchange between the two mages like small children watching adults fighting, their stunned faces going back and forth between them without making a sound.

Ruby nodded slowly, her upper lip slightly curled in scorn for the old man.

“I figured it would be pointless to try talking sense into you. But we’ve come too far to quit now. We will persevere, whether you are willing to help us or not.”

A magical shimmer appeared around the enchantress’s rings, giving her hands a green glow. At the same time, the other adventurers in the tunnel behind her started slowly walking forward.

“Ha-ha! Finally, we’re skipping to my kind of dancing!” the mad wizard exclaimed, his boisterous tone coming back in full force.

“Jasper, cover the exit,” Ruby said to the tall, dark-skinned man to her right. “Everyone else, make sure Tweedus doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“Uh-oh,” Balthazar said, turning to his companions. “Looks like things are about to get messy. Blue, take the front and get ready to flame on. Druma, you—”

“Druma help wizard make mean people go boom!” the goblin exclaimed with a determined look on his face as he vigorously shook his staff up and down with both hands.

“You guys will do nothing but stay back there,” the old wizard said, glancing back at them with wide, deranged eyes and a mischievous grin. “These fools came into my house. They will dance to my tune.”

Balthazar and his two friends stood back and watched with befuddled expressions as the elderly man arched back to crack his bones. With a pinch of his fingers, he lowered the mechanical arm over the strange music box, the needle at its tip coming in contact with the spinning black disc below.

The otherworldly music from before started playing out of the brass horn again, loud and thumping as the wizard bobbed his head along.

“Alright, let’s tussle, ya whippersnappers!”

“There’s a dozen of us and one of you,” Ruby said as her birdwatchers spread across the chamber. “You may be higher level than all of us but we still—”

“Too much talking!” Tweedus yelled as he clapped his hands together and several bursts of arcane magic flew out of his grasp.

The intruders braced for an attack, but none of the old man’s magic went to them. Instead, some spread around to random objects around the room while the largest portion of it flew up to the spinning ball hanging from the ceiling. The sphere mirrored the bright arcane shot into it all around the room, creating a light show that seemed to match the rhythm of the music playing over the battle.

“What just—” one of the birdwatchers started, but before he could finish his question, chaos erupted all around the room.

Chests suddenly swung open in a loud chorus. A closet projectile-vomited its contents, sending clothing flying everywhere. Piles of paper spontaneously burst into tiny pieces that rained down like confetti. Even the desk joined in by loudly slamming its drawers over and over along with the music.

Amidst it all, the elderly wizard in a purple bathrobe and slippers held his pointy wizard hat down as he danced in place, his movements like the maestro’s cues that conducted the orchestra of madness performing all around them.

“Contain him!” Ruby yelled to the others as they all did their best to steer clear of the furniture dance off taking place between a coat hanger and a coffee table.

Adventurers readied their weapons and spells, trying to concentrate between all the mayhem and circle in on the high wizard.

The swirling storm of chaos was causing countless system lines to pop up in Balthazar’s monocle, forcing him to take it off and store it safely in his pack. Both to save him a migraine and to make sure it didn’t end up broken on the floor like the last one.

Tweedus laughed loudly, standing a few paces in front of the crab with his back turned to him. The hem of his bathrobe flapped wildly in the wind that whipped through the room as he undid the rope fastened around his waist while the adventurers closed in on him.

“I cast…” the master of the arcane exclaimed as he spread his arms open. “Blinding Flash!”

The rope dropped to the floor and a mix of yells and cries from the intruders echoed around the cave as they collectively recoiled.

“Ah, my eyes!”

“Oh, lord, why!”

“I’m gonna be sick!”

“My poor innocence!”

“That’s just wrong!”

Stumbling and tripping, the birdwatchers pulled away from the wizard as they covered their faces and averted their eyes.

“Get behind me now,” Tweedus yelled to Balthazar and company as he cackled and tied the rope around his bathrobe again.

The visitors did as told while the mage began gathering a large amount of mana around himself.

On the other side of the room, the attackers, still recovering from the old man’s flashing, stood at the ready, hesitating at the sight of his charging spell.

“Hold!” one of them said, holding a closed fist above his head as he tried to avoid being slapped in the face by the pieces of paper and purple chicken feathers flying all around.

Tweedus smirked as the air crackled with energy and the magical wind swirling in the room picked up speed.

“That’s right, stay back, this one’s gonna be big!”

The red enchantress barged through the line of adventurers, her eyes wide as she readied her own spell.

“Don’t stand back,” she yelled to the others over the increasingly loud wind that drowned out even the music from the record player. “That’s not an offensive spell he’s casting!”

A circle of light appeared on the floor around the wizard and his guests as a speck of convulsing mana started spinning between them.

The old wizard let out one last laugh before shouting to the scarlet woman, “See ya around, Rubya!”

With a thunderous clap of his hands, the twisting blob of raw mana exploded into an expanding sphere of bright energy that made the room around the four of them disappear with blinding light.

Spiraling and spinning with no sense of which way was up anymore, Balthazar felt his body being abruptly pulled through time and space as his screams faded out, along with his consciousness.

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