Merchant Crab

It was another sunny summer morning at Balthazar’s pond, and the crab prepared himself for another day of trading by happily munching on a butter cookie.

Druma had already chomped down his own breakfast and was hard at work assembling another set of makeshift shelving, the wizard hat still firmly fit around his head. Despite still being quite small, even by goblin standards, he was beginning to bulk up, looking considerably less skinny and becoming slightly toned, thanks to all the hard labor and the plentiful meals of meat he kept having every day. While costly, Balthazar would have a hard time denying it was a good investment, as the goblin’s work around the place was becoming very noticeable.

There was a footpath between the shore and the center islet, which itself contained a large tented area, with the heavy iron chest where the gold was stashed at the back, an exquisite rug at the center where Balthazar rested, as well as sacks and crates with food on each side.

The small assistant had also finished crude tables and shelves to better organize and display the items for sale, slowly reducing the clutter around the place, and bringing organization to the trading post.

“Hey, Druma,” Balthazar called. “I’ll be out here by the road. The morning’s pretty hot, so don’t forget to take some breaks.”

“Yes, yes, boss!” the goblin responded, while nodding vigorously, before turning back to his hammering.

As Balthazar reached the side of the road, an adventurer was already approaching, with a bag over his shoulder.

“Morning,” the man said. “You open for business yet?”

“I’m always open, if the business is worth making. What can I do for you today?”

“I’ve been making my way back to town all night, and I’m pretty spent. I sure would like a stamina potion or two right now, if you got some for sale?”

“Ah, unlucky, I’m fresh out at the moment,” Balthazar said, while discreetly using one of his back legs to push a crate full of shiny green potion bottles behind a stack of bigger boxes, and out of sight.

“Dang it, just my luck,” the adventurer said.

It was not as if Balthazar didn’t want to sell the stamina potions he had, it was just that he had quickly learned adventurers returning from their travels will feel much more inclined to sell some of their heavy loot to him there if they’re exhausted and about to head uphill to the town gates.

“Unfortunate indeed,” Balthazar said, attempting to sound sympathetic. “I could always help you out by giving you a good deal for some of that loot you got there, so you at least lighten the load before heading up the road.”

“Sure, I guess I could drop some weight. Let’s see here…”

The adventurer began searching through his bag, a loud clanking coming from within it.

“No, not this. Not that either. I need it for crafting later. Maybe… nope, that’s a quest item. Aha! This is pretty heavy, and it’s not like I really need it.”

Pulling his hand out of the bag, the adventurer revealed a large block of metal. Looking it over with his monocle, Balthazar identified it.

[Iron Ingot]

“Hmm, interesting,” the crab said, looking the nearly perfect slab of solid metal over closely. “I see adventurers with pieces of iron ore often, but not ingots.”

“Yeah, I got this off a bandit hideout, was a pretty tough fight.”

“I’ll give you 20 gold for it. How’s that?”

“Sure, I’ll take that. I don’t even use iron weapons anymore. What am I going to upgrade with it, anyway?”

As the adventurer took off on his way up the road, Balthazar pondered on what he had said. Upgrade. What exactly could he mean by that? The thought of asking occurred to him, but then he’d be risking sounding dumb if it turned out to be something really basic. And he can’t have other adventurers catching rumors about him being an uneducated crab with very little knowledge of the world outside his pond. Sure, he might be exactly that, but he wasn’t about to admit to it, was he?

Looking up at the sky, Balthazar saw a handful of dots circling above. Damnable birds were back, it seemed. Probably looking for food, the lazy freeloaders. Trying to ignore them and not let it ruin his mood, he focused back on his new item.

Holding the ingot with both pincers, he noticed how heavy it was, and wondered what use could something like that have. It wasn’t even all that shiny.

Suddenly, a sound interrupted Balthazar’s thoughts on what to do with the ingot. Leaves rustling. Coming from a nearby group of bushes that extended off the edge of the forest.

Standing still for a moment, he observed the bushes quietly, waiting for any movement. But nothing happened.

“Must have been the wind,” the crab said with a shrug, to the completely motionless air around him.

Turning around to head to his center islet, returning his attention to the ingot, he heard sounds from the bushes again, but louder this time.

He looked back and only had time to drop the ingot before quickly sidestepping away from the hideous leg that was coming at him.

“WHAT THE HELL!” Balthazar shouted, with a mix of horror and disgust at the creature that had just jumped out of the bushes.

A giant spider, nearly the height of a horse, was standing in front of him. All eight dark, hairy legs flexed, ready to pounce at any moment. Its two massive fangs dripping with either drool, poison, or a mix of both. The creature looked terrifying and extremely mad.

Forgetting all his composure, Balthazar skittered and stumbled away from the spider’s reach, towards the bridge.

The creature hissed and tried to take a jab at him with the tip of one of its legs.

It barely missed.

Now halfway across the bridge, Balthazar took a moment to regain his breath. The bridge was not wide enough to fit all the giant spider’s legs properly, and it seemed hesitant to step on water.

Taking the opportunity, he grabbed the dangling monocle that had fallen off when the monster tried to jump him and adjusted it back into its usual spot.

[Level 11 Giant Spider]

“This is definitely a problem,” Balthazar said, his panic increasing, as he looked around for a solution he didn’t have.

“Ugly creepy crawly! Leave boss alone!”

Feeling a small rush of wind passing next to him, Balthazar saw Druma charging at the spider. His hat barely holding on, both of his hands were tightly holding a wooden stake with the sharp end pointed at his foe.

“Druma! Get back! Don’t—”

Before he could finish his sentence, the spider kicked the goblin to the side with one of its legs, sending him crashing through a pair of wooden shelves, his wizard hat falling limp in front of his feet.

Fearing the worst, Balthazar quickly brought up his status screen, and checked his party info.

[Party Members]

[Name: Druma] [Race: Goblin] [Class: None] [Level: 3]

[Health: 20/60]

[Attributes]

[Strength: 2] [Agility: 4] [Intelligence: 2]

He had never seen a health stat on any of his screens, but in that moment he was just thankful it wasn’t displaying a zero.

Focusing back on the spider, Balthazar realized it had now turned its gaze to the goblin lying on the ground.

“Hey, you! Over here! Why don’t you stick to someone with as many legs as you?!” Balthazar shouted, waving both claws up in the air and making as much noise on the floorboards as he could.

Turning its eight dark, beady eyes back to the crab, the spider cautiously started stepping in his direction.

“Ah, damn it. Why did I open my big mouth?”

Balthazar quickly made his way across the bridge and to the center of his islet, but the spider was no longer held back by the water. After having tested the depth with one leg, it was now slowly crossing its way to the other side.

Balthazar started frantically looking around for something, anything that could help him.

There was a shortsword on a wooden rack, but he didn’t have hands to wield it.

There was a bow next to it, but Balthazar had no idea how to shoot it, and that was not exactly the best time to learn.

There was also a small bottle of poison on a shelf, but all he could do was groan at the pointlessness of it in that moment.

With the spider now nearly through to his side, Balthazar put his arms up, opened his pincers, and with a quick thrust, putting all of his skills gained from snatching up unaware fish off the water, wrapped a pincer around one of the spider’s legs, closing it with all of his might.

To his surprise, it did nothing, not even a dent. At most, it served only to anger the beast even more.

[Giant Spider resisted Chitin Claw]

Pulling away quickly, the crab hoped to everything his shell was hard enough for what was coming.

“Oi! What’s a big bugger like you doing here?!”

The voice came from the road, followed by the sound of multiple footsteps rushing in.

The noises caused the spider to turn around, and when Balthazar looked behind it, he saw three adventurers rushing in, each taking a different position around the creature.

“Pretty sure this pond already got enough multi-legged ugly bastards in it. Ya shoulda stayed in your forest, big mother!”

The stocky man kept shouting at the spider, steel shield held high in front of him, sword at the ready in his other hand.

The other two carefully closed the distance from different sides, causing the spider to grow even more aggressive, unable to back away into the deeper waters of the pond without losing its footing.

“YAAAH!”

With a loud shout, the adventurer charged his shield up at the spider, making it snap its fangs at him, and allowing the man to smack its face dead center with the steel.

Taking the opportunity, the other two adventurers charged in from the sides.

The woman on the left used her axe to swiftly cut off one of the spider’s legs at the joint.

With a splash of water around his submerged feet, the man on the right swung his warhammer with huge force, breaking another two legs.

“Yes!” Balthazar cheered. “That’s what you get! And stay out of my pond!”

Looking around, he grabbed the first thing that came to his pincer, a boot, and hurled it at the spider. The old piece of footwear hit its huge abdomen and bounced off into the water.

The spider screeched in pain (because of its lost legs, not so much because of the boot), turned for a moment, and then stumbled back, falling on the sand, its massive body no longer able to sustain itself on its remaining legs.

Without hesitation, the largest of the three brought his hammer down with all his strength, crushing the spider’s head, and putting a stop to the horrible screeching sounds.

[Giant Spider slain, assistance experience gained]

[You have reached Level 7!]

Balthazar glanced at the boot that was still slowly floating away and decided to just shut up and not question anything in that moment.

The shielded adventurer cautiously poked one of the spider’s legs with the tip of his sword. Content with its lack of reaction, he sheathed his weapon.

“Phew, lucky we were traveling this road today. That was a close call, wasn’t it, crab?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Balthazar said, while avoiding stepping too close to the spider’s remains.

“What was a giant spider doing all the way out of the Black Forest, anyway? They don’t usually step out of their territory like this,” the axe wielder asked.

“Dunno,” the apparent leader of the group responded, checking the front of his shield for damage. “Maybe all the hunting people been doing around their lairs lately has them all stirred up, or something.”

“It’s a broodmother,” grumbled the third adventurer, while ripping out one of the spider’s fangs, and attaching it to a chain around his belt.

“Oooh, lucky,” said the other man. “That should finish that quest we took last week.”

Balthazar diverted his attention away from the adventurers and turned to the goblin that was crossing the bridge, hat in hand, rubbing his head with a pained expression on his face.

“Look alive, boys, we got a goblin now!” the woman with the axe shouted, grabbing her weapon again.

“Wait! Hold on! He’s with me, he’s my worker, he’s not a threat!” Balthazar hurriedly said, while moving in front of them.

“This goblin… works for you?” the adventurer said, with an expression of confusion on her face.

“Yes, he does, and I’d appreciate it if you guys didn’t go chopping up my employees, alright?”

“Aye,” the leader of the pack started, “I’d usually find a goblin doing honest work weird, but when he’s working for a crab who is a merchant, it makes as much sense as anything else. But speaking of appreciation, we did just save your hide, didn’t we?”

“I don’t have a hide,” Balthazar said, begrudgingly, “but yes, I guess you did. And I suppose you expect some sort of reward for it now.”

Balthazar wasn’t too keen on giving free stuff to adventurers, as it might spread the wrong impression about him. Or worse, they might start coming around thinking he’s one of those quest giver chumps. But he also didn’t want the bad reputation that would come with being ungrateful.

“Here,” Balthazar said, grabbing several bottles off a shelf with both pincers, “a cure poison and a health potion for each of you, for the valiant risk you took, blah, blah, blah, I thank you, and so on.”

“Appreciate ya,” the stocky shield user said, taking the potions into his pack. “You’re not so bad, for a crab. And don’t you worry, we’ll be taking this nasty thing off your property now, so we can present it to the guild as proof of completion for a quest.”

“Please do,” the crab responded, “before some creepy necromancer shows up here and starts fondling its legs.”

Watching the trio drag away the remains of the spider—and its three unattached legs—up the road, Balthazar turned to Druma, who seemed to be recovering well after drinking a health potion the crab had given him while the adventurers were still tying up the spider’s legs for transport.

“That’s a pretty big bruise you got there,” he said, while the goblin put his hat back on, in shame, attempting to cover his bruised forehead. “I appreciate the effort, but next time don’t go charging in like that and risking getting yourself killed, alright?” Balthazar looked away from Druma. “I can’t afford to hire new manual labor every other day, you know?!”

The crab glanced at his assistant from the corner of his eye. He was just standing there looking mopey.

“Now go take the rest of the day off, you need to recover. You can continue what you were working on tomorrow.”

Druma nodded, with far less enthusiasm than usual, and walked down the bridge, to his bed of hay.

Feeling thankful that goblins did not have an understanding of work insurance yet, Balthazar picked up the iron ingot he had dropped earlier, wondering once again what he should do with it. Maybe it would have been a good throwing weapon against the spider.

That encounter had taught him how powerless he really was against a real threat. Even his mighty pincers were no match against a scrawny spider leg.

As he contemplated his woes while staring down the brick of metal, a prompt came up in front of him:

[Upgrade Right Claw with [Iron Ingot]?]

[Yes | No]