Merchant Crab

"So now that girl, Madeleine, is just living there with you guys full-time?" asked Amber, sitting under the shade of her golem friend alongside a tiny living pebble and munching on a cinnamon delight.

"Friend."

"Oooh." The birdwatcher apprentice tilted her head back in understanding, nearly causing her straw hat to fall off her dark blonde hair. "So she bakes there during the day, and then goes back home to take care of her grandma in town at night. Got it."

Bouldy nodded with a smile and then suddenly stopped and looked down at the adventurer with a raised rock brow.

"Friend?" Bouldy asked.

"No, of course I'm not asking about it to go tell Madame Ruby," Amber replied, shaking her head from side to side. "Honestly, she would not care about that kind of stuff. Unless it has something to do with 'the mission,' she has little patience for anything. And lately they've all been busy with this secret project or whatever, with binding enchantments, and anti-undead charms. Jasper always comes back smelling of rot, and I caught glimpses of some kind of purple haze coming out of the forest late one night. But nobody tells me anything! Because I'm just an initiate!"

The girl crossed her arms sulkily and fixed her frowning gaze on the floor in front of the golem's feet.

The animated construct looked at her, observing as she took the rest of her cinnamon treat and stuffed it into her mouth and started chewing loudly.

"Friend…" he said gently, pushing the pastry basket closer to her with his finger.

"Yeah, you're right, thanks," the forlorn birdwatcher said with her left cheek still stuffed. "I think I'll have another."

She took another pastry from the basket, and as she continued to eat the sugary delight in her mouth while eyeing the one in her hand about to follow it, her timid smile started to slowly return to her face.

"These are so good! I hope one day I can meet your baker friend and tell her she's really talented."

"Creee!" the pebble sitting next to the basket chirped.

"Yes, sorry, Pebbles! You are too!" the girl in the sunhat exclaimed apologetically. "I know you helped bake these."

She paused and looked at the basket with a quizzical expression.

"Isn't Madeleine going to be upset that you've been sneaking off with baskets of her pastries? I mean, it's not like you can claim they're for you to eat…"

Bouldy made a dismissive wave with his massive hand while shaking his head. "Friend."

Amber looked up at him with a cocked eyebrow. "Really? You helped with the stone bricks for building her kitchen?"

The golem nodded and smiled. "Friend."

The girl looked even more confused now. "Huh? 'The power of friendship'? What does that even mean?"

Bouldy smiled and pushed the basket against the girl's legs. "Friend."

She smiled back.

"Yeah, you're right, I'll just stop asking so many questions and have another one of these. Or two!"

The young girl took a cinnamon pastry in each hand and started taking turns biting into them back and forth.

"You know, you're pretty good at cheering people up, for a rock!" Amber said, looking up with a chipmunk grin.

"Friend!" the smiling rock said with a roaring chuckle that made chunks of snow fall from the top of the boulders surrounding them.

"Shhh!" Amber urged, placing her finger in front of her stuffed mouth. "Someone might hear us! You want to get us in trouble?! Well, more me than you. Madame Ruby would not be happy with me if she found out I was having brunch with 'the enemy,' as she says." The girl rolled her eyes briefly. "At least your crabby friend seems a bit more tolerant from what you've been telling me about him. I just… never imagined. I thought he was just another local monster. No offense."

"Friend."

The young adventurer swallowed hard and then let her shoulders roll forward.

"I… I just wish we could all get along, be on the same side, you know? Madame Ruby, Jasper, everyone else, they're good guys, really. Well, maybe not Flint, but nobody likes him much, and he doesn't like anyone either."

The golem placed one hand on the birdwatcher's shoulder—or more accurately, a finger—and tilted his head while forming a comforting smile with his rough visage.

"Friend…"

Amber sighed.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"I know, I know…"

Pebbles rolled herself until she was in front of the girl's knees and let out a happy chirp. "Creeee!"

"You're right, little one," the adventurer said, straightening herself up again. "Enough sulking! What I want to know, big guy, is when are you going to get me one of those neat little crab figurines your friend has been handing out to every adventurer that passes through his bazaar?"

Bouldy threw his head back and laughed. After the laughter died down to a chuckle, he gave the top of the birdwatcher's straw hat a gentle tap with his finger.

"Frien—"

The animated construct's smile vanished from his face in a flash as his gaze snapped to the pond behind the wall of boulders around them.

In a sudden motion that caused a small quake under Amber's legs and nearly threw her to the ground, the golem jumped to his feet, snatched Pebbles into his grasp, and started rushing toward the bazaar.

"Wha-what happened?!" the confused adventurer yelled, rushing to peek over one of the rocks.

"Friend!" the running golem yelled back.

Amber frowned. "What do you mean, 'your friends need you'?"

***

"What's all this commotion? What's going on?!" asked Madeleine, stepping into the bazaar with a rolling pin in hand and streaks of flour on her face and apron.

"Hungry crab!" Balthazar yelled, pointing his claw at the baker.

The girl placed both hands on her hips.

"I know you are, no need to yell! I just finished a fresh batch of pi—"

"No! On your hair!"

"Wha—AH!"

With a swift swing of her rolling pin, Madeleine swatted a chittering miniature crab that was chewing through her blonde braid.

As the animated figurine flew off in an arc behind some shelves, Tristan walked in through the front door with Henrietta on his shoulder.

"What on Heartha is goin—"

"Watch out, Tristy!" exclaimed the toad on his shoulder, before sending her amphibian tongue shooting forward and smacking off-course a tiny crab that was leaping at the man's face.

"Did you just call him Tristy?!" Balthazar asked, frowning at them as he slapped a handful of crabs off his favorite pie-eating table.

Which is to say, a table for eating pie on, and not a table that eats pies. Because that would be a rather bizarre piece of furniture, even by that bazaar's standards.

Unlike the dozens of wooden crab miniatures that had just come to life and were attempting to chew away at anything they found. Those were perfectly normal.

"This is not normal at all!" yelled Madeleine as she swung her rolling pin left and right and stomped her feet at the swarm of chittering mini crustaceans skittering around her. "What is going on, Balthazar?!"

"I don't know! Why are you asking me?!" the giant crab yelled back, flicking one of the pests off a display case.

"These things all look like you!"

"Any resemblance is purely coincidental!"

The crab figurines, stirred into motion by the mysterious corrupting black substance clinging to the cracks in their wooden limbs, scattered all over the bazaar, across the floor, up the walls, and even on the ceiling. They produced an unnerving chittering as they moved about, like a swarm of insects infesting every corner of the merchant's abode.

Each of the crab replicas skittered frantically until they encountered something, anything they could cling to and start chewing into, consuming mainly anything made of wood, like a cannibalistic demolition crew.

The floorboards, the pillars holding up the roof, even the roof itself, nothing was spared. Furniture, whether it was a shelf, a table, chair, or even the cheap crates scattered around the trading post, all became part of the pests' buffet while holes began appearing all over the building, as if it was being attacked by a pack of relentless termites.

Like the giant crab devoured pastries, so did the miniature replicas of him consumed timber.

Over by the counter, Druma focused hard with both hands over one of the wooden pests that was busy trying to sink its mandibles into the base of the sturdy piece of furniture John had gifted to the merchant so many moons ago.

With a bead of sweat running down his face, the goblin managed to produce a single spark. The spell struck the figurine dead on, zapping it off its meal and leaving it twitching upside down on the floor as its body sizzled and smoked from the electricity that had just hit it.

"Druma help, boss!" the proud assistant exclaimed.

"Yes, good job, buddy," Balthazar said, kicking half of his legs around to keep the vermin away. "But without wanting to rain on your parade, I don't think you have enough sparks in you to handle all of these things!"

The goblin looked dejected for a second before perking up again.

"Druma can get staff and make big kaboom!"

The giant crab turned to him with eyestalks stretching up.

"No way! You'd blow us and the whole bazaar to smithereens! No big kabooms, Druma!"

"Where do all of them even keep coming from?!" shouted Tristan as he hit one of the figurines with a book, sending it flying toward Madeleine, who hit it with a loud thonk using her rolling pin.

"I don't know!" said the eight-legged merchant. "I could swear I never even had this many of the damn things. It's like they've somehow multiplied at some point!"

"Look out!" yelled Henrietta from her position on top of the counter, where she was slapping away mini crabs with her powerful tongue.

Tristan looked up, and with a gasp reached for the baker standing a few paces in front of him.

"Miss Madeleine!"

Grabbing her by the arm, the merchant pulled her out of harm's way just as an iron lantern fell from the ceiling, the wooden support beam it was connected to having been chewed away by a group of crab pests.

"My goodness!" the girl exclaimed in shock. "Thanks for the save, Mr. Tristan!"

"We can't stay here," Balthazar shouted, skittering toward the back exit. "Everyone, outside, now!"

The five of them dashed out of the gazebo as the maddening chittering inside grew even louder, along with the creaking of crumbling wood.

"Phew," said the big crab. "Alright, now that we're safer out here, let's… uh-oh."

As the group turned back to look at where they had come from, they realized the unstoppable swarm was moving together as a wave out of the bazaar too—and toward them.

"Frieeeeeend!" a booming voice called.

Turning their necks—and shell—in unison again, but in the opposite direction now, the group looked toward the pond's kitchen.

Standing in front of it was a giant stone golem, waving at them to follow him.

"Everyone," Balthazar said. "Get in the kitchen!"