Merchant Crab

The salty sea breeze gradually gave way to the warm, earthy scent of damp soil and thriving vegetation as Balthazar continued along the dirt road leading inland.

From the beach, Battershoal had looked mysterious.

From here, it looked enormous—and even more mysterious.

Towering trees stretched toward the sky in the distance, their broad canopies knitting together like an emerald ceiling. Thick vines hung from ancient branches, flowering bushes crowded the roadside, and dense walls of vivid greenery extended as far as the eye could see in nearly every direction.

The merchant slowed his pace.

“So... jungly.”

The island certainly did not look uninhabited. Quite the opposite, in fact. It looked alive. Almost aggressively so.

Every rustling bush made him wonder what might be hiding inside it.

Every distant cry echoing through the trees belonged to some unseen creature.

There was chittering and chattering, buzzing and chirping, growling and calling. It was a cacophony of wild sounds and restless nature.

Balthazar instinctively flexed his claws as his eyestalks tensed up and he looked around nervously.

“No,” he muttered. “Let's not assume every sound wants to eat me. That's adventurer thinking.”

He narrowed his eyes and lowered his pincers slightly.

“Let's just assume most sounds want to eat me.”

The crab resumed skittering down the road.

At least there was a road.

That meant civilization.

Probably.

Hopefully.

Unless some enormous monster had decided to become surprisingly invested in civil engineering.

He gulped. No party with him, no friends or allies, and nothing but his claws to defend himself with. What if there were monsters there? What level of danger could he even expect from that island?

“Monocle!” Balthazar suddenly blurted out. “How did I forget about it! I could have examined the old man back there to get an idea of the levels in this place.”

Reaching inside his Crab Bag, the merchant retrieved the delicate lens with a golden rim and chain attached and perched it atop his eyestalk.

“Let's see what sort of neighborhood we've moved into…”

He slowly swept his gaze across the surrounding vegetation.

Bush.

Tree.

Another bush.

Very large tree.

More bushes.

Still trees.

And finally something that looked like… No. Just another bush.

Perhaps whatever wildlife lived here was simply better at hiding than the monsters back home.

Then movement caught his eye.

A small rabbit hopped leisurely across the dirt road several paces ahead, pausing halfway across to sniff at a flower growing beside the path before disappearing into the undergrowth.

Balthazar blinked.

Then blinked again.

[Rabbit - Level 11]

“Level eleven?!”

He stared in disbelief at the spot where the rabbit had vanished.

“That was a rabbit.”

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Back at Boulder's Point, rabbits were level one. Occasionally level two if they looked particularly athletic.

The crab slowly looked toward the endless jungle surrounding him.

“If the rabbits around here are level eleven…”

His gaze drifted upward toward the immense trees.

“I'd rather not meet whatever they run away from.”

He quietly tightened the straps of his backpack.

Perhaps walking with slightly more caution would be a wise investment.

At the mere thought of the word “investment,” the merchant instinctively reached for the spot on the edge of his carapace where his Bag of Holding Money usually was.

Except the coin pouch wasn’t there.

“Oh crabapples!” Balthazar exclaimed. “I left my coin with Druma before going into the dungeon!”

The crab’s heart raced even faster than a moment before when he realized the dangers that might surround him in the jungle. He was carrying not a single coin. It was terrifying. Not a single coin on him. It felt like being naked. Which he technically already was all the time, being an animal and all. So perhaps it felt more like being stripped of his carapace. He felt nervous, exposed, and vulnerable.

“I miss my wool hat,” Balthazar lamented, remembering Madeleine’s cozy gift to him. “I shouldn’t have left my stuff behind.”

The small giant crab looked around at the big giant trees ahead of him and exhaled slowly.

“Keep it together, Balthazar,” he muttered. “You will just have to find a way off this island, get back home, and Druma will have your coin safe and sound waiting for you. All will be fine.”

As the merchant kept following the road and all the adrenaline from the past hour started to go down, his thoughts drifted back to the volcano. To the dungeon. To the core.

All those echoes. The voices. The flashes of past lives.

Were those the memories of all the adventurers who had come here? Balthazar wondered.

And if that was what truly was hiding down there, what had been compelling him to them? The curiosity, the pull, it had been so strong and impossible to ignore, like a calling, a summons that could not be left unanswered.

But answers he had not found. Only more questions.

And a quest.

Balthazar checked the last thing the system showed him before being forcefully ejected from Semla, away from his home, and into this new place called Battershoal.

[Quest: Find the Heart]

That was it. No description, context, or instructions. Not even a convenient arrow pointing in the general direction of this “heart” or a vague note telling him the thing he sought was approximately 200 steps north past that one tree that looked like an old man holding a pumpkin.

“What kind of quest is this?” the crab complained, throwing his pincers up as he continued walking. “How am I supposed to find this… heart, or whatever! Just by walking around until I randomly stumble upon it?! Come on!”

And still, the fact remained that he could not ignore the calling to chase this quest. As if all those haunting voices he had heard from everywhere when approaching The Source were still echoing inside his shell, screaming, pleading, demanding—Find the heart.

With little else to go on, Balthazar dismissed the window and continued following the only road available.

If nothing else, Alden had mentioned adventurers somewhere farther north.

Perhaps they knew something.

But most likely, they would know nothing of use. They were adventurers after all.

The road curved gently through the forest.

Occasionally, another glimpse of the ocean peeked between the trees before disappearing again behind the dense vegetation.

And minutes passed, until suddenly, after taking another step on a completely unremarkable part of the road, a new system notification appeared.

[You have discovered Battershoal.]

[Experience gained.]

The crab stopped.

“Uhh… Pretty sure I already ‘discovered’ it all the way back at the beach, but alright, you do you, system.”

And then a second notification appeared.

[You have reached Level 40!]

The crab’s eyestalks perked up.

“Oh, neat! Some good news, at least.”

He quickly opened the notification and a fresh batch of attribute points waited patiently to be distributed.

The merchant raised a claw but then slowly withdrew it.

“No… Better not.”

He still knew next to nothing about Battershoal. Standing there on a road in the middle of an unknown jungle was not the time to be fiddling with that. And perhaps whatever lay ahead would convince him to invest differently.

He closed the attribute window and another notification immediately slid into view.

[By reaching level 40, you have unlocked the option to choose a sub-class in addition to your main one.]

The merchant tilted his shell.

“A sub-class?”

He opened the new menu.

It was… remarkably empty.

A decorative frame. Several locked silhouettes. A blank list.

And one helpful line of text.

[You have not discovered any suitable sub-classes yet.]

Balthazar frowned.

“So I unlocked the privilege of discovering that I haven't unlocked anything yet. How helpful!”

Still, the idea lingered.

A sub-class.

He had never really considered becoming anything besides a merchant.

Merchant suited him.

Merchant explained him.

Merchant paid for pastries.

What would even suit him in addition to being a merchant?

The crab shook himself off those thoughts.

That was a concern for later. There were more pressing matters at pincer now.

Such as the fact that he could hear voices up ahead.

The road bent around a massive outcropping of moss-covered stone, and just beyond it, laughter, clanging of metal, and the crackling of a campfire.

Balthazar slowed.

Alden had been right.

It sounded very much like he had finally found the adventurers’ camp.

The merchant straightened himself and pulled his backpack tighter against his shell.

“Time to make an entrance.”

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