Merchant Crab

“There could be a thousand reasons why it’s called that,” Balthazar said to himself as he continued down the path. “Maybe the beach itself is vaguely shaped like a crab. Yeah, that could be it.”

The vegetation ahead began to open up and he could feel the fresh smell of ocean spray in the air. The closer the merchant came to Crab Beach, the more nervous he felt.

What if that place was inhabited by crabs like the name suggested?

While Balthazar had never given it much thought before, the fact was that he had never met another crab in his entire life. And now that the possibility was right in front of him, the giant crustacean was not sure he was prepared for it.

Humans? Goblins? Even dragons? All fine. But meeting others of his own species somehow felt… intimidating.

What if he didn’t like them? What if they didn’t like him?

“Bah, stop it, Balthazar!” the merchant demanded to himself. “Since when do you care? You’re a distinguished, successful crustacean. If there are crabs there, they will recognize your grandeur! And if they don’t… their loss.”

The crab climbed over a small dune on the road and finally saw the sea again, hugging a tiny beach with a few coconut trees dotting its white sands.

Slow waves bathed the shore lazily as the orange light of the setting sun gave the quaint little beach a calm and pleasant air that eased Balthazar into feeling more relaxed.

“It’s no Boulder’s Point,” he said, “but it’s still pretty.”

After taking in the beauty of that little tropical haven, the merchant’s gaze caught movement coming from the sand ahead.

A twitch, and then a pair of curious eyestalks sprouted from the sand, followed by a quick skitter.

Balthazar gasped quietly and his words escaped him.

A creature emerged from the white sands just a few paces ahead of him, with two pincers, eight legs, and covered in hard chitin.

That was a crab, alright.

Except… it was no giant crab like Balthazar.

In fact, it was quite tiny, the merchant realized, once it started walking closer.

Oh, goodness, it’s coming closer! Balthazar thought in a sudden panic. What do I do? What do I do?!

The smaller crab was brighter in color than Balthazar, its gray chitin covered in a blue sheen that was unlike anything the merchant had ever seen, and it was about the size of a slice of pie. Which was a weird unit of measurement to compare a fellow crab to, Balthazar realized, but as usual when under sudden stressful situations, baked goods were the first thing to pop into his mind.

Two black, beady eyes fixed themselves on the merchant with a shiny reflection on them, and Balthazar stared back, through his monocle.

[Crab - Level 1]

What the hell?! The larger crustacean thought with indignation. That rabbit earlier was level 11! This is an affront! And why is the system referring to it as just a “crab”?!

Balthazar did not know that specific little guy in front of him, but he knew two things for certain.

One, that was not just a crab, it was a fine specimen of the blue crab species—because Balthazar was well-versed in the field of crustacean studies, as any proper crab should.

And two, it was an outrage that a fellow crab was lower in level than a bunny rabbit of all things.

“Uhm… hi?” the giant crab said hesitantly.

His greeting was met with a blank stare by the smaller crab.

“Oh, right, silly me. You must not know the common tongue like I do,” said Balthazar. “Hmm… Perhaps I could use my All-Tongue skill to speak with—”

The merchant froze mid-sentence, a frown slowly forming on his eyestalks, and then rolled his eyes at himself.

“Balthazar, you’ve been spending way too much time around humans,” he said with a sigh. “Why would I need a language skill to speak to a crab? I am a crab. I know how to speak crab!”

All the while that Balthazar continued talking to himself, the smaller blue crab kept staring up at him, immobile and expressionless, as if completely at a loss as to what was going on.

“Ahem,” Balthazar said, drawing himself up as if preparing to do something extremely complex that he hadn’t done in a long time.

And then, he made a single, audible bubble with his mouth.

The blue crab’s eyestalks perked up slightly and it quickly replied with a similar bubble.

In crab language, that was a greeting.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

“Great! I still got it!” Balthazar enthusiastically said, pumping a pincer in the air.

Seeing the bigger crab’s excitement, the grayish-blue one responded with another barrage of “hello” bubbles one after the other.

“Heh, alright, little one, calm down,” the merchant said with a chuckle. “I’m glad we can understand each other now, but tell me, do you have a name?”

The blue crab stopped, stared up at him, and blew an inquisitive bubble.

“You know… a name,” Balthazar repeated. “Something to call you by?”

The smaller crab produced a shrugged bubble.

“Hmm, right, that’s odd,” the giant crab muttered.

He always remembered having a name, even before his first encounter with a Scroll of Character Creation. Balthazar had always been his name as far back as he could recall. So far back, in fact, that he was not sure whether someone had given him that name, or if he had picked it himself.

“Well, I’m not going to call you Blue, as tempted as I am,” Balthazar said. “I already used that name for a drake, you know. So… any suggestions?”

The blue crab produced another barrage of bubbles that were far too fast and incoherent for Balthazar to fully understand.

“Woah, easy, you sure like to talk!” He paused and pondered, rubbing his chin with the tip of his pincer. “Yeah, I think I’m just gonna call you Bubbles for now, if that’s alright with you?”

The blue crab blew two quick bubbles in response, which was exactly the response Balthazar expected, naturally.

“So, tell me, Bubbles… is it just you here on this beach?”

The other crab shook its shell from side to side and blew three bubbles before pointing around with one claw.

Balthazar lifted his gaze to see several small eyestalks sprouting from the sands all around them. Everywhere he looked, he saw more crabs peeking from the ground, all of them level 1 according to his monocle, all of them small as Bubbles, but interestingly enough, they were of different sub-species of crab.

The one closer to Bubbles, tentatively crawling closer to look at Balthazar too, was bright red like a brick, slightly thicker bodied, and sported a pair of visibly more powerful pincers. It was without a doubt a red rock crab, Balthazar knew.

Off to one side, almost imperceptible against the white sands of the beach, was a pale white crab with slightly yellowish and beige areas to his chitin. Without a doubt, that was a ghost crab.

Coming down a dune was a green crab, and skittering around the trunk of a coconut tree came a brownish crab with one pincer much larger than the other that Balthazar recognized immediately as a fiddler crab.

Emerging from the wet sands near a puddle was a small crab with a very unusual color—it was a purple shore crab.

Wonder filled Balthazar’s eyes at the sight of so many different specimens of his own kind. It was like meeting distant relatives for the first time and feeling both enthusiastic but also apprehensive.

But above all else, he felt a little… inadequate.

Why are they all so small and I’m the only big one? The giant crab wondered.

The sound of a bubble popping brought Balthazar’s attention back to the blue crab still standing in front of him.

“Oh, right, sorry,” said the merchant. “I’m actually looking for something. Maybe you guys could help me.”

Bubbles produced another inquisitive bubble as it tilted its eyestalks.

“Well, it’s like a rock. A very round stone, like a ball. But you can see through it, like glass. It’s called a marble and—”

The blue crab popped a sudden bubble and snapped around to face the red rock crab behind it and produced a barrage of quick foaming bubbles from its mouth.

The other crab quickly skittered behind a nearby boulder and, to Balthazar’s absolute astonishment, it returned holding a marble above its shell with its pincers—the exact marble the Trader had described.

“What?! That easy? You guys had it just sitting there?” the flabbergasted crustacean said. “Alright, what’s the catch? What’s your price? What favor do you guys need? There’s going to be some side quest in order to get it, isn’t there?”

Bubbles shook its shell from side to side and skittered next to the red crab to pick up the marble from its claws.

The small blue crab approached the giant one and, standing barely as tall as Balthazar’s first leg joint, offered the marble to him.

“You’re… You’re just going to give it to me?” Balthazar said, eyestalks standing up in an expression of surprise. “No catch or tricks to it? But… why?”

Bubbles’ tiny, beady eyestalks popped from behind the marble held above its carapace and stared into the merchant’s eyes before producing two slow bubbles that meant two simple words.

“Because crab.”

And Balthazar knew that was as good a reason as he had ever heard.

“Thank you,” the giant crab said with a nod as he took the tiny marble into his pincer.

And just like that, Bubbles and all the other crabs skittered off back to their corners, holes, and rocks, to carry on with their crabby business before the day was over.

“Huh…” Balthazar muttered to himself. “Busy fellas. I can empathize with that. If anyone understands how much work there is in a crab’s day, it would be me. ”

The blue crab stopped near the top of a dune and waved a pincer at the merchant, who waved back.

“Nice meeting you! I really liked your place. Hopefully we cross paths again one day.”

As the inhabitants of Crab Beach all scampered away and left the visitor alone, Balthazar took a moment to stare off into the sunset.

A giant orange ball of fire slowly descended into the ocean over the idyllic vista of the white sands framed by tall palm trees and soft dunes.

“It really is a lovely beach,” Balthazar said with a content sigh. “Maybe I could stay just a little longer, to enjoy the view. I think I’ve earned it after the day I had.”

The giant crab skittered closer to the shore, next to a nice boulder, and sat down.

With great care, Balthazar rolled the Trader’s marble into one of the side pockets of his backpack before opening another pocket and retrieving a different round stone from it.

“Or I should say, after the day we had,” he said to the little rock with a face now sitting on the sand in front of him. “How are you doing, Pebbles?”

“Cree,” the smiling stone replied.

“Yeah, I miss Bouldy too,” Balthazar said with a sigh. “And everyone else too. I hope they’re alright, and not too worried.”

Pebbles tilted herself to the side slightly. “Cree?”

“Oh, no, little one. Of course we will see them again. And very soon, I’m sure. After we bring this here marble back to that trader guy, he will tell us what we need to know about how to get off this island, and then it will be no time before we’re back home. You’ll see!”

The tiny rock closed her tiny beads for eyes and smiled at the crab. “Cree-cree!”

“But…” the merchant said before a long yawn. “I think I need a rest first. I am beat! And this soothing sound of running water is really making me want to sleep, so… maybe… just a little nap before we go back?”

And as it often goes with these things, the crab’s yawn made the tiny rock yawn too, and before long she was nestling herself against him as the crustacean sat down on the comfortable wet sand and let the fresh ocean breeze lull him to sleep along with his friend as the sun set over Crab Beach.

And as the daylight vanished over the giant crab, something else crept over his unsuspecting carapace. Something… clingy.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!