Merchant Crab

“Laws in Order”

“Taxation & Representation”

“Fiscal Matters”

“Taxonomicron”

The books were spread around the crab and his cushion, each one thrown to the side in his frantic search for useful knowledge.

Know thy enemy. And Balthazar intended to know as much as he could about his foe.

Abernathy, the tax inspector from Ardville. All Balthazar had managed to learn about him from asking his clients was that the old man was the supervisor of the town’s treasury. Little information, but at least now he knew the fiend was no lackey, but the one in charge. And he was determined to defeat that boss.

Unfortunately, none of his books that mentioned taxmen ever described their eating habits, let alone their favorite pastries. A glaring mistake by every bestiary writer.

Not that a bestiary ever even listed taxmen on their pages. Giants, golems, dragons, werewolves, even ghosts, but not a single tax monstrosity. Clearly, too dreadful a being for those cowardly writers to so much as try to research.

Balthazar did find an entry on something nearly as despicable, however: the common fiscal. An apparent subspecies of taxman who was even more abominable, mainly because it was also a bird.

With his face scrunching up in disgust at the mere thought of two of his most hated things combined, the crab tossed the ornithology book aside and crossed his arms, left pincer tapping thoughtfully on his chin.

“I will get you, Abernathy. Just you wait.”

At the sound of a bell, Balthazar broke away from his plotting and looked at the other side of the pond.

Tired of hearing adventurers yell for him all day, the crab had traded a bell from one of them, and instructed Druma to install it by the entrance of the trading post, for clients to ring whenever they came in to do business.

Why a questing adventurer would loot a bell was something the merchant had no answer for, but at least he also got a good amount of leather and a pair of decorative horns from the man at a good price.

Hopping up from the cushion, Balthazar quickly crossed the bridge to meet the arriving client.

At the other side of the platform stood a small woman wearing a straw hat, barely taller than the crab, looking even smaller thanks to her hunched up posture and huge apparatus on her back. A frame of bamboo canes attached to her body by leather straps contained a paraphernalia of objects and containers—small boxes, large bags, rolled up textiles, tools, even an umbrella hanging off the side—all looking far too heavy for such a small person to be able to hold, let alone walk with.

[Level 24 Wanderer]

“Greetings, friend!” she cheerfully said with a wave of a hand. Her face was red and rough, like that of someone who had experienced a few too many sunburns in their lifetime.

“Hello there,” Balthazar responded, feeling intrigued by the unusual visitor. “What brings you here?”

“You, of course!” the adventurer exclaimed with a smile, while opening both arms and making a hanging saucepan dangle precariously from the side of her back gear. “I’ve been hearing tales of this talking crab all the way since I came out of the desert. I’ve been dying to see it for weeks. And here you are!”

“Yes, here I am. Balthazar, the touristic attraction, apparently.”

“Ah, they told me you’d be a little crabby, ha ha!” the woman said with a laugh, slapping her knee and causing some leaves to fall off her back.

“Yes, hilarious. Never heard that one before. Does anything else bring you here… miss?”

Balthazar could not figure out the woman’s age. She seemed simultaneously too young for her appearance, but also older than she looked.

“Oh, come now, cheer up, life is too short. You should laugh more often!” she responded. “But yes, lots of things brought me here, actually. And the name’s Wanda. No need for formalities.”

“Right, Wanda, then.”

“Speaking of names, does your establishment here have a name?”

“A name?” Balthazar repeated. “Uh, no. Never really thought about that. Do you people care about such things?”

“Certainly!” the cheerful woman said. “You can’t build a widely known reputation without a proper and catchy name for your place. Have you considered, maybe… ‘The Crab Shack’?”

“No,” the crab responded, with an impassive expression. “And neither do I intend to.”

“Shame,” she said, straightening her traveling coat. “Idea’s there, if you ever change your mind.”

“I won’t, but thanks. But say, you certainly look… different from the adventurers I usually get around here.”

“Those greenhorns? Pfft, they know nothing. They stick around the same places, raiding the same dungeons over and over again, sleeping in the same inns every day. Not me, though. I like to get out there, go where nobody else has been, see new places, meet new people. Wandering is my calling.”

“Sounds horrible. Good for you. But I’m still not sure what’s the part where I come in.”

“Well,” Wanda started, while giving the straps around her shoulders a quick readjustment. “I like to collect things from all over, trade for them, and then trade them away somewhere else. Always up to find something new and exciting. Never once did I trade with a crab, so that would be a first for me, and I was hoping I could find something interesting from your stock, and that maybe I could present you with something you’d be interested in from my travels.”

“Alright, that sounds promising enough. I’m always open to sell my jun… my select goods. And if you’ve got something interesting worth trading for, we could make a deal.”

“Great!” the wanderer excitedly said, stepping closer to a nearby table and dismounting her harness onto the floor. “What do you say about a… bottle of rare rum from the far-away city of Babaurhum?”

Reaching inside her apparatus, she produced a thick and tall bottle of a dark color and presented it to the crab.

“Sounds… far away,” he said, taking the bottle and uncorking it with his silver pincer.

After taking a reluctant sniff, Balthazar pulled his face back from the intensity of the smell. “And smells strong. I could probably find someone interested in this. How much do you want for it?”

“Ah, haggling for coins is boring,” Wanda said. “Show me what you got that is unique and interesting, and we can trade for it!”

“Hmm, right,” the crab said, looking around thoughtfully. “Plenty of rare and unique things around here.”

Balthazar put the bottle down on the table and turned around to face his shelves and boxes. All that stuff was junk to him. What could possibly even pass as rare or unique to one of those adventurers was beyond him.

“Ah, here is a good one,” the golden merchant said as he turned back, a horned iron helmet in his pincer. “This here is a very rare and hard to find piece, passed down for generations, until it landed here, in front of you. It’s very unique, as it’s the only one I have. And now, it could be yours.”

“Hmm.” The woman stroked her chin as she looked at the helmet. “I hate to sound rude, but those helmets are incredibly common in most parts of the continent I’ve been to. I guess they maybe never made it to these parts, so they’re a rarity around here. Even so, not quite the novelty I was hoping for. I’d love something… truly unique, even better if it has a story of its own attached to it, something truly interesting.”

Foiled again, the crab put the helmet back on its spot. Surely there would be one soul out there who would eventually buy the damn thing.

“I see, I see,” Balthazar said, while reaching for another helmet next to the horned one. “I think I have just the thing. I save my highest grade items for times likes this.”

Facing the eager woman, he presented a bronze helmet with a large dent on it.

“This,” the merchant began, in a hushed voice, “was the helmet worn by the hero of Ardville, Semmel, at his very first battle.”

“Oooh, fascinating,” Wanda said, her eyes examining the helmet. “I never heard about a hero called Semmel. Must be pretty ancient.”

“Ah yes, very. This all happened many generations ago. You wouldn’t find it easily in any books. They didn’t even know yet how to write back then. His whole legend was passed down by word of mouth alone.”

“Amazing,” she said. “And what’s the story behind this big dent?”

“That was, uh… in the battle, there was this… golem, you know, big one, came charging at Semmel, struck him right here on the head. But proof that this helmet is a quality one, the hero survived his first battle, and went on to write his name in history.”

“I thought you said they didn’t know yet how to write—“

“He also went on to invent writing. He was a multifaceted hero, alright? Now, do you want the damn helmet or not?”

“Sure, I’m a sucker for a good myth anyway,” the eager adventurer said, taking the helmet from his claws. “Speaking of things of myth…”

The wanderer retrieved something wrapped in a thick shawl from her pack. As she untangled it from the surrounding fabric, the object was revealed to be oval and the size of a large melon. Its surface was scaly, rugged, and of a dark gray color that appeared to shimmer with a blue hue at every turn in her hand.

Balthazar peered through his monocle, intrigued.

[Unknown Egg]

“This is a rare find,” Wanda said, marveling at the object she was holding in her hands. “An egg of unknown origins, perfectly preserved. I’ve seen nothing like it before, and I’ve been around for a while.”

“What kind of egg is it?” the suspicious crab asked.

“Nobody knows,” she answered. “The adventurer I got it from said the other adventurer he had bought it from also didn’t know, as neither did the one before that, and so on. Apparently, everyone has been looting this thing forever, expecting something special from it, but it never happened. I think it makes for a nice piece of decoration, at least. The blue color that reflects off of it is so captivating, isn’t it?”

“It sure is,” Balthazar agreed, his eyes fixated on the shine of the egg’s scales.

“I take it you’re interested, then?” the other said, an excited smile on her face.

“I’m certainly intrigued by it.”

“Nice! What other curious artifacts do you have for trade, then?” Wanda asked, while carefully placing the strange egg on a bowl that sat in the middle of a nearby table.

“Oh, right, artifacts,” said Balthazar, breaking his attention away from the scintillating object and looking around once more, with little idea of what to make up next.

“I think I have just the thing to go with that helmet.”

Taking the cover off a nearby crate, the crab reached inside with a pincer, rummaging for a few noisy moments, before pulling out a single sandal.

“This here sandal,” he said, with a serious tone, “was one of the sandals Semmel wore during his final battle.”

“Oooooh.” Wanda looked at the piece of worn out footwear with wide eyes. “What happened to the other one?”

“Err… lost in the battle. Accounts of the event say a powerful monster tore it in half, never to be seen again.”

The wanderer nodded to the crab’s words. “And you say that was Semmel’s final battle? Did he die in it?”

“No,” Balthazar quickly said, growing impatient. “He just retired and went on to live the rest of his days on a chicken farm. Are you interested or not?”

The woman straightened herself back up and extended a hand to the crab in a handshake offer. “How could I say no? I love artifacts with history to them. You’ve got yourself a deal.”

Balthazar shoved the old bandit sandal in her extended hand and turned to the egg. “Great, so it’s settled, this egg thing for the ancient sandal of… snapping, or whatever you want to call it from now on.”

“This was fun,” Wanda said, while storing the helmet and sandal in her baggage, “but it’s getting late and I still have a good bit of road to go. I hope we cross paths again some day, Balthazar. Was nice meeting you!”

“Doubt we will unless you cross this path again, but sure, nice doing business with you, too.”

“Don’t discard the possibility so easily, my pinchy friend. I have this feeling you’d like the life on the road if you ever tried it one day. I’d know, I have a good sense for these things.”

“If you say so,” Balthazar replied, accompanying the wanderer on her way out, eager to see her leave so he could get to his mid-afternoon pastry snack.

As the two of them walked towards the road, the mysterious egg remained on the bowl, glimmering with a soft blue tinge over its dark rough surface.