Grand Saint Alloy

The Plains Caldera looked worn down. From a distance the city looked fine. The fact that they were traveling uphill towards it created an illusion that nothing was wrong. Tall mud walls surrounded the city, blocking out the sight of run down buildings. Artifacts embedded within the walls were keeping it from deteriorating for now but they would need to be recharged or risk decaying into lower tier artifacts.

Ghost Crabs were everywhere, clinging to the walls, scuttling across the ground, and sleeping in random locations. If collapsed and ruined carts had not been scattered everywhere, they would not have even risked entering. The other advantage that they had was the scent of blood that had stained everything. While this may seem to be a demerit, it allowed them to hide it when they had to kill a crab to progress.

Despite there being ghost crabs everywhere, they only had their eyes to find them. They were not the smartest creatures, so even when they were seen, Tristan was able to put them down fast. No alarm was sounded, just a hunger fueled charge and then death. This journey also led to the discovery that ghost crabs had very limited peripheral vision, if they were not looking straight at someone then they could not see them.

Currently they were inside a wagon, just outside the gate. It was hanging off one hinge as if something huge had smashed through it. Half of a skeleton was sitting off to the side of the gate, and that seemed mostly due to the armor it was wearing. Tristan grimaced. It was that same protection which caused the city to smell. All of the guards would be issued a set of chain mail and, along with the civilians who owned a set, there would be plenty of rotting bodies that the ghost crabs did not have access to. It felt wrong to find fortune in someone else’s demise, the death and desecration of these people gave Tristan and the team a chance.

Once the tier two crab scuttled past, Tristan hopped out of the wagon and dashed for the guard shack. Bruce and Eve followed closely behind him. The room was small, barely ten feet by ten feet. It had a cabinet with a bunch of papers and notes in it and a table of stamps and signatures. Tristan could only marvel at the thoroughness of the Plains Caldera. In his home town Keith would talk with everyone who walked through the gate, but he would not stop anyone.

A crossbow with a snapped string leaned against one wall, several quarrels were scattered across the floor. There were no windows, but that did not stop Tristan from making some. Bruce peaked through the slits that had been made and examined the surrounding entry yard. It was dirty, there were standing puddles of water on the cobblestones. The month of intermittent rain and lack of maintenance had allowed moss to grow on the sides of many of the mud homes.

“Remember the group we saw out in the empty field?” Bruce asked in a whisper.

Tristan nodded, but Bruce could not see it, “You mean the one yesterday evening?”

“Yes,” Bruce whisper, “Well, they are organizing in a similar group right now. All the tier threes are there and they are stopping smaller ones to recruit them.”

Tristan tried to get a better look. He could just cut another hole, but it would only take so much time before the guard shack became obsolete if he kept poking holes in it. Still Bruce kept making noises of surprise. Eve kept asking what, but he was too focused to respond. Eventually Tristan just cut another hole in the wall.

Bruce was telling the truth. Among the wreckage of hand carts and cracked cobblestones, nearly one hundred crabs were gathered. Most were small, with a third of them being of a larger variety. Unfortunately, there was a knew one.

A different kind of ghost crab stood, almost twice the size of the tier threes. It’s carapace was very similar to the smaller crabs, however, Tristan could see a metallic sheen on it. Worse, his metal sense reacted to it. The scythe like claws had a beveled edge, meaning they were able to cut instead of just tear.

Most concerning was the intelligence in its eyes. It pushed the smaller crabs into a rough formation. Larger ones in the back and smaller ones up front. After it was satisfied, it scuttled off and let ,what Tristan could only call a division, leave.

Both Tristan and Bruce looked at each other, Bruce asked with a shaking voice “what the hell was that thing?”

“I don’t know, but it’s a problem,” Tristan answered.

“What are you two going on about,” an exasperated whisper came from Eve.

Tristan answered, “I think we just saw a tier four ghost crab.”

“That’s impossible,” Bruce said, “My sister did her research, there’s no way it’s a tier four crab. They don’t exist.”

“No, no one has seen one before. Also, no one has seen half a million ghost crabs gathered in one spot either. It has a metal shell and is way bigger than the others,” Tristan said, “how could it be anything but a tier four.”

“How can you be sure it was metal?” Bruce asked, he obviously did not want to believe that Tristan was right.

“Really,” Tristan said. His deadpan expression made Bruce flinch.

“Seriously what are you guys talking about? “ Eve said in a normal voice.

Both Bruce and Tristan flinched at what sounded like a yell. It was just quiet enough not to attract the attention of the ghost crabs. To avoid any more escalation, Bruce explain what they had seen.

At the end Eve nodded, and in a whisper, said, “yeah, that really does sound like a tier four crab.”

“The real question is what do we do about it? Can we do anything about it?” Tristan said.

They really didn’t have to do anything about the oversized ghost crab. The goal was never to kill giant metal creatures, it was to find William and failing that, retrieve the package he was carrying. While many of the goings on were very interesting and probably contained valuable information, they were best avoided. Every single interesting thing introduced another variable that could cause their failure.

All of the crabs in the wrecked plaza took about an hour to file out. Once they were gone, a second batch started trickling in. Fortunately, they came in ones and twos, and the three of them were more than capable of killing two tier ones and a tier three. Tristan could only hope that the new kind of crab was not intelligent enough to recognize the cause of death.

The inside of the Plains Caldera reminded Tristan heavily of the Forest Caldera. The perimeter of the city was all mud homes with thatch roofs. Many were collapsing long before the city was destroyed. The worker district was already abandoned. With the recent rains added on top, most of the houses were halfway collapsed. Fortunately, all this did was give them better cover.

As they moved in Tristan expected to see more and more high tier crabs, but the reality was the opposite. Yes, high tier ghost crabs existed, but the small fist sized ones were getting more and more common. They would be clinging to walls like bundles of carnivorous grapes.

They were easy to avoid, as most of them are dormant. That was, until a tier two or three crab jostled them awake and led them towards the plaza. They would swarm over the surrounding area while following their larger cousin.

Bruce stared at the crabs, “what do you think they’re going to do with all of them?”

Tristan was not sure either. All of these little crabs were the worst thing for a civilized area. They would be extremely hard to completely exterminate and would have no trouble infecting local pest population. However, these numbers were a little bit ridiculous and wasteful. All together they would consume a tremendous amount of food and anyone who was full grown could wear enough armor to be immune to them. Even at tier zero a man with good enough stamina would be able to kill the whole population without being harmed.

This, however, fell under one of the interesting topics that can get them killed, so they decided to avoid it. Pretty soon they entered the business district. Warehouses were off in one corner. The rest of the space was occupied by various businesses. Inns lined the Main Street with bedrooms on the second floor and up and bars on the ground floor.

Blacksmiths, tailors, and cobblers were just some of the businesses occupying the rest of the district. Tristan had half a mind to go and loot some plate armor. Maybe he would get around to it on the way out, as of right now wearing a bunch of noisy metal would be an issue.

Soon they started exiting the business district and enter the affluent district which surrounded the elders mansion. It was almost as if the line was drawn in the dirt. One step and they had to watch out for crabs, the next, there were no crabs in sight. Even the clusters of tiny crabs avoided the line as if crossing it was some sort of crime.