Merchant Crab

[Warning: you are being digested.]

You don’t say, system?!

Balthazar tried pulling at his leg again, but it was still firmly stuck in place by the thick, binding slime.

As he looked down again, the crab paid closer attention to the advancing ooze.

And he stared.

For a while.

“Uh…” said the crab awkwardly, glancing up at Montgomery. “Does this usually take so long?”

The giant golden slime stared down at him, its appendage still moving up Balthazar’s leg at a snail’s pace.

“Er… yes,” said the embarrassed creature. “It can take a while. It’s a very thick and viscous substance, if I do it any faster I’ll get indigestion.” It suddenly switched back to its deep and menacing voice. “But once I fully absorb you, your entire body shall be mine, ha ha ha!”

Balthazar rolled his eyes.

On the other side of the gate, the crab could still hear the skeleton slamming on the doors and calling for him.

“It’s alright, Tom,” shouted the crab. “This thing is a very slow eater. I think you got a couple of hours to get that open, easy.”

The hungry slime rumbled again, its voice thundering from above.

“You mock me, crab? You will not find it so funny once Montgomery, the Great Destroyer is sucking the flesh out of your shell! Just a little longer and I shall have my first taste of your—”

The crab felt a tiny tingle between the joints of his leg’s chitin as the ooze seeped into it.

“BLAAARGH!” exclaimed the monster, its form twisting and shaking as it recoiled back, spitting and coughing loudly out of a newly formed mouth hole at the center of its body. “You taste terrible!”

Balthazar shrugged as he watched the slimy appendage recede from his leg, shrinking back into Montgomery’s body.

“I could have told you that, if you had just asked.”

“How can a freshwater crab taste so… salty?!” said the creature, sticking a tongue of slime out of its mouth in an uncanny expression of disgust.

“Perks of dealing with adventurers all day for a while, I suppose,” the merchant said with another casual shrug. “And what are you complaining about anyway? You eat pieces of metal!”

Montgomery shrunk back slightly.

“I know, and I hate it!” it cried out in a wimpy voice.

“Wait, what?!”

“These coins and all the other crap the skeletons bring me all taste awful,” said the slime. It had no shoulders—or really any other defining body part—and yet it just looked like it was slumping them as it spoke.

Balthazar scratched the top of his shell with the tip of his pincer, one eyestalk cocked in confusion.

“Then why the hell do you eat the stuff?”

“Because there’s nothing else here, and I was starving when I found this place! Besides, some of the stuff they feed me is giving me all sorts of new bonuses I never dreamed of when I was just a common slime crawling around the gutters. I even became smart enough to give myself a name!”

The crab pinched the space between his eyestalks gently. “Right, and look at what you picked. So anyway, you don’t actually like all those gold coins swimming around in your gut? Does that mean I could perhaps have—”

“No!” shouted the mad slime, its suddenly deeper voice echoing from every corner of the chamber, making its own body tremble like jelly. “You will not take away my sustenance, crab! Slowly or not, I will dissolve you if you try to steal from me.”

Balthazar glared at the giant monstrosity with a hint of annoyance. A tough foe, certainly, but the crab would not give up so easily, not when so many shiny gold coins were on the line.

“Who said anything about stealing?” asked the merchant with faked outrage. “I am no thief, I’ll have you know. I’m a reputable merchant and well-known throughout the land. But, before I was all that, I too was little more than an inconsequential creature in some forgotten corner of the world. That was, until the day I discovered shiny golden coins like you, and even more importantly, until I discovered something else. The ultimate delicacy.”

The quick bubbling going on inside Montgomery seemed to slow down at the last part of what Balthazar said, and the slime’s supposed eyes drifted downward in its body, closer to where the crab stood.

“Delicacy?” asked the creature with cautious curiosity.

“Yes, my friend,” said the crustacean, his eyes staring longingly and his tone becoming earnest. “A sweet girl came down to my home, bringing me something I had never tasted before, and it changed my life forever. It was like a piece of heaven in my mouth, its taste was like a dream traveling through my body, and the feeling it left afterward was like the most comfortable nap I could imagine during a rainy afternoon.”

“What… what was it?” Montgomery asked, almost in a plea.

“It’s called pie,” answered the smiling crab. “And that was just the start. After the oven’s door was opened in my life, I’ve discovered and tasted countless other delicious baked goods, and with each one I look forward to tasting the next even more. Gold coins are great as shiny trinkets to collect and admire with my eyes, but pastries, dear Montgomery, those are to be enjoyed by the whole body, and are what makes me get up in the morning every day.”

“Pastries…” the slime repeated slowly. “I never tried that. They sound like they would be… good.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe it until you tried them. No words from me could ever compare to feeling the real thing. A piece of baked goodness in your mouth will make everything melt away for one joyous moment.” Balthazar’s eyes perked up. “In fact, just recently I found yet another baked good I wasn’t even aware of, and it turns out to be delicious too! It’s called bread.”

Montgomery’s slimy body waved and twisted with interest. “Bread? What’s that?”

“It’s this loaf of baked dough that…” He paused and pulled his Backpack of Holding forward. “In fact, hold on, I should still have some of it around here somewhere…”

With one swift pull, Balthazar brought out the bread in his claw. Or rather, what remained of it: a small piece of the leftover loaf, full of pincer marks on its now rock-hard crust, along with strange spots all over it that the crab suspected might be mold.

“Maybe I shouldn’t store this stuff in there, now that I think about it,” muttered the merchant. “I promise it was even more impressive when I purchased it!”

Montgomery’s eye-bubble-things were like glistening pearls staring at the old piece of bread.

“It looks so… wonderful,” it said in a strangely high-pitch voice. “Oh, and the aroma, it’s just perfect!”

Balthazar winced and recoiled as he took a quick sniff at the loaf in his pincer.

“May I… taste it?” the slime asked, sheepishly stretching two appendages out to the crab.

“You… you want to taste it?” said the merchant in disbelief, before quickly shaking his shell and regaining his composure. “I mean, of course you do! How could you not. Just look at this beauty, with its crispy crust and… green speckled crumb.”

“Yes… yes…” Montgomery said, an extra amount of moistness running down its already slimy surface.

“Well, we need to negotiate, then,” said Balthazar, suddenly pulling the loaf away from the creature’s grasp, causing it to let out a sad whimper. “This bread cost me a lot, so it’s only fair that you trade me something for it.”

The slime’s voice deepened slightly once again. “Fine, cunning crab. What do you want?”

“Well, the obvious thing would be for you to pay me with some gold coins, like the ones you have floating around in there.” He gestured towards the creature’s stomach area, which also seemed to be its face. “Although I also would consider an offer for some of those chests and boxes you’ve pocketed there.”

Montgomery’s entire mass shook disapprovingly.

“What if I end up trading my entire sustenance for something worthless? No, I am not one of your dimwitted clients, crustacean. I know when I’m being offered a bad deal and—”

Balthazar’s eyes squinted as a wry smile formed on his face.

Sometimes you have to spend bread to make some bread.

“What if I let you have a taste first, as a show of good faith in our transaction?” said the sly crab.

“I will not—Wait, really?!” exclaimed the giant slime with a sudden jiggle. “Will you let me try it?”

“Sure, why not? I can tell a good client when I see one.”

With a swift snip of his pincer, Balthazar broke off a piece of the loaf and tossed it towards the creature, who quickly opened up a way larger than necessary hole in its body to receive the bread.

The golden slime vibrated from top to bottom, accompanied by a long and pleased humming that made the surrounding pillars vibrate along, as well as tickle every bristle in Balthazar’s body.

With wavy ripples undulating across its body, the small piece of moldy bread disappeared into the being’s body, quickly dissolving into tiny bubbles that faded away into more ooze as Montgomery smacked whatever passed for lips in its anatomy, before addressing the crab again, with a much softer and almost tearful tone.

“This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted! The texture! The subtle fungal undertones! The pungent aftertaste! I cannot believe I’ve gone my whole life without knowing the feeling of eating bread.”

“Ah, I knew you’d like it! Can never go wrong with baked goodies. I take it that you want the rest of it now?”

“Please,” exclaimed Montgomery in a deep and low tone, “I must have it all, every piece you have. Let me absorb it!”

“Well then, in that case, what will you trade me for—”

[Gift of the Crab: success]

“Here, have it all!” said the slime, quickly convulsing itself until the piles of gold coins and a few small chests spilled out of its body. “I have no wish to ever taste such garbage again after what I just experienced. Bleh!”

Balthazar smiled with a glint to his eyes, seeing the loot pile spilled in front of him, despite its slimy state.

Hah! I guess if just Charisma isn’t enough, adding a little bit of baking will do the trick.

Without even taking his eyes off the prize, the crab tossed the remaining piece of old bread into Montgomery’s welcoming maw, who received it with a loud moan of satisfaction.

Despite the piles of shiny coins spilled in front of him, Balthazar’s eyes were attracted to something else among Montgomery’s regurgitated loot. A small wooden chest, toppled between some sticky crowns and covered in goo, with its lid half open, revealing a small piece of rolled parchment sticking out of it.

The crab reached for the chest, opening the lid and extracting a rolled up scroll from it, surprisingly clean and untouched by the slime’s ooze.

Could this be…

Balthazar opened the piece of parchment, and an intense glow filled his vision as words flew out of the page, directly into his eyes.

[Scroll of Potential]

[Revealing skill…]