Merchant Crab

“Rye? Can you hear me?” Balthazar asked quietly.

After a few seconds that felt like ages, the archer blinked as he wobbled on his knees. Placing his face on his hand with a grunt, Rye slowly looked up and around the room, eyes clear from the fog that covered them a moment before.

“What… what happened?” he said with a labored breath.

“Are you alright?” asked the concerned merchant, approaching the young man and touching his arm.

Rye recoiled instinctively at the crab’s touch, turning to him with a momentary frown, as if he hadn’t recognized his traveling partner at first.

“What have you done to my friend?” Balthazar exclaimed, glaring at Ruby.

“We merely pulled the veil of fog draped over his eyes,” the enchantress dispassionately said while stepping closer to the boy. “How do you feel? Do you remember now what has been taken away from you?”

“I… how did I get here? What am I doing here?” Rye said, staring emptily at the floor. “I can remember the beach, but… but what about before? I was doing something… what was it? I know it was important. I know there was someone important.” His breathing shaky, the adventurer looked up at the woman in red. “It’s right there. They are right there in front of me, I can almost touch them if I reach out, but I can’t see them clearly. Why can’t I remember their faces?!”

Ruby leaned forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Breathe. I know it’s a lot to take in at once. It will take time for you to adapt, but your eyes have been opened now.”

“What’s going on, kid? Come on, talk to me,” the earnest crab asked.

Rye looked at Balthazar, a mix of hurt and confusion in his eyes.

“I know something’s missing. I couldn’t before, but now I can see the empty spots.” He paused, clutching his head again. “I need to think. I need some fresh air. Please.”

“Of course,” said Ruby, standing up and looking towards the door. “Jasper, please take our friend outside.”

The tall adventurer nodded quietly and helped Rye stand up before opening the door and leaving with him.

“What the hell was all that?!” asked the crab.

“That, dear Balthazar,” said the enchantress as she sat back down, “was your friend being rid of the haze that kept him from questioning his existence in this world.”

“So you unlocked his old memories?”

“No. Unfortunately, that is something we cannot easily do. The tea he had contained a very specific and difficult mix of ingredients that can peel back the layer of occlusion the system places on every adventurer in order to make them not remember what they forgot.”

Balthazar pondered for a second. “So he still doesn’t remember where he came from or who he was, just that those memories are missing?”

“Correct.”

“That sounds… tortuous.”

“Indeed, it can be, but it is better than to live blissfully in ignorance. The truth is always better.”

“Maybe, but isn’t that just your opinion?” the crab retorted.

The scarlet woman peered at Balthazar through her red-tinted glasses, the glow of the lantern hanging above them reflecting like golden flames off the round lenses.

“You tell me how can you obtain an informed opinion from someone who cannot freely think about what they are choosing?”

The crab held quiet for a moment.

“Did all of you guys go through the same? You’re aware of your old lives, you just can’t fully recall them?”

Ruby sighed. “Correct again. It is one of our main driving forces to what we do. To find out who did this to us, and why.”

“So you all had to go through that tea business?”

“Most of us,” the woman explained. “Early on, our movement was started by a few strong-willed adventurers who managed to break down the dams holding the memories from flowing in. Whether through sheer willpower, or simply a mind too stubborn to suppress, the mind haze did not fully work on them. The powers that be have since made sure that no such individuals are brought into this world anymore, but by then it was too late. The few that existed had already spread, explored, and recruited others. In time, they found ways to break the hazing, even if only partially, and here we are today, following in their footsteps.”

“And serving strange teas to make more of you,” said the pensive crab. “Hey, wait a minute! Did you put something funky in these pies you served me, too?!”

The enchantress leaned back on her chair. “Don’t worry, other than an unhealthy amount of sugar, there is nothing nefarious in them.”

“Oh good, that’s a relief,” Balthazar said, between mouthfuls of strawberry pie. “So, this is all very interesting, but I keep coming up with the same question: what does all this system and adventurer conspiracy nonsense have to do with me? I’m just a crab trying to earn a living and spend that living eating pastries.”

Once again, Ruby leaned forward on her seat, glaring at the gluttonous crab with an intense look in her eyes.

“Except you are not, Balthazar. You are different. A sticking point in an otherwise smooth surface. An anomaly.”

“Gee, thanks,” the chewing crustacean said in a sarcastic tone. “You really need to work on your flattery.”

“You have, whether through fate or random chance, stumbled upon something no local was meant to access, especially not a crab in an inconsequential corner of the world. That makes you unique, a potential one in a million shot for us. It means you are—”

“I swear, lady, if you call me ‘special’, I’ll flip this table right here,” said Balthazar, after finishing the last piece of pie on said table. “Your compliments really need some work. And I don’t know what you think you need me for, but I don’t know much of anything about the world, the system, or any of that stuff. I’m probably more clueless about it than you are. Remember, I came here looking for answers, not looking to provide them!”

Ruby closed her eyes and exhaled like someone whose patience was being tested.

“You don’t seem to get it. No local was meant to be able to use a Scroll of Character Creation. Somehow, you did. You are from this world, with a system that was meant only for people not from this world. The scroll you used was old. Ancient, even. From way back when our founding members arrived here, maybe even older than that. It’s from a time when the system was still new, unstable, and much more exploitable. That is what makes your unique situation so… promising.”

The crab shrugged. “Well, that’s too bad for you, then, because the crow took my old scroll.”

Balthazar considered mentioning the bird had also taken away his system access, but stopped himself, deciding he didn’t need to tell his cryptic conversation partner everything until she did as well. As much as he enjoyed talking, even he knew that sometimes there was merit to keeping one’s mouth shut and listening instead.

The woman’s eyes widened. “You met one of the crows?”

“Yep. Showed up at my place, took my scroll, and then just flew away. A real jerk.”

“That means you really must have stirred some trouble up the chain of command, if a crow came to you directly,” Ruby said. “No matter, the scroll is not as important as you are now. Something about you disturbs the system, and I have only ever heard of one other instance of someone like that before.”

The crab’s eyestalks perked up with interest. “Someone like me?”

“Yes, indeed,” replied the enchantress. “And I believe you have met him already.”

“What?! When? Don’t tell me it was that giant that showed up at my place once and drank a whole barrel of beer?”

“No,” Ruby said dismissively. “Remember that ruinous deal you made for a golden statuette?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me of that,” Balthazar said. “Wait, so you mean that strange guy all dressed in black and covered in bandages was…”

“Quite possibly. There were tales, even before my time, about one individual with a system access from the first age. Nobody knew his name anymore, or where he came from, only that wherever he went, strange things followed. I believe you experienced that yourself.”

The crab stared pensively at the empty plates on the table. “The red dragon…”

“Precisely,” said the adventurer. “Dragons were just a mythical tale from ages past, not seen in generations, and then a stranger shows up at your place, makes up a tale about one, and suddenly a dragon appears? This is the kind of unintended and unpredictable effects the ones in charge of this world do not want anyone having.”

Balthazar shook his head. “And you think that’s me? I can’t pull dragons out of my shell!”

“Maybe, maybe not. But what about giant spiders where they did not exist before? Or a pack of wolves that shouldn’t have been there? Have you never told a tale so real even you believed it?”

“I…”

The merchant paused. He knew that what Ruby was telling him had some truth to it, he had noticed those strange events before, but yet he always dismissed them. The crab wanted coin and pies, not to deal with world plots and secret conspiracies.

He also wanted his friends back…

“Hey, wait a minute,” he suddenly said. “How do you know all that about me?! The strange things that happened before, the deal with that stranger. How could you possibly know that?”

The enchantress reclined on her chair once again, with a sly smile on her lips.

“I told you, we like to keep the subjects of our watching at a distance, to not disturb their natural behavior. We may be called ‘birdwatchers’, but we observe a lot more than just birds.”

Balthazar’s eyestalks frowned. “That’s not really an answer.”

Ruby nodded. “Indeed. In our line of business, secrecy is a must. The birds you so rightfully suspected all your life are always watching too, and they do not take kindly to our meddling. The only way we can stay safe is by hiding our movements in the shadows, in places like this, where nobody would think of even looking anymore. To be invisible in plain sight.”

“What for?” asked the crab. “What’s the point of all this?”

He could see a fiery determination sparking in the woman’s eyes behind her tinted glasses as she looked straight into his eyes.

“Someone—or something—brought us to this world, out of our own will, took away our memories, and has us running around in circles gaining levels, for some reason nobody knows. Why? By what right? What about locals like you, or your baker friend, or all the others? What unwitting role do you play in this scheme? We want to uncover the truth, and get back what was taken from us.”

The merchant paused for a while, reflecting on all the woman said.

“I get it,” he said, “but that sounds like too much world-sized trouble I don’t want to deal with. I just want to go back to my little pond, to my little bazaar, with my friends, and enjoy my peace and quiet. That’s all.”

Ruby stood up.

“Perhaps, but can you be certain that your little corner of the world will always remain unaffected by the consequences of what you choose to ignore?”

Balthazar sighed. “I don’t know, but right now all I want is to help my friends. The rest of the world can wait behind them.”

The enchantress exhaled in a way that the crab wasn’t sure if it had been a scoff or an amused chuckle.

“There is still a way we may share mutual interests,” she said. “I believe you seek a way to bring your stone guardian back to life, do you not?”

The crab’s eyestalks stood up. “Bouldy? Yes, I do. You know something about that?”

The scarlet woman walked around the table and towards a door at the end of the room.

“Come with me. I’d like to show you something.”