Merchant Crab

Balthazar remained immobile, staring at the bright, glowing object floating in front of him, one arm still outstretched, as if frozen in time, his eyes dilated, his mouth slightly ajar, as the unfurled roll’s light continued to shine over him, with a soft, low humming sound.

He was in utter shock. It was simply unbelievable, yet… there it was. How could it possibly be? The confusion and questions bubbling up his thoughts into a turmoil, until they finally reached the breaking point and he broke out of his catatonic state.

“Since when can I freaking read?!” the crab finally said, an involuntary squeal coming out of him as his tensed up appendages stretched out in an expression of exasperation.

Balthazar was sure he had learned many useful things in his life, such as how to roll perfectly round balls of sand, or the most efficient way to slice an apple with his pincer, but reading was absolutely not one of them, yet now he found himself perfectly able to read the words right in front of him as if it was the most natural thing ever. Well, it damn well wasn’t.

“And what’s this nonsense supposed to be about anyway?” Balthazar wondered, approaching the glowing scroll in order to inspect the words closer. “Attribute points?”

As he neared the mysterious item, a few more lines appeared on the surface. Balthazar raised his eye stalks in curious surprise and read the new words. Still without a clue how he was doing that.

[Scroll of Character Creation]

[Allocate attribute points: 10]

[Name: Balthazar]

[Race: Crab]

[Class: Undefined]

[Strength: 3] [+]

[Agility: 2] [+]

[Intelligence: 1] [+]

He read the lines once, twice, and then again. Not because he was finding his newly found reading abilities fun, but because he was trying to process what all that was supposed to mean. And maybe also because he was finding reading to be kind of fun.

“Balthazar,” he said, pointing at himself with his right claw, “that’s me. And I am certainly a crab, that much I know. I don’t know what a ‘class’ is, but apparently neither does this thing.”

The crab scratched his chin with his pincer, pondering on the rest of the text.

“Strength, agility, and intelligence,” he repeated to himself, “yep, those are all things I have. But these values next to them… are they supposed to represent how much of each I have?”

Balthazar felt a slight outrage within him.

“I’m strong, no doubt about it,” He said, puffing himself up, “Am I as agile as I am strong? Maybe not, but still pretty agile, I’d say. But… 1 Intelligence? What is that supposed to mean?!”

Was the scroll calling him dumb? Balthazar had half a mind to give the thin piece of parchment a good snip and show it who was the dumb one there. But then again, clawing angrily at an—apparently—inanimate object sounded quite dumb, so he restrained himself.

“Hmm, 10 points…” he slowly considered, “so does that mean that if I press this…”

Reluctantly, Balthazar touched the plus sign next to the Intelligence level on the scroll, and the value changed from 1 to 2.

“Oh!” Balthazar exclaimed, with excitement in his eyes. “And I still have nine points left now.”

The crab crossed his arms in deep consideration.

“I could spread them evenly,” he began, opening one arm in one direction, as if weighing an invisible object. “Or I could focus on one attribute.”

He stared back at his Intelligence value on the scroll, the low number taunting him.

“Ah, to hell with it, calling me dumb!” the crab shouted, throwing both claws up angrily.

With fierce determination, he tapped the sign next to the Intelligence stat until there were no attribute points left.

[Scroll of Character Creation]

[Allocate attribute points: 0]

[Name: Balthazar]

[Race: Crab]

[Class: Undefined]

[Strength: 3]

[Agility: 2]

[Intelligence: 11]

[Confirm?]

“Damn right I confirm,” Balthazar said proudly. “I confirm that I’m intelligent as hell, baby.”

With a smug look, he reached out with his pincer and touched the confirmation prompt on the scroll.

“Gah!”

A torrent of invading thoughts rammed into the crab’s brain like a speeding truck had just hit him. His body felt as if being struck by lightning, and a million questions assaulted his mind. Questions such as “what is the meaning of life?” or “what the hell is a truck?” ran through him at dizzying speeds.

And just as quick as it started, the feeling subsided all at once, leaving a prostrated crab on the ground, each leg spread in a different direction, mouth drooling off the side, eyes still spinning.

“I did not enjoy that,” Balthazar said, while trying to stand up and regain his composure.

The scroll had rolled itself back and dropped on the sand, immobile, as if it had been nothing more than a harmless object. Balthazar poked at it a couple of times, but with no results.

As he lifted his eyes from the cursed thing, Balthazar gazed upon his surroundings—the pond, with its calm, rippling water, the ancient, wise tree overseeing it, the many moss-covered boulders around him, the open plains stretching far into the horizon in front of his eyes, the warm, powerful sunlight hitting his face, forcing him to put a claw up to shield himself from the brightness—all of it, he was taking it in as if for the first time, and with a sigh he felt like…

“Nope, everything feels the same,” the crab said with a shrug.

He turned around, grabbed the small pouch containing the shiny metal circles with one pincer, picked up the scroll with the other, and started walking towards the small patch of land at the center of the pond, where the large tree was.

“What an absolute waste of time,” he complained, while carefully holding his arms up to not get the pouch and scroll wet as he crossed the shallow waters.

“For now, I’ll be keeping these safe here,” Balthazar said, while depositing the two items inside the small hole in the ground where he kept all his precious belongings: his collection of oddly shaped pebbles and a dried up pine cone he used to play with in his younger days. All covered up with a flat piece of driftwood, guaranteed to keep nosy birds out. Not really the safest of spots to keep things, now that he really thought about it.

“I could have at least gained something from that traumatizing experience,” Balthazar continued, while crossing back to the other side. “But no, I can’t even seem to read anymore.”

He held up one of the books that had spilled over from the adventurer’s pack and stared at its cover, puzzled, trying to make sense of each unknown glyph written upon it, but with no success.

“Bah, pointless!”

With one frustrated thrust, he threw the book, which landed squarely on the stones at the edge of the road.

Looking back at the dead adventurer still lying between his bed of rocks, burst pack hanging loose from his shoulders, the crab released one more sigh.

“Well, you’re surely not going to help me clean up this mess, are you—”

“No way!”

Balthazar jumped in place, startled by the loud exclamation.

As he turned, he saw a young, skinny man wearing long gray robes and a tall pointy hat rushing up the road from the same direction the recently deceased (by his own fault) adventurer had arrived earlier.

“I can’t believe it,” the overly excited young man said, “it really is a Tome of Levitation!”

The odd fellow picked up the book Balthazar had cast aside just moments before off the ground and marveled at it, holding it with arms stretched, mouth open into a goofy smile.

“I’ve been looking for one for ages, and then I find it just like this, at a randomly generated roadside event of all places.”

The man was so captivated by the book in his hand that he was completely ignoring the fact that there was a crab standing not too far off to the side, staring at him in confusion and disbelief.

As if this day hadn’t been bizarre enough so far, Balthazar now had to put up with yet another lunatic adventurer.

The young man began frantically leafing through the pages of the book, his eyes darting from one direction to the other, running through the length of each page like someone afraid the book would be taken away from him at any moment.

It was nice that at least he seemed able to read it. Balthazar pondered whether he should try to approach and learn more about the mysterious texts, or simply hope the annoyingly excitable man would just leave on his own, when the loud slamming sound of the book being closed cut his thoughts short.

“Eureka! Ha-ha-ha! I finally have it,” the young man said excitedly, book still in one hand, while shaking the other wrist out of his oversized sleeve and assuming a ready stance.

Balthazar watched as he murmured something unintelligible, snapped his fingers, and slowly began rising from the ground, as if being lifted by the shoulders.

“Magnificent!” the young man roared as he continued ascending.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Balthazar said to himself, as he continued watching the robed figure going up, already floating higher than the top of the old tree of the pond.

Balthazar wasn’t exactly jealous of the man, not only because he had never really wished to fly—flying was for puny birds, not for mighty crabs—but also because if he was going to feel anything of that sort it would be envy, not jealousy. He wasn’t exactly sure when or how he had learned the difference between those two, but that didn’t really matter right then, because something else up above was recapturing Balthazar’s attention.

The small figure in the sky had changed demeanor and had gone from excited joy to frantic concern.

“Oh crap, crap, crap,” the young man shouted, “what was the duration of this thing? I didn’t even check.”

He was quickly turning the pages of the book back and forth, desperately looking for what he couldn’t find, while trying to maintain his balance with no surface to hang on to.

“Please tell me this also gave me immunity to fall damage, please, please, please,” he pleaded to nobody in particular.

Balthazar watched from below with one claw in front of his non-existent forehead and his eyes squinting with equally nonexistent eyelids.

“Damn it,” the speck far up in the sky echoed in frustration, “where is the part about maneuvering this stupid—oh no.”

Without warning, the slow ascension ceased, being replaced with the high-pitched screams of the robed young man as the gravity of the situation came down on him, just as he was now coming down towards the ground at an alarming speed.

“Heh, the gravity of the situation,” Balthazar chuckled to himself. “Nice one.”

The crab focused back on the falling figure just in time to watch him slam into the ground with a loud crash and a cloud of dust, the book flying off and landing in one direction, and his pointy hat in another.

Balthazar approached the mangled figure now carved into the ground slowly and gave his foot a small shake.

“Well, this one is not flying again anytime soon.”

Just as Balthazar finished his sentence, a bright, bold block of text popped out of nowhere in front of his sight, causing him to stumble back and fall upside down on his shell, squeaking in a fright.

“WHAT! GET AWAY! SHOO!”

He desperately waved his claws all over, punching nothing but air, while trying to tilt himself back onto his feet.

Once the crab finally regained his footing, he continued looking in all directions, trying to shake off the intruder in his eyes, but no matter where he looked, the text followed.

[Opponent killed, experience gained]

[Level 7 Wizard slain by [cleverly placed trap]]

[You have reached Level 2!]

“Now I can read again?!”