NOVEL NEXT 1.27: The hermit crab
When Henry swam back to his burrow, the crab followed him.
He didn’t mind. That would let him keep an eye on it, though it kept waving its pincers, clearly trying to say something.
Henry wanted to sleep, true, but how often could one have a conversation with a hermit crab?
“[You’re trying to say something?]”
Right pincer, yes.
“This is going to be rough. [Is it about me?]”
Left pincer, no.
Henry started to suggest different subjects, until they landed on classes.
“[What about classes?]”
The crab pointed at him.
Oh. “[Do you see Stalking Threat? Or do you see Octopus? Click once for the first, twice for the second.]”
The crab clicked once, finally answering the question Henry had. “So you have Identify as well?”
The crab raised the right pincer in agreement, then pointed to itself.
Henry paused. “[You want me to Identify you?]”
Yes.
Henry did so. “[Oh! You got a Class? You didn’t have it before?]”
[Shelled Nomad (D) - Lvl ?]
The crab indicated yes. Then it pointed to itself again.
Henry frowned inwardly, but did as asked.
[Chimeric Hermit Crab (D) - Lvl ?]
“[You can switch them?!]” Henry immediately went into his interface, and after looking for a few seconds, he found nothing that could do the same. Nothing obvious at least.
Henry looked down at the crab as it waved its arm around. “[Do you have the menus as well? To buy stats and Skills and stuff?]”
The crab froze for a moment, then it slowly lifted its right pincer.
This was incredible. “[We need a better way to communicate. Do you have something that lets you learn Skills and Traits? I can learn things by eating from them.]”
The crab paused, and slowly slinked into its shell. Henry tsked and shoved it gently with the tip of his tentacle.
“[I’m not going to eat you. Relax. Maybe a leg if you lose one naturally.]”
It came out quickly and raised both pincers as its eyes and legs danced.
It took a moment from Henry to register. “[You were joking?]”
Right pincer.
Henry shoved the smug crab again. “[Haha. Funny.]”
The crab then scuttled out, got its old shell, tapped it once, then tapped above its head with a gentle ting, then looked at Henry expectantly.
“[You get Skills and Traits from the shells you inhabit?]”
Right pincer.
“[Interesting… Do you have to fully move into them? No? Hmmm. I wonder… Maybe I can shapeshift a shell-like thing and give it to you? Do you think that would work?]”
The crab lifted both pincers. Unsure. It oddly looked like a shrug as well.
“[We’ll try, I guess. After I get some rest, though.]”
Right pincer.
Henry kept Alter Physique inactive, then remembered. “[I’m going to change my appearance. Let me know if it changes when I’m asleep, okay?]”
Right pincer.
Henry eyed the crab as it picked up a stone and turned it around with its pincer. Then it examined its pincer.
“Amazing. Was this because of the turtle shell? Actually… should I trust it?”
The crab was intelligent. And it was a stranger. A cute and funny one, but it would be incredibly stupid for him to die in his sleep because he trusted a being within 15 minutes of meeting it.
Henry closed his eyes but didn’t go to sleep. He transformed himself into an algae-like plant, complete with ridges and discolorations, then relaxed. His eyes felt heavy, but he resisted and instead, he meditated. Within minutes, Accelerated Recovery kicked in.
He could hear the crab picking up things, taking a few steps here and there, softly clicking its pincers from time to time. After a few minutes of observation through Telepathic Sense, Henry knew this hadn’t been the odd presence he had felt recently. He didn’t know why exactly. It was just a feeling, like seeing a silhouette from afar and recognizing the person, even though the person’s features were too far to pick up.
Still, he stayed vigilant, and as he relaxed, his health and mana began to rise.
After a couple of hours of meditation, Henry was almost back to full and he allowed himself a short nap. When he woke back up, it felt like an hour or two had passed. The crab was sitting at the entrance, watching the outside world.
“[Did my colors change when I was asleep?]”
The crab jumped and Henry saw a white-blue light near its mouth that quickly faded. It raised a left pincer to say no.
“[Sorry. Give me a few more minutes, I have some stats to assign.]”
With that, Henry loaded up his menus and got to work.
“First things first, buy everything.”
Henry started with Skills. He bought the Telekinesis targeting upgrade first. Then Tentacle Whip’s speed upgrade. He looked at his list of Skills and Traits to see if anything was worth buying permanently.
As his eyes roamed the list, he noticed something. “Riptide Rush and Dart are gone? I guess they don’t stay permanently…”
Dart was nice, but not a game changer. Riptide Rush was also interesting, but he could always get it back. There were Riptides around.
“Poison breath. I mean ray. Do I want that?”
It was powerful. And he already had some Skills and Traits linked to toxins… but he wasn’t sure about that being his speciality.
“There’s some light affinity with Bite… in the sense that I need my mouth for both. Maybe it could get subsumed as well?”
Henry decided to buy it. Worst case scenario, he could replace it if it ended up being disappointing.
“What else… Piercing Projectile and Spiteful Detonation… Still no. Shapeshift might work with those but that’s a reach. That’s about it, huh. Next outing I should start collecting samples and finding new Skills and Traits. Haven’t really done much of that lately.”
Next, he moved on to his Stats.
“Dexterity’s still under 10. Let’s fix that first.”
With that done, he examined everything else. “Constitution points are too expensive. I got some to buy in Spirit, and a lot more in Perception and Dex.”
As a first pass, he bought 2 Spirit points, 4 Perception and all 6 Dexterity points for a total of 163 E-Tokens, leaving him with 50 E-Tokens.
“A nice round number. I’ll keep those around in case I get a Skill or Trait to buy. The next points all cost D-Tokens anyway. Now for the points to assign, I can round up Perception and get it to 20. The rest goes between Spirit and Constitution. Three each.”
Henry confirmed everything, and the lights began to collect. His eyes and skin burned more than usual as they were pushed into the next threshold. With Telepathic Sense he caught a vague impression of wonder from the crab.
When the changes were over, Henry unrolled his tentacles and slipped out. It felt…seamless. His limbs were responding to his command faster, without the wasted movements he got used to. “Should have done this sooner.”
He pushed his size to the maximum, and nudged the Skill to enlarge his mouth and tentacles the most. He had things to test.
Mana rushed through his body, and he felt the Skill begin to work. It felt more intense than he was used to. “It might work faster now.”
He pulled his stats to take a look before he moved on.
Stats:
Strength: 24 [3 Base][9 Class][1 Consumption][11 Purchased] (0 Purchasable)
Constitution: 33 [3 Base][17 Class][2 Consumption][11 Purchased] (12 Purchasable)
Spirit: 25 [6 Base][7 Class][4 Consumption][8 Purchased] (6 Purchasable)
Perception: 20 [4 Base][6 Class][10 Purchased] (6 Purchasable)
Dexterity: 16 [4 Base][1 Class][1 Consumption][10 Purchased] (0 Purchasable)
The crab stepped after him, and Henry saw light reflect over the gem-like turtle shell.
“[Did you get something from the shell? Like Skills and Traits?]”
The crab moved its arms, seemingly in thought, then raised both.
“[You don’t know?]”
It raised a left pincer then looked around before glancing down to the ground. It put down a pincer, looked up to Henry, then slowly moved its pincer in a line. After a second or two of movement, it lifted the pincer and tapped it down on the end of the line.
“[It takes time?]”
Right pincer.
Henry stared at the crab. “[You’re really smart.]”
Right pincer.
Henry shook his head and chuckled. “[What should I call you? Do you have a name?]”
The crab hesitated then clacked both pincers.
“I don’t know what that meant. [My name is Henry, you can’t see it with Identify. A name is a sound we use to tell each other apart. Not the Class, and not the species. Do you have one?]”
A sad left pincer.
“[Do you want one?]”
Fast right pincer.
“[Let’s see. Do you have something in mind?]”
The crab shrugged, then stepped a bit away. It pointed to its mouth, and light began to collect.
Henry’s eyes widened and he tensed involuntarily. A small stream of blue-white bubbles formed and shot forward. Henry stared at the attack. The bubbles reached a boulder and every one impacted with small implosions.
The boulder was pulverized.
The crab pointed at where the bubbles had flown, then back at itself.
“[That’s… you want the name of those? Bubbles?]”
The crab seemed to mull it over. Then pointed at its head.
“[Shell? Shelley?]”
It continued pointing at random things for a while, then pointed at Henry.
“[You want names from me?]”
Yes.
Henry considered the crab for a moment. “[Barry? Sebastian? Wait. Those are boy names.]”
Henry took a minute to explain what he meant, after which the crab shrugged. “Right. Hermit crabs can be intersex. Is that the case here? No matter.”
Henry focused back on the matter at hand. “[Alright, I’ll list some and stop me if you hear a name you like. Kirby, Krabby, Seamore, Sheldon, Barry, Claws, Mabel, Maurice–]”
The crab lifted a claw.
“[Maurice?]”
Right pincers, then the crab’s limbs all danced as it scuttled around Henry’s growing body.
“[Well, nice to meet you, Maurice.]”
Maurice clacked both pincers and glanced around. Then back up to Henry. It lifted both arms in doubt. Or maybe in a question?
“[Are you asking about what we’re going to do? If so, I want to go explore a bit. I get Skills and Traits from things I eat. I’m still not ready to fight anything big, but I can go around and catch a few things. I also want to test something with a Skill I have.]”
Maurice raised a right claw and began scuttling forward.
Henry watched the crab move ahead of him and grinned. “This is a nice change. Good thing I didn’t stop its evolution.”
A/N:
Maurice the Chimeric Hermit Crab / Shelled Nomad has joined the party!
