Merchant Crab

Balthazar yawned loudly and his eye stalks grew heavier as the night grew longer. Standing behind him, Bouldy opened his cavernous mouth and imitated his friend. Whether he was doing it because yawns tend to be contagious, or simply because he wanted to blend in, was anybody’s guess.

Nevertheless, it still made the crab chuckle, and the golem smile.

“Looks like he’s late tonight,” Balthazar said.

“Friend?” the golem replied.

“Well, I guess he’s always late, but I mean later than usual.”

The tired merchant sighed and looked up and down the road again. As much as he wanted to make coin off the merchant skeleton, he also really wanted to collapse on his pillow and get a good night of sleep.

Far off in the distance, a small dim light appeared, bouncing up and down over the dark road.

“Ah, there he comes. Finally!”

As the light grew nearer, Balthazar noticed it was moving too fast and swaying too wildly for a normal walking pace.

With a growing sound of bones rattling, Tom’s bone-white face came into view, running in with his lantern stick and loot sack bouncing up and down over his shoulder.

“The hell happened? Why are you running?” the suddenly awake and alert crab asked as the skeleton stopped in front of him, both hands on his knees and breathing heavy.

“Chased… by… by some humans,” Tom answered, between loud panting.

“What humans?” Balthazar said. “Also, how are you out of breath? You don’t even have lungs!”

“Oh,” said the skeleton, bringing his heavy breathing to a sudden halt and standing back straight. “You’re right. I completely forgot about that when they started shooting fireballs at me.”

“Who’s they?!”

“Right! The two adventurers trying to pick my bones. I usually do a pretty good job of avoiding them by traveling at night, but now and then there are some numskulls that get lost or stay out past bedtime and bump into me on the road.” He glanced over his shoulder with a look of urgency. “You gotta help me hide. I don’t know how, but they keep tracking me down and I don’t want to spend all night running away.”

“Not difficult to do when you’re running away in the middle of the night with a lantern above your head signaling to everyone where you are,” Balthazar said, pointing a pincer at the firefly lantern hanging from the skeleton’s walking stick. “Turn it off before they spot you again!”

“Turn it off?!” Tom repeated in an exasperated tone. “They’re fireflies! How do you expect me to turn them off? Squish them between my fingers?! Just let me in and hide me somewhere!”

“Fine! Go in and get inside one of the empty crates,” the crab said. “Go with him and help him close the lid, Bouldy. I’ll handle the adventurers.”

The golem nodded and, together with the traveling merchant, walked down into the trading post.

As Balthazar turned back to the road, he spotted two men running down the road from the same direction Tom had arrived. One was a fighter holding a mace and shield, while the other was a robed mage with two small orbs of fire glowing within his fingers, ready to be shot out.

“Evening, fellas!” the golden merchant greeted, a pincer in the air and a trained customer service grin on his face. “Nice night for a stroll, ain’t it?”

“You, crab, have you seen a skeleton running this way?” the fighter asked.

“Skeleton? Hmm, let me think…” Balthazar said, glancing past a boulder towards the trading post, where the golem had just finished covering a crate with its lid and was now waving back with a rocky thumbs up.

“He had a big bag of loot and a lantern. You couldn’t have missed him,” said the mage.

“I can’t say that I have, no,” the crab casually said, shaking his shell as he tapped on his chin with the tip of his pincer. “Been pretty quiet around here since nightfall.”

“We saw his light heading down this road. How could you not have seen it?” the mace wielder insisted.

“Why are you out here this late at night anyway?” the other added. “Crabs aren’t nocturnal, are they?”

“No, but we are very professional,” the merchant retorted. “I am always looking out for any adventurers in need of supplies, no matter the time of day. Say, you gentleman in need of some potions? Bug repellent? Maybe a new pair of comfortable socks? I’ve just got a new collection of wool ones in pink and baby blue that you’ll love, I’m sure. Some of them even come with pre-made holes for your convenience!”

“Bah, he’s just trying to sell us junk now,” said the fighter. “Let’s go before we lose the skeleton.”

“I don’t know, man. What if he’s trying to fool us?” the mage said to his partner. “I swear the light ran right this way. There’s no way it could have passed here without him noticing.”

“Wait! What’s that?” the crab yelled, with one claw firmly pointed towards the middle of the plains on the other side of the road. “I just saw a dim light moving between the tall grass there. Was that what you two were looking for?”

The two adventurers turned their heads in unison to where Balthazar was pointing.

“Where?!” said the robed one, both of the flames in his hands flaring up.

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“I think I see something,” the other said. “Come on, let’s go before it gets away.”

“Are you sure?” his companion asked, but the fighter was already rushing into the plains with his mace at the ready.

The mage groaned but followed behind, after throwing a skeptical glare at the crab.

“Heh, good luck, suckers,” Balthazar muttered under his breath.

After making sure the pair had fully disappeared into the faraway sea of grass, the shrewd crab made his way off the road and back to his pond.

“You can come out now, they’re gone,” he said to the conspicuous crate with a yellow light glowing from its gaps.

The lid slid off and the top of a white skull peeked over from within, followed by two empty eye sockets.

“Is it safe? You sure they’re gone?”

“Yes, don’t worry. I threw them off your trail, sent them off on a chase through the plains.” The crab turned to the golem. “Bouldy, go stand watch by the entrance, just in case. Let us know if anyone shows up.”

“Friend,” the rock giant said with a nod before heading to the access path.

“Semmel’s bones, that was close!” Tom exclaimed, as he stepped out of the crate and put his wide brim hat back on. “Those two were persistent. Chased me down all the way from the woods by the foot of the mountain. Like dogs with a bone, heh.”

“Why were they chasing you with such fervor, anyway? Did you do anything to them?”

“Me? Of course not. I’m a trader, not a fighting skeleton!” the other merchant said. “Guess you must have gotten too cozy with them humans by now, forgot not all of us are so lucky to be in their good graces. Adventurers see a skeleton and they get all murderous.”

“Aren’t you technically already dead, though?” Balthazar joked.

“Not funny!” Tom yelled. “Alright, maybe just a little. Guess my humor is finally rubbing off on you a little. But still, when those maniacs see an undead, there’s no reasoning or talking to be had, they just shoot first and ask questions never. Add to it a skeleton carrying a big sack of loot, and you can almost see them foaming at the mouth as they run after you. Had to haul it out of there faster than a cleric at a succubus lair.”

“Well, you got away with all your bones,” said the crab. “You’re welcome.”

“Yes, appreciated,” the other said, while looking up and around at the wooden frame built around the platform. “Anyway, looks like you got a sort of skeleton of your own around here now. Got envious of my perfect form, eh?”

“Oh, that,” Balthazar said, looking annoyed. “I’m getting a roof over the place before the rains come.”

“Makes sense. Why the face, though? You not happy with how it’s turning out?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that…” The crab stopped and thought for a moment before continuing. “You ever seen or heard of things being in one state, and when someone goes away and then comes back, they are suddenly different?”

“I’m not sure I follow,” Tom said, scratching the side of his bony temple with an equally bony fingertip.

“Like, for example, say the carpenter I have working on this roof is working around one of the support beams, nothing’s really happening, everything looks the same, and only when you go away and aren’t looking does the pillar suddenly come up and is all built by the time you check back. That make any sense to you?”

“Oh, yes, I think I get it now!” the skeleton said, nodding his skull. “We have that all the time in the dungeon, too.”

“Really?” the excited crab said. “You ever had that happen to you?”

“No, I mean we do stuff like that after adventurers have visited.”

“Wait, what do you mean?”

“You know, someone has to clean up after those ruffians have gone through our place and before the next batch comes around. They make a mess of the whole dungeon. They break stuff, they turn everything upside down looking for treasure, bleed all over our floors and walls. And do you think a single one of them ever stops before leaving and does a little cleaning up, maybe pick up their trash? Hah, of course not! Clearly, nobody ever taught them manners back home.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Balthazar said. “But then what?”

“Well, once they leave, we come out of our holes and quickly sort the place out.” The skeleton picked the crab’s feather duster off a table and waved it around. “Clean up any bodily fluids they left behind, dump the bodies of the ones who didn’t make it, refill and lock the chests, reset all the traps, fix anything that might be broken, and make sure everything is ready before any more arrive.”

“So… you actually see all of this happen with your eye… sockets?” the hesitant crab asked.

“Of course,” Tom answered. “We do it all away from adventurer eyes. They’re the only ones not meant to see it.”

“But… why not?”

“Uhh… I don’t know?” The skeleton shrugged. “I never really bothered wondering why. It’s just the way things are. One of those natural facts of life. Like water taking longer to boil if you’re watching it, or rain coming right after you put clothes out to dry.”

“So you’re telling me,” the crab started, staring emptily at the floor, “that the whole things changing when out of sight only happens for adventurers?”

“Yes, pretty much. Why do you ask? It’s not like you’re an adventurer. Why should you care, right? Hah!”

“Yes, heh, right,” Balthazar agreed, with a weak chuckle. “Was just curious. Forget I asked.”

“By the way, I almost forgot to ask between all that chase chaos,” Tom said, “have the orcs visited yet?”

“Oh,” said the other merchant, perking up from his pensive state. “They did. You told them about me?”

“Sure did!”

“Thanks, but how come you’ve sent them my way when you could have kept their business all to yourself? They got a lot of junk to sell.”

“Exactly, they do,” the skeleton responded. “Way more than I’d ever buy from them. Besides, most of their stuff is way too high level for our little dungeon. We have to keep our loot tempting enough for newbies to come, but not so high that the more experienced adventurers start raiding us, too. We couldn’t handle those.”

“Huh. Makes sense, I guess.”

“And beyond that,” Tom continued, “it doesn’t hurt to send business each other’s way. We non-humans got to stick together. Not all of us are so lucky to fall in the good graces of the adventurers. And maybe today they like you, but maybe tomorrow they’re putting out quests to hunt you down. Trade with them all you like, but you’re still never going to be one of them. You should remember that.”

“Yes, I get that, don’t worry,” the crab said.

“If you’re getting along well with the orcs, who knows, maybe they’ll send others your way too. That’s how a lot of us do business behind the human’s backs, through word of mouth. Your little pond here has been the talk of the night lately. The crab who makes business with adventurers. Catches a lot of ears. You should consider how to make the most of it.”

“Hmm, is that so?” Balthazar asked, crossing his arms and rubbing his chin with a pincer.

“Sure is,” the merchant skeleton responded, while combing the feathers of the duster with his finger bones. “If you played your cards right, you could even turn this place into a trading hub for all of us rejects to do some trading without having to keep looking over our shoulders by the side of the road.”

“I’m not sure that would go well with all the adventurer clients I got,” the skeptical crab pointed out. “And I’m not about to give up their plentiful coin to start a clandestine business that might not even pay as well.”

“Of course not,” said Tom, tossing the duster into a crate. “I wouldn’t want to bump into them on my way in or out, either. Why do you think I do my business at night? Hardly any of them around. Why only use half of the day to make a profit when there’s plenty of other clientele while your main one is hiding in their towns?”

“True,” the other merchant said, suppressing a yawn, “but I also got to sleep at some point, you know?”

“Ah, right, sleep. Forgot that’s a thing. Oh well, either way, just something to think about.”

Tom leaned over the crate he had been hiding in and retrieved his lantern and loot bag.

“You know,” he said, turning back to the crab, “if you really want to keep expanding your business, you really should consider giving this place a name. Not very marketable when I have to keep referring to it as ‘that trading post owned by a talking crab’ to everyone. I bet your adventurer buddies feel the same.”

“A name? I never really thought about giving it one.”

“Well, consider it another thing to think about then,” said the skeleton, tipping the brim of his hat.

“You know, maybe you're right. Maybe a name is what this place needs," the golden crab said, looking around with a knowing smile.

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