“4498… 4499… 4500.”

  Balthazar finished ting the s in his iro behind his sleeping pillow, feeling both satisfa and .

  He loved ting his money and seeing its number grer and rger every day, but by his estimations, that chest would be full o reached 5000 gold s, and that roblem.

  Not only had he not been able to find any adventurers carrying rge taihey were willing to sell tely, but even if he had, he wasn’t sure where he’d put it.

  He liked to keep his treasure close at night, but there wasn’t mu left in his tent, between the chest, his pillow, and all the many baskets of pastries surrounding it, there just wasn’t ao ste sums of money like that.

  Madeleine had told him during one of her ret visits that people in town with lots of money keep their valuables in pces called “banks” in exge for a small fee. That sounded like plete nonseo the crab.

  Paying someoo keep your s? The whole point of having them was the satisfa of holding them, ting them, pying with them, hugging a pile of them at night before falling asleep.

  And even worse, what if they lose your precious s? No, smart crabs don’t trust banks.

  The problem was not just the s, either. Adventurers were selling more and more loot every day, and no matter how fast Balthazar tried to offload it to the adventurer who came around, his stock of junk tinued growing, and slowly taking over the pond, crates and shelves being filled faster than poor Druma could put them together.

  Truly, Balthazar was a crab suffering from success.

  As he sighed, the bright yellow refle of his many s shining on him, Balthazar heard a woman’s voice from across the bridge.

  “Excuse me, is this the crab’s trading post?”

  “That’s right, this is the spot, and I am the crab,” Balthazar answered, stepping out of his tent.

  Oher side stood a middle-aged woman, long bck hair with two white strands emerging from the ter of her hairline, falling over her bck vestments of many yers and folds. Her rge blue eyes shot at the crab as he appeared, and a wide smile appeared on her face.

  Balthazar felt slightly unfortable.

  [Level 42 Alchemist Witch]

  “Oh, excellent, excellent!” the woman said, g her hands together in front of her chest. “Just who I was looking for.”

  “ I help you?” Balthazar asked as he joined her oher shore.

  “Such a magnifit spe, you are!” The strange woman began walking around the crab, looking him over, hands still held against her chest. “And the stories were true. You really do talk!”

  “Yes, I do, and I’d appreciate it if you stopped cheg my behind now, please.”

  “May I ask how that happened? Was it some kind of spell? Entment? Perhaps a curse gone wrong?” The witch gasped. “Don’t tell me you’re actually a prind if I give you a kiss, you will turn bato a human?”

  “What?! No, why would that ever… Look, I don’t know what kind of weird stories your head is filled with, but I’m here to do business, so if you’re not here for that…”

  “Oh, e now,” she interjected, “is that a way to treat a dy?”

  “I wouldn’t know, but seems to me like the way to treat witches who aren’t here to sell or buy anything.”

  “I am an alchemist,” the woman said, her smile quickly vanishing from her face for a moment. “And you are wrong in your assumption. I am here to do business.”

  “Great. Then what are you here to sell or buy?”

  “I’m looking for rare alchemy ingredients,” she responded, a smile already ba her face.

  “Sure thing,” Balthazar said, moving to a shelf filled with multiple cy pots and gss jars. “I got plenty of flowers, mushrooms, pnt leaves, and much more. What’s it going to be?”

  “The ingredients I seek are rather… difficult to find.” She pulled a folded piece of part from her sleeve, ope, and started reading it. “Do you by any ce have… troll’s blood?”

  “Uh… no, I don’t,” the crab said, hesitantly.

  “A werewolf liver?”

  “Wha—no!”

  “Spider broodmnds?”

  “Why would I… what the hell kind of poison are you pnning to make?”

  “Oh, no, no. No poison at all. Just some ingredients for some homemade recipes, nothing nefarious, I promise you.”

  “Either way, I don’t have any of those things, and I’m not sure I’d want to, anyway.”

  “Such a shame, really. But say, on a different subject,” the witch said, moving around the crab again, trailing a bck fingernail on the surface of his shell, “this is a beautiful pond. I’m sure it looks incredible at night, if you were ied in giviour of it ter.”

  “Look, dy…”

  “Please, let’s not stand on ceremony,” she said, an intense smile on her face. “My name is Velvet, but feel free to call me Velvie.”

  “I will not, but thanks,” Balthazar said, increasingly unfortable, while sidestepping away from the witch. “If there’s nothing else you're looking to buy, I really got lots to do.”

  “There is one more ingredient I am looking for,” Velvet said, taking aep closer to the nervous mert.

  “If it’s not a oal or some random fungus, I probably ’t help you.”

  “It’s something I know for a fact you have. And being such a fileman, you wouldn’t leave a dy hanging, I’m sure? I’d be willing to pay almost anything to have it.”

  “Err… and what would that be?” Balthazar apprehensively asked.

  “Nothing much, just one, maybe two giant crab legs,” the witch casually said, batting her eyes at Balthazar.

  “You… you want what now?!” the bewildered crusta excimed.

  “A crab leg, that’s all.”

  “You want one of my legs? Lady, are you out of your mind?!”

  “Oh, e now, dear, it’s just a leg. You got seven more. You could easily be a sweetheart and spare one firl in need.”

  “No! They’re my legs. I’m very attached to them!”

  “That’s not a problem. We take care of that without you even feeling a thing.”

  “You’re nuts, get away from me and out of my pond, witch!” Balthazar said loudly, nearly shouting.

  “I really, really he tents of it,” the desperate alchemist pleaded, putting a hand on one of his pincers and looking straight into his eyes. “I’m sure we reae sort of agreement.”

  “Are we interrupting?” a man’s voice said from the road entrance.

  The crab and the woman turo see a pair of figures standing by the pond’s entrance. One had a bow on his back, a rge basket in his arms, and a slightly embarrassed expression on his face, while the other carried a basket in each hand and looked at them with one eyebrow raised and an air of suspi.

  “Not at all!” Balthazar quickly said, moving away from the bck an. “Madeleine, Rye, please, e in. This madame witch was just leaving!”

  The expressions on the archer and the baker ged, being visibly apprehensive. Rye put his basket down slowly aed his hand on his waist to give him quick access to drawing his bow. Madeleine spoke first. “Witch, you said? Your t’s not causing any trouble, is she, Balthazar?”

  “As I expined before, I’m an alchemist,” Velvet said, no longer smiling, while sizing up the two arrivals. “And I take it you two are his ts as well, yes? Well, I’m not do, so if you don’t mind waiting your turn…”

  A frown formed on Madeleine’s fad she opened her mouth to speak, but Balthazar interjected before she could get a word out. “Ha ha, no, no, they’re not ts, they’re here for… a delivery. Yes, that’s it, a delivery. So now, if you don’t mind, I really have things to take care of.”

  “My, that is so impolite of you,” the woman said, not moving a step. “Not to mention unprofessional. I thought you were a mert? We’re not done haggli, are we?”

  “Yes, we are! I already told you I’m not selling what you’re after.”

  “Balthazar, what is going on here?” Madeleine asked. “What does this woman want?”

  “She—”

  “Oh, now, now,” Velvet said, interrupting Balthazar as she turo the baker. “The adults are talking. You shouldn’t stick your nose in, little miss.” She gave a sly smile. “But if you want to know so badly, Balthie and I were discussing the price of… parts of his body.”

  “Balthie??” the crab repeated, befuddled.

  “The price of… what the hell?” the baker excimed, her face turning red. “What kind of dealings are you making now, Balthazar?”

  “Me? his crazy woman came in here and started trying to buy one of my legs!”

  “Oh, darling,” the witch said in a dramatie as she bent a knee and grasped the crab’s left pincer. “I would take all of you, but if I ot, even just a leg would satisfy my heart’s desire.”

  Balthazar stared, perplexed, at the woman, and then at Rye and Madeleine. He was lost for words and as. His face would be turni that moment if he had the skin for it.

  “Mate, are you sure you’re alright?” Rye said, a ed smile on his face. “Did she cast some kind of spell on you, or something?”

  “Oh!” Velvet excimed. “I am the one who has been put under a spell. From the moment I id eyes on you, Balthie, I knew I had found the one.” She pced the back of her hand against her forehead in an exaggerated pose.

  “Guys,” Balthazar pleaded. “e on, you don’t seriously think I have anything to do with this… this witch, right?!”

  “I don’t know,” Madeleine said, her fa even brighter red now. “Maybe she offered you some nice sweets? That would probably sway you, wouldn’t it? Maybe we should take these back to town, if you’re already set here?”

  “Ah, you must be a baker, are you not?” Velvet asked, eyeing Madeleine’s white blouse and skirt.

  “So what if I am?” the girl responded, defiant.

  “That’s adorable,” the witch said with a wide smile, before turning back to Balthazar and pg her pierg blue eyes close to his. “I could prepare you cos sweeter than anything you’ve ever tasted, my dear. If you’d just be a little more… friendly with me.”

  “Wha… No!” Balthazar said, loudly, as he stepped away from her, trying to snap himself out of his befuddlement. “You should leave. I want to trade nothing with you, and I definitely do not want to be your friend!”

  A rge piece of rock with eyes appeared above a shelf and smiled at the group. “Friend?”

  Velvet looked up at the golem t above her from behind the shelf, and then at the pair by the entrance, oh a hand on his bow, and the other with her hands on her hips, her face looking ready to fume. A goblin wearing a wizard hat joihem from across the bridge too, attracted by the noise and otion.

  “Well,” the witch said, her smile no longer as smug, “I see there’s no swaying you at the moment, and that your… friends aren’t going to let us duct business. So maybe I will get going.”

  “That would—” Balthazar started saying, before a very loud baker interrupted him.

  “Yes, that would be best. Good day to you. The road is over there. Be on your way.”

  The wit bck began calmly walking to the exit, taking a moment to turn her head back to the crab.

  “We’ll catch up on our business some other time, darling.” She wi him before walking away, her dark vestments waving behind her.

  “That was… weird.” Rye said, taking his hand away from his bow.

  “You’re telling me?!” Balthazar said, feeling as though he had been holding his breath that whole time and only now could finally exhale. “I don’t know where that one came from, but she gave me the weirdest feelings in… Rye?”

  The archer was looking over the crab’s shell with a scared expression. As Balthazar turned, he entered the baker who was leaning down towards him, wrists against her sides, her freckled cheeks a bright crimson, green eyes shooting daggers at him.

  “Would you like to tell us what was that all about?”

  The crab gulped, unsure why he was so intimidated by a small baker, but still sure he didn’t want to find out either.

  “I—I—I’m not sure,” Balthazar stuttered. “She first came here wanting some weird alchemy ingredients, and then she says she needs one of my legs for something she wao make. It was all very weird. I’m just gd you two showed up.”

  “Yeah, ha ha, right, good thing we did. Who knows what your new suitor would have doo you otherwise,” Rye nervously said, attempting to lighten the mood. Unsuccessfully.

  “Yes, Balthazar,” Madeleine said, tapping her foot on the ground rapidly, “what would have happened if we didn’t show up? Would you have let the witch do her weird stuff to you? You seemed very flustered in her presence!”

  “Of course not! And… I’m ly used to some of your strange human behaviors! I just don’t know how to act around them! There, you happy now?”

  Madeleine pulled bad exhaled, losing some of her ire. “I was just ed about you. I know about witches. They are evil and tricky, and you… well, you’re a grumpy crab, but you’re rumpy crab. I don't want anything bad to happen to you.”

  Balthazar stared at her for a moment, fused. “So, wait… you were worried about me? And because of that… you also get mad at me? What the hell kind of sense does that make?!”

  “I don’t know!” Madeleine excimed, throwing her arms up. “That’s just eople do sometimes!”

  “You humans are an irrational bunch,” Balthazar said, shaking his shell.

  “Yeah, well, maybe so,” the archer started saying, with a sheepish smile, “but at least we make great pastries, right?”

  The crab and the girl tinued looking away from each other, both with their arms crossed.

  “Oh, e on, you guys!” Rye said. “That was a witch. Their css’s whole thing is being tricky, maniputive, and sowing discord. You two are friends. Are you really going to let her have the st ugh by staying upset at each other?”

  Madeleine sighed. “Rye is right. I rarely get this upset at things, but… I really lose it when it es to the ones I care about being in trouble. I’m sorry I got mad at you, Balthazar.”

  Balthazar looked at her from the er of his eyes, without uncrossing his arms. “Fine, I accept your apology.”

  Rye gave him a look of disapproval and he crab’s shell lightly.

  “And fine, I… I apologize too, for anything.”

  The archer groaned and rolled his eyes.

  “It’s alright,” Madeleine said. “I’m sure that took a lot of effort from you, so I’ll take it. Just please, promise me if you ever see that witch again, you’ll ruher way, with all yht legs!”

  “Don’t o tell me,” Balthazar responded, finally rexing, “I don’t want to gh that kind of disfort ever again.”

  “Hey now,” Rye started, with a smirk, “maybe a witch would be the perfect match for yrumpiness, eh?”

  They both looked at the smiling adventurer with the same sour expression.

  Druma, who had been sitting on the ground uhe golem's shadow with his legs crossed and quietly since joining them, finally broke the silence.

  “Druma hungry. eat now?”