Night had loled over the pond, its access road empty and in a silenly broken by the chirping of a cricket or the soft breeze passing through the rustling leaves of a nearby bush. The sky was overcast and hid the moon’s glow from the nd, leaving the small sparkles of fireflies that danced over the pins as the sole lights in the darkness, tiny dots of yellow so dim they illuminated little more than the bdes of grass around them.

  Without so much as a footstep sound preg it, light erupted from the dark over the stone road, a fme lighting a small iron ntern held by a figure dressed entirely in bck leathers, with only a small window between the hood and mask revealing his eyes.

  From behind him, two ures appeared, equally dressed ihy gear that muffled their movements and allowed them to blend in with their nighttime surroundings.

  One was a stocky man with very broad shoulders who wore nothing over his pletely bald head, while the other was a slim woman of small stature, only made smaller by standio the man apanying her.

  The one holding the ntern spoke first, in a hushed tohat reached no further than the ears it was meant for. “Alright, this is the pce. Remember, we take whatever we want, but we gotta make sure we don’t leave without pnting the medallion somewhere.”

  “And if the crab or the goblin wake up?” the other man asked, in a low and deep voice.

  “Knock them out if necessary, but no killing. t says that would get half the Adventurers Guild to look into what happened, and we don’t hat kind of attentioher.”

  “Who’s the t and why do they care so much about this stupid crab, anyway?” asked the woman.

  “Don’t know,” the leader of the trio said, “and sidering how much gold he put in our hands, I don’t care to kher. Now let’s get in ahis done.”

  The man snuffed out the light from the ntern and the three of them quietly moved into the area surrounding the pond.

  Pointing two fio his own eyes and then to the ter islet, the leader ordered the rger man to go there and keep watch. The other nodded and started crossing the bridge, a rge club held tight in his hands, while doing his best not to make the wooden floorboards creak.

  The woman moved iween a group of crates, looking for o sealed, while her boss began looking food spot on the shelves to pce the gold medallion held in his left hand.

  As the lookout reached the ter of the pond, he saw a very dim light ing from ihe tent. With careful steps, he approached and peered inside, where he saw the back of a gray carapace, quietly resting on a rge purple cushion, barely illuminated by a small oil ntern sitting in the er.

  As he began bag away from the seemingly sleeping crab, something caught his attention. Something that wasn’t right about that shell, and as he squinted and tried looking closer amid the surrounding darkness, he made out the details on the edge of the chitin, like cracks and fissures. His eyes widened as he saw it hollow. The shell was empty.

  Meanwhile, the small thief was trying to quietly pry open a crate when a small shuffling sound made her turn around.

  But nothing was there.

  Still suspicious, she turned back to the crate, when the same noise came again, except much closer this time, and apanied by a sudden e light appearing behind her back.

  She quickly turo the fme of a lit torch dang in front of her, f the woman to take a moment to readjust her eyes to the sudden brightness. As she looked past the fme, she saw a goblin, its head barely higher than her waist level, but made to look slightly taller by a worn out wizard hat on its head. The creature smiled at her with sharp yellow teeth. “Helloooo!”

  The woman yelled, disgust on her face as she rapidly drew a dagger and swiped at the goblin, but the creature was gone, leaving only the bright fme of the torch burning on the dirt floor.

  Alerted by the scream, the thief in and stood up from the shelves, looking for the cause of the otion, when his attention was captured by the man oher side of the bridge, waving his club up in the air. “It’s a trap!”

  Quickly stuffing the medallion in one of his pockets, the thief noticed something moving around the tree behind his partner on the opposite shore. A strange glow, something refleg the tiny amount of moonlight that passed between the clouds. Something shiny and golden.

  “Behind you!” the leader shouted.

  The other thief turo see the rge golden crab appearing from behind the thick tree trunk that separated them, twe pincers held open, one much rger thaher, but both with a metal shio them.

  “We’re closed now. You should e baorrow!”

  With a quick jab, Balthazar ed his iron pincer around the rge man’s shin and squeezed.

  The thief howled in pain and faltered, but did not fall down.

  “Huh. Feels like steel ptes uhat. Lucky,” Balthazar said, before shouting past the thief holding his leg in pain. “Bouldy, light the fire now!”

  With a quick turn, the thief’s leader looked past the shelves, trying to identify what was causing such loud shifting noises. With fumbling fingers, the man lit his ntern back up, just in time to see a thick arm made of stone reach past him and hold its hand above a fire pit posed of several wooden logs covered with thick oil and surrounded by a circle of stohe hand struck two of its rocky fiogether, produg several e sparks that fell over the wood a abze with a fiery roar.

  As the fmes from the pit lit the surrounding trading post, the baffled prowler followed the length of the stone arm all the to its head, standing nearly twice as tall as his own. A wide face of stone looked down at him with two smooth orbs refleg the e brightness from the fire. The rock smiled, and the man stepped backwards, tripping on his ow and falling on his back.

  Opposite of him, the small frame of the woman thief was frantically looking around, searg for the goblin. “I freaking hate goblins! Where are you?!”

  “Druma magics you!” the small creature yelled, as he jumped on top of a crate, staff in hand, poi his target.

  The nimble thief tried rolling for cover behind a rock, but the glowing green bolts that came shooting out of the staff hit her mid-jump, sending her flying straight into the pond with a loud spsh.

  “Yes! Druma magic! Druma get thief!” the goblin yelled, jumping up and down on the crate in celebration.

  Stumbling back to his feet, the leader of the thugs tried to run for the exit.

  “Don’t let him get away!” Balthazar shouted to the golem from the other side. “Grab him!”

  As the panig thief turo face the road, a stone hand grabbed him by the foot and lifted him up with great ease, holding his upside down fa front of the golem’s friendly smile. “Friend?”

  “No, you dolt, he’s not a frien—”

  Balthazar barely had time to skitter bad narrowly avoid the strike from the man who was no longer holding his leg in pain, and was now limping his way towards the crab with rage in his eyes, and a very thick club in his hands.

  “That pincer… really… hurt,” the panting man said. “’t wait to rip it out of you and see how much it will sell for.”

  With a much quicker motion than his stature would suggest, the man lifted his club and smacked it down on the ground in front of Balthazar, who barely mao dodge it.

  “A little help over here?!” Balthazar yelled. “I don’t wanna bee crab soup tonight!”

  Bouldy lifted his gaze from the man he was still holding upside down and looked towards the crab with his back against the tent’s wall, and the burly thief approag with his club held high, ready t it down ohin reach.

  “Friend!”

  Dropping the leader of the thieves on the ground like a sack of rocks, the golem broke into a sprint, making the ground shake with each step as he rushed to the ter islet.

  Stumbling from the quickly approag quake, the club-wielding man looked back just in time to see a huge bad of stone ing right for his chest, swatting him away like a pestering mosquito, and ung him against the tree’s bark with a loud crash that caused the old trunk to shake and several leaves to break off from their brahe thief nded on his face, motionless.

  “Wow, Bouldy… you actually—“

  A sloshing sound cut Balthazar’s words short as he turo see a soaked woman emerging from the shore, dagger in hand, bde held forward in his dire.

  She was moving too quickly and Balthazar had o back away to.

  “You crabby son of a—”

  The crab recoiled, putting his pincers up in front of his eyes and hoping she wouldn’t strike anything vital.

  “Hmmrph!”

  Balthazar peeked over his iron cw.

  The woman was g at her own face, struggling to untangle herself from a piece of tattered, worn out undergarments that had just fallen from the branches above them and right ohief’s head.

  “I ’t believe those bloomers were still up there!” Balthazar excimed.

  “You leave boss alohief!”

  ing out of the er of his eye, Balthazar watched as Druma kicked the blihief on her shin, before smag her kh his wooden staff, causio fall to the ground, uioill ed around her head.

  “Druma got you now,” the goblin said, while taking a coil of rope off his shoulder and quickly beginning to it around the thief’s arms.

  Remembering there was still ohief left, Balthazar sed the shoreline opposite the islet until he spotted the leader of the gang, trying to stand up and make his way to the road.

  “Bouldy, don’t let him get away. Grab him!” Balthazar ordered, pincer firmly poi the man.

  With a nod, the walking boulder quickly crossed the water to the other side and pihe fleeing criminal to the ground with one rocky hand.

  “Yes! Good job!” Balthazar cheered, both pincers held high in victory. “We got them. Druma, help me tie the big one before—“

  As the crab rotated to face the previously unsan uhe tree, he saw a shadow loom over him, a bulky figure rising with one arm up, club in hand.

  “Screw this job.”

  Before Balthazar could react, the blunt on fell upon him, hitting his shell right above the eyes, and the world went spinning away.

  [Health: 5/100]

  [He~?th: #/?0]

  [System Failure]

  […]

  Balthazar couldn’t see anything other thaext in his eyes.

  [System Rest…]

  All he could hear was the familiar sound of his pond’s waterfall, alresent in his daily life. Except more distant, and somewhat… distorted.

  [System Error]

  “Ow… shut up, stupid system thing, my head hurts.”

  [System anomaly detected]

  “No, you’re an anomaly!”

  [Uified parameters]

  [Cheg System…]

  “Why do you gotta be so chatty now of all times? When I actually want information, you never expin anything!”

  [System version out of date]

  Balthazar could swear he was feeling the smell of fresh pie.

  [Attempting update…]

  “Yes, please. Some pie would be great right about now...”

  [Update failed]

  “Huh?”

  [System e failed]

  Balthazar straio see through the darkness around the text, but nothing was there, only an approag sound, like ti... no, nails, tapping their way closer.

  […]

  “Ow!” Balthazar felt something… peg at his shell.

  “Oh no, anything but the stupid birds!”

  Still uo see anything or move, Balthazar listened closely, until a sound of rustlihers took off, followed by the fading sound of wings fpping away.

  [System Rebooting...]