“’t you do at least 15 gold?”

  “10 is all yoing to get, pal.”

  “e on, man, this is an alpha wolf pelt. It’s definitely worth it.”

  “I know very well this is a on wolf pelt. It’s 10 gold, and if you try to fool me again, it will be nothing at all.”

  Balthazar adjusted his moh the top of his cw as he looked the clearly novice adventurer over. Most of them knew better than to haggle with a stubborn crab, but there would always be some that o learn the hard way.

  His reputation boost with the Adventurer’s Guild roving fruitful, as more of them were choosing to drop by during their outings, to check his wares, or sell their excess loot. But with more ers also came the annoyance of “newbies,” as he heard higher level adventurers call them.

  “e on, at least do 12 gold, that’s what they’d pay for it up in Ardville,” the young adventurer insisted.

  This one was only level 3 and was desperate for , after apparently having spent all of his money buying the huge mace hangio his hip from a shop in towe not meeting the required Strength to actually use it.

  “Then why don’t you go sell it there?” the crab asked, with a gnce.

  “Because, well…” the boy started, while rubbing the back of his ned looking down at his ow. “I’m trying to stay away from the market for at least a couple of days. Let things cool down a little. I… may have actally failed a sedu attempt on the bcksmith’s daughter.”

  “Yeah, sounds to me like it’s going to be 10 gold then,” the crab decred, with a hint of smugness.

  “Oh, fihe adventurer finally ceded. “You’re terrible, you know? And on top of it all, I had to get my boots all wet just to get here.”

  Balthazar handed him the ten gold s and watched the young adventurer spsh his feet as he walked away from the inner islet. He had a point, and he wasn’t the first oo pin about it. Many of the ts had brought up the invenience of having to skip over slippery wet rocks in order to do business with him. While it did allow him to sell at least a couple of pairs of dry socks, it wasn’t really a good look.

  Looking around at his pond, he also realized things were getting out of hand in terms of his iory ma. He purchased a rge, heavy iro a group of adventurers were carrying from some local dungeon, and was now using it as ste for his gold s, leaving just his old belongings and the Scroll of Character Creation in his previous hiding hole. But that hardly mattered for the many rger items he now had scattered all over his home. He needed better anization, ste, and also some more ve access to his tral spot.

  Skittering around his piles of random goods, Balthazar picked out some basic materials and brought them over to where his chest was, uhe tral tree. He kually rain would e, and that would be a problem for some of his products, so he figured some form of shelter would be necessary.

  Carefully bang it between his cws, he upheld a wooden stake about as tall as an adult human, and firmly stuck the pointy end into the soft soil. After repeating the process ahree times, making a square of wooden stakes, Balthazar unfolded a rge tarp and awkwardly attempted to throw it over the stru. A few pulls and corres ter, he stepped bad looked at the result of his efforts. The stakes were at uneves, as well as irely straight, the tarp was dragging on the ground on one side, but leaving the opposite area partially exposed to the sky, and while attempting to y it out, Balthazar had actally made a tear in the fabric with his cw, leaving a rge hole in it.

  [Item crafted. Experience gained.]

  [[Makeshift Shelter] created.]

  [You have reached level 6!]

  “That’s very funny, ha-ha,” Balthazar said, with a bnk expression, as one of the stakes holding up his improvised tent fell, bringing the whole structure down on itself.

  “This is a waste of my talents.” He sighed, while opening up his level up s. “I’m clearly not made for this kind of manual bor.”

  Seeing as most of the skills relevant to his Mert css were reted to Intelligence, he had decided to titing points into that for the time being. After increasing his Intelligence from 15 to 16, he moved on to the skills s, eager to upgrade his Reading skill from a D to a k.

  “Hopefully this will let me read faster than before,” Balthazar said, while pig up the geography book he had started on earlier.

  Looking at each of the words on the page, he found them ing together and making sense much more easily, only stumbling on those with many sylbles.

  He also noted he now uood what a sylble was, despite not recalling ever hearing about it. He figured that’s just what being intelligent was like. He just kuff naturally, because learning was so st week.

  Closing the status s and tossing the ruiarp and stakes to the side, he began pting the area between the islet he was on and the edge of the pond leading to the road. Some kind e would be ideal, so that his ts could walk across without getti. He didn’t uand their aversion to water, but who could uand humans, anyway?

  Going through some more of his materials, he picked up some wooden boards he had bought retly. They would make for a det floor, but not as they were now. Eyeing the hacksaw o him with suspi, and then his own pincers, he dropped the wooden boards and turned around to return to his book. “Nope, not even gonna try that.”

  ***

  Flipping the st page of his book, Balthazar smmed it shut with satisfa. While it wasn’t very flue, he could tell his reading had improved siderably. So much, in fact, that he would soon run out of books to read, and would o rely on adventurers returning to town from their expl with more.

  Taking the book in his cw, the crab crossed the water to the front of the pond and pced it o all the others he had ly dispyed in a row over the rug with the tris and baubles. Looking up at the sky, Balthazar leased by the ck of birds, even if it made him feel a little suspicious.

  They had been very absent tely, and while he would like to believe it was because of some kind of migration, or simply because of all the new otion around his pond, his instinct told him they must have been up to something, perhaps something nefarious.

  As he pictured dozens of songbirds desding upon his home to pick up his ste chest and fly away with it, something caught his attention in the distance. A small bck dot on the horizon, approag from the pins.

  Shaking off some grains of sand from the edges of the rug and readjusting his monocle, Balthazar readied himself to greet his potential new t. But as the figure became clearer in the distance, he began having a feeling of slight unease growing inside him.

  It was a man, straight posture aermined walk, all his clothing bck, from his expensive looking shiny boots to his silk shirt, covered over the shoulders by a long cloak, dark as a moonless night. Standing out from all the darkness of his clothing was his long straight hair, of a nearly white silver color, despite his still young facial features, which surrouwo pierg icy blue eyes.

  As he approached, Balthazar looked at him through his monocle.

  [Level 19 Dark Mage]

  Whoever this Dark Mage was, he radiated an aura of dread that made Balthazar unfortable. But he was still a mert, and not one about to be intimidated out of a possible busiransa. After all, this guy looked like he could afford expeuff.

  “Good day to you, mister. Would you perhaps be ied in some charmed neckces?” Balthazar said, with one arm stretched towards the items on dispy over his rug.

  The mage looked down at the crab from the er of his eye, without even turning his head, and with a slight scoff, tinued walking.

  “I have many things that could be of use to a mage such as yourself,” Balthazar persisted. “Mana potions, a few ented rings, perhaps this Tome of Levitation?”

  ing to a sudden halt, the man raised his bck gloved hand, as if signaling to someone behind him to hold.

  “Did you say you have a Tome of Levitation?” he asked, with a clear, calm, yet anding voice.

  Intrigued by his gesture and the noises ing from behind his cloak, Balthazar leaned slightly and saw a small figure, its head barely the same height as the mage’s waist, very thin, almost skin and bohe skin of a grayish green tone, rge pointy ears, wearing only a pair ed pants, and holding a rge sa his back. It was a goblin.

  “I asked you a question, crab,” the man said, a hint of impatiend irritation in his voiow.

  “Yes… yes, that’s right, I got ht here,” Balthazar said, pointing at his sele of books, but still more ied in the creature behind the man.

  He had seen goblins before, rarely, they mostly lived in caves, or deep in the forest, and avoided pces where adventurers dwell, but there had been a couple of times in the past where Balthazar had been bothered by young goblins throwing rocks at his shell from up a cliff behind his pond, before running away ughing as he snapped his cws threateningly at them. They were wild and primitive creatures that lived in small tribes, and weren’t particurly liked by anyone, but something about this goblin seemed different.

  He was smaller, despite not being a child, and he seemed weak, almost emaciated, with a miserable look on his face, probably in part because of the massive weight of the sack he was struggling to hold on his back with both hands. As he shifted the weight on his shoulders slightly, a thick bck iron colr became visible around his neck, with runes engraved on its surface. Balthazar sed the goblin through his monocle and saw he was only a level 3.

  “Let me see that,” the Dark Mage demanded with an outstretched hand.

  “Say, that’s a peculiar traveling panion you have there,” Balthazar said, while handing the tome to the man.

  “That? It’s just a goblin I collected off the side of a road a few weeks ago, to carry my things. Stupid thing ’t even fight.” The silver-haired man was sing the cover and back of the tome, as if looking fns of it being a fake. “I’ll give you 100 gold for this.”

  Balthazar pondered for a moment, his eyes still on the goblin, who seemed ready to colpse to his k any moment.

  “Tell you what, it doesn’t seem like you have much use for the little guy anymore,” the crab finally said. “Why don’t you trade me the goblin and the tome is yours?”

  “This pathetic thing?” the mage said, with a mog disbelief. “He’s barely good for carrying things anymore. I doubt I’d keep him for much longer. You have him.”

  The Dark Mage snapped his fingers, and the colr dropped to the ground, open. As it did, the goblin immediately fell to his hands and knees, letting go of the loot sack.

  “You belong to the crab now, uood?” the man said, while pig up the colr and handing it to Balthazar.

  “No thanks, the deal was just for the goblin, you keep that.”

  “Suit yourself,” the mage responded with an arrogant look, as he pocketed the colr and sed through the first pages of his ome.

  “And do me a favor. Don’t cast that on yourself anywhere near my pce, will you?” Balthazar said. “I don’t want you falling to your death and devaluing my products.”

  The Dark Mage looked at the crab with a disdainful scoff, but didn’t respond. Finishing his quick sing of the tome’s pages, he threw it ihe bag and snapped his fingers once again, this time causing the bag to lift itself off the road, h in pce, before steadily following behind the man as he walked away.

  Turning to the goblin that had now stood back up to his feet, Balthazar approached him slowly. “Hey there. You alright? Need anything?”

  “Thirsty!” the goblin pleaded, with a raspy voice.

  “There’s a pht over there. You drink from it.”

  With surprising speed, the goblin dashed to the edge of the water ao his knees, desperately using both hands as cups t water to his mouth and drink.

  “It’s alright, there’s plenty of it and it’s not going anywhere,” the crab said, walking up to where the goblin ran. “There’s some jerky in the crate over there too if you want it once you’re done. Sure looks like you .”

  “Yes, yes,” the goblin said, gasping for air between rge gulps of water, “silver man evil, give no food!”

  The creature seemed capable of uanding basic human tongue just fine, as Balthazar expected, even if his speech appeared somewhat limited.

  The crab wasn’t particurly fond of goblins. Or anyone else, for that matter. But while 100 gold was a lot of money, it would pale in parison to what a pair of opposable thumbs could do for his trading spot in the long run. And he also found starving someone while f them to work for you to be particurly distasteful. If yoing to work someoo the bo least keep them fed, so they st lohat’s just on sense.

  “You got a name, goblin?”

  “Yes, yes,” the small creature responded, standing back to his feet. “Druma!”

  “That’s… a name, I guess. o meet you, my name is Balthazar,” the crab said, while the goblin took some slices of beef jerky from the crate and begaing them ferociously. “Would you be ied in a job as my assistant, Druma? Great ditions, petitive pay. Mainly food, but you seem to hat.”

  “Druma no have tribe no more,” the goblin started, while nodding his head between chewing. “Crab free Druma from evil man. If crab give Druma meat, Druma follow crab now.”

  “That sounds like a fair deal to me,” said Balthazar, as a prompt appeared in front of his eyes.

  [Add Druma to your party?]

  [Yes | No]

  “Why the hell is this system throwing me a surprise party?!”