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 yawo be tagious, or simply because he wao blend in, was anybody’s guess.

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

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

  “Friend?” the golem replied.

  “Well, I guess he’s always te, but I meahan usual.”

  The tired mert sighed and looked up and down the road again. As much as he wao make off the mert skeleton, he also really wao colpse on his pillow a a good night of sleep.

  Far off in the distance, a small dim light appeared, boung up and dowhe dark road.

  “Ah, there he es. Finally!”

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

  “What in the world?” he muttered, trying to peer further into the darkness.

  With a growing sound of bones rattling, Tom’s bone-white face came into view, running in with his ntern stid loot sack boung 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 pletely fot about that whearted shooting fireballs at me.”

  “Who’s they?!”

  “Right! The two adverying 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 gnced over his shoulder with a look ency. “You gotta help me hide. I don’t know how, but they keep trag 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 ntern above your head signaling to everyone where you are,” Balthazar said, pointing a pi the firefly ntern hanging from the skeleton’s walking stick. “Turn it off before they spot you again!”

  “Turn it off?!” Tom repeated in an exasperated tohey’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 a inside one of the empty crates,” the crab said. “Go with him and help him close the lid, Bouldy. I’ll hahe adventurers.”

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

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

  “Evening, fels!” the golden mert greeted, a pincer in the air and a trained er service grin on his face. “Niight 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, gng past a boulder towards the trading post, where the golem had just finished c a crate with its lid and was now waving back with a rocky thumbs up.

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

  “I ’t say that I have, no,” the crab casually said, shaking his shell as he tapped on his with the tip of his pincer. “Beey quiet around here sinightfall.”

  “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 te at night anyway?” the other added. “Crabs aren’t noal, are they?”

  “No, but we are very professional,” the mert 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 fortable socks? I’ve just got a new colle of wool ones in pink and baby blue that you’ll love, I’m sure. Some of them even e with pre-made holes for your venience!”

  “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 notig.”

  “Wait! What’s that?” the crab yelled, with one cw firmly poiowards the middle of the pins oher side of the road. “I just saw a dim light moviweeall grass there. Was that what you two were looking for?”

  The two adveurheir heads in unison to where Balthazar ointing.

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

  “I think I see something,” the other said. “e o’s go before it gets away.”

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

  The mage groaned but followed behind, after throwing a skeptical gre 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 e out now, they’re gone,” he said to the spicuous 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 pins.” The crab turo 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 bohat was close!” Tom excimed, as he stepped out of the crate and put his wide brim hat ba. “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 mert said. “Guess you must have gotten too cozy with them humans by now, fot 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 teically 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 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 ir.”

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

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

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

  “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 tinuing. “You ever seen or heard of things being iate, and when someone goes away and then es back, they are suddenly different?”

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

  “Like, for example, say the carpenter I have w on this roof is w 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 pilr suddenly e up and is all built by the time you check back. That make any seo 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 up after those ruffians have gohrough our pd before the bates around. They make a mess of the whole dungeon. They break stuff, they turhing 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 ing up, maybe pick up their trash? Hah, of course not! Clearly, nobody ever taught them manners bae.”

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

  “Well, ohey leave, we e out of our holes and quickly sort the pce out.” The skeleton picked the crab’s feather duster off a table and waved it around. “ 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 w why. It’s just the way things are. One of those natural facts of life. Like water taking loo boil if you’re watg it, or rain ing right after you put clothes out to dry.”

  “So you’re tellihe crab started, stariily at the floor, “that the whole things ging 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. Fet I asked.”

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

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

  “Sure did!”

  “Thanks, but how e 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 e, but not so high that the more experienced adventurers start raiding us, too. We couldn’t hahose.”

  “Huh. Makes sense, I guess.”

  “And beyond that,” Tom tinued, “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 yetting 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 beealk of the night tely. The crab who makes business with adventurers. Catches a lot of ears. You should sider how to make the most of it.”

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

  “Sure is,” the mert skeleton responded, while bing the feathers of the duster with his finger bones. “If you pyed your cards right, you could even turn this pto 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 ts I got,” the skeptical crab pointed out. “And I’m not about to give up their plentiful to start a destine busihat 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 tele while your main one is hiding iowns?”

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

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

  Tom leaned over the crate he had been hiding in arieved his ntern and loot bag.

  “You know,” he said, turning back to the crab, “if you really want to keep expanding your business, you really should sider giving this pce 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, sider it ahing 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 peeds," the golden crab said, looking around with a knowing smile.

  H0st