“What the hell?!”

  The words barely had time to leave Balthazar’s mouth before his legs buckled and colpsed uhe weight of the surprise diver nding on his shell.

  “Argh! There’s a human on me, Rye!” shouted the crab. “Get it off! Get it off!”

  “Oh, my lords!” excimed the stranger as the archer pulled him off the crab’s carapad onto the cobblestones of the street. “I ’t believe it!”

  Balthazar stumbled for a moment, trying tain his footing, a slightly more plex task when one has eight legs tanize. As he posed himself and untangled his eyestalks after the ued assault, the crab eyed his uninvited piggyback rider.

  Still sitting on the ground was a young boy, barely a man, with oner clothing and a sy figure. His expression was one of discertiement as he stared at Balthazar, a toothy smile pstered all over his freckled face, which was topped by a full head of curly carrot-colored hair.

  “Are you alright?” asked Rye.

  “I’m fine!” Balthazar quickly said with a frown.

  “I was actually asking the guy that just fell from a third floor.”

  “He won’t be if he doesn’t start talking!” said the miffed crab. “What the hell is wrong with you, kid?!”

  The boy slowly stood up, eyes still fixed on the mert, his mouth open in an overjoyed amazement. “It really is you… I ’t believe this is really happening!”

  Balthazar cocked aalk at the oddball, intrigued. “Do I know you?”

  “Oh goodness! No, not yet, I o introduce myself!” excimed the boy with several cracks in his voice. “The affy!”

  The young redheaded boy stood up straight aended a hand to Balthazar. Why so many humans seemed so keen on their hands to be crushed by the crab’s pincers, he would never know.

  “I think you already did enough introdug when you nded ohere,” said the still annoyed crusta. “What was that about? It doesn’t seem like it was just an act.”

  “Well, no, but partly, yes,” said Taffy, speaking in a frantid excited manner. “I there on the baly, you know, eating an apple, watg the streets and p life, as you do. You do that, tht? What am I saying, of course you do! Anyway, as I looked down, I saw you! Shiny and magnifit, just like I imagined you! I never actually saw you, but I heard all the descriptions of you! I just couldn’t believe my eyes! I knew I had to quickly get myself dowo meet you, before the opportunity passed! The stairs would have taken too long, I couldn’t risk losing sight of you! So I figured the fastest way down would be to climb down from the baly! But oh, my stars, I was so excited that I slipped! Thank goodness you have such sharp and quick senses and mao safely catch me with your shell! Ah! So amazing!”

  Balthazar stared at the boy, mouth slightly ajar, and then g Rye, who seemed just as baffled as him.

  “What?!”

  “That retty nasty fall,” Rye said, still looking ed for the strange kid. “How are you not hurt at all?”

  Taffy shrugged, dumb smile still pstered across his face. “Momma always said I had strong bones.”

  “Never mind that!” excimed the crab. “What the hell is this all about? What do you want with me?”

  The boy turo Balthazar, eyes wide as he squeezed his closed fists against his chest. “I o e a you! I’m ygest fan, Mr. Balthazar!”

  Once again, the bewildered crusta looked at the young Ardvillian with his mouth half open and a full loss for words.

  As much as Balthazar teo find most humans easily fettable and have a hard time telling them apart, this one in particur he was sure he had never met before. There was just not a ce he would have fotten such a peculiar character.

  “I don’t even know who you are!”

  “ht, right! I never actually met you,” said Taffy, nodding his head way more than Balthazar found to be necessary. “I really wao have gone down to your pond before, but my mother would never let me out of the gates. She says it’s too dangerous out there for her boy. Oh, poor momma, she worries so much about me! But no more! I have finally tureen today and go wherever I want! Isn’t this so exg?! And right on my birthday I see you visiting town! It’s perfect! It’s more than perfect, it’s a sign!”

  Feeling dazed and fused by the barrage of bbbering, Balthazar shook his shell in disbelief.

  “So, you never eve me and you’re my… fan? What?! How does that even make sense?”

  Much to the crab’s regret, his fusion and questions only led to another verbal barrage.

  “Ooh, that’s a funny story! See, I used to be obsessed with Gretha, the famous singing goat from that one farm outside town. Super fan of hers! But then one day I heard the story of a talking crab from an adve the inn, and I k, right there and then, that I had found something much better! A singing goat ’t pare to a talking crab who is also a mert! You’re way cooler! So anyway, I started asking for more details about you from every adventurer I could find in town. Soon after, your reputation was growing and everyone knew about you! But I was the first! The inal crabber! I was your fan long before everybody else thought you were great! Before people cheered for your defeat of the dragon, I was already telling them the amazing tale of how you valiantly saved a pair of adventurers from a swarm of giant spiders with nothing but one cw!”

  Rye was scratg the back of his head with an expression that was halfway between a smile and a frown.

  “So let me get this straight,” said the archer, “you’re g to be Balthazar’s biggest fae having never even seen him before, only heard stories about him from others?”

  “Yes, but not just g, I am Mr. Balthazar’s number one fan, no question about it!”

  “I’m not even sure there are other fans to pete with for the title, but alright…”

  “I’m sure there must be lots of them! And if there aren’t, I should ge that by starting a fan club!”

  Balthazar frowned and shook his shell. “Kid, you’re crazy. Go back to listening to goats sing, or whatever. Rye, let’s get out of here, I still wanna see a few more pces before lunch.”

  As the crab turo leave, Taffy threw himself down to his knees.

  “No, no, no, please!” he cried out in a loud plea. “Mr. Balthazar, don’t leave yet! I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life!”

  “I think you mean more like six months,” said Rye.

  “This was clearly meant to happen!” tihe persistent boy. “The very first time you visit our toens to be my eighteenth birthday! Fate is clearly telling me something!”

  Balthazar rolled his eyes.

  “Yeah, and I’m telling you to get lost. Go eat some birthday cake or something and leave me alone, kid.”

  “Please!” begged the annoying fan, scooting forward on his knees. “Take me with you! I will be your panion, your squire, whatever you need me to be!”

  “What?! No! I don’t want you anywhere near me.”

  “I be very useful! I know many skills! I rub your shoulders… Well, not shoulders, but your… your… I polish your shoes!”

  “I don’t wear shoes! Get lost!”

  “Your shell! I could polish your shell if you need!”

  “Stay away from my shell!”

  “I could run you a hot bath whenever you need? Stay o you in battle and caty stray arrows ing your way with my chest!”

  “No! Shoo!”

  “Please take me with you, mert crab!” shouted Taffy in a hysterical manner. “I’m ygest fan!”

  As the crab tried to walk away, the kid grabbed one of his legs, pleading in su embarrassing way that it was making Balthazar embarrassed by association.

  The crab looked around, the se causing the passing townsfolk to turn their heads to see what was happening. Some were slowing down or even stopping to observe, and more than embarrassed, Balthazar began feeling something else. As if something he could not see was floating through the air, passing straight through him, and spreading all around.

  “Oi, did that kid just say mert crab?” a oner’s voice said from somewhere nearby.

  “Aye, I think he did,” said another one from somewhere else. “Isn’t that the hero that beat back the dragon?”

  “Balthazar? In town?! No way!” said yet another voice from the crowd.

  “Is it really him? Let me see! Let me see!” a woman’s voice shouted.

  Before long, the crab found himself getting surrounded not only by the crowd of onlookers, but also a small mob of much more enthusiastic townsfolk, that, uhe general popuce simply looking in with curiosity, was staring at him with hysterical eyes and smiles.

  “It’s really him!”

  “Mister crab! Let me touch your shiny shell!”

  “Wait your turn, I got here first!”

  Balthazar backed away slowly.

  What the hell is happening here?!

  The crab jumped in pce as a hand nded on the side of his shell, but as he looked, he saw that it was just Rye.

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into these people, but I think we should get out of here.”

  “You don’t o say that twice!”

  The crab and the adveook off into a side street, sprinting away from the mob that was still pushing and shoving at each other.

  “Mr. Balthazar! No, wait, please e back! Take me with you! We love you!” yelled Taffy from the middle of the mad crowd.

  Following Rye through an alley and ing around a er, the crab skittered as fast as his round figure and stomach full of bread allowed, cws holding on to the straps of the backpack boung up and down on his shell. Thankfully for him, the adventurer paused for a moment with his back against a wall, allowing him to catch his breath.

  “Are… are the…” said Balthazar between bored breaths. “Are the people in this town always this crazy?”

  “No,” said Rye, still peeking around the er for any signs of the mob. “That was really weird. Did you feel some kind of energy passing through yht before it happeoo?”

  “I did! What was that about?!”

  “There he is!” a voice shouted from an alley. “I see his beautiful carapace shining uhe sunlight!”

  “Oh crap! We gotta run again,” said the panting crab.

  “This way!”

  Once again, the archer took off into a nimble sprint that the crusta could hardly keep up with.

  As they swerved towards areet, a peared in front of them, cheeks red and eyes fixed on the crab.

  “Mister mert crab! I’m getting married month. Will you please let me rub your shell food luck?”

  “What?! No! Stay away from me!” Balthazar excimed as he skidded to a stop and ged dire, trying to follow Rye, who had already corrected course to another alley.

  In through an archway, out through a back alley, left and right turns, twists and turns, all leaving the crab’s head spinning as they tried to lose the crowd of maniacs chasing them.

  “I don’t think I like Ardville anymore!” said Balthazar to Rye as they ducked under a small walkway bridge.

  “Mr. Balthazar!” Taffy’s voice called from nearby. “Please, e out! We just want to get to know our idol a little better!”

  “And I don’t want to know any of you lunatics,” the crab muttered.

  “I think we o just slip out of town, Balthazar,” said Rye. “They’re going to keep looking for us no matter where we go, and a giant crab walking around town isly easy to ceal.”

  “But I haven’t even visited the local library!”

  “Mr. Balthazaaaar!” the freckled fanatic kept calling from the street above.

  “Never mind, get us out of here!” Balthazar quickly said before following the ranger into another alley.

  “Through here,” the human said. “Rob showed me a secret way out of town without passing through the gates a while back.”

  “Rye, what have you been doing hanging out with thieves?”

  “I met him through you!”

  As they were about to exit the alley, a rge bearded man wearing a red fnnel shirt and carrying a wood axe appeared in front of them.

  “It is you!” the lumberjack excimed in a deep, rough voice.

  He threw his axe to the side, and to the other two’s absolute shock, proceeded to rip his fnnel shirt open with both hands, exposing his unfortably hairy chest as the flying buttons hit the ground, along with Rye’s and Balthazar’s mortified jaws.

  “Please! Sign your name on my chest, o brave crab!”

  The archer grabbed the mert by the d pulled him into another alley, both of them still screaming in horrified disfort.

  “I wanna go bay pond and never leave again!” Balthazar excimed as the human dragged him behind a building.

  “Through here,” Rye said, moving a round sewer grate on the ground. “This will lead us outside the walls.”

  The crab looked down at the narrow passage the human had just jumped through.

  “Are you crazy? That’s way too small for me to fit through!”

  “Do you have a better exit?!”

  Taffy’s voice could be heard from outside the alley once again, still calling out for his adored crab.

  “Oh, crabapples!” Balthazar excimed, before hopping into the manhole.

  And being immediately stuck.

  “Rye! I told you! Now I ’t move!”

  “Hold o me try to pull you down,” the human’s muffled and eg voice said from the sewer below.

  “O, ow!” the crab cried out. “You’re making it worse! I ’t fit, just push me back up!”

  “I see him!” the now shirtless lumberjack yelled with his gruff voice from the other end of the alley, and a bright e head of hair popped around the er.

  “Mr. Balthazar! Wait for me!” shouted Taffy.

  Balthazar started kig his legs and spping the ground with his cws.

  “Never mind, Rye! Pull me!” he quickly said. “Puuull meee!”