As the doomed mert was about to close his eyes a his fiery end, a blur came around the draght as the creature was shooting out its fireball.

  A crack of stone sounded amid the raging r of the ball of fire as Bouldy hit the dragon’s jaw with all his strength pced into a powerful uppercut.

  The winged beast’s eyes bulged out as its head unched up, the fireball spilling out of its mouth and shooting up into the sky and out of sight.

  Balthazar stood frozen in pce, his mouth open in shock, his breath held in anticipation.

  The dragon’s eyes rolled to the back of its head, which fell limp on the ground with a loud thud he edge of the water.

  It was down but not out, just unscious, judging by the ripples its breathing made on the surface of the pond.

  Bouldy turned slowly to face Balthazar. The cra his chest had expanded slightly and seemed deeper, but the golem smiled and gave his friend a thumbs up, and the crab finally exhaled again.

  “I always t on you to save my shell, Bouldy.”

  But then they heard it. A thunderous explosion in the distance.

  Balthazar turned and looked up at the mountain above the pond. The fireball that was knocked off-course by Bouldy’s strike on the dragon had shot up into the air, and had just hit the peak of Sem Mountain, sending out a halo of snow around its impact.

  Ice, dirt, and rocks were flying out far up the pearly white mountaintop, but worse than that, the explosion had dispced enough debris that they were now beginning to roll down the side of the peak, turning into an enormous avanche.

  An avanche rolling straight down towards the pond.

  Balthazar’s eyes widened.

  “Bouldy, grab Blue ao safety,” he yelled to the golem oher shore.

  The crab looked back, first at the rapidly approag wave of destru, and then at his little tent.

  The statuette. If the dragon woke up, he’d still , if he was to have any hope of talking the beast out of destroying everything and everyone around them.

  With no time for thinking twice, the crab dashed for the tent.

  Throwing ptes of pie and pillows aside, he rushed for the hole underh the piece of wood that served as its lid.

  Rumbling and the sound of rocks spshing into the pond was growing louder from the outside, when suddenly the tent above Balthazar’s head vanished, dragged away by a rolling stohat barely missed him as it zipped by.

  With his the sb of driftwood, he looked up just as a piece of the broken mountaintop crashed against the acacia tree that stood in the middle of the islet.

  Like a cry of pain from the earth below, the old roots creaked as they were pulled out of the ground, the trunk snapping and toppling towards the crab.

  There was no time. All Balthazar could do was let go of the cover and try to run away from the falling tree.

  He had nearly made it to the edge of the water wheree trunk colpsed on the ground and caught his side, trapping four of his legs u.

  “Argh!” he yelled as the impact smmed his shell down.

  The force of the blow khe holding his moo his shell loose, and it went flying off his eye, before falling to the ground and shattering into tiny gss pieces.

  “No! My monocle!” he cried out, part of the pain in his voiing from his trapped legs, the other from the loss of his beloved tri.

  But he khere was no time to cry over spilled gss while rocks, dirt, and snow also spilled all around him as the front of the avanche tinued rushing down into the pond.

  He pulled, but his left legs were studer the massive trunk, which he had no hope of moving with his lowly 3 Strength. Maybe iing it all in Intelligence wasn’t the smartest choice after all.

  “Balthazar!” a girl’s voice called, sparking hope in his shell.

  Madeleine and Rye rushed to the crab’s sides, quickly grabbing his shell and trying to pull him out.

  “Ah! Yoing to rip my legs off!” Balthazar howled as the pain surged through him.

  “We o lift the trunk to free his legs,” Rye quickly said.

  The baker nodded and without a sed to waste, they both gripped the underside of the tree and put all their strength into lifting it, but the tree was too big and heavy to budge.

  The rumbling grew even louder as the mountainside swallowed part of the pond’s water and tinued crumbling down onto the islet, rge pieces of rocks flying over their heads as they ricocheted off the floor.

  That was when a boulder, easily three times as big as the one Bouldy formed from, rolled past the trio and the tree, through the water, and stopped only at the gazebo housing the bazaar. The wooden pilrs snapped, and the west side of the roof, already damaged from the holes in it, colpsed on itself.

  Balthazar panicked. “Blue and Druma, where are they?!”

  His monocle was gone, but the system's status s was in his eyes, not the lens.

  Fetting everything else happening around him for a moment, he brought the party s up.

  [Party Members]

  [Name: Druma] [Race: Goblin] [Css: None] [Level: 3]

  [Health: 60/60]

  [Attributes]

  [Strength: 2] [Agility: 4] [Intelligence: 2]

  [Name: Bouldy] [Race: Stone Golem] [Css: None] [Level: 30]

  [Health: 498/500]

  [Attributes]

  [Strength: 40] [Agility: 3] [Intelligence: 1]

  [Name: Blue] [Race: Drake] [Css: None] [Level: 16]

  [Health: 55/150]

  [Attributes]

  [Strength: 8] [Agility: 22] [Intelligence: 5]

  “Bouldy took them to the road while we came back for you, don’t worry,” Madeleiold him.

  Balthazar wao breathe a sigh of relief, but the pain from his legs quickly reminded him why he couldn’t.

  As did the avanche, growing closer to them.

  The water had absorbed all it could, but the mudslide tinued, having nearly covered the islet in rocks and dispced dirt.

  The crab looked further up and, to his horror, he saw an even bigger boulder rolling downhill, straight for them.

  He tried pulling again, but with the same results: more pain and no budging.

  “Madeleine, Rye,” he hastily said, in a faltering voice. “You two o get away now. Don’t get crushed because of me.”

  The young humans gnced back at the rapidly approag avanche and then at one another.

  “We’re not leaving you behind, Balthazar,” said the baker. “That’s not what friends do.”

  “That’s right. We just o get some leverage on this trunk,” Rye said as he picked up a broken tree brand started f it betweeree and the ground.

  The pair tinued desperately trying to free Balthazar as the crab watched helplessly, uo find a single word to say.

  It was too te. The rushing rocks were desding upon them and they would have no time to get out of their path.

  Balthazar shut his eyes and cursed himself fetting them in that situation. If it wasn’t for his greed, none of that would have happened.

  It was all his fault, and he wished no one else had to pay the price.

  The ground was shaking, and even through his closed eyes, he could tell by the sudden disappearance of light that the boulder was right above and about to bury them.

  “I’m sorry…”

  The sound of stone colliding with stone came from above and Balthazar opened his eyes, surprised by the ck of a crushing feeling in his shell.

  Crab, baker, and ranger were all c uhe shadow of the boulder.

  The living boulder.

  Dirt, rocks, and snow spilled over the sides as the golem pushed against the rolling storaining to hold back the tide as his feet sunk deeper into the ground, his torso and arms like a roof shielding the trio below him.

  “Bouldy…” Balthazar muttered, his eyes watery as he gazed up at his panion.

  “e on, help me, Madeleine. We don’t have much time!” Rye excimed.

  The baker grabbed another brand started leveraging the tree trunk from her side as well.

  “It’s ing loose!”

  “I got him!” said Rye, letting go of his tree brand pulling Balthazar’s legs free.

  Falling to the side, the crab looked up at the golem.

  The struct looked down, his neck straining to turn as his whole body trembled uhe pressure he was under. Still, his eyes smiled at seeing his friend freed.

  Balthazar’s gaze drifted to his chest. The crack was even deeper now, and he could tell the golem was in pain from it.

  “e on, we o get away!” the adventurer shouted as he and Madeleine dragged the crab across what remained of the wooden bridge, his left legs too broken and limp to walk on his own.

  “No, wait!” Balthazar pleaded.

  The crab struggled and fought as the two humans pulled him to the other shore, near where the unscious dragon was.

  Debris piled on behind the snowy stone, increasing the weight on Bouldy’s shoulders as he tried to turn his body slowly.

  “Bouldy!” the distraught crab called out.

  The stone giant turned his face to them, his arms and legs bug uhe pressure, uo push it away, and he smiled as a strained word came out of his mouth.

  “Friends.”

  His arms and legs finally gave in uhe weight of the ndslide’s pressure oone above. The fissure in his chest split in two and his torso colpsed on itself.

  Rocks and snow spilled over the sides as the golem shattered and disappeared uhe avanche.