Jack stood proudly with his fists on his waist in front of the crowd of adventurers, wearing nothing but his loincloth and horned helmet, heavy sword still strapped to his back, smirking at the befuddled mert.

  “What are you guys doing here?!”

  “We heard our favorite crab was going away on a trip, and we agreed we couldn’t just let him leave without giving a proper send-off with a party!”

  “A… party?” Balthazar repeated. “You all came dowo throw me a party? Why?”

  “What do you mean, why?” Leah said, stepping forward from the crowd and standihtly dressed friend. “You’ve more than earned ratitude, Balthazar. Believe it or not, despite your ky attitude, we all kind of like your crabby ways, and after the dragon disaster, there are many of us who may very well not have been here anymore if it wasn’t for you stepping up to help amid the chaos.”

  The crab stared at them with an expression of someone who couldn’t uand what he was being told.

  “I might have been one of those!” Jack added, tapping on his iro with his knuckles. “This helmet and the fire resistaions you provided saved my skin that day. Locals might look at adventurers like heroes, but to us, right now, we see you as the hero, crab.”

  The crowd of adventurers behind them hollered and nodded in agreement. Some even cpped at the naked swordsman’s words.

  Balthazar experienced, once again, the unfortable feeling of embarrassment that he could not uand. He should be pleased with the adventurers reizing his invaluable qualities for once, yet, now that they did, he just wao ge the subject.

  Were this any other crab, one might cim he was feeling humbled, but Balthazar was not one for such silly emotions.

  “Hey, wait a moment,” the embarrassed crusta suddenly said. “How did you guys know I was leaving? I told no oil…”

  The crab’s eye stalks frowned, and he made a sched-up face as he turo look at Druma, who eeking from behind the bazaar’s door frame.

  “You little…” Balthazar muttered, as the goblin’s ears twitched from the crab’s gre and he disappeared ih the sound of sppi hurriedly running away into the distance.

  “So,” a tall and muscur warrior said as he stepped forward and pced a rge keg on the ground with a loud thud, “we go in and start drinking, or will we let the ale go sour waiting out here?”

  Balthazar exhaled sharply, in a way that tried to vey far more annoyahan what he was really feeling.

  “They came all this way for you,” said Hea from behind him. “You ’t just send them back, Balthazar. That would be rude.”

  “Yes, partner,” Tristan added. “If you’re leaving, at least let’s enjoy o celebration together before you go. e on, I haven’t had a good party in ages!”

  “Fine!” Balthazar excimed, throwing his pincers up ie. “There’s not much roof left, but you guys are wele inside. Just don’t expey free appetizers!”

  The adventurers cheered loudly and all at once began moving down into the remnants of the gazebo, some carrying kegs uheir arms, others rolling barrels as they went, and many even bringing their own tankards.

  ***

  Night had barely started, and the adventurers had already made themselves at home in the short time sihey had arrived.

  A handful of them had brought instruments and were pying for everyone else. A girl passionately pyed her lute as she sang, while two boys sat side by side behind her, each pying their own drums in what seemed like a friendly petition, their rhythm growing faster with each song, sweat rolling down their foreheads as they g one another, but still smiling like they were having the time of their lives.

  The fire pit roared with crag fmes, fueled by the huge amount of lumber a pair of axe wielding warriors brought bace Leah asked if anyone would voluo go to the edge of the Dark Forest and collee firewood.

  Adventurers filled the bazaar all around the fire, singing along, dang, or simply chatting with each other, tankards in hand, enjoying the ales being poured out of the many kegs and barrels they had brought along.

  Behind his ter, Balthazar observed the se, a p gaze in his eyes, lost in thought.

  So many adventurers filling his home, being loud, drinking and likely making a mess that they would surely not help up ter. They weren’t eveo buy or sell anythiher.

  The crab should be beyond a su e.

  A, instead, Balthazar had a faint smile on his face.

  The joy and happiness filling the room, the good spirits and cheering, the singing and dang, all of it felt worth it all to him at that moment.

  He could have never expected the day where he would feel like that about a rge crowd of loud adventurers, but then again, there had been so mahings he had not expected tely that it was hardly fazing him anymore.

  He just wao absorb the moment while it sted, before embarking on his own adventure.

  Who would have imagihere were more things worth appreciating in life beyond gold and pastries.

  “Heeey, partner!” Tristan cheerfully called, as he joihe crab and ed an arm over his shell. “Enjoying the celebration?”

  “Sure, but not as much as you, it seems,” Balthazar said, befng at the brown cup the other mert was holding.

  “Ah, don’t worry,” said Tristan, following the crab’s gaze and tipping the cup slightly to show its tents. “It’s just lemonade. I swear I’m still stig to my promise. I ’t let you or Hea down!”

  “Heh, good,” Balthazar said with a light chuckle. “Just go easy on the lemonade. I don’t ootted flowers around here, but I still don’t want any acts.”

  The ma out a slightly nervous ugh before rejoining the crowd again.

  Meanwhile, the crab decided to take a walk around his pd see the sights.

  Off to one er, he saw John sitting at a table with an old chubby wizard and one of the rge warriors who had brought wood for the fire. They were all in a good mood, talking away and ughing at each other’s stories as they drank and the carpenter smoked his pipe.

  By the fire, Balthazar spotted Druma, a huge grin on his face as he hopped from side to side, dang with a rose-cheeked female adventurer who seemed to be quite amused by the goblin’s dance moves as she danced along, swayiankard wildly bad forth and spilling ale everywhere as everyone around ughed and cpped to the music.

  W what she would be up to, the crab looked around for Blue. Finally he spotted her on her favorite cushiohe edge of the fire pit, surrounded by five adventurer girls, all fasated by the blue-scaled creature, sitting by her side, petting her and swooning over her intense golden eyes.

  Balthazar would have expected the drake to hate the whole thing and growl or even snap at them, but surprisingly, she had a zy smug expression and seemed to love the attention and pampering.

  “Hah, look at you, you little diva,” the crab muttered to himself with a chuckle.

  “Hey, there he is, the crab of the moment!” a jolly Jack excimed, approag Balthazar with a rge mug in hand and Leah by his side.

  “Don’t mind him, he’s not very good at holding his drink,” the female fighter remarked. “That’s only his sed ale of the night.”

  “Hey, why you gotta embarrass me, Leah? You’re not my mom!”

  “So, we heard you were going on a trip, but not where,” she tinued, ign her tipsy panion. “What are you pnning? Going to bee a traveling mert crab now?”

  “Hah! Not a bad idea, but ly my aim,” Balthazar responded. “I’m actually pnning on finding a certain dragon’s ir.”

  “Really?” Jack said, spinning around to face the crab and nearly tripping on his ow. “You? Going out there looking for a dragon? ook you for the type.”

  “Ah, I think I get it,” said Leah, once again ign Jack’s inebriated snickering. “Yoing after your baker friend, aren’t you?”

  Balthazar gave her a brief nod.

  “You’re in luck, pal!” the young swordsman interjected. “We are going to look for it too, so you got nothing to fear, so long as we find it first.”

  The adventurer clumsily reached for his sword over his shoulder, failing to grasp at anything but air twice.

  “Jack, please, we not do the theatrics tonight?” his panion said with a tired sigh. “Look, my tankard is empty, and so is yours. I think you should find us a refill, no?”

  Tipping his tankard upside down, Jack frow the apparently surprisiion that it was indeed empty.

  The young adveumbled off to some nearby shelves, searg for something. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have some more of those feathery potions around here, would you?”

  “Nobody really seems to know where the dragon came from yet,” Leah tiurnitention back to Balthazar, “but with half the adventurers in the ti searg for that big bastard, it will just be a matter of time until someone finds it, and ohey do, it will be like a gold rush to see who gets to sy it first. I re that wherever you go, if you keep your ears near any adventurers, news will spread pretty fast on the dragon’s whereabouts.”

  “Good point. Thanks,” the crab said with a nod of agreement.

  They both turned as Jack loudly stumbled over a pile of wood and held on to a shelf.

  “Well, hello there,” he said, struggling to stand back straight as he pulled a dusty bottle from the back of the shelf. “What have we got here?”

  He wiped the side of the gss and squi the bel.

  “Ba… bar…” he mouthed. “Baba… rum… Babaurhum?”

  With a mix of fusion and curiosity on his face, the young man pulled oop of the bottle to uncork it.

  “Brgh!” he retched after taking a quiiff at the liquid inside. “It smells foul!”

  “You really carry all the smarts betweewo of you, don’t you?” Balthazar jokingly said to the girl while Jack hurriedly put the cork ba aurhe bottle to where he had found it.

  “Oh, goodness, don’t eve me started,” she responded with a tired chuckle. “I swear he would have died crushed under his own sword long ago if I didn’t keep an eye on him all the time.”

  Balthazar ughed too. “I believe it. And what’s with that old helmet I let him have during the dragon attack? That thing is plete junk. Why hasn’t he thrown it away yet? Did he get overly attached to it too, like with the sword?”

  “ly,” Leah said with a roll of her eyes. “At least not by choice. Remember how he bumped his head on some rocks when the dragon shot that fireball? Well, ter wheried to pull the helmet off to check his head, it wouldn’t e off! It’s dented on the front and stuck, and he now decided it’s some kind of sign that it’s going to be his legendary helmet, but really, I know he’s just being a big baby and doesn’t want to pull it out because it hurts wheries.”

  “Seriously?!” The crab stifled his ughter for a moment, before bursting out ughing at the revetion.

  “Hey, Leah!” Jack called from the ter of the room. “Thunk’s here too!”

  Behind the loincloth-wearing swordsman was a much rger figure of a woman in barbarian garments, a rge keg in each of her hands, raised high as she let out a loud grunt of celebration and ale rained down on the smiling farmer boy standing under her.

  Leah sighed and shook her head gently. “I should get back before he does something stupid.”

  Balthazar nodded a her take her leave as he stayed behind, watg the merry adventurers from the side.

  As the fmes of the fire pit danced uhe night sky, so did the visitors, their singing and cheering carried away by the chilly breeze along with the flying embers.

  While his heart still ached for those that were missing from that night, a part of him also felt a f joy he was not yet used to.

  Things were nht yet, but they were going to be. He just k.

  The crab ehe celebrations as the night went on, partaking in the lemonade drinking and story sharing here and there, but staying away from the dang. There were some lines he would still not cross.

  Long as the night went, it felt like a fleeting moment to the crab that tried to drink in as much of it as he could.

  There was no telling when he would be back, and as strange as it was to him, he realized now that he would miss it.