The crab carefully pinched another from his ter and deposited it in his Bag of Holding Money. Business was goihat m. He had only sold a handful of his new potions, but so long as the money tinued flowing in, Balthazar would not pin.

  Or perhaps he would, but not more than the regur amount.

  Such as, for example, pining about all the advehat kept asking him if he had any potions with pumpkin fvor, or if his brews tained any spices. The fused crab had no idea what they were on about, but it was getting on his nerves.

  Taking a peek outside, Balthazar saw a mostly blue sky, a few white clouds passing in front of a shy yellow sun, its light barely warm through the chilly breeze blowing across the pins. Afternoon had just started, and the crab was already sideriing the fire pit going.

  “You look a bit nervous,” a croaking voice said behind Balthazar.

  “Me, nervous?” the crab said, turning to Hea. “Nah, just looking forward to getting this done as soon as possible.”

  “Shouldn’t be much loristan said they’d e down after lunch, right?”

  “Yes. Hopefully Abernathy gets a nid full stomach before we talk. I’m not ied in sharing my dessert with him again.”

  “Hospitality, Balthazar,” the toad said with a roll of her eyes. “You should learn its value.”

  “Sure, sure,” said the crab, with a dismissive wave of his cw. “I’ll remember that if I ever open an inn.”

  Shaking her head from side to side, Hea hopped away to the back of the bazaar, passing Druma as he approached Balthazar.

  “Where boss want Druma to put this?” the goblin asked, peeking from behind the rge wooden box he was carrying in his arms.

  “It doesn’t matter, just anywhere out of sight,” the mert replied.

  Tidying up to make his bazaar look more anized was yet ahing Balthazar disliked about the town officer’s visit, but as Madeleine so aptly told him, good impressions matter, and if he wao make a partnership proposal with a whole town, he’d better put in some effort.

  Or at least have his assistant do it for him.

  The crab gnced back at Druma as he waddled away with difficulty, carrying the box filled with random scrap and shoving it out of sight under a table. Little guy had been at it all m. Balthazar would have to remember to ask Madeleine for a shepherd’s pie ter. They were the goblin’s favorite, and he had earned ara rge one.

  Pointing his eye stalks fain, the impatient mert sighed as he gazed up the road outside.

  He k robably too early for them to arrive yet, but with nothing else to do, Balthazar found himself twiddling his pincers and stantly cheg the road in anticipation.

  If only he had some ts to keep him busy.

  “Aha! Ask and you shall receive,” he excimed, seeing the figure of an adventurer approach dowh to his front gate.

  Skittering his way to the entrahe crab held the door open to greet his er.

  “e on i’s get you something to spend your in, shall we?”

  The tall and straight figure stepped through the door without a word or hesitation. The man was bck all the way from his shiny, immacute boots to the finely crafted trilby hat atop his head. Balthazar squinted as he looked the adventurer up and down. He looked vaguely familiar, but the crab wasn’t sure why.

  “Buying or selling?” the mert asked, his voice crag slightly. Something about that man gave him an uneasy feeling.

  The pale man in dark clothes sed the room around him without a sound before his eyes nded on Balthazar. Two cold blue eyes that pierced right into his shell like icy daggers.

  He was sure he had met that man before at some point.

  “her,” said the visitor in a calcuted voice that was as cold as his gaze.

  Balthazar jumped i the sound of metal crashing against the wooden boards. Druma stood across the room, rooted in pce, an upside down box dropped in front of him, the many pieces of cutlery held i now strewn all over the floor.

  “Druma! What the hell?!” the startled crab excimed, but the goblin did not look at him. His face was turning a paler shade of green, and his eyes, shiny and dited, were fixed on the mao Balthazar.

  The feeling of unease ballooned in his stomach.

  Druma’s mouth trembled as he slowly raised a finger, poi the dark figure. “H-h-him…”

  Balthazar looked back at the man, who was taking his hat off, revealing a head of long silver hair tied into a ponytail.

  The crab’s eyes widened behind his monocle. He remembered.

  [Level 35 Dark Mage]

  The crab was usually terrible at remembering adventurers who came by his pond, but that one, even after so long, he could not fet. The rude, pompous attitude of that mage who passed by his pce with a small goblin sve following behind, carrying the man’s baggage on his back, all skin and bone, nothing but fear and sadness in his eyes. Balthazar remembered that all too well.

  “You’re not wele here,” the crab said, with a bitterness in his voice that went beyond his usual pt for some of the advehat visited him.

  “I was hired to deliver a message to you, crab,” the mage said as he calmly pced his hat on a nearby table.

  Balthazar frow the man, but said nothing.

  Seemingly unbothered by it, the silver-haired adventurer smirked and answered the unspokeion. “A message from yood friend Antoine.”

  Balthazar tensed up inside his shell. If he had a bad feeling before, now he knew for sure there was going to be trouble.

  “Mister Antoine says he is done pying games with you,” the man tinued, casually running a hand down his dark waistcoat thten it. “That you have been a stone in his shoe for too long, and that he’s had it trying to get rid of you the quiet way.”

  Balthazar took a tentative step back, eyes still fixed on the man.

  The dark mage flexed his fingers, making the bck leather of his gloves creak. “Now he just wants you to watch as your pce burns.”

  “Druma, run!” Balthazar shouted as he skittered away from the man as fast as his eight legs could carry him. What a terrible day he had picked to eat a sed serving of sponge cake.

  Gng back, all he had time to do was dive under a table as the mage raised his hands and lightning began crag between his fingers before shooting out towards the hanging nterns of the bazaar, spreading out like furious blue tendrils and blowing a hole in the wooden roof.

  Debris fell from above and the crab cowered uhe table, c the top of his shell with his pincers. Realizing how silly it was to be proteg his shell with his pincers, seeing as that was already the purpose of it, Balthazar brought his arms doeeked betweeable’s legs, looking for Druma.

  Thankfully, the small goblin had the same idea as him and took shelter under aable across the room.

  Electricity crackled again and a bright fsh of light shot above them, hitting a nearby shelf and making its tents explode into a shower of gss and broken pieces of wood.

  “You hide all you want, but make sure you watch, crab!” the man yelled with a disturbing satisfa in his voice.

  Waving a cw from under his table, Balthazar tried silently calling for his assistant’s attention, who raised his trembling head from between his knees and looked in his dire.

  Seeing no other way, as his sign nguage options were quite limited with no fingers, the crab tried mouthing some words to the goblin in as quiet of a whisper as he could.

  “Go get Bouldy!”

  Just as soon as Balthazar made his plea to Druma, and the goblin nodded his head affirmatively, two loud sounds broke out ht after the other.

  First, the sound of the wooden table splitting in two above his shell as the mage cracked it with anhtning spell, and then the loud crashing of a golem barging into the bazaar through the batrance.

  “Friend!” Bouldy yelled out as he appeared, his big orbs for eyes quickly going from the crab c between the remains of the shattered table and then to the dark mage standing a few paces away, with lightning arg between his fingers.

  “Ask and you shall receive,” Balthazar muttered to himself with a hopeful smile. All that loud otion the mage made alerted the golem, and with his bodyguard there, things were about to turn in their favor.

  “Bouldy, not friend! Not friend!! Smash!”

  The golem frowned with determination in his stony fad stepped forward.

  Without wasting a single breath, the silver-haired man jured anhtning attack, shooting it straight at the struct’s chest.

  Bouldy staggered briefly, but the attack did not stop him, merely boung harmlessly off his stone skin.

  “Hah! Bet yic doesn’t feel so great now that you met your match, huh?” Balthazar yelled out as he skittered out of the golem’s path and sought cover behind the bazaar’s ter.

  As he reached the mage, the giant boulder pulled his right arm back, charging a massive punch.

  In the blink of ahe man raised both of his hands open outwards, but this time, instead of electricity, a translut half bubble of a faint blue hue appeared in front of him, just in time to block the ining right hook from the golem.

  fused, Bouldy looked down at his own fist, stopped in pce by the mage’s shield spell, as the man himself stood behind it, straining to sustain it, but otherwise unharmed.

  “Crap!” said Balthazar, as he looked further around the ter, looking for Druma.

  Finding him still c uhe same table, the crab vigorously gestured for him to get away to safety. The goblin nodded and quickly ran out from under his shelter on all fours, squeezing out of the gazebh one of the gaps between the side rails of the bazaar.

  Just as Balthazar breathed a small sigh of relief after seeing one of his panio out of harm’s way, another shows up behind up, making him jump in pd nearly soil his shell.

  “Balthazar!” Hea croaked in a panic. “What in bzes is happening?!”

  “Oh, f out loud!” the startled crab excimed. “Hea, what are you doing here? ’t you see? There’s a deranged mage, apparently sent by our buddy Antoio destroy my humble abode!”

  They both peeked behind cover. The mage sent out what looked like a pulse of magic through his shielding spell, repelling golem’s fist and pushing him back a couple of steps.

  Balthazar turo the toad.

  “I’m hoping Bouldy still got this, but just in case, you o get out of here.”

  “What the hell, Balthazar!” the freaked out amphibian cried out.

  “No offense, but there’s not much you do other than risk being a casualty to a stray lightning or stony punch. Slip out back, run up to town, and find Tristan. He should be leaving town any moment now with Abernathy. Tell them Antoi a hired merary, get them to send help.”

  Hea opened her big mouth to protest, but this time it was Balthazar who gave her a scowl.

  “Go, now!”

  She twisted her mouth, but turned and started hopping away. “Be careful, Balthazar!”

  “Oh, yes, sure, thanks for reminding me. I was totally going to run out there and start fighting the lightning-shooting maniac myself if you hadn’t warned me,” the crab mumbled to himself as she disappeared through the back.

  Popping aalk over the ter again, Balthazar saw with great that Bouldy was not having much luck breaking through the evil adventurer’s magical defenses.

  Stumbling back as another of his punches ushed away by the mage, the golem barely had time to brapact before the man quickly took the opening to charge another spell, except this time his attack did not e from his hands.

  With the loud cp of thunder, a lightning strike desded from the sky, ripping ane hole through the roof and hitting the golem directly.

  Balthazar gulped a a trembling shiver run down his shell as he saw his friend being hit by the blinding ray of light.

  For a split sed, he was taken back to the memories of being a little crab during his first stormy season, reminded of how much he disliked the loud thuhat broke the skies all night long, and how he’d cower under his favorite boulder, taking cover from the relentless rain and scary lightning. That very same boulder that now fought to protect him.

  It weathered the storm stoically then, and it tinued doing so now too.

  Raising his head from between his arms, Bouldy reemerged from between the bck smoke being released by the charred wooden floor around his feet.

  “Yeah! Go, Bouldy!” Balthazar cheered loudly from behind the ter, pumping a closed pincer up in the air. “That stupid magic is no match for you!”

  As thrilled as he was to see his boulder unharmed, it still worried him how they were going to defeat their foe.

  If only they had someone else to help, but the only other card up his shell would be Blue, and as ever, she was o be found, likely out hunting for her lunch as usual, judging by the time of the day.

  Balthazar’s short-lived smile faded as a smirk formed on the dark mage’s face.

  “Do you really think I will be stopped by a dumb rock?” the man spat with disdain in his voice.

  Before Bouldy had time to finish taking aep towards him again, the mage waved his hands and whispered a few unintelligible words.

  First the golem stopped in pce, and then he suddenly started asding, being lifted off the floor like a plume in the wind.

  fused and unfamiliar with that strange feeling, Bouldy looked around helplessly, attempting to reach for the floor with his hands as he swiftly floated up and through the hole in the roof.

  Balthazar stared in shock as his friend slowly went up and away.

  “Damnable levitation!” he cursed. “I should have never given him that tome!”

  His attention was quickly brought back down by the sound of crag electricity.

  Bodyguard now out of his way, the silver-haired mage calmly walked towards the ter with evil i in his pierg eyes, both hands up in front of him, blue sparks shooting wildly from his fingers.

  “Where were we?”

  H0st