Headstrong as Balthazar was, the fact remaihat he was bound to his little pond, his home and shelter, his beloved territory, but now also a prison. As much as the crab tried to disregard that fact, reminders of the bigger picture at hand tio emerge.

  One key pyer in this whole chessboard where the crab was both king and pawn (but never prawn), was Ruby, the elusive entress.

  Mysterious and cryptic, this adventurer was not like the others, and her first and so far only enter with Balthazar left him with few answers and even more questions.

  “You know more than you should, don’t you?” said the woman to the crab.

  “Sounds to me like maybe you’re the one looking to know more than you should,” the crab retorted with defiance. If she was going to press him for information, he was going to do the same to her. Or at the very least attempt to.

  Her eyebrows rose.

  “Maybe we have something in on there.” A hint of a smile appeared on the er of her lips. “Tell me, what do you know about adventurers?”

  “I know most of you are a pain in my backside all day. Why?”

  Balthazar would e to learn that adventurers did not just stand out from all the locals because they were mostly, well… idiots, but also because they were, in faot from that world.

  The most intriguing aspect, however, was that not even they seemed fully aware of that fact, or worse, how they came to be in that pce. As if due to some strange mental haze, eae of them was happily frolig about, doing quests, looting, and being a general nuisance while pletely ign the rge k of their own memory that was missing.

  One could almost feel sorry for them. Key word being almost. Balthazar wasn’t feeling that generous quite yet.

  But Ruby was an exception. She did not seem entirely affected by this supposed mind haze. She was much more aware of the ruse at hand, and seemed to be on a mission to lift the veil and reveal what was really going on in the world, who was behind the whole scheme, and why did it matter so much that adventurers leveled up.

  All of that was well and good, perhaps it would even make good material for some story book that Balthazar would never bother reading, because industrious crabs like him have no time for silly fantasy tales like that, but what the crusta failed to see was what any of it had to do with him, or why should he care.

  Little did he know, he was at the very ter of it all sihe day he touched what he shouldn’t and forever messed with the natural order of things.

  That order being that crabs should stay in their ponds, ping fish away for breakfast and making bubbles, not developing speech skills, leveling up, and making a mess through their mertile shenanigans.

  And his misadventures had not gone pletely unnoticed by the powers that be, as he would one day learn.

  “You really don’t uand,” Ruby said to him. “Part of you is still ging to the fort of your routihe safety of stig to your assigned role. You ot ig forever. The question is there, eventually you will want aoo. If only—”

  She paused, her eyes looking up at the sky, where a flock of birds assing.

  Balthazar followed her gaze, and saw a handful of the pesky creatures breaking away from the group and perg themselves up on the branches of his tree, looking in their dire.

  “Stupid little pests!” the crab pined, attempting to shoo the creatures away with a towel in his pincer.

  “Yes, an annoyance, indeed,” the entress said, her eyes still fixed on the birds.

  Suddenly, she leaned down very close to the crab's fad spoke in a quid hushed tone. “Be mindful of whom you discuss these things with. You ot be sure if they are friend or foe, and even if the former, simply making them aware of more than they are supposed to know could put them i danger.”

  As quickly as she leaned, she returo her straight posture and ged demeanor back to an indifferent tone.

  “It would seem you’re too preoccupied at the moment, and my time is also scarce. I truly wish you will e around regarding what we’ve discussed, and that perhaps ime we meet, it shall be under mreeable circumstances. Farewell.”

  As much as Balthazar just wao be left to his own little bubble of the world, colleg his aing his pastries, trouble just seemed to follow him. Which wasn’t too difficult, given how he was always in the same pce.

  A pce which, despite all the friends and acquaintances he had made over the passing months, was still being too much for a sole crab to handle alone.

  Prideful as he was, the crab would still sooner or ter have to cede to the idea that others were a necessary annoyance.

  Luckily for him, those annoyances came in the form of a town drunk and a toad.

  One came stumbling down the road into the crab’s life one sunny day, down on his lud up on his cups. After much fusion and drunken rambling, Balthazar came to learn this seemingly drunk fool was Tristan, Antoine’s former business partner, whom the now guildmaster had betrayed in order to rise in Ardville’s rankings.

  Never oo waste an opportunity that rolls onto his doorstep, the crusta saw in this the potential to hit back at his nemesis. What he did not expect to find was that, underh all the slurred speed bad breath, the disgraced mert was actually a petent and charming worker who could get a job done when given the ce.

  Relut as Balthazar was at first, Tristan would turn out to be the best business partner a crab could hope for, and it would teach a valuable lesson on helping others when they’re down, because gratitude sometimes get you what no amount of could ever buy.

  And if there’s something the crab valued, it was something that saved him some .

  The other one was Hea, a toad that one day appeared out of nowhere oher side of the road, setting up her own stall to sell goods to passing adventurers.

  Naturally, this touched a h Balthazar, in what would certainly prove not his fi hour.

  Blinded by anger and envy at seeing his precious busihreatened by aalking animal, the crab began taking more and more drastic measures to rid himself of the petition, going down a slippery slope that could easily nd him right o the likes of Antoi the very bottom of the barrel of morals.

  Thankfully, Balthazar already had what the mustached mert from Ardville cked: friends who cared enough to pull him back from the fine line his eight legs were toeing.

  Finally ing to his senses after learning Hea’s story, Balthazar chose to bury the hatchet aend a helping cw to her instead.

  As it turned out, she was yet another victim of Antoine’s foul deeds. Once a regur human dy, the owner of an inn in town dared to say no to a busiakeover from the guildmaster, and ever the bitter loser, the fiend hired a certain witch by the name of Velvet to curse the woman into being a toad. Imprisoned by Antoine and forced to do his bidding if she ever wao return to her former self, Hea had long since lost hope of being helped, until Tristan and Balthazar showed her that she was not alone, and that together they could stand against their on enemy.

  With both his business and circle of allies growing, but also his enemies, Balthazar finally decided to embrace his new role in the world and bring those he trusted most together around a table.

  With the obligatory pie at its ter, Balthazar sat down with his baker and her archer, his two new business partners, his trusty carpehe representatives of the ord lizardfolk tribes, the skeleton mert from Tudor’s Hall, and even the sneaky thief from town that worked as his informant now.

  After much discussion, what would e to be known as The Pie cil was formed, and pns were drawn to expand the crab’s business into a full bazaar and market point, all while keeping everyone’s guard up for the adversities that would no doubt e knog at their doors.

  And knog they came.

  One dark day, in dark clothing and dark sembnce, a dark mage appeared at the crab’s home with even darker iions.

  Looking not for items or business, the silver-haired vilin was the very same that once kept Druma in s, now hired ao put ao the crab by the coward Antoine, who had grown desperate to rid himself of the rising star stealing his thunder.

  And thunder was what echoed through the once calm pond, as the mage rained lightning and dark magic upon the retly finished bazaar, breaking wood and dreams as the crusta ducked for cover and called on his panions for aid.

  Bouldy, ever the brave protector, ran to his friend’s defense, but was quickly put out of the fight by the ing spellcaster. Blue, too prideful to allow anyone who wasn’t her to give the crab any trouble, jumped into the fray, but powerful as she was growing, the drake was still no match for the oppohey were being faced with, and she was badly wounded in their short frontation.

  Out of options or hope, Balthazar watched as his home was wrecked, uo put a stop to the rampage, and knowing that he would be .

  But there was one more friend, one unassuming goblin no one would expect to ever be able to save the day, but that, seeing the man who oormented him threatening to harm his boss, turned all his fear into bravery, his doubts into certainty, his weakness into his resolve, and putting on his oversized wizard hat, stood up to the evil mage.

  Met with ughter by the arrogant human, Druma took his shot.

  “You leave Druma’s boss alone!”

  The crab, the golem, the drake, even the mage himself, could only stare in awe as the runes carved on the wooden staff began glowing and, in a split sed, a beam ht green magic shot out of the diamond shaped crystal at its tip.

  Wielding the unassuming staff Tweedus had given him, the goblin struck his former ensver with a devastating bst of raw magic, leaving the crab in shock, and the human in ashes.

  The silver lining after the silver-haired man’s attack was that, at least, it finally led to Antoine’s fall, as his manic outburst outside the bazaar after seeing his pns thwarted once again exposed his deeds to the mayor’s right-hand, Abernathy, who promptly had him thrown into a jail cell.

  The bazaar was a mess, but Balthazar was just gd all his friends were safe, for he had finally started learning that happiness does not e purely from material things.

  That, however, did not mean the crusta had grown pletely immuo the allure of gold and shiny things.

  A stranger, face hidden and given, had e by the bazaar oeful afternoon, ed in s and covered in bandages. Balthazar could have easily taken him for a beggar or someo worth trading with, but wherange figure presented him with a massive golden statuette, the crab’s instincts kicked in, and he knew he o have it to go along with his colle of golden s.

  The straold the mert a tale about where the treasure had e from, that it used to belong to a dragon’s hoard, and plenty more that Balthazar, ever the astute observer, reized as likely being a made up story like the ones he’d so often tell his ers. It mattered not, so long as he got his cws on the shiem.

  And so he did. The stranger left with his supplies, and the crab kept the statuette.

  If only Balthazar had known the regret this trade would bring him…

  Still reeling from the atta his home, there was no time to even rebuild before an even bigger threat than the dark mage arrived at the pond.

  A red dragon, huge and powerful, flew above the town and then the pond, threatening any and all who watched from below, as it demas treasure be brought to it, along with the one who stole it.

  Ardville guards came and quickly fell, a mob of adventurers rushed at the beast only to be beaten back, and the dragon remained unharmed.

  “You,” the dragon’s voice echoed ihe bazaar. “The thief I seek was here. I still feel his faint smell from your shack.”

  “Did that big lizard just call my pce a shack?!” the ed crab said.

  Balthazar soon realized what had brought the beast to those nds, the golden statuette he had traded, but it was all too te. The creature’s rage could not be satisfied by words, not even the golden, honeyed words of the master iator in a golden shell. The dragon wanted payback, and nothing short of devastatiru seemed like it would suffice.

  With everyone around him beaten, the crab saw the end ing. He had avoided taxes, but not death, it seemed.

  Between a rod a hard pce, it would be the rock who would save him.

  With one mighty punch that cracked his ow, the golem bodyguard mao knock out the red dragon as it unleashed its fire upon the crab, but in doing so, it set in motion an even bigger disaster.

  Rolling down the mountaihe pond was an avariggered by the impact of the fireball, and heading straight for the bazaar and its owner.

  Risking it all to save their friend, even Madeleine and Rye came to his aid, and when all seemed over for them, Bouldy made one more bold move that would be his st.

  Holding back the uing tide of rocks, mud, and debris, Balthazar’s first a friend shielded the trio just long enough for them to make it to safety, before the avanche overpowered him and the fissure in his chest fully broke as he gazed at them with one final smile.

  “Friends,” uttered the golem with the st of his strength, before disappearing uhe crumbling wreckage.

  This moment cracked Balthazar’s once imperable carapace, and he felt real grief like he hadn’t really known so far.

  But misfortunes never e singly, and before the dust had eveled, the slumbering dragon awakened, even more determio put ao the crab who dared stand in its way.

  All seemed lost, but bravery blossomed easily around the waters of that pond, and this time it was Madeleiurn to say enough to it all.

  Standiween the dragon and the crab, she pleaded with all her heart for mercy for her friend, and whether by the purity of her as, or purely by the dragon’s greed, the creature took the girl’s offer of self-sacrifice as a deal, and fleith her in its clutches, to bee part of his hoard as pensation for the lost piece, one golden statuette of a girl repced by a girl with a golde.

  Uo do anything, the wounded crab and the archer watched powerless as the baker kicked and screamed into the suo parts unknown.

  In one single day, Balthazar lost two of the most important people in his life, and as far as he saw it, it was all his fault.

  The crab that started as a loner who believed he needed no one else in his life and that others were little more than nuisances was now broken, ay golden shell of his former self.

  And when Balthazar thought his woes could not get worse, the ultimate insult appeared: a bird.

  But this was not just any bird, showing up to annoy the crab or steal his food. This one did something he could never expect. It spoke to him.

  Which shouldn’t be that surprising to a talking crab, but it seems irony was not his biggest focus at that point.

  Finding himself suddenly rooted in pce by some unseen force, Balthazar learhat this crow was somehow part of the group responsible for “managing” the world he knew, and to them, the crab had finally crossed the lio being a threat to their pns and o be dealt with.

  Apparently seen as some kind of anomaly, Balthazar was stripped of his unintended system access by the bird a with just a modicum of his abilities, as if some act of twisted mer for having bee such a beloved “attra” to the locals and adventurers.

  A lesser crab might have taken this as the final straw that broke his will, but not our mert. Balthazar, perhaps ignited by his lifelong hatred for birds, swore on that night, as the crow flew away, that he would take everything he lost back.

  Done wallowing in self-pity, the no lolden crab—as the devious bird had takehat from him—set out to put together a pn of a.

  However, no pn would be of any good so long as he was still stuck to that pond, uo leave. But Balthazar knew something was different, that something had ged on the night the bird went poking in his mind and scrubbed him of any access to the system.

  Something else was taken away with it, and when the crab put it to the test, he firmed what he already suspected: whatever bound him to that area was gone.

  Whether it was really the system’s influence or simply some other mental barrier in his mind, we may never know, but for the first time in a long while, Balthazar felt hopeful.

  And so he prepared.

  Leaving his precious bazaar in the hands of Hea and Tristan, and joining Rye, the mert finally set out to the road, determio do everything he could not before.

  Rescue Madeleine from the dragon’s ir.

  Find a way t Bouldy’s core back to life.

  Search for a way to reverse Hea’s curse.

  Get his system back from the damnable bird.

  Meet Ruby and learn ond for all the truth behind his world.

  And of course, eat pie and make money.

  Because no matter what happened, Balthazar was, and would always be, a mert crab.

  ***

  But before the now traveling mert could go far, he would o go somewhere much closer.

  Ardville, the town that had always been a stohrow away from his pond but that he had not yet visited, would be the first stop on his journey.

  “Alright, you guys wait here and keep watch while we’re up there,” Balthazar said to Druma and Blue, as they settled down uhe shade of a small hill by the road. “I promise we won’t be long.”

  As the crab and the archer walked up to the town gates, Balthazar could feel a bubbling feeling growing in his stomach. Either nerves or simply hunger, he chose to just ig and focus oing inside before his will to go in escaped him.

  But as they approached the gate, that task proved not as easy as they expected.

  “Hold it right there!” a town guardsman yelled as he rushed forward and pced the tip of his sharp spear in front of the crab’s face. “Not aep, monster!”