The raised floor cobblestone sunk down with a click, and a tiny meical meism snapped in pder the mage’s heel, triggering several gears, which pulled on tripwires, whi turn activated rows of pulleys, causing a fake ground pte to move.

  It took a split sed for the realization to hit Reagan, but by then it was too te.

  “You should watch where you step,” said Balthazar, bag away from the man.

  The trapped floor opened up uhe ancer, and gravity called on him to obey its pull.

  Filing his arms ament sleeves around in a fruitless attempt at spontaneously being a flying adventurer, Reagan’s expression of surprise and horror tumbled backwards as he fell into the dark pit.

  “Noooooo!”

  The crab stood over the open well for a moment, staring down into its abyss.

  “How e I didn’t even hear him—”

  A sudden thump echoed from the pit, startling the mert.

  “Oof, never mind.”

  The trap meism unwound itself with several clicks, and with a final snap, the trigger reset back to how it was moments before, leaving no trace of what had just happened.

  Just as Balthazar turned away from the retly covered hole, a sharp itch struck the back of his shell. “Ow!”

  In just a few seds, the thick yer of bck bark c the crab’s body cracked and crumbled into dust that disappeared before it even reached the floor.

  The now gray again crusta moved his eyestalks around to look at himself.

  “Huh, looks like imbuing really doesn’t stay permaly anymore. Shame.”

  [Adventurer sin]

  [You have reached level 18!]

  Already? I guess even at 50%, the experience from beating a level 30 while at 17 is still a lot. Or was it because I mao pass his dialogue check too? Hmm…

  A low rumbling made the cobblestones under Balthazar’s feet vibrate as he heard several hurried footsteps approag from both ends of the room.

  Great. What now?!

  Both the door leading into the chamber and the one leading out of it smmed open with a kick, and several spooky skeletons rushed into the room, wearing decrepit armor and brandishing rusty ons as they yelled loudly.

  “Oh, it’s you guys,” the crab said casually.

  The bone mob slowed down and came to a full stop as they found no one else there but Balthazar and Jim’s ice sculpture.

  Tom, who came in leading the charge from one of the doors with his walking stick held high in one hand and Sal’s skull iher, stood in front of his group with a fused expression.

  “Yetting pretty good at doing this,” said Balthazar.

  “Doing what?” said the bewildered skeleton.

  “Arriving just a moment too te,” the crab said with a chuckle.

  “The hell happened?!” asked the bearded skull in Tom’s hand.

  “I took care of your adventurer problem. Jim might need a b or two now, though.”

  The dungeon’s mert stared at the block of crystal ig the unclothed skeleton while slowly shaking his head. “I told him he’d catch a cold one day if he kept running around naked like that.”

  He turo the group of skeletons behind him. “Hey, Tim, go get some torches, will ya? We gotta defrost Jim’s chi bones again.”

  Balthazar stepped o Tom. “Don’t be too harsh on Jim. He did try to save me, and bought me enough time to e up with a pn.”

  “What happeo the advehat came down here anyway?” asked the skeleton. “Don’t tell me you ate them?”

  “No, of course I didn’t—Why would that even be your first thought?!” asked the baffled crab.

  Tom shrugged.

  “No, I ended up fronting the ancer directly,” Balthazar tinued. “After Jim kept him busy for long enough, I got lucky and mao find… an advahen I just had to be ving enough to sell him on the idea that this dungeon wasn’t as easy as he thought, that I was some kind of miniboss, and that an army of skeletons was ing to feed him to a giant slime. So, you know, slightly enharue facts.”

  Tom looked at the crab while shaking his head slowly, a surprised and amazed expression all over his face bones. “You sure are quite the talking crab, aren’t you? Where is he now, though? Don’t tell me you…”

  The skeleton ran a finger across his throat. Or at least where one would be, if he still had any flesh and muscle.

  “No, I didn’t y a pincer on him. He did it all to himself. He stepped on that floor trap over there. I merely had to make him scared enough tet his own dirty trick.”

  “Ah, good old hole traps!” said Sal. “Some of my favorites. No matter how high the level, enough fall damage still do you in.”

  “Wait, what about the girl?” asked Tom. “What happeo her?”

  Balthazar’s mood turned slightly somber.

  “She was scared and just wao leave,” he said.

  “Ah, so you showed her the way out?” said the skeleton.

  “No, because the frosted douchebag wouldn’t let her go. His iion was to use her as a meat shield and trap bait so he could get easy loot. When she refused, he triggered a trap a her down the chute like discarded garbage.”

  “And then they say that we undead are the evil ones!” said the old skull with an upset rattle.

  Balthazar looked at the p the floor where Lisa had fallen.

  “Hey, Tom, how deep is the fall from here?”

  “From these traps?” the unliving mert said. “Hmm, pretty deep, several floors, at least.”

  “Do you think there’s any ce she’s still… you know…”

  “Alive? Nah, no way. Way too long of a drop for that.”

  “Oh…” said the pensive crab.

  “She’s definitely dead,” added Tom.

  “I see.”

  “Gohan Sal’s dang career.”

  “Alright, I got it, geez!” said Balthazar.

  “Ah, sorry, my bad,” the undead said. “I fet how unfortable you living ones be with death.”

  “Poor kid just didn’t deserve to be done in like that, that’s all,” the crusta said. “It wasn’t greed that brought her down here.”

  Tom tapped the crab’s shoulder gently. “Don’t worry, I’ll send Tim down there for her ter. If there’s ohing we know, is how to respect the dead. Would be strange if we didn’t!”

  Balthazar nodded quietly in appreciation.

  Of the rge group of skeletons that had barged into the room, some had her left, or were helping with defrosting Jim and ing the room.

  “Hey, crab,” said Tim from behind one of the stone coffins. “Is this yours?”

  Held up in his hand was a brown satchel, the ohat beloo the ancer, had been carried and dropped by the fallen girl, and from where Balthazar had retrieved the piece of Voidwood.

  “It is now,” he said, skittering towards the skeleton. “To the victo the spoils.”

  He took the bag and began rummaging through it with more proper care this time. It was no Backpack of Holding, so it had little space for items, and most of what the crab was finding inside was either useless trash, a few loose s, or half empty vials of potions.

  Bah, I was hoping for some more of that strange bark, but I guess I’ll have no such luck. I wonder how he got it…

  As he nearly gave up on the tents of the bag, Balthazar’s pincer grabbed something that made his eyestalks jump with i.

  He pulled his pincer out of the bag, holding a piece of rolled up part, which seemed to glow just for his eyes.

  Another Scroll of Potential!

  “Hey, Balthazar,” Tom called, approag from the other side of the room.

  “Yes?” said the crab, quickly stuffing the scroll in his pack for ter iion.

  “I almost fot, the boys ed the snot off the s and bagged them for you,” said the skeleton, tossing a rge purse at the crab.

  “Sweet,” the eight-legged mert said, while pocketing the moogether with his other s.

  [Bag of Holding Money: 12,512 s]

  “So, will you stay for the night?” asked Tom.

  “We ain’t got to offer, though,” said Sal. “On at of us being undead skeletons and all that.”

  “e on, Sal, have some manners!” grumbled the other skeleton. “I’m sure we could sge together some appetizers.”

  Balthazar recalled all the cockroaches and slugs he saw crawling around when he first ehe dungeon.

  “No, it’s fine, fels. I left Druma and Blue waiting for me outside, so I should probably get going anyway.”

  “Yht the little rascals along, and you didn’t eveion it?!” Tom said. “e on, I’ll show you the secret way out.”

  ***

  After saying goodbye to all the many skeletons of Tudor’s Hall, Balthazar was on the surface again, apanied by Tom and Sal—whose skull was now tied to the mert’s walking stick—making his way back to the road as the te afternoon sun bathed the forest in its faint e light.

  “So where will you go now?” asked the mert skeleton.

  “Not really sure,” answered the mert crab. “Probably o find Rye again, see if he mao track the whereabouts of the dragon.”

  “Ah, looking to rescue your baker friend, right?”

  “Yep.”

  Balthazar pondered on his options as they leisurely walked out of the crypt’s clearing and towards the main road.

  He had gotten his system access back, he had even started getting some skills, but he was still far from being fit to face off against a level 75 dragon. Not to mention he was still not any closer to uanding half of what was really happening around him, from the strange mind-wiped adventurers, to the mysterious birds that just swoop by and steal his system.

  He did have one lead on that, however.

  Reag into his backpack, Balthazar retrieved Ruby’s letter he had received before leaving the pond.

  “Hey, Tom, you wouldn’t happen to know where a town called dor is, would you?” the crab asked.

  The skeleton rubbed his chiseled jawline for a moment, thinking.

  “Hmm, dor… That doesn’t ring a bell, and I’ve been all over the nd,” he said.

  “dor?” said the skull hanging from Tom’s walking stick, where the firefly ntern usually was. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”

  “You know it?” asked the excited crab.

  “Well, I remember it, don’t think I ever visited,” Sal expined. “This was many moons ago, I might have even still had some meat on my bones back then!”

  “Could you tell me where it was?” Balthazar said, while pulling a map from his backpack.

  The crab spread the piece of part open on the ground, while Tom pced the skull on top of it.

  “Hmm, the nd looked so different back then,” the old-timer said as he looked around the map. “I don’t even know what half of these pces are now, but I’m pretty sure dor used to be somewhere around… there.”

  Balthazar stared at the map and then back at the skull sitting on top of it, like some kind of macabre paperweight. “Uh… where?”

  “Right there!” the old piece of bone said again.

  “You… you know we ’t see you pointing, right?”

  “Ah, fiddlesticks! Sorry, phantom limbs, I guess. Tom, pass me a stick or something, will ya?”

  The skeleton grabbed a small broken branch off the forest floor and ha to the skull, who took it between his teeth.

  “Itfs rifth fthere,” Sal said, maneuvering the stick with his mouth to point at ay clearing near some hills on the map, before spitting it out. “Or at least it used to be, ba the day.”

  “Well, it’s a start, at least,” said Balthazar, rolling the map bato his backpack. “Thanks.”

  After a few more steps through the woods, they arrived at a clearihe road, where they found Druma and Blue pying hacky sack while waiting for the crab.

  “Boss!” the goblin cheerfully greeted.

  “Hey there. I hope you two didn’t get up to any trouble while I was away, because I sure did.”

  After some more hellos and goodbyes, the trio was ba the road, waving back at Tom and Sal as they left.

  “Where boss go now?” asked the enthusiastic assistant.

  “Well, I’m thinking we head southeast, but I’d like to find Rye again first.” He turo the drake walking alongside them. “Hey, Blue, have you spotted any signs of Rye while I was away?”

  The winged creature shook her head.

  “Damn, it’s been a while, I wonder if he’s alright.”

  The sound of twigs breaking and shuffling bushes came from one side of the road, and the party froze in pce, Blue baring her fangs, Druma holding his staff, and Balthazar putting his pincers up.

  “Who goes there?” he asked loudly.

  A figure stepped out of the shadows of the forest trees, his clothes and armor dirty and messy, his blond hair and face covered in soot and ash, looking pletely exhausted.

  Balthazar frow the boy.

  “Rye?!”