“Good day,” said Balthazar, standing behind the man as he rummaged through the tents of his cart.

  The traveler began turning. “Howdy there! What I help you with… today…”

  His words trailed off as he sed his surroundings with a fused frown, until his eyes lowered to the crab’s level, and he jumped iartled.

  “It’s you!” the man excimed.

  “Last I checked… yes, I am me,” Balthazar replied.

  “Hot damn! I knew I’d find you again some day!” the stranger said, smiling from ear to ear. “The famous mert crab!”

  Please don’t be another crazy fan. I swear, if this guy starts undoing his overalls and askio sign something, I’m going to start running and telling Blue to smoke him.

  “Have we met before?” the mert tentatively asked.

  “We sure did!” the other said. “I was too out of sorts back then to realize who you were until ter, but we met at a crossroads weeks ago. You were looking for dires to a dragon, I believe? You had a young man with you, blond, with a bow and arrow? Where is he anyway? Sold him already, I bet!”

  “Oh, Rye. No, we just… took different paths for the time being, that’s all,” the crab said, his eyes dropping to the ground for a moment before suddenly jumping back up in realization. “Hey, wait, you’re that guy that told us about the vilge being buro the ground by a dragon!”

  “Ah, ha ha, that’s it!”

  “Which turned out to be a lie, because there was non attack at all,” Balthazar said.

  The man’s smile dropped from his face like a rock thrown into a pond.

  “Instead, the fires started because some scammer drove through town g to be selling ‘smokeless’ torches that were actually just regur, very fmmable torches,” the crusta added.

  The traveler’s face was turning white as chalk and he gulped audibly. “That sounds awful. Who would do such a thing?”

  Balthazar crossed his arms. “Acc to the vilgers, some guy wearing a funny triangur hat and pulling a cart.”

  The incredibly i-looking man threw a gnce back at his cart and then quickly pulled the tri down from his head and held it against his chest, revealing a balding dome atop his head.

  “Couldn’t have been me,” he said, hung down meekly and speaking in a subdued tone. “I am but a humble trader. A supplier of fine goods. An ho mert, just like you! Triangles are just a very popur hat shape these days, I suppose.”

  The crab threw a disdainful gre at the human. “So you’re a mert too?”

  “You betcha! Allow me to introduce myself,” the other mert said, returning to his booming and well-pced tone of voice.

  In the blink of ahe wide smile returo the traveler’s face as he put his hat ba and stood with his back straight.

  “I am Mr. LaTan,” he said with great fir and a peculiar at. “But you call me by my first name, Charles, since we are among colleagues here. I am what I’d call a mert’s mert. A supplier of supplies.”

  “An annoying annoyance?” Balthazar grumbled.

  “I provide the firaders on the nd with a stock of vast and ureasures!” Charles tinued, either ign or not having noticed the crab’s ent under his own loud presentation. “If you ever came across a precious relic or outstanding item among the wares of a famous mert, ces are it has passed through my g hands before.”

  “Funny,” the crusta mert said, “because I never heard of you.”

  “Ah!” LaTan said, wagging a finger in front of the crab befrabbing the straps of his overalls with his thumbs. “But I have heard much about you, which is why I’ve been seeking you out, to introduce myself, so that we may begin a prosperous business partnership.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” Balthazar said, turning right to keep moving up the road. “I already have enough business partners.”

  “Wait!” excimed the man. “None like me, I assure you! My kind of business partnership would be as a supplier of unique wares to enrich your stock.”

  The crab stopped a out a long sigh. “Look, pal, I already get enough junk from adventurers as is. I don’t need some fancy talker pawning off his trash on me.”

  “Your words wound me, good sir!” the trader excimed with exaggerated e. “I am not a supplier of trash. My wares are all of exquisite quality and immensely useful.”

  “Sure, sure,” said Balthazar, waving a dismissive cw. “If I ever o burn a vilge to the ground, I’ll e seek you out, alright?”

  The traveler grabbed the crab’s arm as he walked aleading, “Please, won’t you at least give me a ce? A wise mert should not just walk away from a potential business opportunity without at least cheg it.”

  Balthazar scowled at the man.

  Bah, I’m in a hurry, but he’s hitting me right in the mert instincts. After weeks on the road, I do miss me a little trading and bartering…

  “Fihe crusta said with a scoff. “I’ll give you five minutes, and you’d better not try to scam me. I’ll know.”

  Charles cpped his hands together as he rushed back to the cart with a beaming face. “Great! I won’t regret this!”

  “Don’t you mean I won’t regret this?” Balthazar asked.

  “That’s what I said!” Mr. LaTan replied, while rummaging through the tents of his cart. “I do believe I have a Tome of Levitation around here somewhere that might i you…”

  “No!” yelled the crab. “Absolutely no Tomes of Levitation!”

  “Oh, alright, alright. The t is always right. A flying crab would no doubt be very silly anyway.”

  He tinued digging through his wares, mumbling to himself, while Balthazar started impatiently tapping a couple of his feet on the ground.

  The crab crossed his arms while looking up at the sky, watg the blue and golden spot cirg above them, keeping an eye on things.

  “e on, time’s tig, Charles,” said Balthazar, throwing an eye roll at his goblin assistant, who responded with a sympathetic shrug.

  “I know I’ve got it around here somewhere,” the man said, now nearly toppled over the back of his cart. “Perhaps you’d like to browse through my sele of elixirs while I keep looking?”

  He peeked back at the crab with aended arm, holding a small bottle in his hand.

  “Let me see that,” Balthazar said as he skittered closer and took the fsk. “What’s this?”

  “Oh, it’s one of my fi products,” said LaTan. “They are my very exclusive Potions of Hydration.”

  “What?!”

  “Top selling product right there,” the man tinued. “Everybody wants them! You drink one of these, and it pletely cures your thirst debuff.”

  The crab held the corked gss bottle up between his pincers, examining its tents closely. It was full of a clear and thin liquid that sloshed around as he shook the vial.

  “This is water!”

  “Well, I… it’s…” Charles stammered. “That’s just a very simplistic way to put it!”

  “I live in a pond, I know damn well when I’m looking at water,” the irked mert said.

  “It still does as advertised, though!”

  Balthazar tossed the gss tainer back at the man while shaking his shell. “I khis was going to be a waste of time.”

  “Wait!” excimed the other traveler. “I swear this will be worth your time, just wait!”

  He shoved a haween some baskets arieved a smooth brown satin bag, tied shut with a thin golden rope.

  “One of my most precious wares. I would only share it with a t of the highest order.”

  “What is it?” said the unimpressed crusta. “Your midafternoon snack?”

  “No, it is something of incredible value,” said Charles, trying to sound mysterious. “This bag tains an Invisibility Cloak.”

  Balthazar scoffed. “Yeah, right.”

  “I am serious!” said the peddler.

  “A Cloak of Invisibility? Right there in that bag? Carried by someone like you, in your cart over there?”

  The man paused and blinked before nodding. “Yes.”

  “May I see it?” said the crab.

  Charles looked down at the satin bag he was holding his hands. “No.”

  “Figures!” Balthazar said, throwing his arms up. “Another scam.”

  “Well, I mean, it’s an invisible cloak,” said the seller. “How could you see it?”

  “And you expect me, or anyone else, to just buy something without iing it first? For all I know, the only thing you got in that bag is your dirty undry!”

  “I swear, it’s a genuine Invisibility Cloak. Look!” the man said, quickly undoing the knot keeping the bag closed.

  Spreading the opening of the sack, Charles pced it on the ground, dispying its ihere was a clear volume of folded cloth filling it, but all Balthazar could see within was the brown satin of the bag’s interior.

  “Huh…” the crab ceded, cog aalk at the tainer.

  “Told you it was genuine,” said the now smug seller. “As they say, not seeing is believing. I’m sure you’re much more ied now, and I’m happy to tell you that this wonder be yours for the low, low price of just 500 s!”

  “Put it on,” said the shrewd businesscrab.

  “I beg your pardon?” Charles said.

  “Put the cloak around yourself,” Balthazar insisted.

  The peddler’s eyes jumped from the crab to the bag, and then to the crab again.

  “I-I mustn’t!” he awkwardly said. “I ot in good sce wear an article like this and then sell it to you. It would bee a used item, greatly devaluing it!”

  Balthazar crossed his arms. “I’m telling you to put the cloak around yourself, not asking you to wear it like a banana hammock.”

  “I… but…”

  “Go on,” the stubborn crusta persisted. “If your wares are really all that, put your money where your mouth is and show off your amazing article.”

  Mr. LaTa out a defted sigh and slowly picked up the piece of transparent cloth from the bag, spreading his arms as he ed it around himself.

  “Aha!” excimed the crab. “I k! I still see yht through it. That’s not an Invisibility Cloak, you idiot, it’s an Invisible Cloak!”

  “A minor misuanding!” said the fraudster. “I never cimed the cloak would make its wearer invisible!”

  “Please, yoing to have to try a lot harder than that to deceive me.”

  The human dropped the cloak bato the bag. “But you ot deny that it is a very uem! I’m sure you’ve never seen any like it!”

  “And I still haven’t,” Balthazar said casually. “The point is, what use would that be for me or aried to sell it to? I’m not paying 500 gold for that.”

  Charles’s shoulders slumped i as he picked up the bag. “Not even if we iate it down to 490?”

  The crab rolled his eyestalks, and something up the road caught his attention.

  A figure was ing down their way. The gear he wore and the way he carried himself made it clear to Balthazar that the man was an adventurer.

  The things I do to make a trade…

  “Look, I’ll make you a deal,” he said, turning back to the other mert. “Hand over that bottle you just showed me before. I’ll show you how you properly sell to adventurers. If I make the deal, you keep the profit, the lesson, and I get the stupid cloak. If I ’t make that guy over there buy your ‘Potion of Hydration’, I’ll be the one buying it off you, along with the cloak. Sounds good?”

  Charles looked at the bag, then at the bottle of water sitting on the edge of his car, and finally back at the crab. “I don’t know…”

  Balthazar looked at the man with an intense frown. “Look, we both know you’re never going to get 500 gold out of that useless thing, and what I’m you is a on-a-lifetime opportunity to learn from the best. You said so yourself, you’ve heard about me, so you know how good I must be. This is your ce to witness it first-hand. Take it, or don’t, and I just go on my merry way.”

  [The Gift of the Crab: success]

  “Fihe peddler said, tossing the potion bottle back at the crab. “I never mao sell a single one of these, so I’d like to see how you’ll pull that off.”

  Balthazar turo the road, where the adventurer was about to cross paths with them.

  Flexing his shell, he said, “Watch how a real mert does it.”