“Nice!” said Balthazar to himself, the scroll page still held open in his pincers.

  [Revealing skill…]

  The crab tapped his legs impatiently on the old floor stones, waiting for the text to ge.

  What’s taking so long to reveal a skill? I don’t got all day!

  After what felt like a small eternity of the system rummaging through Balthazar’s brain, the text finally moved on.

  [Imbuing]

  [Skill - F tier]

  [Requirements: 10 CHA, 8 INT]

  [Cost: 15 mana]

  [Absorbs a patible held material, temporarily infusing its properties into your body to gain different bonuses depending oype, quality, rarity, and amount of material used.]

  [Would you like to learn this skill?]

  [Yes] [No]

  The crab frow the text in front of him.

  Wait a minute. Isn’t that the skill I had before in the old system and that the crow said nobody used anymore in the new one?

  He reminisced about his old golden shell, and his silver and iron cws.

  I sure miss those, but if Imbuing suow, do I really want this skill? It even says it right there, F tier. That’s the lowest tier of skill! This thing is going to be worthless, I just know it!

  With loud chewing noises and plenty of gurgling in the background from the delighted slime, Balthazar tinued p as he paced bad forth with the scroll still held open in his cws, beaming its words into his eyes.

  At the same time, even a bad skill is probably still better than no skills, right? I wish this scroll had somethier, but what I expect from something that was just vomited out of a pile of snot? Ah, screw it, what do I have to lose?

  With his usual crabby attitude, the mert pressed “Yes” on the prompt.

  The surface of the page in front of him shined with a blinding glow that flooded the crab’s vision as it pierced straight into his mind like pins and needles assault his brain matter.

  “O!” he cried out, dropping the scroll and rubbing his eyes with the backs of his cws.

  Just as quickly as it came, the unpleasant feeli away, leaving Balthazar staring at the floor w what had just happened inside his shell.

  Do I… know how to imbue now?

  fused, the crusta brought up his familiar stat sheet, and with excitement, he found the Imbuing skill now listed under his other attributes.

  Alright! And I kly what is the first thing I want to try.

  Reag into his Bag of Holding Money, Balthazar pulled out a single gold , holding it between his pincers.

  Please work! I miss being golden and shiny so much!

  Squeezing his eyes shut, the crab attempted to activate his newly learned skill, but nothing happened.

  [Skill activation failed]

  [Requirements for skill not met: 8 INT]

  [Insuffit mana: 10/15]

  Balthazar’s eyes snapped open, and he read the warning with a scowl.

  “Oh e on!” the crab excimed loudly i frustratioe that, Montgomery still seemed too busy sav the moldy bread to pay him any mind.

  Now I need more Intellect? What the hell! I already put all my points into Charisma. And mana?! I don’t want not stinking mana, I’m not a mage!

  The tankerous crab crossed his arms, as if expeg the lifeless system in his eyes to suddenly ge its mind at the face of his tantrum.

  Unsurprisingly, the text in his eyes cared not for his displeased mood.

  Argh, guess I’ll have to find some way to level up more and spend more points into that stuff. There’s always something!

  Frustrated, but resigned, Balthazar turo the gates of the chamber, which had just clicked open.

  “Aha! I told you I still knew how to lock pick, Tom,” said Jim, the skeleton in bright green shorts, stepping into the room with his pointy bone finger held up in front of him like a key.

  Following behind him came a few more skeletons, led by Tom, still holding Sal’s skull in his hands.

  “Balthazar!” called the other mert, with across his expression. “Are you alright? Did that thing hurt you?”

  “Oh, don’t worry, just a few harmless nibbles,” said the crab. “Montgomery isn’t so bad after all.”

  “Montgomery?” said the skeleton, raising his bre.

  “Yes? The slime right there. Did you not know its name?”

  “Well… no. We were too worried about it sug the marrow out of our bones, ing the roof down on our skulls, to ask if it had a name.”

  “Alright, well, now you know,” said the smug crab. “And Montgomery shouldn’t be as much of a problem from now on, so long as you provide it with a more suitable diet.” He turo the satisfied slime, its body quietly purring like a kitten as it finished abs the bread. “Isn’t that right, Montgomery.”

  “Huh? Wha… ht, of course, Balthazar,” said the giant ooze, in a zy tone. “So long as I have more delicious bread like this, you don’t o worry about me, I’ll just be over… taking a nap now… for a bit…”

  A quiet whistling noise came from between the slime’s folds as it seemed to slip into a peaceful sleep.

  “Ah, post-snaap, I certainly rete,” Balthazar said. “Nothing mellows out a fierce temper like some baked treats. I’d know!”

  Tom stared at the crab with a smile of disbelief, slowly shaking his head.

  “You just ’t help it, you?” he said. “No matter who you meet or where you go, you just end up finding friends in the most unlikely pces, don’t you?”

  Balthazar rolled his eyes. “Oh, e on now, Montgomery and I are hardly friends. Just another satisfied er.”

  “That’s all nid good,” interjected the bearded skull sitting in Tom’s hands, “but what exactly are we supposed to do with our resident booger now?”

  “Right,” said the crusta. “The good news is that you shouldn’t o feed it any more money ear anymore. It has found the joys of baked goods now. You will have t it bread from now on, however. A lot of bread, I’d imagine. Don’t worry about it being fresh, though. In fact, the moldier, the better, I think.”

  Tom scratched the side of his skull.

  “Sure, alright, but… we are underground, in a dungeoh a crypt, and we’re all skeletons… who do…” He leaned closer to the crab. “Where are we gon baked products?”

  Balthazar’s eyes rolled to the side. “Oh… That’s a good point. I hadn’t really sidered that.”

  “I mean, I know one baker, but I’m pretty sure she’s not really avaible to take orders right now, is she?”

  The crab shook his shell up and down. “Yes, I get it, o give me even more reasons to keep trying to fiom. When we bring her bae I’ll make sure to tell her about your business opportunity. Meanwhile, I guess the only other baker I know is the one I met in Ardville who sold me this loaf.”

  “Oi, crab-o,” called Jim, who was standio the regurgitated loot pile along with a couple of other skeletons, all of them looking around fused at the aftermath of the crab and slime’s enter.

  “Yes?” said Balthazar.

  “So, is this loot now teically yours, or we take it bato the dungeon’s stockpile? Because we were running real low on stuff to put in our trap chests.”

  The mert looked at the spilled gear. As much as he was not oo pass up on free merdise, he also knew he o be practical. He was not at his bazaar anymore, and he had no easy way to carry all the boxes, swords, and pieces of armor that Montgomery kindly puked at his feet, not even with his magical backpack. Plus, they smelled funky now.

  “You know what, sure, you guys take the gear back, it was my pleasure to help return it,” said the friendly crab with a smile from eyestalk to eyestalk. “I’m still keeping the s, though, for risking my chitin.”

  The skeleton in shorts shrugged. “Fair enough. Hey, Bob, help me carry these out of here, will ya?”

  As the skeletons started carrying the gear and boxes out of the chamber, Montgomery’s body shook, and it awoke from its light slumber.

  The creature was still golden, but its tone seemed to take a slightly different shade now, and its body mass seemed slightly smaller, perhaps due to the releasing of the items it was abs.

  “Huh? Hmm? What happened?” said the groggy slime, startled by the w skeletons.

  “All good, Montgomery, don’t worry,” said Balthazar, skittering closer to the blob. “I was talking with the guys and everything’s settled. They will start bringing you more of that delicious bread, but from now on you also have to py nicer, alright? No more smming the ground and threatening t the whole pce down.”

  Despite its ck of a face, the creature’s semi-transparent expression seemed surprised.

  “Really? Yed that for me?”

  “Of course! That’s what I do, I make great deals! But now it’s up to you to stick to your end of the deal. you do that?”

  The slime’s voice was far less deep and threatening than before, now a much smoother and amicable tone.

  “Yes, I… I think I do that.”

  “Great!” said the crab. “Maybe, for a start, you could e down from those support pilrs you’ve been holding hostage all this time, hmm?”

  Montgomery’s eye bubbles g the stone beams it was glued to, and it was as if the creature’s body shrunk slightly before it spoke in a subdued tone.

  “I’m… afraid I ’t do that anymore, Balthazar.”

  “What do you mean?” asked the mert.

  “We slimes have two stages to our lives. The first, when we move around freely, small and mobile, and then the sed, after we find our chosen habitat ale down, fusing ourselves with it as we e whatever source of sustenance we found, growing as big as we . I was running out of time when I found this pce. I was weak and dying. So I fused with the limestone around me. And, well… you know the rest.”

  “So now…”

  “So now I don’t think I leave this pymore. I’m stuck here permaly.”

  The crab paused for a moment, looking down from the slime to the floor and then the room around them, refleg silently.

  “I’m sorry,” said Montgomery. “It’s not like I wouldn’t leave if I could, but…”

  “No, I get it,” said the crab, raising a cw. “Strange as it might seem to you, I get what you mean.”

  “I swear I won’t do anything to the pilrs or the dungeon at all, though!”

  “It’s alright, I believe you,” Balthazar said solemnly. “I’ll talk with Tom and the others, make sure we arrange something so you stay here. No one will make you leave your territory if you ’t choose to do it yourself.”

  The crab turo leave when the slime spoke again, in a hesitant way.

  “Hey, Balthazar, wait.”

  “Yes?” said the crab, turning back to the creature.

  “I just wao say… thanks, and, if it’s not too much, ask for one more thing.”

  “What is it?”

  “If you , will you… will you e and visit me again some time?” said Montgomery. “I had never really gotten to verse with anyone ever since I got smart enough to, you know… talk, and all the way down here, by myself, I’d just really like it if we could do it again.”

  Balthazar’s eyestalks rised slightly in surprise, which was soon repced by a sincere smile.

  “Sure, I do that. But only uhe dition that you don’t try to digest me again!”

  The crab’s joke made the slime ugh, a bizarre sound that echoed around the chamber like something otherworldly, but that still felt ear and friendly.

  “I do that, no problem,” Montgomery said. “You might be an alright crab, but you still taste awful.”

  As Balthazar skittered back to the skeletons, he noticed they were all verging around Sal’s skull, which was now pced on top of a broken stone n nearby, staring attentively at something.

  “Hey, guys? What’s happening?” he asked, getting slightly worried.

  As he joihem, he saw that what the skull was looking at was a firefly, which had nded oone surfa front of him and was blinking rapidly in a strangely precise pattern.

  “Sal’s got a message from above,” expiom.

  “Oh yeah?” said the crab, with a raised eyestalk. “Something going on up there?”

  The skeleton mert turo Balthazar with a big grin on his face.

  “This is when the fun begins,” he said. “Adventurers just ehe dungeon.”