“You do uand that my tut is not free and that I charge money for it, do you not?” Captain Leander said with one skeptical eyebrow raised half his forehead.

  “Alright, slightly less ied now…” Balthazar muttered.

  “So you—a crab—are ied in the skills I tutor on?”

  “Uh… yes?” the mert responded. “Is that a problem?”

  The veteran crossed his arms. “Not necessarily, but usually it’s only adventurers who take an i in what I teach. ’t say I’ve ever been inquired about them by a crab. Or any other animal, really.”

  The crusta chuckled.

  “Talk to a lot of animals, do you?” he said. “Let me worry about the whole not-an-advehing. If I wao, would you be willing to teach me any skills?”

  Marquessa’s captain squinted, fog his gaze onto the crab like a magnifying gss fog sunlight on an ant.

  “The question is not whether I’m willing to teach them, it’s whether you’d be willing to learn them. My skills and teiques are not for just anyone. Do you have what it takes to master them?”

  Despite being used to standing at waist level of most people, the giant crab felt even smaller under Leander’s gre.

  “I, uh… I think so,” Balthazar said with a slight voice crack before clearing his throat and tinuing. “What skills you teayway?”

  “I mainly specialize in martial art skills, as well as military bat teiques, sihose are what I’ve dedicated most of my life studying,” the captain expined as he started calmly pag in front of the on racks. “For the fresh-faced adventurer, I usually start by teag them my ‘Two-Step Sword Thrust’ skill as a good introdu to ter-attag.”

  Balthazar’s eyestalks twisted sideways looking at the man.

  “Mate, really?” he said, showing him both of his cws. “Do you see me holding a sword with these?”

  Leaopped pag, looking at his pincers as he rubbed his . “Fair point. I suppose on skills are not really an option.” He resumed his pag as he pondered. “Perhaps a different kind of martial arts skill. My ‘Double-Spin Flying Kick’ is quite popur among my apprentices.”

  The crab exhaled sharply and opened his arms, dispying the pinnacle of evolution that was his glorious body. “Seriously?”

  “Right,” the tutor said, side-eyeing the crusta with an almost embarrassed expression. “No kig for you either.”

  Fag one of the many practice dummies spread all around the training room, the man crossed his arms, the leather-like skin around his muscles tightening as he thought long and hard.

  “Maybe the ‘Shield Bash’ skill?” he asked.

  “I’m good at bashing, but not so much at holding a shield,” replied the mert.

  “What about the ‘Turtle Shell Defeeique?”

  “Wrong kind of shell, pal.”

  “A Multi-Shot Bow Strike?”

  “Do I eveo expin that one?”

  Uncrossing his arms and sighing, the captain turo the traveler with a defeated frown.

  “It would seem you are not quite fit for martial arts, Mr. Balthazar.”

  The crab shrugged. “Didn’t need you to tell me that. Don’t you have any skills that don’t involve holding ons acrobatic moves?”

  “I am a martial arts veteran. Physical bat skills are my specialty,” Leander said. “There is a court mage who es by the guildhall frequently, if you’d prefer tut on spell-reted skills.”

  “Oh, no, no, no,” Balthazar quickly said. “No, thank you. I don’t mess around with magical stuff. Good way to end up actally floating up to the sky and I don’t like heights. Or to fall to my death.”

  “Hmm, there is one more,” the old veteran said, his face looking statuesque. “It is my most prized skill, and one I only teach to those most talented and deserving of such a teique.”

  The mert’s eyestalks perked up with i once again.

  “Oh? Go on, tell me more.”

  “It’s not a skill I reveal to many,” Leander tinued. “In fact, it has been many years since I st used it in bat, given how powerful aating it is. I hold it close to my heart, a secret passed down from my owor. I could only ever share it with someoruly deserving of my trust.”

  Balthazar rolled his eyes. “A me guess, someone willing to pay a rge sum of mooo?”

  Captain Leaurned, pg his hands behind his back again as he looked up and closed his eyes, soaking up the sunlight shining on him through the skylight above.

  “Usually, yes, that would be the case too,” he said. “But in this special case, if you were to e through for Lady Marquessa and uhe truth about these thefts, corruption, and who’s behind them, I fidently say I’d sider you worthy of sharing this secret skill with.”

  The traveler threw his pincers up and started skittering to the exit. “Great, so all the more reason to get this done as soon as possible. I just hope this secret skill of yours is worth it.”

  “It most certainly is, I assure you.”

  The crusta shrugged. “I guess I’m not getting any more help here so I’ll be off now.”

  As he reached the sliding door and pced a it, Balthazar paused, his eyes catg a glint from a side room o the training hall.

  Through the doorway, he could see a small anvil mounted on a rge wood log, with several bded ons and unsorted pieces of armor scattered around it on tables and racks. Past all that, on a shelf, were a few metal ingots, shining uhe warm light of the lit coals ihe modest fe o them.

  “Hold on. What’s that?” the crab asked, taking a detour toward the other doorway.

  “That’s our repair room,” said Leander, calmly following the crab, hands still behind his back. “We use it to repair damaged training equipment and also as a way for appreo practice their repair and crafting skills.”

  “Yes, sure, but what about… this?” Balthazar asked, pointing a pi a metal bar on the shelf in front of him.

  The tutor raised both eyebrows as if puzzled by the crab’s sudden i in a hunk of metal.

  “That’s… just an iron ingot.”

  “ I have it?” said the mert, turning both eyestalks to the man with a snap.

  “A bar of metal?”

  “Yes!”

  “Would this somehow help you with your task?”

  Balthazar paused for a moment before responding. “It… might.”

  Leander rubbed his sharp jawlihinking.

  “I suppose there’s no reason not to let you take one, if you really think it could be of use. Go on, take it.”

  Excited, the crab touched the metal with the tip of his pincer and the system notification in his eyes justified his enthusiasm.

  [Imbuing – Use Iron Ingot?]

  Aha! I k!

  Pig up the solid ingot carefully with both pincers, Balthazar stored it in his Backpack of Holding, knowing to save it for ter use, giveemporary nature of that skill’s effect.

  Doubting that the practi would have any gold or silver ingots too, or that the guild would just let him have such preaterials as easily, the mert took his freebie and headed back to the exit.

  “Well, off to finding the baroness’s mangoes again, I guess,” he said. “Tell her I said hello!”

  “See you soon, and good luck,” Captain Leander said with a wave as the crab left the training room.

  As he returo the main atrium, Balthazar passed by the on room of the Adventurers Guild, where a few humans were hanging out, either resting while going through their packs or simply chatting it up over a warm drink.

  Skittering by, the crab picked up something out of a versation that made his antewitch.

  “So yeah, I told the guy to get lost, I’ve got plenty of water already,” an adventurer sitting by the ter was telling another oo him. “Don’t need no ‘Potions of Hydration’ or whatever scam he was trying to pull on me.”

  Balthazar paused, listening closer.

  Heh, I guess LaTan is still at it out there.

  “And thehis,” the human by the ter tinued, “he tells me that that’s not just sur old water. It’s pure, mineral spring water from Boulders Point!”

  What the…

  “That pond all the way to the west, where the dragon showed up?!” excimed the other.

  “Yeah!”

  That son of a mule is using my trademark pond to sell his junk!

  ed—and slightly impressed—Balthazar started pag toward the chatting adventurers, fuming and ready to set the record straight about how no one was selling precious water from his pond.

  But suddenly, the crab stopped, thinking, and good mert sense came ba.

  Wait a minute…

  Ideas flooding through his shell like the warm water of his pond during a summer bath, the crab took off in a sprint iher dire, returning to the front desk.

  “Excuse me,” he said, stretg himself as best he could to look over the tall ter. “Which way to the courier’s guildhall?”

  “Oh, hello again,” the girl by the desk said. “Over that way. It’s a small room to the right.”

  “Thanks!” the mert said while quickly skittering in the dire she pointed.

  Finding the door with the right pque o it, Balthazar walked into the much smaller hall dedicated to the couriers.

  Please tell me he’s still around. Please… Aha!

  Across the room, the crab found the one he was looking for, reading through the job offers on a notice board.

  “Rob! Gd you’re still in town,” Balthazar enthusiastically said as he approached the courier. “I’ve got a job for you!”