“Well? Go on, tell me!” the anxious crab asked. “What do we o repair Bouldy? A big hammer? Tears from a phoenix? Golem glue?!”

  “Hmm… Mhmm… Uh-huh,” Tweedus mumbled as he read through the pages. “No, none of that. You just o mend the core in the fires of a Golem Fe. Easy-peasy!”

  “Alright…” Balthazar said. “Do you have one of those here?”

  “Ha… Haha! Haaahahaha,” the wizard ughed. “Good one, crab. No, of course I don’t. A Golem Fe is a huge structure, several times rger than this cave.”

  “Right, and is there maybe one near here?”

  The old man spped his knee and ughed again, even louder this time.

  “Hah! Not a ce! There’s only one known Golem Fe iire ti.”

  The traveling mert scowled. “So you—”

  “And its exact location has been lost to the ages.”

  “I thought you said it would be easy-peasy!” the frustrated crab excimed.

  “Easy is retive,” Tweedus said with a wise fir that didn’t vince Balthazar at all.

  “Great. So I o go to a fe, except there’s no ohat has beeo know where it is. Just… great.”

  “Oh, I’ve been there,” said the wizard in a bathrobe. “Ages ago. Back when I was much younger. Ah, to be 80 years old and spry again…”

  Balthazar threw his pincers out in exasperation. “Then you must know where this fe is, right?!”

  “Nope.”

  “What? How?!”

  “Because I fot where it was. It was a long time ago,” the old man said casually. “Like I said, lost to the ages!”

  The crab threw his pincers down, feeling frustrated aed. Always a setbaever a straight path.

  “Hey now, don’t feel down, crab,” Tweedus said.

  “You don’t get it,” said Balthazar. “I o find this fe. I o repair this core. T back my friend. It was my fault his core was destroyed. He roteg me. I o make it right. I him back. I… I miss him.”

  The old adventurer looked at the crab with his bushy eyebrows twisted into an expression of pity. For a brief moment, his eyes didn’t seem as deranged or wacky like they usually did.

  “Bah, don’t worry,” Tweedus suddenly excimed, returning to his usual loud and crazy tone. “I’m sure it will e bae if we wait long enough. Why don’t you stick around for a bit while I try to jog my memory? Sit down, make yourself at home. We could… py bames, to pass the time! I’ve got a whole colle of them just gathering dust around here somewhere.”

  The mert looked at the weird man with a cocked eyestalk.

  “Thanks, but I’m kind of in a hurry,” he awkwardly said. “Lots of things to do, plenty of pces to go. How long do you think it would take you to remember?”

  “Who knows! Maybe it will hit me in five minutes. Maybe I’ll be bing my beard in five years and suddenly remember where the fe is. There’s no telling!”

  Balthazar exhaled loudly. “Argh. We don’t have five years!”

  As he dropped his shell in frustration, the crab looked at his goblin assistant again, who was still grinning at the sight of his caped refle.

  “Well, at least you’re looking good,” the mert said, before turning to the old man again. “Does it do anything?”

  “The cape? Probably. Why don’t you tell me?”

  The crab looked up at him with mild fusion. “Uh… how?”

  Tweedus looked down at the crusta, his brow furrowing. “Hmm… Wait, there’s something different about you since I saw you st, isn’t there?”

  “Oh, you mean my golden shell? Yeah, that—”

  “Nah, I don’t mean your tacky fashion choices!” the wizard interrupted. “I mean the nifty little monocle you used to wear. Where is it?”

  “Oh, my Monocle of Examination…” Balthazar muttered, his eyes going down to the floor. “It… shattered and I lost it. Right around the time Bouldy was destroyed too. I miss that thing…”

  “Bah, poppycock!” Tweedus blurted. “A crab wearing a monocle looks much more dapper!”

  His long beard swung around wildly as the old man moved te chest at the other end of the chamber. After flipping the lid open, he leaned over the chest until the top half of his body was pletely gone i, his slippers hanging precariously from his feet as he searched the tainer.

  After tossing out a fusing amount of items from ihe chest, including a few teabags, several empty potion bottles, a strange-looking smoking pipe that resembled an alembid even a purple-feathered chi, the old man finally bounced back out.

  “Here, try this on!” he said, holding out a small round lens with a shiny golden rim and to the crab.

  Balthazar’s eyestalks perked up at the sight of the mo was a lot like his old silver o somehow eveier, mainly because of its gold finish. And as with everything shiny and golden, the crab already loved it.

  With eyes sparkling about as much as the goblin’s a few moments before, the crab took the moo his pincer and brought it up to his left eyestalk.

  It was like slipping into fortable slippers after a long day. Which was an odd thing for Balthazar to feel, given how he had never worn slippers.

  The delicate lens adjusted itself perfectly in front of his eye as he let go of it, the thin magically linking itself to the edge of his shell without him having to do anything.

  [Monocle of Exposition equipped]

  The mert looked around the room, the world somehow feeling crispier and much more clear through the lens than it had ever been. As his gaze nded on Tweedus, a familiar line of text appeared above the human’s head.

  [Are High Wizard - Level 68]

  “So, how do ya like it?” the grinning adventurer asked.

  “It’s… great! I missed having one of these so much!”

  “Hah! It’s my own little modification on the b old Monocle of Examination,” Tweedus expined. “I call it the Monocle of Exposition, although I’ve been told that the name is a bit too on the nose.”

  “Uh… I don’t have a he fused crab said.

  “Excellent! Then you don’t o worry about it!” said the wizard. “Anyway, it has a few extra tricks on top of the regur funs you were already used to. Depending on the level and status of your target, you might get to see a bit of extra information on them.”

  Balthazar turned around to look at Druma, who was still admiring his nee.

  [Goblin - Level 3]

  [Status effect: Eted]

  “Try it on aoo!” Tweedus said.

  The crab focused on his assistant’s hat and then on the raggedy cape he was wearing.

  [Wizard Hat of Enlighte]

  [+2 Intellect]

  [A Are Cape of the Novice]

  [Are spells cost 10 less mana to cast]

  “Yep. That checks out.”

  Eager to test it some more, Balthazar pulled his Backpack of Holding down and hastily retrieved one of the slices of pie he had brought from Marquessa.

  [Sliango Pie]

  [Slightly stale but still delicious]

  [Restores 5 mana over 60 seds]

  “!”

  As he put the pie ba his backpack, the crab noticed the monocle’s description for it too.

  [Backpack of Holding]

  [ hold a nearly unlimited amount of items, but eae will still weigh 1% of its inal weight.]

  [Unknown effect]

  “Hang on,” the mert said, frowning at the bag. “What’s this about an unknown effey backpack?”

  “Oooh, exg!” Tweedus said, leaning over the crab’s shell and looking at the item too. “You’ve got a sedary effe your ented bag?”

  “I never noticed that.”

  The wizard rubbed the smooth white hair on his . “There are a few ways something like that happen.”

  “Alright, but how do I find out what it is?” Balthazar asked. “I don’t want to be running around with an unknown entment on my back. What if it’s a curse?!”

  “Hmm, you could travel to a nearby Altar of Revealing and use a tome of—”

  “Nope! No more side quests, please,” the mert excimed.

  “Ah, you’re right,” the old man said. “You’ve probably already gotten sidetracked enough for one book.”

  Balthazar frowned. “What?”

  “What?!” the wizard yelled. “Never mind that. There’s another way to reveal an item’s hidden effects. Fairies are pretty good at it!”

  The robed man walked over to the entrance of his cave and cupped both hands around his mouth.

  “Hey, Rada!” he yelled out.

  “Uh…” said the crab as the adventurer walked back to his desk. “Do we just wait for her to—Ah!”

  With a sudden and loud plink, the pink fairy from before appeared fluttering in a small burst of sparkles, right between the mert and the mage.

  “, Tweeds? Y?” the sprite said.

  “Heyo, little fairy-o,” the human replied. “We got a mystery item over here. Think you reveal what’s the hidden effe that backpack?”

  Rada fluttered over to the bag on the floor. “Sure thing, old man. Gimme just a moment to do my thang here.”

  Realizing it wasn’t chattering buzzing he was hearing ing out of the fairy’s mouth despite the effects of his nguage skill having expired several minutes ago, the crab frowned in fusion.

  “Hey, hang on, how e you’re not talking fairy nguage now?!”

  “I never said I didn’t speak the on tohe small sprite responded. “It was aive in fairy school. But it was way funnier watg a crab buzzing.”

  The mert glowered at her, but decided it would be in his best i not to antagohe fairy by saying what he was thinking.

  “You’re pretty close with the fae, eh?” Balthazar muttered to the wizard as the tiny creature looked at the backpack from every angle.

  “Oooh, you have no idea. The fairies and I go way back. We are tight. Rada over here? I’m her wizard godfather on her mother’s side.”

  “A’ight, all do,” the fairy said, flying back to them. “Gotta go now. We burning up some witch’s hair your boyo over here gifted us and I don’t wanna be gone for too long. Smell ya ter!”

  Throwing two finger guns at the wizard, the fairy disappeared in another burst of pink sparkles.

  “Alright, try examining it again!” Tweedus said.

  The crab looked at the backpack through his new Monocle of Exposition once more.

  [Backpack of Holding Stuff & Things]

  [ hold a nearly unlimited amount of items, but eae will still weigh 1% of its inal weight.]

  [Once a day, you may reato the backpack to find a em has appeared ihe item’s usefulness may be questio never fully random.]

  “The hell?!” Balthazar said, before reading the description to the wizard. “Is that why I’ve been finding all sorts of junk in it that I don’t remember bringing with me before?”

  “Probably,” Tweedus said, nodding as he stroked his beard thoughtfully.

  “This backpack was made from a regur Bag of Holding. How in the world did it somehow gain this weird new effect?”

  The old adventurer chuckled. “Ah, who knows? Maybe it was something you did. Maybe it’s something you are.” He winked pyfully at the crab. “I’m sure you never experienced odd things happening around you that you couldly expin, right?”

  Balthazar looked up at the smirking wizard. “I…”

  He thought back to all the strahings that kept happening around his pond back whearted his trading business. The ces, the things he’d make up on the spot and then somehow came to be true, all the events he could never quite make sense of.

  The crab had thought all of that ended after the croeared and stripped him of his old system access.

  “You think I have an influen things arouhout even notig?” Balthazar finally asked.

  “Maybe, maybe…” the wizard said, flig his uneve the mert like he was sizing him up. “You already know you’re a pretty unique case, is it really that crazy to think that there’s more to it than what you thought?”

  The eight-legged traveler pohe old man’s words. He usually cared little for anything that didn’t help him get more pastries old. Why did he have to keep getting saddled with baggage he did not want? Especially the kind that he did not fully uand or know how to fully be from.

  “And how the hell do I figure out how to use that?” the crab asked.

  “That, my crabby friend, not even I know.” The old man started walking in circles around Balthazar, looking at him with squinting eyes. “There are all sorts of odd things about you that I’ve never seen before. And I’ve been around for a long time and seen a lot of weird stuff! Seriously, the amount of strange auras and traces around you is off the charts.”

  “Alright,” said Balthazar. “But you stop looking at me like you’re sizing me up for a stew? Feeling pretty unfortable right now.”

  Tweedus stopped and leaned down suddenly. After taking a couple of loud sniffs, his expression turned into a scowl.

  “Really unfortable now,” the crab muttered.

  “Those birdwatg kids you mentioned,” the wizard said, still frowning. “Did they do anything to you when you met them? Anything magic?”

  “What? No, I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Did they give you anything? An artifact, an item of some kind?”

  “An item? No, just a few slices of pie. retty det pie, to be—”

  “No, that wouldn’t be it,” the other interrupted. “Think, crab. Was there anything else?”

  “No, nothing. Well, Ruby did touch up my map so it would show me my target destination at all times. But what’s all this about any—”

  “Your map, show it to me!”

  The wizard’s urgency was starting to worry Balthazar so he did as requested and handed him his map.

  “I k!” Tweedus excimed after gng at the piece of part for no more than a sed. “A tracer entment. Tricky little she-devil, that one…”

  “What does that mean?!” the fused crusta asked.

  “It means your backpack wasn’t the only baggage yht.”

  Tweedus walked past the mert, his gaze fixed on the dimly lit cave entrance.

  “What are you…” Balthazar started, but his words trailed off as he heard footsteps and saw the vague shapes of people approag from the dark tunnel.

  “Hello, Tweedus,” a woman’s voice said. “It’s been a long time.”

  Blue, who had spent the st few minutes sniffing around the workshop for the chi that had escaped from the nearby chest, jumped i the sudden appearance of the group of adventurers. Baring her fangs at them, she quickly retreated to Druma’s and Balthazar’s side.

  The old wizard stared the woman in scarlet robes down with a defiant look in his deranged eyes. “It has? To me, it feels like it was just the other day that you were that girl barely out of her novice robes.”

  Using his brand-new Monocle of Exposition, the crab sed the entrao the chamber.

  [Entress - Level 35]

  Behind the woman he could see lines appear over the heads of the adventurers apanying her, all a few levels below hers.

  “Hey, what the hell is this?!” an ed Balthazar said, stepping forward. “I thought reement was I’d find Tweedus and talk to him about your request, not for you to stiagic trag thing on me!”

  Ruby looked at the crab through her red-tinted gsses.

  “I’m sorry, Balthazar, but we have too mu the lio rely solely on the word of a local. Even one as… unique as you. But you have my thanks. If you hadn’t traced us a clear path here we’d likely never have made it anywhere weedus.”

  The mert glowered at the entress with both pincers on the sides of his shell. “Well, pretty rude behavior, I’ll have you know! You could have at least waited for me to finish my business with him before barging in!”

  “Hah!” the are wizard ughed. “You didn’t get it yet? They don’t care about your problems or what you want. Ruby and her merry bunly care about their own goals. Everyone else is just a pawn in their eyes.”

  Ruby raised a closed fist in front of her chest. “A pawn of this world’s system! The same one you refuse to help us bring down.”

  The old man in a bathrobe scoffed.

  “So I end up like Amil? His obsession was his undoing, and you’re just carrying that same torow. Do the wise thing for ond drop all that revolution nonsense, go pursue a less dangerous life goal. Like surfing on the back of va elementals. I definitely reend it. Lots of fun!”

  Ruby’s expression, usually so calm and collected, showed signs of a bitter anger hiding underh the curl on the er of her lips and the slight inward twist of her brow.

  “His undoing was on you for abandoning him when his research was so close to finding an ao what’s really behind this charade of a world. How could you? He needed you and you failed him. He was gest hope and you walked away. You are a coward! He was my mentor!”

  “He was my best friend!” the old wizard yelled, his voice briefly bereft of its usual madcap glee. “I did all I could to pull him away from that abyss he kept c. He wouldn’t listen, and I couldn’t keep watg it go on. Just like I have no i watg you idiots make the same mistakes!”

  “We are this close from getting answers,” the entress said between grindih. “From finally learning whht our souls into this world. Why and what fo—”

  “Who cares!” Tweedus shouted, throwing his arms out. “It’s not like that will take us back to wherever we came from that we don’t even remember anymore. Leave it alone and put all that effort into enjoying the one life you have here, ya muppet!”

  The crab and his two friends watched the heated exge betweewo mages like small children watg adults fighting, their stunned faces going bad forth between them without making a sound.

  Ruby nodded slowly, her upper lip slightly curled in s for the old man.

  “I figured it would be poio try talking seo you. But we’ve e too far to quit noill persevere, whether you are willing to help us or not.”

  A magical shimmer appeared around the entress’s rings, giving her hands a green glow. At the same time, the other adventurers iunnel behiarted slowly walking forward.

  “Ha-ha! Finally, we’re skipping to my kind of dang!” the mad wizard excimed, his boisterous tone ing ba full force.

  “Jasper, cover the exit,” Ruby said to the tall, dark-skinned man tht. “Everyone else, make sure Tweedus doesn’t do anything stupid.”

  “Uh-oh,” Balthazar said, turning to his panions. “Looks like things are about to get messy. Blue, take the front a ready to fme on. Druma, you—”

  “Druma help wizard make mean people go boom!” the goblin excimed with a determined look on his face as he vigorously shook his staff up and down with both hands.

  “You guys will do nothing but stay back there,” the old wizard said, gng back at them with wide, deranged eyes and a mischievous grin. “These fools came into my house. They will dao my tune.”

  Balthazar and his two friends stood bad watched with befuddled expressions as the elderly man arched back to crack his bones. With a pinch of his fingers, he lowered the meical arm over the strange music box, the needle at its tip ing in tact with the spinning bck disc below.

  The otherworldly musi before started pying out of the brass hain, loud and thumping as the wizard bobbed his head along.

  “Alright, let’s tussle, ya whippersnappers!”

  “There’s a dozen of us and one of you,” Ruby said as her birdwatchers spread across the chamber. “You may be higher level than all of us but we still—”

  “Too much talking!” Tweedus yelled as he cpped his hands together and several bursts of are magic flew out of his grasp.

  The intruders braced for an attack, but none of the old man’s magit to them. Instead, some spread around to random objects around the room while the rgest portion of it flew up to the spinning ball hanging from the ceiling. The sphere mirrored the bright are shot into it all around the room, creating a light show that seemed to match the rhythm of the music pying over the battle.

  “What just—” one of the birdwatchers started, but before he could finish his question, chaos erupted all around the room.

  Chests suddenly swung open in a loud chorus. A closet projectile-vomited its tents, sending clothing flying everywhere. Piles of paper spontaneously burst into tiny pieces that rained down like fetti. Even the desk joined in by loudly smming its drawers over and over along with the music.

  Amidst it all, the elderly wizard in a purple bathrobe and slippers held his pointy wizard hat down as he danced in pce, his movements like the maestro’s cues that ducted the orchestra of madness perf all around them.

  “tain him!” Ruby yelled to the others as they all did their best to steer clear of the furniture dance off taking pce between a coat hanger and a coffee table.

  Adventurers readied their ons and spells, trying to trate between all the mayhem and circle in on the high wizard.

  The swirling storm of chaos was causing tless system lio pop up in Balthazar’s monocle, f him to take it off and store it safely in his pack. Both to save him a migraine and to make sure it didn’t end up broken on the floor like the st one.

  Tweedus ughed loudly, standing a few paces in front of the crab with his back turo him. The hem of his bathrobe fpped wildly in the wind that whipped through the room as he undid the rope fastened around his waist while the adventurers closed in on him.

  “I cast…” the master of the are excimed as he spread his arms open. “Blinding Fsh!”

  The rope dropped to the floor and a mix of yells and cries from the intruders echoed around the cave as they collectively recoiled.

  “Ah, my eyes!”

  “Oh, lord, why!”

  “I’m gonna be sick!”

  “My poor innoce!”

  “That’s just wrong!”

  Stumbling and tripping, the birdwatchers pulled away from the wizard as they covered their faces and averted their eyes.

  “Get behind me now,” Tweedus yelled to Balthazar and pany as he cackled and tied the rope around his bathrobe again.

  The visitors did as told while the mage began gathering a rge amount of mana around himself.

  Oher side of the room, the attackers, still rec from the old man’s fshing, stood at the ready, hesitating at the sight of his charging spell.

  “Hold!” one of them said, holding a closed fist above his head as he tried to avoid being spped in the face by the pieces of paper and purple chi feathers flying all around.

  Tweedus smirked as the air crackled with energy and the magical wind swirling in the room picked up speed.

  “That’s right, stay back, this one’s gonna be big!”

  The red entress barged through the line of adventurers, her eyes wide as she readied her own spell.

  “Don’t stand back,” she yelled to the others over the increasingly loud wind that drowned out even the musi the record pyer. “That’s not an offensive spell he’s casting!”

  A circle of light appeared on the floor around the wizard and his guests as a speck of vulsing mana started spinniween them.

  The old wizard let out o ugh before shouting to the scarlet woman, “See ya around, Rubya!”

  With a thunderous cp of his hands, the twisting blob of raw mana exploded into an expanding sphere ht energy that made the room around the four of them disappear with blinding light.

  Spiraling and spinning with no sense of which way anymore, Balthazar felt his body being abruptly pulled through time and space as his screams faded out, along with his sciousness.