Merchant Crab

***

Outside Ardville, off the side of the road and tucked underneath the shade of a hill, there sat a goblin and a drake, waiting around a tiny campfire made by the smaller creature that wore a wizard hat three sizes too large for his head.

Druma pulled the brim of the headpiece back and away from his eyes as he continued using an old rag to clean his magical staff. A different goblin might have grown annoyed at the piece of headwear and torn it to pieces long ago, as was the norm with their kind, but not Druma, he was not like most goblins.

The hat had value to him. Not monetary value, he cared little for coins and other such human nonsense, those were more of his boss’s thing, but instead, it had sentimental value.

The crab had given it to him long ago, when they first met, and the small assistant never let go of it again. Druma had never received a gift before in his whole life, and to him, that old hat was his most precious treasure.

The fact it was looted off a dead wizard’s corpse just made it all that little extra bit special. After all, Druma might not be like most other ones, but he was still a goblin nonetheless.

A close second to it was the staff in his hands. Also a gift from his boss, but this time it came from a much more alive and funny-looking old man that the crab apparently knew. A real wizard.

Druma loved magic and wizard things, a fact he got used to keeping to himself ever since he was a youngling at his tribe’s camp, as most goblins hated mages. They also hated knights. And clerics. Rangers too. Mostly, goblins hate everything that wasn’t a goblin. Except when they also hated other goblins, which was pretty often.

The point being, goblins are mean creatures, and Druma never felt like he fit in.

Far too kind for his own kind, the innocent creature thought himself doomed when he was banished from his tribe and left to fend for himself, alone in the scary and wild world.

Balthazar was the only one to extend him a helping claw, and for that the goblin would forever be grateful and loyal to him. Come giant or dragon, evil mage or stuck-up guildmaster, Druma would defend his boss with everything he had.

“You take that, monster! Pshhhh—POW!”

Blue raised her head from the ground where she was resting and glared at Druma with a disapproving scowl.

The goblin, realizing he had jumped on top of a rock and started practicing striking poses with his staff again, hopped back down and avoided eye contact, embarrassed to have been caught in his heroic daydreaming.

The drake looked mean, but Druma didn’t mind it, he knew she was nice under all those scales. Much like his boss under his shell.

She acted a lot like a protective older sister to him, which was a bit confusing in the goblin’s head, as he remembered seeing her hatching, which as far as he understood, must mean he was the older one.

But Druma didn’t care. At least not since he was nearly ambushed by a hungry wolf on the edge of the forest while gathering wood a couple of months before, and the drake showed up, like a blue lightning strike through the canopy, screeching and slashing, and scaring away the predator.

The goblin didn’t know many things, but one he knew for sure was that she had his back, and he loved her for that, like the big sibling he always wished he had, growing up alone in his old tribe.

He sat on the rock and admired the shiny green gem at the end of the staff against the fickle light of the flames. Druma had never really seen much appeal on shiny things, that was one of the very few things his brethren and the crab had in common, the love for precious objects that shined, but that staff was the exception. He could spend hours staring at its beautiful diamond-shaped jewel, and he often did.

With his big eyes lost gazing into its infinite patterns, the goblin could find equally infinite possibilities. Lines, circles, patterns and entire universes within. Where reality ended and the assistant’s imagination started was a blurry line, but to him, it did not matter, it was all an escape, to a world where he was Druma, the great goblin wizard, vanquisher of dark mages and greatest dancer of the land.

The goblin smiled. Maybe one day it would happen.

He learned that anything is possible from being by the crab’s side for the past few months.

Crabs can talk, rocks can float, and goblins can cast magic.

The little guy let out a quiet sigh. He missed Bouldy, and riding around on his shoulder, shooing away birds with great laughter. He missed the nice baker, her warm pies and the nice smile she always had watching him devouring them. Nobody had ever looked like that while watching Druma eat. Some frowns and maybe glares of disgust from people while seeing him chew with his mouth open, but never such a content smile.

That was not what saddened him most, however. The goblin knew Balthazar missed them even more, and low intellect or not, this assistant did not need high stats or a special monocle to tell that his boss was hurting, from the inside, where all the soft bits are. The crab was missing them as well, and worse, he blamed himself for it. It made Druma hurt too, and he did not want to hurt ever again.

The goblin took a deep, brave breath, puffing out his scrawny chest as he stood up.

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Druma would help his boss and friend find and rescue his other friends, and on the way there he secretly hoped they would find the kooky wizard again, and that he would teach the goblin more magic.

“Druma is wizard apprentice now,” he giddily whispered to himself, while holding his staff close to his chest.

And as a good novice mage, he had already studied his arcane staff enough to learn how to tell how much charge it had.

After having blasted the evil dark mage into dust with it back at the bazaar and saved his boss—an event he replayed in his head every night before going to sleep with a satisfied smile on his face—Druma found the staff was completely depleted.

Over the next few days, he watched as the gem slowly regained its luster, changing from being nearly transparent, back to its more opaque look. It was recharging itself with mana, the weird gooey magical stuff that lingers in the air but that you can’t see, and that wizards use to weave pretty spells and cast big kabooms. Or so that was how the goblin understood it.

Watching it very closely, the goblin could tell it was not quite full yet, but it was close. The temptation to use the staff’s weaker attacks for some target practice and fun-having was strong, but Druma was working hard on his discipline, reminding himself that if he ever needed to make another evil guy go boom, it would be worth waiting for the full charge to be ready.

And ready he was. Lost in his mind’s fantasies again, the goblin was already back on the rock, pretending to cast with the staff, swinging and pointing it at imaginary foes while making all sorts of special sound effects with his mouth, all while the drake watched on, shaking her head and rolling her eyes at the silly antics of her friend.

“Poof! Boom!” exclaimed the goblin. “Boss run to Druma and Druma will protect!”

Suddenly, he stopped, squinting towards the town where the crab and the adventurer had gone, spotting two figures hurriedly running downhill and towards him.

***

“I… I regret… I regret leaving my bazaar!” Balthazar complained between heavy panting, as he collapsed on the ground near Druma’s campfire.

“I don’t get it,” said Rye, leaning down and planting his hands above his knees while catching his breath. “I swear the townsfolk are not usually nuts like that. Something else was happening there.”

“Boss is alright?” asked Druma, looking at the crab with concern.

“Yeah, I’m fine, don’t worry,” answered Balthazar. “We just had to leave town a little earlier, and through an unusual route.” He stood up straight and looked around himself. “Damn it, Rye, I’m still wet and sticky all over.”

“Quit complaining, I got you through that manhole, didn’t I?”

“Seriously, one day you’ll have to tell me why an adventurer carries soap in his pack.”

“Hey, I value hygiene, alright?” said the archer. “And considering how we just left a sewage drain, my soap and I will be the ones looking smart once we come across a body of clean water.”

The crab gave him a dismissive downwards wave of his claw and turned to the goblin.

“You guys good to leave, Druma? I want to get going soon, before any of those nutjobs get the idea of looking for me out here.”

“Yes, yes, boss!” the enthusiastic assistant replied, with a salute that nearly knocked his large hat over his face.

“Great, let me just… catch my breath here, and we can leave.”

“Hah, that short sprint really got you, didn’t it?” the human said.

“Don’t mock me. I may have more legs than you, but they’re shorter.” Balthazar eyed the greatbow attached to Rye’s back. “I’m surprised you can even run properly with that thing strapped to you.”

“I could say the same about how you can run with that shell attached to you.”

“That’s different!” said the crab. “My shell is an extension of me, I’m used to it.”

The young man pulled the bow from his back with one swift motion.

“Well, and to me this is an extension of myself too,” he said, running a hand through the polished wood of the bow’s limb.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just make sure Madeleine doesn’t catch you looking at your bow like that, or she might get jealous,” said Balthazar. “Anyway, let’s get out of here.”

The group left the shelter of the hill and got back on the road, with the crab cautiously eyeing the path from town for any carrot colored bright spots.

“Hey, Rye,” Balthazar started, as the group calmly made their way to the main road, “do you remember how I asked you about the place where all adventurers first arrive?”

“Star Beach?” replied the young man.

“Yes, that! I think we should pass through there now.”

“I mean, sure, it’s not too far away, but how is that going to help us find the dragon?”

“Just trust me on this. I have a hunch there’s something there that would help,” said the crab, his thoughts firmly fixed on the memory of the first time he touched a certain glowing scroll.

I better be right about this, because I have no other leads on how to get those scrolls outside of snapping the ankles of passing adventurers until one of those damn things rolls out of their packs again… Hmm, kind of a tempting backup plan, though.

As the group arrived at a crossroads, they saw a man coming from the opposite direction, pulling a wooden cart behind him with great difficulty.

The traveler looked tired and like he had been through a rough time, his clothes dirty and his skin darkened with soot, except for the hat on his head, a brown tricorne, which looked immaculate.

“Hello there,” said Rye in a friendly manner. “You look weary, friend.”

“You lost your mule on the way to town or something?” Balthazar said in a blunt attempt at friendly joking that, judging by the man’s glare, did not land.

“Did your pet just talk to me?” the traveler said in a hoarse voice.

“Yeah, sure, but never mind him,” the crab said dismissively. “What happened to you?”

The man glanced at the other two and then leaned to the side to look at the goblin and the drake coming up behind them.

“You know what, after the day I had, I’m way too tired to even ask,” he said, slowly standing back straight and rubbing his eyes. “Just take my advice and, if you were going that way, change course.”

“Why, something happened there?” Rye asked.

“Yes, you could say so,” the man said with a nervous expression. “How do you think I ended up looking like this? What a torment that was. I’m leaving with what little I could grab, and don’t plan on coming back. The whole village I was at is probably still burning right now.”

“Burning?” said Balthazar. “How did the fire start?”

“A bloody dragon, that’s how,” said the weary traveler.

Balthazar and Rye looked at each other with wide eyes before speaking in unison.

“Where’s this village?!”