The crab carefully pinched another coin from his counter and deposited it in his Bag of Holding Money. Business was going well that morning. He had only sold a handful of his new potions, but so long as the money continued flowing in, Balthazar would not complain.

Or perhaps he would, but not more than the regular amount.

Such as, for example, complaining about all the adventurers that kept asking him if he had any potions with pumpkin flavor, or if his brews contained any spices. The confused crab had no idea what they were on about, but it was getting on his nerves.

Taking a peek outside, Balthazar saw a mostly blue sky, a few white clouds passing in front of a shy yellow sun, its light barely warm through the chilly breeze blowing across the plains. Afternoon had just started, and the crab was already considering getting the fire pit going.

“You look a bit nervous,” a croaking voice said behind Balthazar.

“Me, nervous?” the crab said, turning to Henrietta. “Nah, just looking forward to getting this done as soon as possible.”

“Shouldn’t be much longer. Tristan said they’d come down after lunch, right?”

“Yes. Hopefully Abernathy gets a nice and full stomach before we talk. I’m not interested in sharing my dessert with him again.”

“Hospitality, Balthazar,” the toad said with a roll of her eyes. “You should learn its value.”

“Sure, sure,” said the crab, with a dismissive wave of his claw. “I’ll remember that if I ever open an inn.”

Shaking her head from side to side, Henrietta hopped away to the back of the bazaar, passing Druma as he approached Balthazar.

“Where boss want Druma to put this?” the goblin asked, peeking from behind the large wooden box he was carrying in his arms.

“It doesn’t matter, just anywhere out of sight,” the merchant replied.

Tidying up to make his bazaar look more organized was yet another thing Balthazar disliked about the town officer’s visit, but as Madeleine so aptly told him, good impressions matter, and if he wanted to make a partnership proposal with a whole town, he’d better put in some effort.

Or at least have his assistant do it for him.

The crab glanced back at Druma as he waddled away with difficulty, carrying the box filled with random scrap and shoving it out of sight under a table. Little guy had been at it all morning. Balthazar would have to remember to ask Madeleine for a shepherd’s pie later. They were the goblin’s favorite, and he had earned an extra large one.

Pointing his eye stalks forward again, the impatient merchant sighed as he gazed up the road outside.

He knew it was probably too early for them to arrive yet, but with nothing else to do, Balthazar found himself twiddling his pincers and constantly checking the road in anticipation.

If only he had some clients to keep him busy.

“Aha! Ask and you shall receive,” he exclaimed, seeing the figure of an adventurer approach down the path to his front gate.

Skittering his way to the entrance, the crab held the door open to greet his customer.

“Come on in! Let’s get you something to spend your coin in, shall we?”

The tall and straight figure stepped through the door without a word or hesitation. The man was clad in black all the way from his shiny, immaculate boots to the finely crafted trilby hat atop his head. Balthazar squinted as he looked the adventurer up and down. He looked vaguely familiar, but the crab wasn’t sure why.

“Buying or selling?” the merchant asked, his voice cracking slightly. Something about that man gave him an uneasy feeling.

The pale man in dark clothes scanned the room around him without a sound before his eyes landed on Balthazar. Two cold blue eyes that pierced right into his shell like icy daggers.

He was sure he had met that man before at some point.

“Neither,” said the visitor in a calculated voice that was as cold as his gaze.

Balthazar jumped in place at the sound of metal crashing against the wooden boards. Druma stood across the room, rooted in place, an upside down box dropped in front of him, the many pieces of cutlery held inside it now strewn all over the floor.

“Druma! What the hell?!” the startled crab exclaimed, but the goblin did not look at him. His face was turning a paler shade of green, and his eyes, shiny and dilated, were fixed on the man next to Balthazar.

The feeling of unease ballooned in his stomach.

Druma’s mouth trembled as he slowly raised a finger, pointed at the dark figure. “H-h-him…”

Balthazar looked back at the man, who was taking his hat off, revealing a head of long silver hair tied into a ponytail.

The crab’s eyes widened behind his monocle. He remembered.

[Level 35 Dark Mage]

The crab was usually terrible at remembering adventurers who came by his pond, but that one, even after so long, he could not forget. The rude, pompous attitude of that mage who passed by his place once with a small goblin slave following behind, carrying the man’s baggage on his back, all skin and bone, nothing but fear and sadness in his eyes. Balthazar remembered that all too well.

“You’re not welcome here,” the crab said, with a bitterness in his voice that went beyond his usual contempt for some of the adventurers that visited him.

“I was hired to deliver a message to you, crab,” the mage said as he calmly placed his hat on a nearby table.

Balthazar frowned at the man, but said nothing.

Seemingly unbothered by it, the silver-haired adventurer smirked and answered the unspoken question. “A message from your good friend Antoine.”

Balthazar tensed up inside his shell. If he had a bad feeling before, now he knew for sure there was going to be trouble.

“Mister Antoine says he is done playing games with you,” the man continued, casually running a hand down his dark waistcoat to straighten it. “That you have been a stone in his shoe for too long, and that he’s had it trying to get rid of you the quiet way.”

Balthazar took a tentative step back, eyes still fixed on the man.

The dark mage flexed his fingers, making the black leather of his gloves creak. “Now he just wants you to watch as your place burns.”

“Druma, run!” Balthazar shouted as he skittered away from the man as fast as his eight legs could carry him. What a terrible day he had picked to eat a second serving of sponge cake.

Glancing back, all he had time to do was dive under a table as the mage raised his hands and lightning began crackling between his fingers before shooting out towards the hanging lanterns of the bazaar, spreading out like furious blue tendrils and blowing a hole in the wooden roof.

Debris fell from above and the crab cowered under the table, covering the top of his shell with his pincers. Realizing how silly it was to be protecting his shell with his pincers, seeing as that was already the purpose of it, Balthazar brought his arms down and peeked between the table’s legs, looking for Druma.

Thankfully, the small goblin had the same idea as him and took shelter under another table across the room.

Electricity crackled again and a bright flash of light shot above them, hitting a nearby shelf and making its contents explode into a shower of glass and broken pieces of wood.

“You can hide all you want, but make sure you watch, crab!” the man yelled with a disturbing satisfaction in his voice.

Waving a claw from under his table, Balthazar tried silently calling for his assistant’s attention, who raised his trembling head from between his knees and looked in his direction.

Seeing no other way, as his sign language options were quite limited with no fingers, the crab tried mouthing some words to the goblin in as quiet of a whisper as he could.

“Go get Bouldy!”

Just as soon as Balthazar made his plea to Druma, and the goblin nodded his head affirmatively, two loud sounds broke out one right after the other.

First, the sound of the wooden table splitting in two above his shell as the mage cracked it with another lightning spell, and then the loud crashing of a golem barging into the bazaar through the back entrance.

“Friend!” Bouldy yelled out as he appeared, his big orbs for eyes quickly going from the crab cowering between the remains of the shattered table and then to the dark mage standing a few paces away, with lightning arcing between his fingers.

“Ask and you shall receive,” Balthazar muttered to himself with a hopeful smile. All that loud commotion the mage made alerted the golem, and with his bodyguard there, things were about to turn in their favor.

“Bouldy, not friend! Not friend!! Smash!”

The golem frowned with determination in his stony face and stepped forward.

Without wasting a single breath, the silver-haired man conjured another lightning attack, shooting it straight at the construct’s chest.

Bouldy staggered briefly, but the attack did not stop him, merely bouncing harmlessly off his stone skin.

“Hah! Bet your magic doesn’t feel so great now that you met your match, huh?” Balthazar yelled out as he skittered out of the golem’s path and sought cover behind the bazaar’s counter.

As he reached the mage, the giant boulder pulled his right arm back, charging a massive punch.

In the blink of an eye, the man raised both of his hands open outwards, but this time, instead of electricity, a translucent half bubble of a faint blue hue appeared in front of him, just in time to block the incoming right hook from the golem.

Confused, Bouldy looked down at his own fist, stopped in place by the mage’s shield spell, as the man himself stood behind it, straining to sustain it, but otherwise unharmed.

“Crap!” said Balthazar, as he looked further around the counter, looking for Druma.

Finding him still cowering under the same table, the crab vigorously gestured for him to get away to safety. The goblin nodded and quickly ran out from under his shelter on all fours, squeezing out of the gazebo through one of the gaps between the side rails of the bazaar.

Just as Balthazar breathed a small sigh of relief after seeing one of his companions get out of harm’s way, another shows up behind up, making him jump in place and nearly soil his shell.

“Balthazar!” Henrietta croaked in a panic. “What in blazes is happening?!”

“Oh, for crying out loud!” the startled crab exclaimed. “Henrietta, what are you doing here? Can’t you see? There’s a deranged mage, apparently sent by our buddy Antoine to destroy my humble abode!”

They both peeked behind cover. The mage sent out what looked like a pulse of magic through his shielding spell, repelling golem’s fist and pushing him back a couple of steps.

Balthazar turned to the toad.

“I’m hoping Bouldy still got this, but just in case, you need to get out of here.”

“What the hell, Balthazar!” the freaked out amphibian cried out.

“No offense, but there’s not much you can do other than risk being a casualty to a stray lightning or stony punch. Slip out back, run up to town, and find Tristan. He should be leaving town any moment now with Abernathy. Tell them Antoine sent a hired mercenary, get them to send help.”

Henrietta opened her big mouth to protest, but this time it was Balthazar who gave her a scowl.

“Go, now!”

She twisted her mouth, but turned and started hopping away. “Be careful, Balthazar!”

“Oh, yes, sure, thanks for reminding me. I was totally going to run out there and start fighting the lightning-shooting maniac myself if you hadn’t warned me,” the crab mumbled to himself as she disappeared through the back.

Popping an eye stalk over the counter again, Balthazar saw with great concern that Bouldy was not having much luck breaking through the evil adventurer’s magical defenses.

Stumbling back as another of his punches was pushed away by the mage, the golem barely had time to brace for impact before the man quickly took the opening to charge another spell, except this time his attack did not come from his hands.

With the loud clap of thunder, a lightning strike descended from the sky, ripping another huge hole through the roof and hitting the golem directly.

Balthazar gulped and felt a trembling shiver run down his shell as he saw his friend being hit by the blinding ray of light.

For a split second, he was taken back to the memories of being a little crab during his first stormy season, reminded of how much he disliked the loud thunder that broke the skies all night long, and how he’d cower under his favorite boulder, taking cover from the relentless rain and scary lightning. That very same boulder that now fought to protect him.

It weathered the storm stoically then, and it continued doing so now too.

Raising his head from between his arms, Bouldy reemerged from between the black smoke being released by the charred wooden floor around his feet.

“Yeah! Go, Bouldy!” Balthazar cheered loudly from behind the counter, pumping a closed pincer up in the air. “That stupid magic is no match for you!”

As thrilled as he was to see his boulder unharmed, it still worried him how they were going to defeat their foe.

If only they had someone else to help, but the only other card up his shell would be Blue, and as ever, she was nowhere to be found, likely out hunting for her lunch as usual, judging by the time of the day.

Balthazar’s short-lived smile faded as a smirk formed on the dark mage’s face.

“Do you really think I will be stopped by a dumb rock?” the man spat with disdain in his voice.

Before Bouldy had time to finish taking another step towards him again, the mage waved his hands and whispered a few unintelligible words.

First the golem stopped in place, and then he suddenly started ascending, being lifted off the floor like a plume in the wind.

Confused and unfamiliar with that strange feeling, Bouldy looked around helplessly, attempting to reach for the floor with his hands as he swiftly floated up and through the hole in the roof.

Balthazar stared in shock as his friend slowly went up and away.

“Damnable levitation!” he cursed. “I should have never given him that tome!”

His attention was quickly brought back down by the sound of crackling electricity.

Bodyguard now out of his way, the silver-haired mage calmly walked towards the counter with evil intent in his piercing eyes, both hands up in front of him, blue sparks shooting wildly from his fingers.

“Where were we?”