As the doomed merchant was about to close his eyes and meet his fiery end, a blur came around the dragon right as the creature was shooting out its fireball.

A crack of stone sounded amid the raging roaring of the ball of fire as Bouldy hit the dragon’s jaw with all his strength placed into a powerful uppercut.

The winged beast’s eyes bulged out as its head was punched up, the fireball spilling out of its mouth and shooting up into the sky and out of sight.

Balthazar stood frozen in place, his mouth open in shock, his breath held in anticipation.

The dragon’s eyes rolled to the back of its head, which fell limp on the ground with a loud thud near the edge of the water.

It was down but not out, just unconscious, judging by the ripples its breathing made on the surface of the pond.

Bouldy turned slowly to face Balthazar. The crack in his chest had expanded slightly and seemed deeper, but the golem smiled and gave his friend a thumbs up, and the crab finally exhaled again.

“I can always count on you to save my shell, Bouldy.”

But then they heard it. A thunderous explosion in the distance.

Balthazar turned and looked up at the mountain above the pond. The fireball that was knocked off-course by Bouldy’s strike on the dragon had shot up into the air, and had just hit the peak of Semla Mountain, sending out a halo of snow around its impact.

Ice, dirt, and rocks were flying out far up the pearly white mountaintop, but worse than that, the explosion had displaced enough debris that they were now beginning to roll down the side of the peak, turning into an enormous avalanche.

An avalanche rolling straight down towards the pond.

Balthazar’s eyes widened.

“Bouldy, grab Blue and get to safety,” he yelled to the golem on the other shore.

The crab looked back, first at the rapidly approaching wave of destruction, and then at his little tent.

The statuette. If the dragon woke up, he’d still need it, if he was to have any hope of talking the beast out of destroying everything and everyone around them.

With no time for thinking twice, the crab dashed for the tent.

Throwing plates of pie and pillows aside, he rushed for the hole underneath the piece of wood that served as its lid.

Rumbling and the sound of rocks splashing into the pond was growing louder from the outside, when suddenly the tent above Balthazar’s head vanished, dragged away by a rolling stone that barely missed him as it zipped by.

With his claw on the slab of driftwood, he looked up just as a piece of the broken mountaintop crashed against the acacia tree that stood in the middle of the islet.

Like a cry of pain from the earth below, the old roots creaked as they were pulled out of the ground, the trunk snapping and toppling towards the crab.

There was no time. All Balthazar could do was let go of the cover and try to run away from the falling tree.

He had nearly made it to the edge of the water when the tree trunk collapsed on the ground and caught his side, trapping four of his legs under it.

“Argh!” he yelled as the impact slammed his shell down.

The force of the blow knocked the chain holding his monocle to his shell loose, and it went flying off his eye, before falling to the ground and shattering into tiny glass pieces.

“No! My monocle!” he cried out, part of the pain in his voice coming from his trapped legs, the other from the loss of his beloved trinket.

But he knew there was no time to cry over spilled glass while rocks, dirt, and snow also spilled all around him as the front of the avalanche continued rushing down into the pond.

He pulled, but his left legs were stuck under the massive trunk, which he had no hope of moving with his lowly 3 Strength. Maybe investing it all in Intelligence wasn’t the smartest choice after all.

“Balthazar!” a girl’s voice called, sparking hope in his shell.

Madeleine and Rye rushed to the crab’s sides, quickly grabbing his shell and trying to pull him out.

“Ah! You’re going to rip my legs off!” Balthazar howled as the pain surged through him.

“We need to lift the trunk to free his legs,” Rye quickly said.

The baker nodded and without a second to waste, they both gripped the underside of the tree and put all their strength into lifting it, but the tree was too big and heavy to budge.

The rumbling grew even louder as the mountainside swallowed part of the pond’s water and continued crumbling down onto the islet, large pieces of rocks flying over their heads as they ricocheted off the floor.

That was when a boulder, easily three times as big as the one Bouldy formed from, rolled past the trio and the tree, through the water, and stopped only at the gazebo housing the bazaar. The wooden pillars snapped, and the west side of the roof, already damaged from the holes in it, collapsed on itself.

Balthazar panicked. “Blue and Druma, where are they?!”

His monocle was gone, but the system's status screen was in his eyes, not the lens.

Forgetting everything else happening around him for a moment, he brought the party screen up.

[Party Members]

[Name: Druma] [Race: Goblin] [Class: None] [Level: 3]

[Health: 60/60]

[Attributes]

[Strength: 2] [Agility: 4] [Intelligence: 2]

[Name: Bouldy] [Race: Stone Golem] [Class: None] [Level: 30]

[Health: 498/500]

[Attributes]

[Strength: 40] [Agility: 3] [Intelligence: 1]

[Name: Blue] [Race: Drake] [Class: None] [Level: 16]

[Health: 55/150]

[Attributes]

[Strength: 8] [Agility: 22] [Intelligence: 5]

“Bouldy took them to the road while we came back for you, don’t worry,” Madeleine told him.

Balthazar wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but the pain from his legs quickly reminded him why he couldn’t.

As did the avalanche, growing closer to them.

The water had absorbed all it could, but the mudslide continued, having nearly covered the islet in rocks and displaced dirt.

The crab looked further up and, to his horror, he saw an even bigger boulder rolling downhill, straight for them.

He tried pulling again, but with the same results: more pain and no budging.

“Madeleine, Rye,” he hastily said, in a faltering voice. “You two need to get away now. Don’t get crushed because of me.”

The young humans glanced back at the rapidly approaching avalanche and then at one another.

“We’re not leaving you behind, Balthazar,” said the baker. “That’s not what friends do.”

“That’s right. We just need to get some leverage on this trunk,” Rye said as he picked up a broken tree branch and started forcing it between the tree and the ground.

The pair continued desperately trying to free Balthazar as the crab watched helplessly, unable to find a single word to say.

It was too late. The rushing rocks were descending upon them and they would have no time to get out of their path.

Balthazar shut his eyes and cursed himself for getting them in that situation. If it wasn’t for his greed, none of that would have happened.

It was all his fault, and he wished no one else had to pay the price.

The ground was shaking, and even through his closed eyes, he could tell by the sudden disappearance of light that the boulder was right above and about to bury them.

“I’m sorry…”

The sound of stone colliding with stone came from above and Balthazar opened his eyes, surprised by the lack of a crushing feeling in his shell.

Crab, baker, and ranger were all cowering under the shadow of the boulder.

The living boulder.

Dirt, rocks, and snow spilled over the sides as the golem pushed against the rolling stone, straining to hold back the tide as his feet sunk deeper into the ground, his torso and arms like a roof shielding the trio below him.

“Bouldy…” Balthazar muttered, his eyes watery as he gazed up at his companion.

“Come on, help me, Madeleine. We don’t have much time!” Rye exclaimed.

The baker grabbed another branch and started leveraging the tree trunk from her side as well.

“It’s coming loose!”

“I got him!” said Rye, letting go of his tree branch and pulling Balthazar’s legs free.

Falling to the side, the crab looked up at the golem.

The construct looked down, his neck straining to turn as his whole body trembled under the pressure he was under. Still, his eyes smiled at seeing his friend freed.

Balthazar’s gaze drifted to his chest. The crack was even deeper now, and he could tell the golem was in pain from it.

“Come on, we need to get away!” the adventurer shouted as he and Madeleine dragged the crab across what remained of the wooden bridge, his left legs too broken and limp to walk on his own.

“No, wait!” Balthazar pleaded.

The crab struggled and fought as the two humans pulled him to the other shore, near where the unconscious dragon was.

Debris piled on behind the snowy stone, increasing the weight on Bouldy’s shoulders as he tried to turn his body slowly.

“Bouldy!” the distraught crab called out.

The stone giant turned his face to them, his arms and legs buckling under the pressure, unable to push it away, and he smiled as a strained word came out of his mouth.

“Friends.”

His arms and legs finally gave in under the weight of the landslide’s pressure on the stone above. The fissure in his chest split in two and his torso collapsed on itself.

Rocks and snow spilled over the sides as the golem shattered and disappeared under the avalanche.