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Looking south, he saw two figures approaching.

The one farther back, a woman, wore mixed fighter gear from head to toe, parts of it leather, others steel. Despite looking able-bodied, she was struggling to pull the sled behind her, tied by a rope going over her shoulder. Sitting on top of the sled were multiple sacks, bags, and a couple of small wooden boxes, all visibly full to the brim.

In front of her walked a man, straight back, proud posture, no baggage in his hands or back. All he had was a set of light leather armor protecting his torso, arms, and legs, with simple boots on his feet, and his head free of any helmet, letting his dark brown hair flow in the breeze. Peeking over his shoulder was the hilt of a sword strapped to his back. Balthazar thought there was something familiar there, but he wasn’t exactly sure what.

“You know, you complain too much, Leah,” the man said to his companion. “Look at this beautiful weather around us. Take it in, seize the day. Life is great!”

“Maybe for you,” the struggling adventurer responded. “I’m the one who’s been pulling this damn sled for days, and it only keeps getting heavier while you carry nothing at all.”

“That’s not true. I carry the most important of our belongings. And you know that if I don’t carry any of the loot it’s not because I don’t want to, it’s because I must remain burden free and able to fight anything that comes our way.”

“You know who’d love to do some fighting too? Me!” the young woman said bitterly.

“Hello there, adventurers,” Balthazar greeted, as the two of them reached his spot by the road.

“Jack… am I hallucinating from the heat, or did that crab just talk to us?”

“No… no, you’re not. He really just talked,” Jack said, bewildered.

“New around here, eh? I’m Balthazar, and this is my trading post.”

“Wait a minute! Jack, I remember this place. Isn’t this where you found that stupid sword?!” Leah said to her partner, pointing at the sword on his back.

“And this crab! This is the crab I gave that slice of pie to!”

Balthazar glanced at the sword in its sheath through his monocle, as realization started hitting him too:

[Sword of Heavy Might]

“That sword! I remember you two!”

Balthazar focused on the pair through his lens.

[Level 12 Swordsman]

[Level 11 Fighter]

“What are you guys doing back here?” Balthazar asked. “You’d better not be looking to get the pie back. I don’t do refunds!”

“What? No, why would we… never mind that,” said the swordsman. “How come you can talk now?”

“Maybe I always could, and I just didn’t want to talk to you?”

The girl stifled a laugh.

“You know, I think I liked you better when you didn’t speak,” the man said, unamused.

“Oh, cheer up. I’m not here to chatter. You got plenty of loot there, and I’m always open to buy it, so why don’t we do business?”

“Yeah, Jack! Listen to the crab. I really wouldn’t mind losing some of this weight before heading up that road.”

“Well, I guess if they put a merchant on the road here, we might as well make use of it.”

“I don’t know who ‘they’ are supposed to be, but let’s just get down to business already. I got accounting to do.” Balthazar said, while moving next to the sled.

“Please tell me you’ll buy this,” Leah said, pulling a massive piece of dark tree trunk from one sack, a strange purple sap still dripping from it. “I’m sick and tired of the smell.”

“Uh, sure… I can think of at least one or two alchemists who’d probably buy that.”

“Hah! And what do you think of this, crab?”

Jack retrieved a staff from a box. It was made of crude wood, twisting into a knot at the top, wrapping around a perfectly smooth and opaque green orb.

[Staff of Magic Bolts]

“Very fancy. I’ll take it. But please, just put it down over there, no magic around my place.”

“Not a fan of arcane stuff, eh?” Jack said, a sly smile on his face. “Can’t blame you. The creep we got this from was some necromancer who took over an old fort southwest from here.”

The adventurer stood up from the sled, and his friend rolled her eyes. “Here we go again.”

“He had a bunch of skeletons posted around the place,” he began, one foot up on a rock. “But we came in and made short work out of them. I took out at least a dozen.”

“There were at most ten skeletons, and of those, half were cut down by me,” Leah said, with a bored expression. “And it wasn’t short work. It took us over an hour to even get inside.”

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“Ah! Because the necromancer was cunning and kept reanimating the skeletons from within his lair.” Jack opened his eyes wide as he wiggled all his fingers in the air.

“That was one skeleton. And it wasn’t reanimated. You just didn’t kill it properly in the first place, so it put its leg back on and got up.”

“And once we finally made it inside and down to the main chamber,” Jack continued, ignoring his friend, “we found the fiend, with his two bodyguards by his side. Not skeletons, proper reanimated dead, much tougher than dusty old bones.”

Jack jumped on top of the rock, puffing his chest out and attempting a heroic pose.

“I wasted no time! Quickly rolling under the table before he could use any magic, I put my sword through the chest of the undead wizard and finished him off with a blow to the head. I must have used more strength than I had planned, as he fell down like a sack of broken bones from just a head impact. The other one was tougher, however. His face was all mangled up, real nightmare stuff, no idea what kind of weird stuff that creep had done to him, but the walking corpse actually managed to charge me and bring me down to the floor, my sword flying out of my hand. I wrestled him with all my might, but the thing felt no pain, and wouldn’t go down. Thankfully, I’m a keen eye, and I spotted a weak point. His right ankle was all twisted and nearly broken, so once I kicked it and finished the job, he could no longer stand. I rolled again, grabbed my sword, and took him out with a clean cut to the neck.”

Balthazar stood there, staring at the adventurer’s awkward pose. He wasn’t really sure he should say anything, which wasn’t a common feeling for him.

Leah had her face buried in her palm, slowly shaking it in shame.

“They were both level sixes, or something,” she finally said, lifting her head from her hand. “Meanwhile, the necromancer was higher level than us, and I’m trying my best to not get hit by some death blast from him, so I don’t become his next play thing. Until I finally put an arrow through his eye.”

“Yes, Leah, great assist, a trusty companion, as always,” Jack said, jumping down from the rock and giving her a pat on the shoulder.

“He was on the floor, blind and bleeding out. You totally stole my kill by putting your sword through him!”

“Come now, let’s not argue. Partners share experience. And it would be immoral to leave our foe suffering unnecessarily.”

Leah opened her mouth, but words failed her and she huffed in frustration, giving up on the pointless exercise.

“Fascinating,” Balthazar said. “But can we just get back to business? I’m not an adventurer, so I don’t actually have my whole day free, you know?”

Finalizing a few more deals, the pair headed their way, sled visibly lighter, a fair share of its contents now piled next to Balthazar.

“Hey, Druma,” he called out to the goblin, who was nearby, drinking from a dented tankard. “Help me out with moving all this junk to the crates back there. You take these sacks while I sort through these small items.”

Druma slammed the tankard down on the table with great force, before cheerfully running his way over to pick up the sacks.

Balthazar used his silver pincer to pick up one of the precious gems the two adventurers had just sold to him, and looked at it carefully through his monocled eye.

“Emerald. Good quality, very pure. Should sell for a nice price.”

He carefully placed the green stone on an empty table to his side before grabbing the next one and repeating the process.

“Hmm, sapphire. Good size.”

He put the gem down on the same empty table, too.

“Another emerald. Not as pure, but still worth something.”

Reaching with his left pincer, he once again placed a gem on the empty table.

Then he stood still for a second.

Empty table.

Place a gem, then another, and another.

But still, empty table.

Balthazar put all of his Intelligence points to work and really pondered on that line of thought. One time, and then another, until he finally turned to the table with a sudden motion.

A hand was emerging from within a bush behind the table and carefully plucking the emerald from its surface.

“HEY!” Balthazar shouted, while swiftly reaching for the hand with his iron claw, giving it a pinch and making it drop the gem back on the table.

“AHHHH!”

A loud scream came from the bush, and a man emerged from it, grasping his right wrist with his left hand, and sending leaves flying everywhere.

“My hand! You broke my hand!”

The slender men kept screaming, the black hood he wore on his head falling back from all the jerking motions he made while crying in pain.

Had he any ears, Balthazar would plug them with his fingers at that point.

That is, if he also had any fingers.

Which he didn’t.

The point being, the thief’s screaming was very loud.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be using it to steal. Now stop screaming, before I do the same to your windpipe!”

Druma came running from the other side of the bridge, his improvised spear in hand. “Thief? Thief! Boss want Druma to poke thief with pointy end?”

“Calm down, Druma, I got it under control. No poking… for now.”

The man had ceased screaming, and was now only sobbing, while continuing to grasp his limp hand, which was quickly turning red and swelling. Balthazar didn’t necessarily intend to break his hand, but he was also clearly not fully used to his new iron claw yet. Perhaps a little less force next time.

“Come out of that bush,” he told the thief. “And no sudden movements, or it will be your ankle next.”

With two thick tears running down his face, the thief slowly stepped out of the bush. He was fully covered in black leather armor, tightly fitting his scrawny physique, his hands and head being the only exceptions. His attire had pockets all over, from his chest, forearms, and even over his thighs, but nearly all of them appeared completely empty.

[Level 8 Thief]

“You know what you took,” Balthazar said to the thief, eyeing him through his monocle. “Now put them back.”

With a sob, the man retrieved the two gems from a chest pocket and sheepishly placed them back on the table.

“So you thought you could rob me, huh? What’s your name, thief?”

“Rob.”

“That’s what I said, rob. Now, are you going to tell me what is your name, or what?”

“No, my name is Rob.”

Balthazar stared at the thief for a moment.

“Seriously? You’re a thief, and your name is Rob?”

“Y–yes.”

“Oh, for the love of… forget it. Why were you trying to rob from me, Rob? There’s got to be far wealthier merchants up in town, with much more valuable goods.”

“Yeah, but they also got security. And if they catch you, there’s also the city guard who’ll throw thieves like me in a cell. Here there are no guards, and no jail.”

“Oh, so you thought I was easy pickings, was it? Well, look where that got you. Bet the city guards wouldn’t snap your hand good like that, would they?”

“Hey man, come on, you can’t blame a guy for trying. You’re all the way out here, isolated, no guards, lots of stuff lying around, ripe for the taking. It was only a matter of time. If not me, someone else would try, eventually.”

As much as he hated to admit it, the thief had a point. He should have expected that someone would try to steal from him, even if just the petulant birds trying to take the crumbs from his pastries. He couldn’t both be merchant and security at the same time, and Druma already had his hands full enough as it was with all the work he did. Not that a small goblin is a very intimidating guard, either.

“I get it,” Rob said, between sobs, “I messed up, I shouldn’t have listened to that guy, you’re not some easy mark. Just please don’t let your goblin stab me.”

“Hold on. What guy?”

“I don’t know, some guy wearing a long coat and a hood came up to me in an alley, put a coin pouch in my hand and told me about this merchant crab over by the south road, and how easy it would be to steal from him. I thought it was bunk, but if he was gonna put money in my hand for it, why not check it out?”

“What did he look like, did you catch a good look at him?”

“Not really, he kept his head down most of the time, wouldn’t look me in the eye. But I noticed he had this ridiculous mustache, very thin, kinda stupid looking.”

“Son of a… I know who he was. His name is Antoine.”

“Whatever that means to you, but can you please let me go now? This thing is really starting to swell, man. I don’t wanna lose my hand.”

Balthazar reflected for a moment. So the town merchant wanted to play dirty.

“Why should I let you go? Maybe I ought to turn you in to the city guard.”

“Oh man, please no.” The thief’s face started turning back into an ugly crying expression. “Come on, look at me. I’m not made for prison life. Don’t do that to me!”

“Then why the hell did you become a thief, you moron?”

“I don’t know, man. I didn’t really wanna fight monsters and stuff. I’m too much of a coward, so getting rich by just stealing stuff sounded like an easy life in comparison. Plus, I had already invested too much into agility, anyway.”

“Well, Rob, I’m a deal maker, so I’m going to offer you a deal. You go back to town. I’ll even give you something for your hand before you go. But once you get there, you’ll be working for me. I want you to be my eyes and ears. The guy who paid you is called Antoine. He owns the biggest general store in town, and if he had you come here to rob me, he will surely send more trouble my way. I want you to keep track of what goes on in your little criminal circles, and then come back here and give me all the details of what you find. In return, I’ll even pay you, handsomely, but most important, you’ll get to keep both hands, won’t get holes poked into you by an angry goblin, and won’t be going to jail. How does that sound?”

“I mean, yeah, sure, man. I stay in one piece, get paid, and all I gotta do is rat people out without risking my skin? Sign me up, probably most honest job I’ve ever taken since I got here.”

“Good,” Balthazar said, as he retrieved a small bottle containing a red liquid from a crate. “Here’s a health potion to fix your wrist. And remember, if you try to swindle me…” the crab gave his iron pincer a couple of threatening snaps.

“I got it, I got it! I felt that pincer once. I never wanna risk feeling it again,” the thief said, while cowering and accepting the bottle with his left hand. “Now, do I, like… pour this over my hand, or…”

“Just drink it. I know it doesn’t make sense, but don’t think too much about it. That’s just how it works.”