Merchant Crab
Chapter 231: Mighty Spork

A steel crab ran under a bone giant, his eight feet hitting the stone floor with a metallic clink with each step. He ran with purpose and determination, skittering as fast as if a tax collector was chasing him. In his eyes he wore the kind of sharp glint that promised a reckoning.

There were not a lot of things that made Balthazar angry. Touching a pastry he was eating was one, naturally. Trying to steal his coin was another, obviously. Clients who handled his wares, turned everything upside down in his bazaar, and then would leave without purchasing anything was another. As was the annoying squeak of the old wheel on the cart of the local farmer who passed by the road next to the pond every morning on his way to town.

Also, birds in general.

And the smell of scented candles, too.

All things considered, maybe there were actually a lot of things that angered the crabby merchant. Yet, the fury he was experiencing now was something else entirely.

Balthazar hadn’t received many gifts in his life. Both because he spent most of it living completely alone in his pond, and because receiving presents usually meant giving some too, which was a hard pass on the crab’s book. So the flower hat that Bouldy had given him meant a great deal—a lot more than he would ever openly admit.

And then that monstrosity of broken bones and corrupted sludge had to go and knock it off his shell and destroy it.

The moment the crab saw his Floral Crown of Friendship torn to pieces across the floor, a fire ignited inside him—like a hunger for a hundred pies.

Destroying the bone colossus was no longer just a matter of necessity or survival. It was a matter of honor.

“You think you can just stomp my friend’s gift and get away with it, you big lump of calcium?!” the irate crustacean shouted. “Well, I’ve got a bone to pick with you now!”

The undead amalgam turned and turned, trying to get a lock on the small creature skittering around underneath its massive body, but its own size was working against it. Meanwhile, Rye continued pelting the abomination with blunt-tip arrows from a distance, which did little to damage the overall colossus, but worked well enough to keep it distracted and unable to smash Balthazar.

“Come on, just give me an opening,” the crab muttered as he looked up at the mesh of broken and twisted bones surrounding the oozing core.

Despite his wrath, Balthazar still had a plan, and he just needed the right moment to make his move.

In his right pincer, he gripped the weapon to make it all work—the mighty wooden spork.

While he had always been and still was a firm believer that the pincer was mightier than the sword—or any other tool, really—for this one specific case, he couldn’t risk his precious appendages.

Besides, he wouldn’t miss the spork anyway, that thing had been sitting in a drawer for ages, since nobody would buy it. Try as everyone might, no one could figure out what the intended purpose of the utensil really was.

Too shallow for soup, too stubby for salad.

Liquids simply fell between the tines, while trying to stab a piece of food with it was more of a suggestive prod than a piercing jab.

Indeed, it was the tool of someone too confused to commit, and best suited for the purpose Balthazar was about to give it.

So terrible was the unwanted utensil, that the merchant once watched for over ten minutes as a very frustrated adventurer attempted to shove it in—

“Balthazar, watch out!” Rye shouted from afar.

The crab glanced up. “Huh?!”

A shower of bone fragments rained down on him, spewed out of the giant maw of skulls commanding the assembled colossus.

All Balthazar had time to do was throw himself onto the floor and let his shell take the brunt of the assault as countless teeth pelted his steel carapace like hail during a storm.

[Health: 130/300]

I can’t take much more of this. The crab thought as he hurriedly stood up and started skittering away from the incoming swing of the colossus’s arm.

A bright blue explosion of fire erupted nearby, accompanied by a devastating rock slam on the ground, sending rib cages and skulls flying everywhere along with several colorful confetti streamers.

“Frieeend!” roared Bouldy as Blue flew circles around his head, shooting jets of azure fire down on the skeletons that the golem’s punches and kicks weren’t getting.

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The colossus’s attention had been caught by the drake and golem’s outburst for a moment, making it interrupt its assault on the crab, and as Balthazar skidded to a stop and looked up, he finally spotted it—the opening he was after.

The metal crustacean charged, spork held forward in his claw.

With pinch-point precision, Balthazar jammed the wooden piece of cutlery right under a tiny bone exposed on the monster’s underside—and putting everything he had into it, the crab pried.

A wail echoed through the halls as the bone giant convulsed. Its limbs spasmed, its head jerked back, and the mass of bones that made its rib cage split open down the middle as the whole thing recoiled.

“Got your funny bone!” the steel crab triumphantly exclaimed.

Balthazar had no delusions, he knew he had dealt next to no physical damage to the creature, but just like with his words, the crab knew exactly where to strike to really make it hurt.

He would have to remember to thank Tom for teaching him that one trick all those months back.

“It’s exposed,” the metal crustacean shouted over the chaos. “Do it now!”

As arrows zipped over everyone’s heads, blue fire shot in every direction, and shattered bones were punched into the distance by stone fists, a roaring war cry came from the middle of the skeleton horde.

A whirlwind of rust and bones broke through the front lines as Leah smashed a path through the savage undead with her mace, her face covered in sweat and dust but wearing a broad grin of elation.

“This thing really works!”

The sound of naked feet slapping rapidly against the stone floor followed in her wake, along with a long blade held high in the air.

“AHHHHHH!” screamed Jack as he sprinted through the path cleared by his partner, his scrawny physique looking as if he was about to collapse under the weight of his own weapon.

“He’s not gonna make it!” Rye exclaimed as he shot an arrow at a skeleton trying to intercept the swordsman.

“He’s gonna make it!” said Balthazar as he turned to his bodyguard. “Bouldy, give him a hand!”

The stone giant threw himself forward, landing on top of a handful of skeletons as he stretched his arm to Jack.

“Frieeeeend!” he yelled with strain.

The naked adventurer stepped over the golem’s palm as if it were a set of stairs, and the construct launched him up with all the force he could muster.

Jack leaped forward through the air, both hands holding the Sword of Heavy Might over his head.

The crab, his friends, even the skeletons, they all paused for a split second to watch in awe as the adventurer wearing nothing but a helmet and a loincloth soared through the air above their heads.

“Gah, I didn’t need to see that!” exclaimed Rye as he averted his eyes from the flapping piece of leather around the swordsman’s waist.

“Mighty Slash!” Jack yelled as he brought his greatsword down on the colossus.

Balthazar frowned. “Did he just verbally announce his atta—”

A deafening crash exploded through the halls as the adventurer’s sword connected with the colossus, making everyone recoil and cover their ears—at least those who had any.

It cut through the bones like a knife through soft dough, and then through the oozing muck surrounding its core, splitting it open as if the substance itself was fleeing from the blade.

The abomination screamed with a hundred voices as the adventurer’s sword reached the blacksteel blade stuck at its center, cutting it off from the mass of black sludge and sending it spinning through the air until the weapon landed on the floor, several paces away.

Jack let go of his own sword, unable to hold on for a second longer. The giant blade fell, cutting through a dozen more of the colossus’s bones before landing on the floor, its tip piercing down almost halfway into the stone.

Leah darted forward and reached the falling swordsman just in time to help break his fall.

“Gotcha!” she said as Jack’s scrawny body landed on her arms.

Balthazar skittered toward them, leaving the wooden spork behind, still stuck in the amalgam of bones. “Get away from it!”

The bone colossus let out a haunting cry, like a scream of agony that ended in a note of relief and almost… gratitude.

Without the corrupted sword holding them together at its core, a torrent of bones came crashing down as the monstrosity collapsed on itself, sending an avalanche of old marrow in every direction around it.

The crab and all of his friends ran to take shelter behind Bouldy as the golem braced for the impact of the wave of bones that swept away what few other skeletons still remained around them.

As the dust cleared, all that was left was a mountain of broken skeletal remains and, to everyone’s confusion, a cloud of glitter particles fluttering in the air.

[You have gained a permanent +1 bonus to friendship]

Huh… So is that really an attribute? The puzzled crustacean wondered as he stared at the sudden message in his eyes.

“I… I did it,” an incredulous jack muttered, sitting on the floor against his partner’s legs.

“We did it,” said Balthazar as he stepped over a cracked hip bone and several femurs to retrieve his trusty spork from the wreckage.

“Can’t believe you really found a use for that,” Rye commented with a half-chuckle.

“Never doubt a resourceful crab like me,” the smug merchant said as he stored the wooden utensil back in his backpack before putting it back on over his now glitter-speckled steel shell.

As Leah helped Jack get back on his feet, the swordsman looked around. “After all that, you’d think the least this thing could do is give us some decent loot, no?”

With his four front legs standing on top of a pile of bones, Balthazar put on his monocle and scanned the colossal wreckage around them.

Out there, past a fibula and between a couple of tailbones, he spotted something shiny—which was his favorite kind of something.

As he walked closer, the crab realized it was an orb, perfectly round, smooth, and slightly larger than a watermelon. It was white, but it was no bone. Unlike the old, yellowed out broken remains surrounding it, the mysterious item was pearly white and gave off a dim light, like a glow that beckoned the merchant to come closer.

[Halls of Semla Power Core]

“Well, well, well. I’ve been looking for you.”