Merchant Crab

Druma had quickly learned that finding someone was much easier when you knew where they were.

Unfortunately, he did not know where Balthazar was.

Or Tweedus.

Or, for that matter, where himself, Bouldy, and Blue were going.

They had barely made it out of the Ardville area since beginning their journey, mostly because Druma kept leading them in circles. Every time they reached a new road or crossroads, he would confidently choose a direction, only to eventually realize he had no idea if it was the correct one and they’d be right back where they had already been.

Whenever they passed a farm, a local on the road, or group of adventurers, he would ask the same question.

“Have you seen Sir Wizard Tweedus?”

Most people simply stared at him.

Others shook their heads.

Some asked who Tweedus was.

Druma found that particularly strange. Surely everyone on Heartha had heard of the great Sir Wizard Tweedus.

He was a powerful wizard, after all.

Very powerful.

Possibly the most powerful wizard.

Druma wasn’t entirely certain about that last part, but Tweedus had never told him otherwise. So naturally, the goblin assumed that was true.

Still, despite all the wandering, Druma found traveling nice.

He had never really spent much time outside exploring the neighboring area before. There were farms everywhere, stretching across the countryside in neat rows. Fields of crops swayed in the breeze, and wooden fences divided pastures where animals wandered about.

It was pleasant.

There were even flowers.

Druma liked flowers.

He didn’t know what kind they were, but they were pretty.

Still, he couldn’t get too distracted. They needed to find Balthazar. His boss could be anywhere.

He could be in a town.

He could be in a forest.

He could even be on a beach.

Druma wasn’t sure why he thought of a beach.

But it was probably because beaches were nice. He hoped their adventure took them to one at some point.

He shook his head.

He needed to focus. To find his boss. To find Tweedus. Perhaps both.

He couldn’t get distracted.

Then something buzzed past his ear and Druma’s head turned.

A bee.

He smiled. “Hello, stingy friend.”

Bouldy stopped beside him. Blue’s head tilted.

Druma watched the little insect buzzing around a patch of flowers beside the road.

Bees were nice. Balthazar had explained that to him once. They helped flowers become pretty. Druma didn’t completely understand how that worked, but he trusted the crab’s word on it.

They also made honey, and honey was very important.

Many of Balthazar’s favorite pastries used honey in them as an ingredient, and it also made excellent honey-glazed ham.

Druma loved honey-glazed ham.

The only problem was the bees’ tendency to sting him. And Druma had been stung many times.

So many times, in fact, that he no longer took it personally. Bees were nice. Sometimes nice things hurt.

That was just how the world worked.

He followed the bee with his eyes as it buzzed away from the flowers. Maybe it was going somewhere else. Perhaps another patch of flowers.

Druma’s ears perked and his smile disappeared.

The bee wasn’t going toward more flowers. It was joining several dozen others.

All of them were swarming around a young man near the edge of the woods.

The adventurer was dressed like a mage, wearing a pointed wizard hat and gray robes, though both were covered in dirt and leaves. He looked young, inexperienced, and very much like someone who had made a terrible mistake.

He was waving his hat around desperately as bees buzzed around his head.

“Help!” he yelled. “Get away from me!”

Druma’s eyes widened. “Oh!”

He hurried toward the young man, with Bouldy and Blue following behind him.

The adventurer noticed them approaching and his face went pale.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” the boy exclaimed as he looked from the goblin to the enormous stone golem and then to the drake. “First the bees, and now a bunch of monsters? What kind of luck is this? I’m for sure going to die!”

“Die?” Druma repeated as he came to a stop and blinked in confusion.

The boy ducked as several bees buzzed around his hat.

“I’m sorry! Whatever you want, just take it!” he shouted to the goblin.

“We don’t want anything,” Druma said cheerfully. “We friends!”

“Friends?” the boy said as he continued dancing around to avoid the attacking bees.

“Yes! We traveling together because we looking for—”

“THEN HELP ME, PLEASE!”

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Druma stopped, eyes widening.

The adventurer swatted another bee away.

“I’m allergic to bees!”

Druma’s expression turned serious.

He needed to help.

But how?

What would a real wizard do?

What would Sir Wizard Tweedus do?

𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Druma imagined Tweedus standing there, stroking his long white beard while contemplating the problem.

Perhaps he would cast some incredibly powerful spell. Something impressive.

Something that would make the bees fly away while also causing several trees to explode.

Druma considered that. It would definitely be awesome. A big kaboom.

But no, that would probably hurt the adventurer.

He could fire a few magic bolts from his staff, but there were far too many bees.

What about his own magic?

He could cast a few sparks, but that wouldn’t do much.

He could make fire, but his ember spell wasn’t very big, and he didn’t want to hurt his stingy friends. Bees were nice, after all. Well, most of the time, at least.

Druma looked at Blue. She could probably scare the bees away.

But…

He looked down at his staff. He wanted to do something himself. He couldn’t rely on everyone else to save the day forever.

Druma switched to thinking about what Balthazar would do.

Probably try to sell the adventurer an unguent for bee stings.

That wasn’t helpful right now.

Druma thought harder while the adventurer continued running in circles.

“Get them off! Get them off!”

Hurrying up would probably be something his boss would do, that much the goblin knew.

Druma’s eyes narrowed and he watched the bees. He couldn’t just ask them to stop. He didn’t speak bee. So how else could he mellow them out?

“Maybe…” the goblin muttered before turning to his friends. “Bouldy?”

The golem looked down.

“Hold hand together, please!” Druma said.

Bouldy obediently raised his enormous stone arms and pressed his massive hands together, forming a shallow bowl.

“Blue? Help Druma pick dry leaf from ground, please!”

The drake immediately lowered her head and began scooping up leaves with her mouth without even stopping to raise a brow at the goblin’s request.

Druma smiled and began picking up dry sticks and leaves too while the adventurer continued running in circles.

“Please hurry with… whatever you are doing!” he pleaded.

“Yes, yes!” the goblin said as he dumped what he had collected into Bouldy’s waiting hands.

Blue carried her leaves over and dropped them into the golem’s hands too.

“Stay close, Bouldy,” Druma said to the stone giant, who nodded in response.

Druma raised his hand and focused on what he had learned from the spellbook.

He didn’t need a big spell. He didn’t need a powerful spell. He just needed a little fire.

An ember.

And after some beads of sweat formed on his forehead, that’s exactly what appeared between his hands and over the dried leaves and sticks in Bouldy’s hands.

The tinder began to smolder and smoke curled upward.

Druma’s eyes widened. His idea had worked.

“Closer, closer!” he urged the golem.

The golem lumbered forward and the goblin turned to the drake.

“Blue, use wings!”

She spread her wings and beat them hard. The smoke rolled forward in a thick cloud, into the swarm of bees.

“More, more!” Druma said to the drake, who kept sending more smoke toward the bees.

Slowly, their frantic buzzing began to quiet as the swarm became enveloped in the smoke.

They slowed. Some drifted away from the adventurer. Others landed nearby, stumbling on leaves and flowers like they were sleepy.

The young adventurer stopped running. He stood perfectly still for a moment. Then he slowly lowered his wizard hat and looked around.

The woods were quiet again.

Druma smiled. “See? Stingy friends calm now!”

The adventurer didn’t answer. He simply stumbled backward until he reached a wooden fence bordering one of the nearby farms and sat down against it, breathing heavily.

After a few moments, he looked up.

“I thought I was done for!” the boy said.

Druma nodded and smiled.

“But Druma and friends help!”

The adventurer looked at the trio with disbelief still in his eyes.

“Who are you?”

Druma stood a little straighter.

“Me Druma, Goblin Wizard.”

He pointed proudly toward the golem.

“This Bouldy.”

Bouldy gave a small wave.

“And this Blue.”

Blue let out a low but non-threatening growl.

The adventurer stared at them for a moment.

“I’ve never seen anyone use magic like that before.”

Druma blinked. “No?”

The young mage looked toward the smoldering leaves the golem had placed down on the ground.

“Every mage I’ve met uses magic to attack something or defend themselves. I do it too. You know, just point and… boom! Or zing! Or voop!”

Druma listened to him and nodded idly. “Nice…”

“But you used a tiny ember on the environment to create smoke. Then you used the smoke to drive the bees away without hurting them or the person they were attacking.”

Druma’s ears lowered slightly. He wasn’t sure where this was going.

“That was…” The adventurer smiled. “Brilliant!”

Druma’s ears perked up. “It was?!”

The boy shook his head in amazement.

“You thought about the problem instead of just throwing a spell at it. You used what you had in a way I’d never even considered!”

Druma felt his face getting warm and he rubbed the back of his head.

“That is what magic should be,” the adventurer said, looking increasingly excited. “Magic isn’t just about throwing bigger spells. It’s about understanding what you can do with them. It’s creativity! It’s imagination! And you’ve got that in spades, friend!”

He gestured toward the smoking leaves.

“It’s almost like art.”

Druma’s face grew even warmer. He wasn’t used to people talking about his magic like that. In fact, he wasn’t used to people talking about his magic. Or about him at all.

Usually, people just asked him where Balthazar was. Or what the price of an item was. Which usually led to him saying he didn’t know and them asking where Balthazar was anyway.

“Thank you,” Druma muttered.

The adventurer smiled. “Is there anything I can do to repay you for saving me?”

Druma pondered for a moment.

“Has mister adventurer wizard seen big talking crab falling from sky somewhere?”

The boy’s eyebrows rose.

“A giant… talking… flying… crab?”

“Yes, yes!” the excited goblin exclaimed. “Seen him?”

“No. Sorry,” the human replied. “I think I’d remember seeing something like that.”

Druma’s ears drooped. “Bummer.”

The adventurer looked apologetic.

“I’m really sorry I couldn’t help.”

“What about old wizard?” the goblin asked. “Has long white beard. Like to wear purple robe. Big hat too. Super awesome! Very powerful!”

“Hmm…” the adventurer said as he scratched his chin in thought. “I think I know who you mean.”

Druma’s ears shot upward.

“Really?!”

“I saw a wizard like that not long ago.” The adventurer pointed toward the road. “He was flying on a carpet over a beach.”

“A beach?” the excited goblin repeated.

“Yes. He looked like he was heading toward the same place I’d come from, Star Beach.”

Druma’s grin became enormous. They finally had a lead.

After all their wandering, all their wrong turns, all their asking strangers if they’d seen a wizard nobody seemed to know, they finally had somewhere to go.

And it happened to be a beach, too.

Maybe Tweedus was there. Maybe he knew where Balthazar was, or how to help their friend Rye get better.

Druma turned toward the road.

“Bouldy! Blue! We going to beach!”

The other two followed the goblin as he took several steps before suddenly stopping and turning around.

The young adventurer was still sitting against the fence, looking slightly confused.

“Thank you again, and good luck,” the boy said.

Druma waved and smiled.

“No problem, but… can Druma ask one more question?”

“Sure!” said the adventurer.

The goblin scratched the back of his head as he looked around and then back at the young wizard.

“Which way is sea?”