Merchant Crab

The Ruins of Broken Whisk were damp.

Uncomfortably so.

Water dripped steadily from the broken ceiling, landing on the stone floor with soft, echoing plinks. Thick vines hung from cracks in the walls, their leaves slick with moisture, while patches of moss covered nearly every surface that had not been submerged by the passage of time.

The lantern the Trader had given him cast a strange yellow glow across it all, but the light seemed reluctant to travel very far. Beyond a few paces, the corridor disappeared into darkness.

If Balthazar had bones, they probably would have been aching already.

As he took another step further into the entrance hall, something sticky dripped onto his shell.

The crab stopped and sighed.

“This place is going to be miserable.”

“Fear not, noble explorer!” the barnacle on Balthazar’s back proclaimed. “For I, Sir Bartholomew of Riviera, shall chronicle thy every deed as thou bravely delvest into these forgotten halls, where—”

“Please don’t,” the merchant said in a low, pleading voice.

The narrating barnacle simply continued. “—ancient secrets and unimaginable perils surely await—”

“I said don’t.”

“—our intrepid hero, the magnificent merchant crab—”

“Seriously, I’m begging you…”

Bartholomew fell silent.

For approximately three seconds.

“Very well,” the barnacle said.

Balthazar continued down the corridor with another defeated sigh.

The passage sloped steadily downward, and the further he went, the darker and wetter it became. The lantern’s glow revealed little beyond mossy stone and hanging vines.

Then he heard something—a faint scraping sound.

Balthazar stopped.

Something had come loose somewhere ahead.

Or behind.

Or maybe above?

The sound echoed through the ruins, making it impossible to tell where it had come from.

“What was that?” the crab muttered.

“Behind thee!” yelled Sir Bartholomew.

“Huh?!” said Balthazar as he turned his eyestalks back as far as they could go.

“Leap to thy left! Now!”

Compelled by the barnacle’s tone of urgency, Balthazar threw himself sideways.

A tremendous rumble filled the corridor and a massive stone boulder came barreling down the passage, rolling directly through the spot where Balthazar had been standing only a moment before.

It thundered past him and vanished into the darkness below, the sound of its passage gradually fading.

Balthazar remained frozen for a moment before slowly climbing back onto his legs.

“That was a good call,” he said, eyes still fixed on the spot he had been standing a few seconds earlier.

“I thank thee,” replied the barnacle.

“How did you see that coming?”

“As mine esteemed host, it is my sworn duty to always have thy back.”

Balthazar glanced over his shoulder.

“You live on my back.”

“Indeed!”

“And you would have been crushed too.”

“Precisely. It would have been rather unpleasant. Thus, self-preservation is a strong motivator.”

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Balthazar rolled his eyestalks forward.

“But you said before that you share my senses, right?”

“Indeed!” Bartholomew responded.

“So how did you see something behind me?”

Bartholomew paused.

“Though I possess no eyes, I see much,” he declared after a moment.

Balthazar waited for him to elaborate. Which the barnacle did not do.

“That didn’t really answer much.”

“Indeed! Sharply perceptive, as always!”

Balthazar stared ahead and sharply exhaled.

“Let’s just keep going.”

The corridor continued downward until it finally opened into a larger chamber. A thick stone pillar stood in the middle of the room, splitting the passage around it.

The boulder from earlier had not made it much farther.

It had smashed into the pillar and broken apart, leaving several large chunks of stone scattered across the floor.

“Bouldy would be sad to see that,” Balthazar commented idly.

He continued around the pillar, sweeping the lantern across the chamber.

There wasn’t much to see.

More damp stone. More moss. More vines.

A couple of small wooden crates sat against one wall, their wood darkened by long exposure to the moisture. Nearby, old scorch marks stained the floor where someone had once made a campfire.

Balthazar approached the crates after something white caught his eye.

A small folded piece of paper sat on top of the boxes. He picked it up with a claw and unfolded it carefully. The paper was old and yellowed, but surprisingly intact.

We finally reached the Ruins of Broken Whisk by nightfall. We had intended to continue deeper, but everyone is exhausted, so we decided to make camp here in the first chamber for the evening. We found enough dry wood to start a fire and will eat and sleep before continuing tomorrow.

“Explorers, probably,” Balthazar commented before looking around. “And I guess they camped here.”

He read the next part.

Jameson was almost crushed when a stone came rolling down the corridor. Thankfully, we were able to run faster than the boulder and make it to the pillar.

Balthazar lowered the paper.

“Wait.” He looked back toward the corridor. “The same thing happened to them? What are the odds?”

He looked at the paper again and scratched his chin with one claw.

“And they ran forward?”

“Perhaps panic seized their hearts in the face of such terrible peril,” Sir Bartholomew said solemnly.

“They could’ve just jumped to the side.”

“A sound tactical observation.”

Balthazar folded the paper and put it back on the crate.

“Anyway…”

He headed through the next corridor and the path continued deeper into the ruins.

After a short while, one of his legs felt something strange beneath it.

Balthazar stopped and lifted the leg.

He put it down again.

There it was. A slight movement beneath the stone.

“Huh.”

He backed up and examined the floor. A section of stone sat slightly lower than the rest.

“A pressure plate!” Sir Bartholomew said, sounding impressed. “Thou hast discovered the trap with naught but thine own keen intellect!”

Balthazar looked at his legs before stepping on the plate again.

Nothing happened. He shifted his weight. Still nothing.

“It’s probably designed for a human’s proportions and weight distribution.”

He moved one leg at a time across it.

Still nothing.

“With eight legs, my weight is spread out too much.”

“Brilliant!” declared the barnacle.

Balthazar rolled his eyestalks.

For some reason, instead of simply moving on, he started tapping the pressure plate.

“Perhaps we ought not tempt fate, brave host?”

“I want to see how much pressure it needs.”

Balthazar tapped it again with two legs at once. Then three. Then four.

The stone finally sank.

“DUCK!” Sir Bartholomew shouted.

“Where?!” the crab shouted back, eyestalks shooting up in search of any signs of birds.

“Get down!”

This time, Balthazar didn’t stop to think. He threw himself flat against the floor.

A massive wooden log swung out from the ceiling.

It tore through the air with a deafening whoosh, passing directly over Balthazar’s shell and slamming into the opposite wall with enough force to shake dust from the ceiling.

Balthazar stayed flat for a moment as the log creaked above and then slowly swung back.

After a moment, he pushed himself upright.

“Phew!” He looked at the dent the log had left in the wall. “That was close.”

Bartholomew cleared his throat. “Indeed.”

Balthazar glanced back at him.

“Thanks,” the merchant said reluctantly.

The barnacle was silent. Which felt oddly more awkward than when he spoke, for once.

Balthazar looked away.

“Don’t make a thing out of it.”

“I would never,” the chronicler replied.

“Good.”

Balthazar continued down the corridor.

For once, he didn’t feel annoyed by the voice attached to his shell.

Bartholomew was loud. He was pompous. He narrated absolutely everything. But he had warned Balthazar about danger twice now.

Which meant that, unfortunately, he was starting to seem like he might not be entirely useless. And if the crab wasn’t careful, that could prove a short road to becoming likeable.

Balthazar shuddered at the thought before delving deeper into the ruins.