Merchant Crab-Chapter 280: Frothing at the Mouth

The column of erupting water halted at its peak, seeming to hang in the air for a heartbeat before collapsing into foaming rain over the two gaping onlookers.

Before the sudden downpour of thick water droplets could fall on the crab and the baker, Beatrix swiftly extended one of her wings above them.

Under the shielding scales of the dragon’s wing, Balthazar listened as the sound of heavy rain came suddenly and then passed just as quickly.

The red giant above them gave her wing a shake that caused a small rush of air below and a few more droplets of water to fall off to the side.

“Huh,” he said, looking up at her completely dry scales. “Dragonscale umbrellas. I should consider that as a new item to sell at the bazaar.”

Beatrix glared at the crab with a furrowed brow but said nothing.

Madeleine, however, had a lot to say.

“Oh my gods! What was that?!” the flabbergasted girl exclaimed. “Did you see that?! The water just shot waaaay up and then came crashing down like springtime rain! I’ve never seen anything like it! That was so awesome! But so scary too! Does this happen a lot at your pond, Balthazar?!”

“No, it never happened before,” Balthazar replied, shifting his gaze to the volcano above. “It must have something to do with the Semla Mountain. It has to.”

Madeleine looked at the merchant with a concerned expression.

“Do you think it’s going to erupt again?”

“No idea,” the crustacean answered frankly.

“Well, a geyser suddenly bursting out of the pond can’t be a good sign, can it?” the baker said with an uneasy shrug.

“Not a geyser,” Balthazar said nonchalantly.

“Excuse me?” Madeleine said with a cocked eyebrow.

“The thing we just saw wasn’t a geyser,” the merchant insisted.

“What do you mean, Balthazar?” the increasingly confused girl said. “A big column of water just sprouted from the ground beneath the pond and shot way up. Isn’t that a geyser?”

“No,” the crab said plainly, still staring at the volcano’s peak. “A geyser requires the eruption point to be terrestrial, not submerged. There’s a distinction.”

Madeleine stared at the eight-legged merchant for a moment, mouth slightly open in a confused expression of bafflement.

“What??” she finally exclaimed.

Balthazar sighed and turned to face her.

“A geyser is what happens when an eruption of superheated groundwater bursts through solid ground via a fissure or vent due to built up pressure under solid rock. Solid ground, not underwater.”

The girl blinked in confusion a couple of times before shaking her head as if trying to dismiss her bewilderment.

“Since when are you such a specialist in… eruptions, or whatever?!”

The crab rolled his eyestalks.

“Back when I started my trading post, and only had a few books to trade, one of them was the Field Guide to Angry Geological Events, and I needed stuff to practice my reading with.”

The merchant looked at the baker for an awkward moment, and then up at Beatrix, who was also staring down at him with a confused frown.

“What?!” Balthazar finally blurted out. “It had lots of neat drawings inside!”

“Alright, fine,” Madeleine said. “But in that case, if it’s not a geyser, what was that called, smarty-legs?”

The crab shrugged.

“I don’t know, a submarine volcanic eruption? The book never really specified a name for something like this.”

“That’s a mouthful, I’m not calling it that! It’s a geyser to me,” the girl said, crossing her arms and shaking her head in a way that made Balthazar think she may have been spending a little too much time hanging out with Suze.

Balthazar sighed in defeat.

“Fine. A submerged geyser, then.”

“Far be it from me to interrupt such an important and insightful discussion,” said Beatrix, her reverberating words heavy with sarcasm. “But are we not losing sight of the far more pressing matter taking place here?”

Both crab and baker turned to look in the direction the dragon had just nodded toward—the bubbling surface of the pond.

White foam sprouted and spread out from a point of agitation several paces away from the shore, roughly at the center of one of the pond’s many inlets that dotted that side of the crab’s territory.

“Oh. Right. That,” the crustacean said.

“There’s definitely something going on down there,” said Madeleine. “What do you think it is?”

“Well!” exclaimed the crab, stepping forward while pulling up the sleeves he did not have with the hands he did not possess. “Only one way to find out! Hold this for me, will you?”

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With a pull from his pincer, the merchant removed the blue winter hat sitting on top of his shell and gave it to Madeleine, who received it with a confused expression.

“Wait!” the baker said with a start. “You’re not saying you’re going down there, are you?!”

Balthazar stopped near the edge of the water, turning back to the girl with eyestalks frowning.

“Of course I am! If something’s going on at the bottom of my pond, I need to find out what it is.”

“But… but it could be dangerous, swimming down there without knowing what to expect!”

The merchant scoffed playfully.

“Oh, who’s the silly human now?” he said. “I know that you mostly see me out here on land, Madeleine, but you have to remember that I’m a crab! An aquatic creature. I’m just as comfortable if not more in the water as I am out here kicking the sand with you. Besides, I’ve lived my whole life in this pond, I know its underwater areas as well as the back of my pincer!”

She hesitated for a moment, her face making a slight wince of concern.

“If you’re sure about it…”

Beatrix’s low but reassuring voice came from above.

“Trust him, dear Madeleine. Despite his foolhardy attitude, Balthazar has proven himself far more capable than he appears.”

“I’m just going to consider that a very clumsy attempt at a compliment and get diving now,” the crab said with a grin to the other two. “Back in a pinch!”

Without another moment of hesitation, Balthazar dipped into the waters of his pond.

For any warm-blooded creatures, the mere thought of such an action in the middle of winter would have caused goosebumps all over their skin, but Balthazar was not warm-blooded—nor did he have any skin to get goosebumps on.

Diving into the cold waters of his home was something the crustacean was more than used to, even in winter, and it bothered him none to feel the embrace of the pond on his chitin.

If anything, it felt almost… warm.

“Hey, wait a minute, this is warm,” Balthazar said to himself, because crabs can talk underwater.

At least the ones that are capable of talking.

Which, admittedly, aren’t many.

“And it’s only getting warmer!” the intrigued merchant continued, his swimmerets propelling him deeper down rapidly.

As he felt the increasing warmth, and remembering what had happened just a few minutes earlier when he joined Madeleine by the shore, the crab scanned the dark waters around him with suspicion.

He would have to remember to ask Beatrix later whether underwater dragons were a thing too.

But soon enough the crustacean found that the reason for the rising temperature was a different one this time.

The closer he swam to the bottom, the hotter the water became, to a point of near discomfort.

“Phew! Any closer and it will be crab soup for dinner tonight!”

Squinting and using his natural ability to see clearly underwater, Balthazar focused on a bright spot beneath.

There was a fissure running several paces across the sandy pond bed, building up from the ground into a pointy vent made of rock from which rushing bubbles were furiously shooting at great speed.

The crack at the bottom of the pond let out an orange glow from deep beneath, confirming the merchant’s suspicion as to the event’s origin.

That, and the slightly chocolaty tinge he tasted in the water.

His theory confirmed, the crab rushed back up.

As he breached the surface, eyestalks emerging from the middle of the bubbling foam at the center of the pond’s cove where the eruption had happened a few minutes before, he found further evidence of his suspicion.

The froth on the water wasn’t just caused by the pressure of it moving rapidly.

“It tastes like whipped cream!” he yelled.

“What?!” shouted Madeleine all the way from the shore.

Shaking his swimming legs fast, the crab returned to land with a grin on his face.

“The water has a taste of chocolate, and the foam tastes like whipped cream,” he said, smacking his mouth parts as thick droplets rolled off his shell.

“Seriously?” the incredulous baker said, cocking an eyebrow.

“Here, check for yourself!” the grinning crustacean said, offering his wet claw to the girl.

“I’m… going to take your word for it,” Madeleine replied, with a slightly forced smile. “So what does this mean?”

“Hmm,” hummed the pondering crab. “The pressure of the volcano eruption has probably been building up under the pond, creating pockets of superheated water, which then turned to steam, and has now finally reached the breaking point and cracked the rocky ground under this one cove, which sent this… submerged geyser shooting up and mixing the sweet contents of the volcano with the pond water.”

The young woman stared blankly at him for a moment.

“What?!” said Balthazar. “I really read the hell out of that book!”

“Alright,” Madeleine said, “but is it dangerous, you think? Is the whole pond going to explode, or something? Is all of your water going to turn brown? Are all the fishies going to boil alive?!”

The merchant looked up. “Uhh… I don’t know? Probably not, if this was the only pocket of pressure?”

“I believe you may be missing the bigger picture,” Beatrix said.

“No, I’m pretty sure I saw all the drawings in that field guide, even the little ones,” Balthazar said with a shrug.

“The dungeon below,” the elder dragon continued. “It is still restless. Changing. Shifting. Beckoning. Until its depths are reached, I believe it will not cease to be an existential threat to you, your friends, and your home, Balthazar. You must not continue to delay. You need to uncover whatever secret lurks at its core.”

The crab narrowed his eyes at the red giant above him. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

“You sure seem to know a lot about this stuff, and to be very insistent in me—us—being ready for… what?”

“Whatever may come,” Beatrix said with a weight of wisdom to her tone. “I cannot tell you what fate has in store for you, for I truly do not know. All that my farseeing gaze can tell is that much is yet to come on your path, crab, and that you will need everything—and everyone—you can to face it.”

“Bah,” the dismissive crustacean said. “Fate, destiny, doom and gloom. All bullcrab, if you ask me! But… you’re not entirely wrong, about needing to get to the bottom of the Semla Dungeon. The thing is, that’s easier said than done. I can’t just skitter down there with unknown higher-level threats lurking in those dark mines. And it’s not like suitable adventurers have been on stock around these parts lately. Most of these kids still confuse a tavern’s pantry with a dungeon entrance.” He paused and glanced up at the scaly level 75 winged giant before him. “It sure would be easier if you were able to help.”

Beatrix glared down at him with sharpness in her narrow copper eyes.

“Do I look like I would fit in those mines?”

Balthazar sighed and dropped his shell.

“Yeah, I know, I know. Not even Bouldy would fit in that cramped tunnel, which is another big setback.”

“You really haven’t had any luck finding more adventurers strong enough to team up with you to go down there, have you?” Madeleine said, crossing her arms and pressing her lips into a thin line.

“Nope,” said the crustacean, letting out a sigh before pleading loudly. “If I could just get the help of one or two capable adventurers, we could probably solve this problem easily.”

A loud clank of metal came from the nearby path to the bazaar, followed by a loud and boastful voice.

“Aha! Did mine ears perchance catch word of a grievance in need of redress? Perhaps I might be of assistance!”