Merchant Crab-Chapter 281: Crouching Knight, Hidden Dragon

The clinking and clanking of metal plates and chains stomping down the path from the bazaar soon revealed a shiny silver knight under the moonlight.

Clad in finely polished metal armor decorated with white and yellow banners, the adventurer wore a large and squarish helmet with two narrow slits for the eyes and a few tiny holes around the mouth area.

Balthazar usually had trouble recognizing human faces, but items he was excellent at identifying, and he was positive he had seen that bucket-like helm before.

“Oh, this loon again…” the merchant muttered under his breath.

“Uhm, hello?” Madeleine greeted with a friendly wave and a mildly confused expression.

“Grrrreeeetings, fair maiden!” the knight loudly proclaimed, spinning her right arm several times while at the same time making the slightest attempt at bowing, foiled by the cumbersome metal frame she was encased in. “Allow me to make mine introduction! I am Paladin Hannabeth, a Knight-Errant sworn by sacred oath to guard the fiends and to vanquish the weak from this land!”

The baker stared at the adventurer for a moment, blinking.

“Uhhh… I think you got something backwards there.”

Hannabeth brought her gauntlet to her helmet and placed a thoughtful finger against the mouth holes, producing a small clink.

“Aye, mayhaps I have. I do confess that I must yet practice this new introduction of mine!”

Madeleine leaned closer to Balthazar and whispered to him while the other girl pondered.

“You know this… knight?”

“Oh, yes, we’ve met before,” the crab whispered back.

“She talks… weird.”

“Hah, trust me, Madeleine, that’s not the only weird thing about her.”

With a sudden sound of metal scraping and dragging, Hannabeth shifted her stance to look down at Balthazar.

“But here you are, good merchant!” she exclaimed. “I have sought thee for many a week, friend!”

The crab looked blankly at her. “You… have?”

“Aye! Dost thou not recall thy quest bestowed unto meeee?” the paladin inquired with an unnecessarily dramatic high-pitch to her tone.

More blank staring from the crustacean.

“The drrrrrraaaagon!” Hannabeth exclaimed after an awkwardly long silence.

“Oh!” Balthazar said with a start, his whole shell bouncing with sudden realization.

Madeleine glanced down at him with a cocked eyebrow.

And so did the red dragon standing far up above her.

The one merely a few steps away from the bucket-helmet knight.

“Uh… right… that,” the merchant started, a bead of pond water rolling down the side of his carapace.

“As I did promise thee those many months ago,” Hannabeth continued, “I have sought far and wide for this vile creature, my friend!”

Balthazar glanced up briefly before staring back down at the adventurer.

“And, uhh… how’s your search going?”

“Laborious, my friend! I have yet to come anywhere near this monster’s present whereabouts, I must confess,” the knight-errant said while slowly trying to sit down on a rock near Beatrix’s tail.

After a few failed attempts, she decided to just awkwardly take a knee next to the rock.

“Oh… Bummer,” the merchant said. “I’m sure that you’ll find her—I mean, that you will find the dragon sooner or later.”

“Seriously, Balthazar,” the baker whispered to the crab. “How do you understand what in the world she is saying?”

“High speech skill,” the merchant whispered back with a quiet, sage nod.

“Aha!” the paladin exclaimed enthusiastically, her index finger pointed up. “But not all hath been fruitless in my quest! Hence, stand I here this fair morning, dear merchant!”

“But it’s ni—” Madeleine started, looking up at the moon with a frown, but Balthazar cut her off before she could finish.

“So what news do you bring… brave… knight,” he said, doing his best not to roll his eyestalks at the end.

“The beast’s lair,” the knight proclaimed with great gravitas and a hushed tone. “I have found it!”

“Really?” inquired the crab.

“Verily! After much seeking and asking, a friendly fellow adventurer upon the road did point me unto a mountain. All he did ask of me in return for such worthy tidings was a pair of boots! A true bargain indeed. A fine young lad, that boy Cletus was.”

“A mountain, you say?” the increasingly nervous crustacean said, glancing up at Beatrix, who was moving her head down to examine and listen to the knight’s report with great interest.

“I do!” Hannabeth continued, still seemingly unaware of Beatrix’s presence right above the shiny top of her head. “This was to be the place unto which the evildoer had returned after laying waste to the fair folk of thy neighboring town. Thus did I valiantly proceed into the monster’s lair, weapon in hand and bravery in mine heart, ready to slay the creature!”

Balthazar saw Beatrix’s eyes narrowing on the canned adventurer beneath her.

“Right… Ready to slay a giant red dragon… with that mace there?” the crab said with a nod to the weapon hanging from the paladin’s waist.

“And my shield!” Hannabeth proclaimed proudly, pointing back with her thumb at the round metal shield attached to her back.

“Unlikely,” Beatrix’s deep and reverberating voice said from above, making the bones—and chitin—of everyone present to tremble inside their bodies.

“Who said that?!” the adventurer exclaimed, standing up and placing a hand over her weapon.

“Me! I did!” Balthazar quickly said, followed by the best fake cough he could produce. “Just got a terrible case of a sore throat, is all. Don’t mind that, do continue with… whatever you were saying.”

Hannabeth slowly crouched back down, hand moving away from the mace as she squatted near the rock in a very unflattering way.

“Very well, then. Where was I? Ah, my armaments! But more than those, I would strike it down with the blessed light of mine unwavering faith in justice and honor!” She paused, placed one hand on her knee, and let her whole body slump slightly. “My! It is surely most hot around this pond here.”

Trying to find a way to cool down Beatrix’s temper and keep the metal loon from becoming dragon chow, the merchant attempted to hurry the conversation.

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“But clearly your dragon was in another lair and you came back empty-handed. Ah well, what a shame! Maybe—”

“Not quite!” Hannabeth exclaimed loudly, startling the crab and the baker. “After a perilous climb through the belly of the beast’s mountain, I did reach the summit after two days!”

Balthazar frowned before muttering, “What? It only took us a few hours to reach the—”

“What I found was a most impressive scene indeed!” the knight continued, ignoring everything else. “A battle had taken place within that chamber, a true clash of mights, as judged by the ruin left behind! Devastating blows had been unleashed within the cave, with shattered stone and scorch marks of colossal size, and a dried splatter of blood far too great to have come from anything else but the beast itself!”

Beatrix’s copper eyes widened and she bared her fangs, a vein pulsing in her neck, under the thick scar left by her encounter with Ren months before.

“Anyway!” Balthazar quickly said, waving his pincers around. “Fascinating tale, adventurer. You found no dragon. Oh well! Better luck next time! Moving on now!”

“Aye,” the sitting knight said with a gentle nod of her helmet. “It would seem that another noble hero had reached the beast before me and had purged the land of its foul presence before I could. I bear no grudge, for good hath prevailed in the end all the same. Whosoever this mightiest of champions was must have been of great strength or cunning, for he left not a single bone behind! The lone sad note to this otherwise glad ending is the baker, alas.”

Madeleine, who was now listening to the whole thing with her arms crossed and an annoyed expression on her face, raised one eyebrow at the last part.

“What do you mean?”

“Ah, dost thou not know, fair maiden?” said the adventurer. “The beast had taken a young girl, a baker by trade, as I was told. Snatched in its claws and borne to its lair as a prize. I find no trace of this unfortunate victim of the creature’s evil, and thus can only assume the worst… May her soul find rest in peace.”

Hannabeth paused for a moment and lifted her head, the visor of her helmet seemingly pointed to Madeleine as she examined the clothes the girl was wearing, including her white apron.

For a brief second, Balthazar thought realization had finally hit the loon, but alas, it seemed that was still too much to hope.

“In fact,” the wandering paladin started, “from all accounts I have heard, this baker was in many ways akin to thyself, fair maiden. Thou wouldst do well to take caution in these turbulent times, for I would not see thee meet the same fate as that poor girl and be borne away by a foul beast. Trust mine word, milady, for they are out there still, lurking in the shadows!” She stood up and placed one fist against her waist while pointing the index of the other far away in some kind of pose that was more awkward than impressive. “One must remain ever vigilant at all times!”

Madeleine gave the knight a disdainful glare as the corners of her lips curled down in disapproval.

“Yes, I don’t doubt that at all,” she said dryly, rolling her eyes up at Beatrix, who was still standing above the adventurer with her neck stretched far up, as if just waiting for the baker’s approval to rain fire on the tin can.

“Alright, alright!” a nervous Balthazar said, getting between the two girls. “Enough about that. Here be no dragons. Let’s change the subject, shall we?”

“Very well, friend!” Hannabeth said. “Naturally, I expect no reward of thee, for I have not fulfilled mine oath unto thee. Yet on the brighter side, another hath done so in my stead, a conclusion still satisfactory, I do hope. But… I would yet ask that thou honor me with the mark of a quest journeyed and concluded, for mine own peace of mind and righteousness!”

The crab stared blankly at the knight for a moment before finally proclaiming from the height of his Charismatic and unmatched skill with words, “Huh?”

Hannabeth sighed and let her shoulders slump forward with the sound of metal shifting around.

“The quest,” the adventurer said, her voice more natural and without the usual boastful tone. “Can you just be a pal and mark it as completed for me so it leaves my log? Seriously, that thing is literally longer than a tax collector’s registry. I’ve been turning in quests for weeks, but it seems for every one I complete, I end up taking two new ones in town or on the road. I just can’t help it!”

“Oh,” Balthazar said, still taken aback by her sudden drop in the whole knight act. “Uhm, yeah, sure… I guess. Your quest is… completed… noble knight? Is that good enough?”

Hannabeth stood still for a moment, her bucket helmet looking as if she was staring out at nothing, and then, just like that, she snapped back into her knightly role.

“My thanks, good merchant! Mine quest is now complete, and I may continue my journey with mind at ease, knowing that yet another worthy inhabitant of this land hath been aided by mine hand!”

“Yeah, sure,” the crab muttered under his breath. “You did nothing, but whatever floats your horse, loony knight.”

As he was about to turn, Balthazar paused and reflected on what the adventurer had just said.

“You have been turning in quests for weeks, you said?” he asked, turning back around to face the paladin while pulling his monocle up in front of his left eye.

“Indeed, I have!”

[Knight Paladin - Level 41]

Impressed, Balthazar let out a low whistle.

A feat in itself impressive as well, seeing as crabs have no lips.

“You must have been turning in a lot of quests,” he said. “You look a lot more… experienced since we last met.”

“Aye!” the knight said. “I have run far and wide, seeking all manner of tasks, from the greatest of quests to vanquish a mighty foe, to the equally honorable task of fetching a farmer his hoe from yonder field in exchange for a slice of goat cheese! I am proud to say that most of mine quests stand completed, save for the rare few, such as thy dragon quest here, or that other about finding a purple chicken, which I cannot seem to discover whence the blasted bird might be.”

“Yes, yes, fascinating,” the merchant said, starting to lead the adventurer away from the shore and toward the bazaar. “You know, I was thinking here, and I might have something I’d like to talk to you about.”

“Balthazar,” Madeleine muttered in a half-whisper from her own spot by the shore. “You’re not really thinking of asking this… knight to help you with what I’m thinking, are you?”

“Hey, sometimes you have to play the eggs you’re dealt in order to make an omelette,” the crab said, turning his eyestalks around to look at the baker. “Not a lot of choice in terms of high-level adventurers around here.”

Turning his attention back to Hannabeth, the merchant spoke up again.

“So, not sure if you’ve heard, but a new dungeon emerged right over there, across my pond. The Semla Dungeon.”

“Indeed, I have heard rumors,” the knight replied, gazing up to where the crab was pointing.

“Well, myself and a few other… allies, had formed a group that has been trying to uncover its mysteries and explore its depths. At least up until the point where things started getting a little too difficult for some of the less… experienced ones, let’s say,” Balthazar explained, remembering his attempt at going down into the mines and how fast he ran back up when something at level 40 started coming at him from the dark.

“Ahhhh, a classic dungeon quest,” the paladin nobly proclaimed.

“Yes, sure. That,” the merchant said. “So, here’s the deal—”

[The Gift of the Crab: Success]

“I accept thy quest!” Hannabeth declared loudly, one finger pointed up.

Balthazar looked up at her with his mouth half open.

“What? I… I haven’t even told you anything about the job.”

“Matters not!” said the knight. “There be a dungeon, fiends to slay, treasure and riches to claim, and most importantly, honor and comradery to be gained, will there not?”

“Uhhhh…” stammered the crab. “I’m gonna say… sure?”

“Then I shall gladly join your initiative and delve into this new dungeon along with your chosen allies, good merchant! Ye must only tell me when do we depart, and I shall be there!”

“Uhm, great then!” Balthazar said, surprised by how easy that had been.

He skittered back a few paces toward Madeleine, who was whispering up to Beatrix.

“And thank you. I know it must not have been easy for you, but I’m really proud of how you’ve kept yourself from crumpling up that adventurer, Bea.”

The dragon nodded gently. “Only because I know it would displease you, dear girl.”

“Hey, Madeleine,” Balthazar called. “I’m going to see Sir Meat Can back to the road. Are you coming too?”

A few minutes later, as the baker and the merchant stood between the path leading down to the bazaar and the cobblestone main road, watching Knight Hannabeth shuffle away slowly, Madeleine sighed and spoke.

“Do you really think this is a good idea? Going down into an unknown and probably dangerous dungeon floor accompanied by… that? I don’t want to sound mean, but she doesn’t seem all that capable.”

Balthazar shrugged.

“Hey, she can’t be that useless. She managed to make it in one piece to level 41. I’m sure there’s some talent there that I can use. Besides, I’m not so foolish that I’ll go into the mines with just her. I still need to find a few more dunce… I mean, brave adventurers to join us.”

“Mhmm…” the baker muttered, forcing a smile as she waved back at the paladin in the distance.

“She said she will take a room at an inn in town until I send word that it’s time to go in,” explained the merchant.

“Hmm,” said Madeleine. “You do realize that she’s going south on the road, right? As in… toward the Black Forest—not Ardville?”

“Yep,” said the crab. “I noticed.”

“Should we… do something?”

“Nah. I’m sure she will figure it out eventually,” Balthazar said with a chuckle.

As he turned around to head back into the bazaar, a clanking came from down the path.

But this time it was not metal—it was bone.

“Bal—Balthazar,” Tom said, struggling to speak while rushing up the path. “I—I need you to… to come with me!”

“Holy tartelle, Tom,” said Balthazar. “What happened? And how are you out of breath when you don’t even breathe?!”

“No time to explain. Come!” the merchant skeleton replied. “An adventurer has made it to the end of the dungeon floor!”