Chapter 321: Battershoal’s Adventurer Strategy Guide

Balthazar stomped his eight legs forward, both his backpack and explorer’s hat bouncing up and down on his shell as his eyestalks curved inward.

“You!” he said again, pointing his pincer at the person in front of him.

Standing there, under the shade of some leafy tree branches and between some flower bushes, was a familiar figure in a hooded trench coat and muddy boots.

The Trader’s pale face broke into a smile beneath his hood.

“Well, look at you, mate!”

The crab stopped in front of him and placed both claws on the sides of his shell, looking irritated. Around the tradesman were a few sacks and wooden boxes like before, although the merchant felt sure there was more stuff now than earlier, somehow.

“How are you even here already? And with all this stuff?!”

The man opened his arms over his wares.

“What do you mean? This is one of my many usual spots. I do great business here,” he said, standing in the middle of the dense jungle vegetation without so much as a clear path or road leading there.

“Either way, it doesn’t matter!” the frustrated crustacean said. “You sent me into that ruin for nothing! It was a big waste of time!”

The Trader remained calm and even seemed mildly amused.

“Heh-heh. I did not send you there. I provided you with information and you went of your own volition. Isn’t that right?”

Balthazar opened his mouth and then hesitated.

“I… Well, technically, maybe. But still, it was for nothing! I came out of there empty-pincered!”

The Trader grinned and stared at the beige hat sitting on the crab’s shell.

“Did you?”

“That doesn’t count!” Balthazar quickly said. “This hat doesn’t help me in finding a way off this island!”

“But it sure looks nice on you,” the friendly hooded figure said.

“It does, doesn’t it?” the crab said, twisting his eyestalks to look at the top of his own shell. “Hey, wait! I’m supposed to be mad at you, don’t distract me!”

The Trader grinned.

“And did you really gain nothing more beyond the hat while in those ruins?”

Balthazar rolled his eyestalks.

“Sure, I got an improved skill, I guess. Oh, and yes, I also found one of your beloved marbles.”

The merchant reached into one of the pockets of his backpack and pinched the marble out. As he did, Pebbles peeked out from her pouch too.

“Cree-cree!” she said with a smile.

“I’m still interested in trading for her, if you’ve changed your mind,” the grinning tradesman said.

“No. Still not for sale,” Balthazar stated firmly.

“Ah, well. The marble is good too.”

He took the small bauble into his gloved palm and then retrieved the same transparent tube from before that already contained two marbles. With gentle care and a smile, he slipped the new one into it.

“That earns you some more information, mate,” the man said to the crab.

Balthazar paused for a moment.

His first instinct was to ask about where to go next to find an answer on how to go back to the continent, perhaps information about that temple mentioned in one of the letters inside the ruin.

But at the same time, Balthazar hadn’t gotten much from that approach. The Trader’s information hadn’t been untrue so far, but it had not been useful either. And now the merchant wondered if that wasn’t a matter of him asking about the wrong things.

After all, wasn’t the crab acting just like the many adventurers he had dealt with for the past year? Not being clever enough about what they were buying into and then complaining for a refund—that the crustacean obviously never provided.

Balthazar rubbed his chin in thought.

Stolen story; please report.

He wouldn’t be like them. He would be clever. The Trader was simply playing the business game, just like him. No reason to be upset or lash out. It was all just business.

And Balthazar was great at doing business.

“You do realize you’ve been standing there without saying a word for a good minute now, right, mate?” the hooded figure said, causing the crab to snap out of his pondering.

“I was reflecting on my monumental waste of time in those ruins, and how not to make the same mistake,” said Balthazar.

“Come now,” the smiling trader said. “Surely you realize how much you actually got. Your new hat, the skill you just mentioned. Even the journey inside those ruins and the fact that you came out the other side in one piece must have been worth the experience!”

As if on cue, a system notification appeared in Balthazar’s eyes.

[The Ruins of Broken Whisk completed]

[Experience gained]

[You have reached level 41!]

The merchant frowned.

“How did you know—” he started, dumbfounded. “Hey! Did you trigger this?!”

The Trader grinned, as always.

“Whatever are you talking about, mate?”

Balthazar’s eyes narrowed, and then he remembered something else from earlier.

Without bothering to even be discreet about it, the crab pulled his Monocle of Exposition onto his eye and stared the man down.

[Trader - Level 43]

There it was again. The tradesman was now another level higher than before.

Balthazar was sure that wasn’t normal. Locals were supposed to have static levels, as far as he had learned.

“There’s definitely something you’re not telling me, pal,” the suspicious crustacean said.

“Plenty, actually,” the smiling man said. “That’s part of my business. You don’t give away your wares freely for no reason, do you?”

The corners of Balthazar’s mouth curled disapprovingly.

It was a negotiation. It was business. He needed to remember that.

The Trader was not being dishonest with him, he was just doing his… trade.

“In fact,” the hooded figure continued, “there’s even more you might have gotten from that ruin that I would be interested in trading for.”

That caught the merchant’s attention.

“And what would that be?”

The Trader chuckled. “Information, as usual.”

Balthazar rolled his eyestalks. “Why couldn’t it be a pair of calipers, for a change?”

“I know of a party of explorers who went into Broken Whisk a long time ago and never came out. There are those who would be interested in knowing what their fate was. Of course, as a trader, I wouldn’t be the right fit to go in there and find out for myself. But apparently, a merchant was the right one for the job, heh-heh.”

The crab cocked an eyestalk.

“Right. I did come across the guys you’re talking about. All dead, as you probably already suspected. One of them seemed to have an obsessive habit of writing letters detailing everything that happened to them along the way.”

“Ah, yes,” the Trader said. “Folks around here like to do that a lot, for some reason. But… I would be very interested in trading with you for those letters detailing their adventure, if you still have them.”

Balthazar’s eyes widened.

“I… may have thrown them away after reading them,” he said, realizing the wasted potential.

“You did not keep every piece of loot you found in a ruin just in case it could be useful or valuable later on?” the hooded man asked. “Not very adventurer-like of you, mate.”

Balthazar pinched the space between his eyestalks.

“Again, I am not an adventurer, but… I see your point. I should have kept them, even if just to sell them as lightly-worn napkins later. Still! I could tell you about their contents, and what happened to them along their journey through that place. The last explorer’s fate will surprise you!”

The Trader scratched the prickly hairs on his jaw as he considered the crab’s words.

“I suppose that could do. Not as good as having the letters themselves, as I’m sure you will agree, but I could trade you for that information too.”

The crab went on to detail his findings inside the ruins: the rolling stone that almost crushed the explorers, Jameson drowning in the flooded passage, Thompson’s deadly fall while trying to climb the stone wall, and Ferguson’s fatal encounter with a dart trap while randomly pulling some chains.

“And this last explorer,” the Trader said after listening to most of the merchant’s story. “The one you say is the author of those letters and who perished in the final room. What was his name?”

Balthazar shrugged his shell.

“I don’t know. I didn’t bother finishing the letter. Probably something ending in ‘son’ too?”

The man in the hood nodded idly.

“Not the most comprehensive story, but it will do. I thank you for this information, mate. It will be of good use to me. As promised, it’s my turn to help you now. What can I do for you?”

Balthazar narrowed his eyes. He needed to use this opportunity more wisely. Clearly the man before him did not actually know how to get out of that island. If he did he probably wouldn’t be there.

The merchant thought about asking for information on the temple mentioned in the explorer’s letter, but what if it was just another waste of time like the ruins?

Meanwhile, something else was nagging him. Something to do with the system.

“What do you know about level-ups?” the crab asked bluntly, looking for a reaction.

The most he got was a slight rise of one eyebrow from the Trader.

“Ah, asking about adventurer stuff, eh? I think I’ve got some old manual around here somewhere…”

The man started digging into the inner pockets of his trench coat, pulling his hand out and then back in several times like someone going through way more folds than should have been possible under there. As he did, Balthazar could hear the sounds of glasses clinking, papers rustling, hinges squeaking, and what the crab could have sworn was a dog panting for a brief moment.

“Here we go!” the Trader said as he pulled an old journal from inside his coat.

The thing looked old and severely worn-out, its pages all misaligned and full of folded corners and bookmarks sticking out of it. A title remained on its faded leather cover, barely legible beneath the wear. Battershoal’s Adventurer Strategy Guide.