Chapter 324: Between a Barnacle’s Rock and a Hard Place

Balthazar had been walking through Battershoal’s jungle for about ten minutes, heading northwest beneath a canopy so thick that the afternoon sunlight barely reached the forest floor, hitting it only in scattered golden shafts that gave the entire place a warm glow.

Broad leaves overlapped above him, their surfaces slick with moisture, while tangled vines hung from branches and wound around the trunks of trees thick enough to hide an entire wagon full of wares behind them. Ferns crowded the gaps between exposed roots, and patches of moss clung to every shaded stone. He imagined Druma jumping out of one of those bushes on Blue’s back to scare him, all while Bouldy tried applying some of that jungle moss on himself like some new form of skincare.

The crab sighed.

The air was hot and heavy, clinging to his shell as he picked his way over damp earth and decaying leaves. Every now and then, a drop of water fell from somewhere overhead and landed with a soft plip against his Explorer’s Hat. It certainly did as its description promised, even if moisture protection didn’t much matter to a creature like him.

The jungle was anything but quiet. Insects buzzed and chirred from every direction, while unseen creatures produced a steady chorus of clicks, trills, and the occasional guttural call, and he could hear frogs croaking somewhere beyond the undergrowth.

Balthazar sighed again and wondered if Henrietta and Tristan were taking good care of his bazaar.

Leaves rustled in the warm breeze, though the deeper he went, the less of it he felt. The smells of wet soil, rotting vegetation, and unfamiliar flowers mingled in the humid air.

Balthazar kept an eye out for anything worth investigating, whether it was an unusual plant, a promising-looking mushroom, or something that might fetch a few coins later. So far, however, the jungle had offered him little beyond greenery and noise. He hadn’t crossed paths with a single person, and despite all the sounds around him, he hadn’t spotted any wildlife either.

Even Sir Bartholomew, for once, had yet to offer a running commentary on the journey.

In fact, the barnacle had been so quiet that the crab found himself beginning to worry.

“Hey, Barney,” Balthazar called toward the back of his carapace. “You didn’t expire on my backside, did you? The last thing I need now is a rotting lump on my chitin stinking me up in front of my clients.”

“Hmm? What’s that?” the barnacle replied, sounding distant.

“Ah, right, right. Sir Bartholomew. My bad,” said the crab.

“Oh? Ah, that. It is fine. Nothing to apologize for,” the other crustacean said. “I am the one who needs to apologize. I was lost in thought and became distracted from my chronicler duties. I am terribly sorry, my good host.”

Balthazar cocked an eyestalk.

“You really don’t need to apologize for that.” He paused between a flowery bush and a rugged tree, next to a column of golden sunlight. “You have been oddly quiet since we left the ruins. Are you… alright?”

The crab wasn’t sure why he was even worried about the barnacle, let alone why he was openly admitting to it by asking that question.

It was just self-preservation, he told himself. After all, if the annoying ride-along became ill, who was to say that wouldn’t affect the crab too? The last thing he needed while lost alone in a jungle was to become sick due to some infected barnacle he had stuck to his butt.

The sheer embarrassment of it!

“Yes, I believe I am quite alright,” Sir Bartholomew replied. “More than I’ve ever been, actually.”

“What do you mean?” the intrigued merchant asked.

“It’s all been so… overwhelming,” the talking barnacle explained, his tone serious but lacking the usual grandeur of his narration . “At first everything was happening so fast, so many new things, all happening at once, and I was just riding along with it. But now that I’ve had some time to reflect upon it all, I am beginning to realize just how… wonderful it all is.”

Balthazar frowned in genuine confusion.

“How wonderful what is?”

“Everything!”Bartholomew responded in a burst of joy. “Being alive. The world. Living it and feeling it! I could never have imagined it before. I don’t think I even had the ability to imagine!”

The crab opened his mouth but couldn’t find the right question to ask that wasn’t a rewording of the last two he had already made.

As if sensing his host’s puzzlement, the barnacle explained further.

“You must understand, I wasn’t so much living, but merely existing. A simple barnacle on the beach, concerning himself with nothing more than basic survival by filtering water, and what little sustenance I could extract from that. I had not even a sense of self! I could not see, I could not hear, I could not think in the true sense of that word. Words! I had not even a concept of those!”

Balthazar found himself captivated by what his symbiotic travel partner was opening up to him about and slowly lowered himself onto the floor, sitting in the middle of a sun-bathed clearing as he continued listening.

“And then, as if guided by the most kind hand of fate, I found my way onto you and your carapace, my friend. I had no idea, I could not have known what my basic instinct was leading me to, but oh, what glorious luck mine was. To wake up attached to you was to wake up to the world. As if being reborn!”

Balthazar shifted around a little, feeling uncomfortable, and not just by his current sitting position.

“Wow, alright, pal. No need to oversell it. You glued yourself to a crab, like plenty of barnacles do every day, I’m sure.”

“Do you believe yourself to be like any other crab, my good host?” the barnacle inquired.

Balthazar rolled his eyes back and clicked his tongue.

“Well, obviously not, but that’s beside the point!”

“But that’s where you’re wrong. That is the whole point!” Sir Bartholomew exclaimed in a way that made it sound like he was stretching his arms out, despite having none. “I could not hope to explain what it is that truly makes you so unique, but the fact is, you are, and that in turn has made me a very fortunate and unique barnacle by association. And for that I am eternally grateful.”

“Grateful? For what?!” the bewildered crab asked.

“For even if tomorrow you were to find a way to detach me from your shell as you so wish, I would still thank you for this wonderful time having experienced the world in a way I could never have hoped to. To have seen the world despite having no eyes. To have felt the smells of nature through you. To experience the joy of the memory of what tasting a sweet pastry is like despite having never lived it myself. For all of it and so much more, I would perish a happy barnacle.”

Balthazar jumped back onto his eight legs with a start.

“Hey now, let’s not go that far! I have no wish to see you dead or anything, just… off my… back.”

His eyestalks lowered slightly and he felt a tinge of remorse inside. Balthazar was not clueless about what Sir Bartholomew was talking about. He knew that if the barnacle was removed from his shell, it would soon perish—it was simply a cruel fact of their species.

And the crab might have found the creature incessantly annoying since the first minute they met, but that did not mean he had any wish to see him dead.

He would definitely feel guilty if that were to happen.

And oddly enough, he realized, he could even see himself missing the strange narrator.

“I mean, you’re not so bad. At least not all the time,” Balthazar said. “There were those times in the ruins back there where you were even pretty useful, with all the callouts and being like a set of eyes on my back.”

“Your compliments honor me, my good host,” the chronicler said earnestly.

“You know, I just kind of wish you sometimes were a little… less.”

“Whatever do you mean, sir?”

“It’s all the nonstop narrating, all the constant talking, the exaggeration and excessive grandeur. It can get a bit… annoying.”

Sir Bartholomew let out a gasp that made Balthazar picture in his mind someone clutching their chest in a dramatic fashion.

“But sir, I only do my best to register a chronicle that does justice to the greatness of your adventures.”

Balthazar winced slowly.

“Yeeeeah, but you know, all that pomp isn’t really my thing.”

“Hmm,” said the barnacle. “Are you sure? Because I must remind you that most of what I am comes directly from our special bond. I was but a simple barnacle with no personality of his own. I base most of who I am today from what I sense from you through our connection. Which is to say, a great deal of who I am I take from your fantastic and charismatic self.”

The crab frowned. “What are you trying to say?”

“I am merely asking if, deep down, you don’t believe yourself worthy of the best recognition possible? Of having someone sing your praises and shout for all the world to hear how great you are?”

“Woah, now you’re kind of making me sound… I don’t know, like I am—”

“Rightfully self-confident?” Bartholomew suggested cheerfully.

“I was going to say arrogant,” the merchant said dryly.

“A rose by any other name, my good sir,” said the sticky narrator. “But the fact is, whether we like to admit it or not, I am in part a reflection of your psyche. And my compulsion and sense of purpose is to do the only thing my restrictive condition allows—to be a living memory of your journey through my privileged point of view.”

“You mean the point of view from my butt?” the larger crustacean said.

“You have a talent with words I could only hope to one day match, my gifted host.”

“Alright, alright! Enough about me! It’s getting uncomfortable. You keep talking about my senses, my experiences, what you feel through me—that all still feels very invasive, I must add—but surely you must have… something of your own! Like memories, for example. Anything you remember about your life before you glued yourself to me?”

“Oh…” the tiny creature said, his voice becoming somber. “A few vague memories. There was not much in terms of senses for me before. And what I remember can only be truly processed now, with my newly-gained understanding.”

“Alright, but what do you remember doing before I came along on that beach?”

“Not much,” Bartholomew replied, and it was as if Balthazar could hear a faint smile of longing growing in his tone. “For the most part, my days consisted of sitting on a rock catching sun and trying to feed myself by the edge of the water. It was a nice rock, I have to say. Smooth and pleasant surface, and a perfect sunbathing spot. All things considered, looking back, it was a nice life, for a creature with practically no sapience as I was.”

Balthazar reflected quietly on the barnacle’s words for a moment, the irony of his travel companion’s story washing over him like a slow wave.

An uncaring crustacean living his life quietly by the shore, sitting on his favorite rock catching sun without giving the world around him much thought. All until something unexpected happened in his life that changed him completely.

For one, it was a mysterious adventurer’s scroll. For the other, the one who touched that scroll.

Balthazar chuckled to himself. Maybe he and the barnacle did share a lot more in common than he would like to admit.

After all, how many found the crab incredibly annoying along the way since the day he started talking too?

“You know, I used to sunbathe on a favorite rock that I bet you’d enjoy meeting too,” the merchant said to his backside area.

“Ah, would that be the delightful little miss you carry in your backpack’s pocket?” Bartholomew replied.

“Oh, I wasn’t talking about Pebbles, actually,” Balthazar said. “I meant her father.”

“Oooh?”

“I meant my best friend, Bouldy. If we ever get out of here, I’m sure you would become his friend too pretty quickly. Everyone does.”

“Really?” Sir Bartholomew said, his voice suddenly losing some of its grandiose tone and sounding genuinely moved. “Does that mean you see yourself continuing on with me by yourside?”

“You mean by my backside? Heh. And I still would prefer not to live with a barnacle stuck to my butt forever, but I promise to look for a way to pry you off me that doesn’t end with you dying, alright?”

“That sounds quite reasonable to me, my noble host!” the chronicler exclaimed with renewed enthusiasm.

“Good. Then it’s a deal, but in return can you just do me a favor and try to be a little less of a pompous announcer for every twig I step on and not treat me sneezing like a monumental event?”

“But I am certain everyone would agree you have the most potent sneezes, sir. Powerful enough to shake the very mountains, send armies flying, or even rip out the souls of dra—”

“Bartholomew…” the crab grumbled. “Less. Please.”

The crab heard a sigh come from the barnacle, and when he next spoke, the tone was slightly more grounded.

“Very well. I shall do my best to interfere less with thy hero’s journey and be more of a silent watcher.”

“You don’t have to become mute, pal. Just try to focus less on loudly narrating and maybe more on, I don’t know… helping me out? Like you did in Broken Whisk, being an extra sense against danger. That was good. You were really good at it!”

“Truly? You mean it?”

“Of course I do, Barney,” Balthazar said. “You already know me so well, you must know I’m not lying!”

“No, but lying and overselling are two different things,” said the barnacle.

“Like I said, you already know so well how I think!” the merchant said, standing back up straight and turning the way they were going again. “Now, let’s get going again while we still have some daylight left, shall we?”

“Indeed, sir!” Bartholomew replied. “And I promise to do my best from here on out to be the best barnacle a crab could have by his backside!”

“Great!”

“On that note, my lustrous friend, I must ask… Do you sense that particular musk in the air, or is it just me?”

“Huh?” Balthazar turned his nose up to smell the air around them before remembering he had no nose. “What kind of musk?”

“A peculiar combination of wet fur, sweat, and raw onions.”

“Meh, it’s a jungle. I’m sure this place is full of funky smells like that all over,” the crab said as he shrugged and stepped into the vegetation again.

Until his eyestalks smacked straight into something hard and rugged past a bush, making his whole body bounce a couple of steps backward.

“Oof! Where did this tree trunk come from?!”

“Sir…” Bartholomew whispered. “I don’t believe that is a tree.”

Balthazar squinted as he used the side of his pincer to pat the hard surface he had just collided with.

“You’re right. It looks more like a…” he said while using the other claw to place the monocle back onto his eye. “...thigh?!”

[Minotaur - Level 55]

As the crab’s gaze slowly went up, his jaw went the opposite direction.

“A very muscular thigh, sir,” said the barnacle.

Staring down at them was the same angry face from before, belonging to the same creature Balthazar witnessed sending three adventurers into their next lives without breaking a sweat.

Or perhaps breaking some sweat, given the pungent smell the crab was now feeling from that close.

“B-Barney…” the merchant muttered, eyes locked with the creature. “Do something!”

“Do what?! I’m just a barnacle! You expect me to what, spit at him?!”

“Can you?!”

“No! That would be extremely unhygienic!”

Strangely and luckily enough for the two crustaceans, the minotaur seemed just as caught by surprise by their sudden encounter as Balthazar as he continued to just stare down at him with a slowly deepening frown.

“Can’t you do something? Surely your backpack of tricks has something useful to get out of this situation!”

Realizing they had no time to continue bickering back and forth, the merchant reached his pincer into the first random pouch he found on the side of Crab Bag.

As he pinched and felt what was inside, he felt grateful it wasn’t Pebbles.

“Pocket sand!”

Balthazar threw out his open claw and sent forth a cloud of fine sand that hit the minotaur directly in the eyes.

The creature roared as it reached for its own face with both hands, the decorative bones hanging against its chest producing an unsettling rattling as the beast staggered a couple of steps back.

“Good shot! But I suggest you flee now, my noble steed!” Sir Bartholomew exclaimed.

“You don’t need to tell me!” Balthazar yelled as he turned and bolted as fast as his eight legs could carry him into the densest part of the jungle.

“Faster! I think the beast is quickly recovering his sight!” the barnacle on his back said.

The crab ran as he heard the furious yells of the enraged minotaur in the distance.

“Branch!” warned Bartholomew.

Balthazar ducked under the thick arm of a nearby tree that nearly brought his escape to a crashing halt.

“Good call!” he yelled, both eyestalks glancing back toward his own butt as he continued sprinting through the hanging vines and thick bushes.

“Watch out! Eyes forward!”

The fleeing crustacean turned his sights just in time to see the ground ahead of him suddenly ending at the edge of a cliff.

But not in time to brake.

As if time had slowed down, Balthazar shot past the edge, his many legs flailing uselessly in the air. His eyestalks nearly popped out of their sockets as he looked down and saw the deep chasm below, its floor littered with hard, jagged rocks.

He barely had time for a last thought of his pond, his friends, or even a comforting memory of a steaming pie before gravity took hold and sent him hurtling toward the deadly ground.