“I’m no specialist in goblins,” the wizard said, “but I don’t remember ever seeing one using a magical staff.”

  Druma, with his wizard hat on his head and staff on his back, was still staring i Tweedus with the widest of grins, like a giant crab who had just entered a human-sized pie.

  “Oh, uh, yes, this is Druma, my assistant,” Balthazar told the wizard. “He’s a big fan of wizardry stuff, if you couldn’t tell from his hat. The staff is just for poking now, though. He used up all the charges in it.”

  “Hmmm, Druma, is it?” Tweedus said, looking down at the goblin while stroking his long white beard. “I’ve seen goblin shamans, but never a goblin wizard. Ya like magic, little guy?”

  Druma gave a little jump, as if he wasn’t expeg the old man to notice his presence.

  “Yes, yes!” the goblin excimed, while frantically nodding. “Druma like pretty sparkly magic stuff that makes bad guys go boom!”

  Tweedus threw his head bad let out a booming ugh.

  “I like your assistant, crab!” the wizard said to Balthazar, before turning his attention back to Druma. “That’s the right reason to get into magic. Fet all that schorly hogwash. Making pretty lights and watg stuff blow up is where the real fun is at!”

  The gobli nodding and tapping his feet in pce as the wizard spoke, his excitement palpable.

  “I don’t want to dash his hopes or anything,” Balthazar said to the wizard, “but is it really a good idea to be feeding his aspirations, sidering he has no actual magical skills?”

  Tweedus turo the crab with an amused expression.

  “And why should that stop him?” the man said, giving Balthazar a side look, his bushy eyebrows waving wildly. “Were you born with mertile skills, crab? Did that stop ya?”

  The crab opened his mouth tue, but the irony of him talking back hit him. A few months before, he wouldn’t have been able to speak with anyone, let alone sell and buy things.

  “Right. Point taken, old man.”

  Druma was still awestruck behind the wizard, his hands csped together as he observed the man’s every movement.

  “Druma,” Balthazar called. “Stop gawking, it’s getting awkward. Go get a new saw already.”

  Breaking away from his adoration, the goblin o his boss and scampered away to the back of the trading post.

  “And hey, by the way,” the mert tiurning to the wizard again, “I guess I should introduce you to the stone golem you see here, Bouldy.”

  Tweedus turned his gaze to the giant boulder that had just finished carefully putting away the tree trunk he was carrying. The wizard’s reaade it seem as if he had somehow not noticed the rock giant until that point.

  “Gee whiz, that’s a big fel!”

  “Yes, he’s quite something,” Balthazar said. “You should take some credit. You’re partially responsible for his creation.”

  “Woah there, buddy,” Tweedus interjected. “I’ve been around a lot in my many years, but even I would remember if I’d ever met a giant rock dy. That one isn’t mine. I’ll hear no talk of child support for a walking stone.”

  “What? No, that’s not… I’m talking about the golem core you paid me with!”

  “The what now?” the wizard asked, one eyebrow raised. “I don’t remember any golem core. I gave you one? What in bzes for? Was this during that game of poker in that sewer tavern one night? I remember there was a wereboar fel at the table, and a taur dy, too. The dealer was a talking skull. I ’t remember there being a talking crab, though.”

  The old man seemed lost in thought, searg through a world of memories of his own.

  “No! You paid me for the mana potions with the core,” the exasperated crab said. “You know, the ones we were just talking about, from that time with the fairies in the forest, or whatever?”

  “Oooooooooh!” the wizard howled.

  “Finally! Do you remember now?” Balthazar asked.

  “Nope. Not in the slightest. But I’ll take your word for it.”

  Fighting the urge to snap something with his pincers, Balthazar took a deep breath.

  “Point is,” the very calm and collected crab tinued, “I used the golem core to create Bouldy over here from one of the boulders around my pond.”

  “Not bad. Not bad at all,” Tweedus said, stroking his beard as he walked around the golem and exami. “Sturdy stone. I personally would have goh some other material, but rock is a solid choice, too.”

  The robed man stopped and gave the rock giant a couple of knocks on a leg with his knuckles.

  “Friend?” Bouldy said, looking over his shoulder at the wizard behind his legs.

  “Don’t worry, buddy, he’s not going to do anything bad to you. At least I hope not,” Balthazar said to the golem, before turning back to Tweedus. “By the way, wizard, is it normal folems to only speak one word?”

  “Normal?” the other said, looking up at the golem’s stony face with the same sched up expression as someoaring up at the sun. “No. I had never even heard of a speaking golem at all until this very moment. How the hell did you teach it to talk, even if just one word?”

  “I… didn’t?” the puzzled crab responded. “He came out like that already.”

  “Heh,” Tweedus said with a shrug. “Something new every day.”

  Suddenly, an idea popped into Balthazar’s mind.

  “Is there not some way to upgrade or improve a golem after its creation?”

  “Sure,” said the wizard. “Someone specialized in golemancy give a golem upgrades, but not a lot of adventurers follow that kind of path. Too much work. Everyone wants fshy swords and big fireballs.”

  “Oh…” the disappointed crab said.

  “Then there are also temporary upgrades, through things like imbuing,” the other tinued. “I wouldn’t reend it, though. Lots of materials for just a temporary return. plete rip off. It used to be pretty det, but then they had to go and ruin it.”

  Balthazar asked himself how he hadn’t thought of that yet. His imbuing skill had worked on his cws and shell, maybe it could work on other things as well. Maybe he was indeed a bit too self-tered.

  The entress from before had made an off-handed remark about his imbuing being strange because it wasn’t temporary, but at the time, he thought little of it. Looking back, maybe for once his frustrating system was w in his favor. Everyone else seemed to act like imbuing was only meant to st a short time, but the ones he had doo himself didn’t seem to expire, for whatever reason.

  “Hey, wait, what do you mean by ‘they’ there?” the crab suddenly asked.

  But as he asked the question, the wizard had already gone off to some shelves, distracted by the wares he was browsing.

  “Say, I got a meeting to get to soon,” Tweedus said, as Balthazar joined him by the shelves, “and I’m thinking I could use some potions.”

  “Let me guess, you want MANA POTIONS?” the mert yelled out, with a mog smile.

  “What? No, no. And why in the world are you yelling like that?”

  Balthazar’s smile faded, and he wondered why did he even bother trying his cw at humor anymore.

  “I was heading out to the shore when yirl almost crashed into me,” the man tinued. “I’m going to meet a sea serpent there, and I’m thinking I might need some stamina potions. You know, just in case I need a little pick-me-up.”

  “Why would you… On sed thought, I’d better not even ask. Stamina potions, right this way. How many?”

  “Ah, I think two should do it,” the other said, while following the crab to another shelf.

  “Alright, here you go,” Balthazar said, as he pced twe bottles of green liquid oable o them.

  “Yoing to want some gold for those, aren’t ya?” Tweedus said, as he pulled a purple bag from behind his back. “Don’t worry, I’m sure I got some ihis time.”

  “Wait, what do you mean ‘this time’? I thought you didn’t remem—”

  “AHA! There we go!” the wizard yelled out, as he pulled a much rger bag from the smaller purple one.

  Balthazar’s eye stalks shot up as he saw the size of the bag. Not because the man had just produced a bigger bag from a smaller ohat kind of nonsense he had already started growing desensitized to, but because the bag was visibly full to the brim with s.

  The entig king produced by it had the crab breathing heavy. There had to be several hundreds in it.

  “Ya think this will cover it?” Tweedus asked. “I got no idea what the going rate is these days. I miss the days when we just used shirt buttons as currency.”

  Once again, the old man clearly did not know the value of his payment, and Balthazar felt ne to educate him, either. After all, the wizard was not paying him for a lesson in eics. That would cost him an. Maybe two, if the crab could swing it.

  As his eyes greedily admired the huge bag of mohe gilded mert noticed something else past it in the distance: his goblin assistant all the way at the back of the trading post. He had his staff in his hand, and was vigorously shaking it and pointing it at a pile of wood, in what looked like a desperate attempt at making it shoot something again.

  Balthazar looked at the bag of money, and then at Druma again.

  “Money is fine and all,” the crab said to the wizard, “but I was w if you wouldn’t be up for making another direct trade of items?”

  “That so?” said Tweedus. “I’m pretty sure I don’t have any molem cores in here, though. Maybe some Socks of Frost Prote, if you’re ied?”

  “No, no, I had something else in mind. You’re a wizard and all, so would you happen to have some magical staff you’d be willing to part with?”

  “Hmm,” the old man said, following the crab’s gaze to the goblin. “I think I see where ya going, crab.”

  The ced the purple bag down on the floor and shoved both hands inside, all the way to his shoulders. He rummaged through it, causing all sorts of g and cttering, sounds of gss shattering, and what Balthazar could swear was a cat hissing.

  “Darn thing! I know you’re in here somewhere.”

  Squatting down, the old man spread the bag open with his arms and shoved his head inside, wizard hat included.

  The crab watched with horror at what looked like a bag about to swallow a man whole in the middle of his trading post. That would be terrible publicity for his business.

  Suddenly, the ulled himself out of the bag together with a burst of chi feathers, for whatever reason that Balthazar had no wish to eveion anymore.

  “Found it!” he said, presenting the staff he had brought out.

  It was made of some type of dark wood, smooth and carefully carved with tiny runic symbols. At the end of it, where the wood split into four tips, a long green crystal in a hexagonal diamond shape was lodged between, glowing with a shimmering light.

  “I may not know what’s the value of gold s these days,” Tweedus said, “but I know this here staff is one fine piece, and worth way more than two potions.”

  “Oh,” the mert said, disappoihat his hopes to still score part of the money bag had been dashed.

  “But,” the wizard tinued, “I think you want this staff for someone else, don’t ya?”

  The wizard looked over his shoulder at the goblin still by the shore, practig his staff thrusting.

  “I think I accept this deal, crab. Go on, call him over.”

  Balthazar called his assistant over, who came running with rge hops.

  “Boss call Druma?”

  “Yes, I did. The old wizard and I just finished doing a trade, and I think you should have what he’s . Go ahead.”

  Druma turo the old man, his eyes going wide and his mouth ajar as he saw what the other was holding out for him.

  “This is a Staff of Are Bolts,” Tweedus said to the goblin. “Much better than your old ohis oually recharges itself over time. Just be careful not to use it too much. It takes about a day to recharge pletely. And here’s a little secret for ya: if you hold it with two hands like this, and shoot it really hard, you spend all the mana in it at oo make. One. Big. BOOOOOM!”

  The old man ughed loudly as he hahe staff to the goblin, who seemed on the verge of tears.

  A set of words appeared in front of Balthazar’s eyes.

  [High-value item traded. Experience gained.]

  [[Stamina Potion x2] traded for [Staff of Are Bolts]]

  [You have reached level 13!]

  The mert quickly dismissed the notifications. The system could wait, he had no wish to let it ruin the nient.

  “T-thank you,” the goblin said to the wizard, between happy sobbing.

  “Don’t thank me. Your boss is the one who wanted you to have a aff!”

  Druma turo Balthazar with watery eyes and a big smile on his green face. “Thanks, boss!”

  “Oh, well, it’s, uh, it’s nothing. Was just doing business,” the awkward crab mumbled. “You’re lucky the old man happeo have a staff, and I was just really tired of seeing you moping around with that old useless stiow go o out of here, go py with your aff. But don’t blow anything up!”

  The goblin scampered away with his staff, hopping as he went.

  “Well, this is all nid dandy,” said Tweedus, “but I really o get going, or I’ll be te. And you have no idea how prickly sea serpents are about punctuality!”

  “Sure,” Balthazar said, gazing longingly at the money bag being put ba the smaller bag, together with the stamina potions. “Thanks for the business and, you know, all the other help… I guess.”

  “Bah, don’t start getting sappy on me, crab!” the old mage said before bringing two fingers up to his mouth and whistling into them. “Just tell me which way is the o so I get out of here.”

  With a sudden whoosh, a blue cushion flew in from above and stopped o Tweedus.

  “Uh, that way, I think.” Th crab pointed west, over the pins. “I’ve never really been there myself.”

  “Hah! Maybe you should,” the other said, as he sat down on the pillow with his legs crossed. “I bet my dy sea serpent would love to meet ya. But for now, I’m outta here, crab. Toodaloo!”

  With another whistle, the cushion rose and the are wizard took flight to the west, his long beard fpping over his shoulder as he soared through the skies.

  H0st