Balthazar rummaged through a shelf, pig items and tossing them into a small open crate by his feet as he grumbled to himself.

  “No, no, no, not this. Maybe some of this. Oh yes, definitely a couple of those! This thing stay where it is. Why do I even have a dozen of that?!”

  As the crab tinued frantically filling the crate with all manner of odd things, Druma came running into the bazaar through the front gate with a stone hammer in hand and sweat rolling down his forehead.

  “Boss, boss!” he called. “Druma is done. Boss e out and see.”

  Balthazar turo the goblin with excitement. “You put it up where I told you? Did you pce the stool there, too?”

  “Yes, yes!” Druma respohe tip of his wizard boung bad forth as he nodded vigorously.

  “Good. Help me with these then a’s go,” the crab said, pointing to another already filled box on a table.

  Druma picked up the box, while Balthazar grabbed his own crate with both cws and ba on top of his shell as the pair made their way out of the bazaar and onto the sunny outside.

  Walking onto the road, the toad’s stall posite of them, on the western side of the road, and now a all had been built on the eastern side, directly across from the other.

  The crab gave it a quick look over. It was clearly built in a rush, but it was solid enough. It had a modest ter area and some shelf spader it, with a small cloth opy above to provide some shade. Hanging in front of the improvised stand was a wooden sign with the name “Balthazar’s Bazaar Booth” painted on it.

  “Good job, Druma,” he whispered to the goblin, as they both arrived behind the booth and put their boxes down. “You clearly learned some things while w with John.”

  A wide grin grew across the small assistant’s face, his eyes shining with pride. “Thanks, boss!”

  Peeking with one eye stalk over the ter, Balthazar looked to the booth oher side of the road. The toad sat on her ter, watg the road, trying to not pay the crab’s stand any mind.

  “Heh, bet if you could wear any boots, you’d be shaking in them right now,” he muttered to himself. “You wao pete with me? Well, now yoing to learn the hard way who’s the best mert.”

  The crab hopped oool John had made for him and that his assistant had brought out from behind the bazaar’s ter. Pg his shiny cws on the ter, he propped his golden shell up, doing his best to look imposing.

  “Oh, hiya there, neighbor!” Hea yelled from her side. “Beautiful day for being out here doing business, ain’t it?”

  “Sure is,” Balthazar yelled back, “if you’re the legitimate business owner, and not some shameful freeloader trying to occupy someone else’s nd!”

  “This again?” said the toad. “You know, people in town have their stores and market stalls right o each other everywhere and have to make their busitractive and petitive instead of pining about one ahis road is big enough for the both of us!”

  “I disagree!” said the crab. “I was here first, just by myself, and that’s how I like it!”

  “Oh, dear, you don’t really mean that.”

  “Oh yes, I do. And st to act so nice or I’ll e over there and…”

  Balthazar left his sentenfinished as he go his right and spotted a young dy walking down the road from town, wearing a white gown and carrying a long white staff over her shoulder.

  “Hello, adven—” the crab started, but the toad quickly cut him off with a loud croak.

  “Well, hello, sweetie! Don’t you look lovely as a peach today!”

  The girl moved one side of her sheer veil behind an ear and looked at the toad who had just greeted her. “Uh, hello, and thanks. You look very… green, too.”

  “Oh now, no need for pleasantries with an old toad like myself. I know we ’t all be such a looker as yourself. But you know what would go really well with a pretty young dy such as yourself?” Hea said, pulling her Bag of Holding closer and opening it. “A nice piece of jewelry. Looking at your beautiful eyes and blonde hair, I’m going to say something… silver!”

  “Hmm… I guess it doesn’t hurt to look,” the adventurer said with a shrug, as she watched the toad dispying a few silver pieces of jewelry on the ter.

  Over oher side of the road, Balthazar’s pirembled over his ter as he watched, rage building up inside him.

  She was good, but he knew he was better.

  “Excuse me, miss healer,” he called, puffing himself up and putting on wise airs. “Would not an adventurer such as yourself be better served by purchasing some ented jewelry, rather than some… on baubles with nothing special to them?”

  The girl pulled the other side of her veiled bad looked over to the crab’s booth.

  “Oh, how did you know I’m a healer?”

  “I’m just very observant,” the gilded mert responded, smirking as he adjusted his monocle. “e, e, I think I have a magical item that yoing to like.”

  Seemingly fetting about the toad, the healer walked across to the other booth without so much as looking back. Hea’s face frowned into an ugly expression, uglier than a toad’s usual one.

  Balthazar looked over the girl’s shoulder with a smug look, before returning his attention to the t.

  “What’s this magical item you speak of, crab?” she asked, looking intrigued.

  “As a healer, I’m sure you will appreciate this,” he said, reag down into one of his boxes arieving a small case.

  Pg it on the wooden surface separating them, the mert leaned closer to the girl and spoke in a more hushed tone.

  “This is a very rare… Dagger of Cure Poison.”

  Balthazar removed the cover from the case, revealing a small dagger is pristine bde glowing faintly with a wavy green and white effect.

  “A… what now?!” the fused adventurer said.

  “A Dagger of Cure Poison!” the crab repeated, looking pleased with his big reveal. “It’s a silver dagger with a cure poison effeted onto its bde.”

  “Wha… But… Why would anyone ent…” the bewildered girl stammered. “How does it work?”

  “The same way any dagger does?” Balthazar said, looking fused by her question, and pig the on up with his pincer. “You take the dagger and stab someoh it.” He made several thrusts forward with the dagger, startling the girl. “And then the entment cures any poison effects the person might have.”

  “But then, instead of being poisohey will have a stab wound!” the veiled girl blurted out, with the look of someone beginning to question the crab’s sanity. “Wouldn’t that be making things even worse?!”

  “I don’t know,” the crab said, shrugging his shell. “You’re a healer. ’t you just pray their wound away, or something?”

  The adventurer looked at the mert in pure disbelief. “You’re crazy and a plete fraud!”

  Giving no time for a rea, she turned away and started walking down the road.

  “Miss! Wait, e back, I…” Hea called from her stand, but the girl did not hear or did not care to listen and tinued marg away. “Great, I hope you’re happy, crab. Now her of us made any business because of you.”

  “Me?” Balthazar said to the toad. “How was that my fault? She was clearly limited up ihinking box.”

  The toad opened her mouth to respond, but they both turheir attentions back to the north side of the road, as two more adventurers came walking down their way.

  “Hey, look, Balthazar’s out on the road now,” one of the adventurers said to the other. “I wonder why.”

  “Who cares?” his partner said, quickly moving closer to the crab’s stall, paying no attention to the other stand. “Just means we save more time. Let’s see if he has the gear we couldn’t get in town a going already.”

  “Greetings, gentlemen! What I do for you?” the cheerful crab loudly said, peeking over to the other side and smiling as he saw the toad’s annoyed expression.

  “Hey there, Balthazar,” the first adventurer said as he joined his friend in front of the booth. “We’re going into a cave, so we need some cave expl gear, but the store in town was short on some stock. We were hoping you had some of the stuff we need.”

  “Certainly! Balthazar’s Bazaar has everything the dising adventurer could ever need,” the pompous crab excimed.

  “Yeah, awesome, anyway,” the man said, looking down at the tents of his backpack, “you got any… torches?”

  “Of course.” The crab turo his goblin assistant, who roag with a third crate of items from the bazaar. “Druma, fetch us a handful of torches, will you?”

  “Yes, yes, boss!” the goblin said, hurriedly running baside.

  “Oh, don’t fet the rope too,” the sed adventurer said to his panion.

  “I got some rht here,” Balthazar said, pulling a coil of rope from the shelves under his booth and pg it on the ter. “Special offer on it today, too. Just 15 gold.”

  “15 gold?” one of the ts said. “That’s a special price? It’s still even more expehan what it would cost us in town.”

  “Acc to you two, the store in town is out of rope, so 15 gold for it is still a better price than no rope at all, I say,” the crabby mert retorted.

  “Howdy, fels!” a deep but friendly voice called from the other side of the road. “How y’all doing? I got some rope here for you, if you need. Just 12 gold for it, too.”

  The two men looked back at the toad and then at each other.

  “Did you know there was aalking animal selling stuff out here?”

  “No, I didn’t. Did you?”

  “No, but her rope is cheaper, so we should buy it there.”

  “Wow, hang o’s not be so quip ship here, guys,” Balthazar pleaded. “You guys realize that the reason my rope is more expensive is that it’s a special rope, right?”

  “Special rope?” said one of the adventurers. “Special how?”

  “It’s, uh… it’s a coil of Rope of Enta!” the quick thinking crab excimed.

  “Oh, damn, really?” the other adventurer said, looking closer at the coil with an intrigued frown. “I think I’ve heard of that somewhere. What does it do?”

  “It… well… it entangles a target, restrig their movements.”

  “Ah, right, got it, but… how?” the other said. “Is there like a magic word you gotta say, some special spell, or what?”

  “No… you just have to, you know… it around whatever your target is,” the mert said, making a rotating motion with his cws. “Until it’s… entangled.”

  “What?!” the befuddled adventurer said. “But that’s just like any other piece of rope! You ’t just sp a faname on it and say it’s special!”

  “I disagree,” Balthazar said, “but since you guys drive such a hard bargain, and because I like you, I’ll make the price… humph… 10 gold. Final offer.”

  “If you fels e over here, I’ll make it 8 gold and offer a fresh cup of lemoo each of you!” Hea shouted from her booth.

  “Screw it, I’m thirsty. Let’s go check the toad,” the adventurer said to his friend.

  “But… guys, what the hell? Why would you want to buy junk from a toad on the road?” Balthazar yelled as they walked away.

  One of them turned back halfway across and yelled back. “You realize you’re on the road tht?”

  Hea chuckled as they reached her stall. “You know what they say, don’t buy crap from a crab!”

  The three of them ughed as the crab sched up his fa his side of the road. “That doesn’t even rhyme!”

  But they did not seem to care.

  Once again, the damoad was winning another one on the crab.

  Balthazar’s mind raced, trying to e up with an expnation amid his ire.

  lower prices ure dirty py on her part. The one low he would not stoop to.

  How did she io keep uting him and not go bankrupt? It was not a sustaiactic for any business. That was not even crab eics, it was simply on sense.

  That question, added to Balthazar’s previous suspis about where the toad had e from, only further reinforced his theory. Someone else was behind the slimy mert, and it was likely a certain other slimy figure.

  Jumping off his stool, the crab walked back dowh to his pond, angry and bitter.

  “Boss? Druma got torches,” his assistant said, running up from the bazaar with a stack of torches in his arms.

  “Never mind the torches, Druma, I don’t hem anymore,” Balthazar said as he walked past the goblin. “What I need is information, and a rategy. Fetch me the strongbox where we keep the precious gems.”

  H0st