The entress pulled a silk drape to the side and walked the crab through a doorway hidden behind it, into a tight corridor.

  “I am going to tell you the truth openly, Balthazar,” said Ruby as she walked in front of her guest.

  Balthazar rolled his eyes while followihat would be nice for once.

  “We have been hoping to find someone like you to help us,” the woman tinued. “No matter how many of us there are, what we know, and how much we try, it never feels like we get close enough to our objectives.”

  “Which are?” asked the mert.

  “To find answers, of course. To know who or what is in charge of this whole system, and what they are trying to achieve by pg tless adventurers on this world, on a rat’s race towards an arbitrary goal.”

  She arrived at a er, but to the crab’s surprise, instead of turning towards the corridor, she instead waved a hand in front of a bookcase, which quietly slid to the side, revealing a new passage.

  “Every adventurer has the same innate desire to level up,” she tinued, while dug through the new passage and into another corridor. “To reach level 100, despite none of us knowing what’s so important about it, or even if anyone has ever really do. Our theory is that whoever is pulling the strings is seeking something, and it requires finding one adventurer who reach that level. What for, is one of the many questions we have no answer for.”

  The crusta sighed as he followed along.

  “Fasating, but this is still none of my business,” he said. “Not unless it somehow involves a big pie in the sky. What in the world could you need my help for?”

  Ruby let out a sigh of her own.

  “You tio not get your own potential,” she said. “Your unique system… peculiarity makes you able to interfere with it and do uable things that none of us could ever hope to. We seek to poke holes into this system until we find a way through it, and you could be our most valuable tool.”

  The crab’s eyestalks frowned. “Did you just call me a tool?”

  “Metaphorically, Balthazar,” said the entress with a tired tone.

  “Still, I’m nobody’s tool,” the mert reiterated, crossing his arms as he tinued skittering behind the woman.

  “No, but what I want to show you is a tool,” said Ruby. “My mentor, the one whht me into the Birdwatchers, created it alongside a close friend of his a very long time ago.”

  They arrived in front of a solid brass door with several engravings on it, and the adventurer began trag her fiip across its lines in a careful and precise manner.

  “Is it a baking tool?” asked the crab.

  “No?” said the woman. “Why would it—”

  “Not really ied then,” Balthazar said. “I came out here to find ahat would help me with my friends, not to get involved in your school project to… Woah.”

  The crab’s jaw dropped as the door opened and a radiant glow shined onto him from within.

  Warm light reflected off the many polished metal surfaces ihe small circur chamber, an amber glow flooding into Balthazar’s eyes from the copper and bronze instruments, tools, and gear dispyed around the room, all lit from a single hollow orb hanging from the ceiling, a phosphorus light spot suspe the ter of an armilry sphere that made up its delicate structure.

  Ruby, standing off to the side, gestured for the mert to step into the room.

  “This is a part of our archive,” she said. “Sources of knowledge and banished pieces that once were in the world, kept by us in hopes of solviha’s riddle.”

  Balthazar walked in, and his eyes marveled at the wonders around him. Bookcases filled with hardcover tomes and copper artifacts inside gss dispy cases. Old tapestries covered the walls, depig a myths through plex patterns. An array of bronze instruments stood around the room, hung from the ceiling, or simply resting on tables. All so very shiny and captivating to the crab.

  Almost as pretty as gold…

  “We know that all roads for answers will iably lead to one source,” said the entress. “The Creator.”

  The crab turo her with a puzzled look. “Hey, I remember the entioning something about a creator.”

  “Indeed,” Ruby said. “We know o nothing about this figure, who or what they might be, but it’s clear that the birds are simply the underlings to this creator. If we ever hope to get to the bottom of what’s behind the system, we will have to find this individual.”

  Balthazar nodded. “You tried asking people you meet on the side of the road? That’s usually my method for finding things.”

  “The tool I mentioned,” the woman tinued, ign the crab’s insightful tip, “is how I hope to find The Creator.”

  She stood o a table at the very ter of the room, with a small scarlet sheet c something atop its surface. With a smooth pull at the piece of cloth, the entress revealed the objederh.

  An armilry sphere sitting on top of a solid metal base, entirely made of spotless and shiny brass, finely engraved rings suspended around the tral frame, which itself held a small copper-colored ball. It was a plex pieeical clockwork like the mert had never seen before.

  “Pretty…” said the bright-eyed crab. “…what is it?”

  “It is called the Amil Astrobe,” Ruby said.

  Balthazar cocked aalk thoughtfully. “Wait, I’ve read books about these things. Don’t you mean an armil astrobe?”

  “No. This is no simple armilry sphere. This unique instrument was one of my mentor’s creations. His name was Amil.”

  “Oh,” said the crab, rolling his eyes. “So he just liked to hings after himself. Got it.”

  The adventurer gred disdainfully at him over her gsses. “Remind me again, what is the name of your trading post?”

  The mert scowled, and decided to carry on with admiring the delicate instrument by walking around the table. “So, what does this thing do?”

  “At the moment… nothing,” said Ruby. “Onplete, it would be able to loto the stro point of power in this world—the so-called creator—and point us in its dire. But there was o ring piece left to finish in order to plete it, and sadly, Amil did not live to see it done.”

  “Oh,” said the crab. “Sorry.”

  The dy iared longingly at the sphere for a moment, trag a fiip across the edge of one of its rings.

  “It was his closest friend and research partner who had the final piece,” she tinued. “But after Amil was gone, so was he, and we could never reach him again.”

  “Right,” Balthazar said. “But you said we had a mutual i, regarding Bouldy. What does he have to do with your traption there?”

  Ruby’s eyes lifted from the sphere as if breaking away from a long-lost memory.

  “Your stone golem? Nothing. It’s who you seek to help you restore him that is important.”

  “Wait,” said the baffled crab. “You mean that old loony wizard?!”

  “Tweedus,” the woman said with a nod. “He was my mentreatest friend, a long time ago.”

  Balthazar stared at the entress for an awkward moment, blinking with a puzzled expression. “Seriously? That old lunatic is the guy you’re after?”

  “Don’t be fooled by his touadness, Balthazar. Tweedus is one of the oldest and highest level adventurers still roaming these nds.”

  The mert chuckled while looking at her in disbelief.

  “A ‘touadness, you say? Lady, that man showed up shirtless at my pce screaming for mana potions the first time I met him. The sed time, he was flying through the sky on a carpet and drinking tea while heading to a date with a sea creature. He’s pletely off his rocker!”

  Ruby smirked at the fused crab. “A, is he not the one you seek t your friend back to life?”

  “I… that’s because I don’t have aer clues to follow!” said the crusta, throwing his arms up. “Do you know how to repair a broken golem core?!”

  “No, I do not,” the adventurer said. “But I am also certain if someone does, it would be Tweedus. Despite his… appearance, he is extremely knowledgeable and likely knows more about Heartha than all of us bined. Which is why we need his help, just like you.”

  The mert squinted his eyes at the scarlet dy. He better than anyone khat nothing is free.

  “So what’s the deal?” he asked. “Because I’m still not ied in watg birds.”

  “I uand,” said Ruby. “I will not pressure you into joining us. I only ask that you sider it. I believe that wheime es, with your help, we could uhe truth. For now, we could help each other while you po.”

  “Help each other how?”

  “I believe Tweedus has the final ring to the astrobe,” expihe entress. “With it, this instrument could finally show us the path to The Creator, and everything we seek.”

  “Great,” the crab said. “Why haven’t you just asked the old guy?”

  “We would, except Tweedus does not seem very keen on talking to us, or most people, for that matter. Every attempt to reach him throughout the years has always failed, with him always leaving us in the dust and disappearing without a trace. Whether it’s old age, his fvor of madness, or… something else, he seems to be aremely reclusive wizard.” She paused and gave Balthazar an intense look through her red-tinted lenses once again. “You, however, seem to be an exception. He appears to have taken a liking to you, for some reason. Hardly as to meet the legendary mage once, yet you’ve met him twice already.”

  Balthazar shrugged. “Maybe it’s my naturally charming personality.”

  “I am certain that if you were the oo seek him out, he would not vanish like he does whery to approach him.”

  “That’s a heory, but with me having no clue where to find the old fool, it’s all pointless jecture, dy.”

  Ruby smiled.

  “That’s where we help you. We have a lead on where one of his homes might be located. If one of us tried to reach him there, we would likely find our attempt at tact being frustrated by him once more, and we would lose his tracks yet again. However, if you go there yourself, I’m fident he will listen to you.”

  The red dy moved around the armilry table and closer to the crab.

  “Find him, ask for his assistah yolem, and all I ask is that you try to get him to also help us with our own problem. Get him to give us the missing astr and perhaps after we could further discuss you helping us yourself.”

  Balthazar poo himself for a moment.

  It’s not like I have any other ways to find the old guy, and her demand isn’t that bad…

  He reached bato his backpad touched the surface of the cracked stoing within.

  “Fihe trader said after a quiet sigh. “I’ll do it. You have my word that if I find Tweedus, I’ll ask him about your bronze instrument, but that’s all I promise. It’s up to him to help you or not.”

  The scarlet woman smiled openly. “Excellent. That is all I ask of you. I have full fiden your charisma.”

  “So, where is this abode of his?”

  “Our informant tells us he has a hiding pce up in the mountains,” Ruby expined, “somewhere he east coast of the ti. Give me your map.”

  The mert pulled the rolled up piece of part from his pad gave it to her.

  Spreading it open over a nearby table, the entress produced a long, pointy crystal from her robe and began trag lines with the tip of it over the map while whispering unintelligible words under her breath.

  “Here,” she said, the map back to the crab. “This is now an ented map. It’s a on item among adept adventurers. It will reveal the locations of your objectives during your travels.”

  “,” said Balthazar, looking at the page with an approving nod.

  “You will find it much easier to explore and discover all Mantell has to offer with it.”

  “Mantell?” repeated the crab, with a cocked eyestalk. “What’s that? Is it something I eat?”

  Ruby stared at the crusta with a hint of bewilderment in her expression.

  “Mantell is the name of the ti you are on,” the woman said. “By the are, how you have mao e this far will never cease to amaze me.”

  “Fttery will get you nowhere with me, dy,” the smug crab said as he stored the rolled up map into his bag.

  The entress let out a brief sigh before heading towards the bronze door.

  “e, let us che your archer friend now.”