Balthazar stepped across the moat bridge and into the main street, Druma and Blue close behind. Despite how wide it was, the road acked with people moving about, most on foot, some on carriages, busily navigating the urban tangle in an apparent rush to get to the shop or stall.

  And shops were all the crab could see. Anywhere he looked, a mertile air filled the streets, with every building’s first floor being occupied by some sort of store, shop, or pce of craft. The sidewalks were dotted with random stalls that seemed built to go up as quickly as they could be taken down and moved elsewhere, selling every manner of random goods.

  The fasated mert had only been to oown before, Ardville, and even that was a very brief visit, but Marquessa had a clear rger scale to it, with its wider streets filled with a lot more people and visitors, as well as its taller buildings, the majority built of solid brick, rather than Ardville’s mostly wooden structures.

  Woah, this pce smells of opportunity!

  Moving through the bustling streets with his panions, Balthazar could not get over the strange fact that nobody seemed to care or even throw curious g the giant crab, small goblin, and bright drake sharing a sidewalk with them.

  “M,” greeted the crab, stopping in front of a small street stall where a man was selling vases and other pottery pieces.

  “Ah, good day! What I help you with?” said the vendor, peeking over his ter at the crusta with a friendly smile and no appareion to the fact that it had just talked to him.

  “With some information, I hope,” Balthazar said. “This is my first time around these parts.”

  “Ah, a first-time visitor to the city,” the cheerful man said, standing straighter behind the stall. “I hope you’re enjoying our beautiful Marquessa.”

  “Yeah, I just arrived, but it seems pleasant enough,” said the puzzled traveler. “And that’s part of what’s fusing me. I’m more used to people having at least some rea to entering a talking crab, but here everyone seems to ast us like we’re just another on band of travelers. What gives?”

  The vase seller pced a hand on his chest a out a hearty chuckle.

  “Hah! It really must be your first time in our city. Marquessa is not like most other settlements around Mahat you are probably used to. This is a metropolis of erce, a pce of trade and business, with people from every er of the ti passing through here every day. Unlike most other more closed-up unities, we thrive by being open to everyone and weling them with open doors. It doesn’t matter how many legs you have, or what color you are, if you’re here to do good business, nobody minds your presence.”

  “Huh,” said Balthazar, breaking a smile. “This sounds like my kind of pce already!”

  He turned, fag the open streets in front of him. Down one alley were multiple bcksmith workshops, eae poputed by multiple locals and adventurers, browsing the wares, trying on armor pieces, and cheg the ban their ons. Why a town would need more than just one bcksmith shop was something Balthazar could not fully expi, but the fact that they all seemed to be busy doing busiold him that this pce was ripe with trading opportunities.

  “Say, friend,” the traveling mert said, turning back to the local pot mert, “where would a prospeg trader who just arrived in town go first to make himself acquainted with Marquessa?”

  “Ah,” respohe man, “that would have to be the city's guildhall, for sure. It’s the pce where every guild has their local headquarters, where every adventurer gathers, and in general the hangout spot for citizens and travelers alike. Great if you wish to mingle.”

  “Perfect! That sounds like the right spot to get help with finding the right way to get to where I’m going too,” the excited crab said.

  The Marquessian man leaned over his stall’s ter and pointed a finger up the street. “If you keep going up main street there, you’ll eventually exit onte avehe big circur building with a domed roof is the hall. ’t miss it.”

  “Great, thanks!” said Balthazar, quickly moving on towards his new destination.

  The local mert waved him goodbye, smile still on his face, while muttering to himself, “Dang crab could have at least bought a little vase…”

  Strolling dowreets of Marquessa, the newly arrived mert eyed down every shop aablishment on his way to the city hall, smirking at their clearly inferior business practices.

  Pff, look at that store’s window, putting the prices of all their stuff on tags. Amateurs. You ell them the price of the thing beforehand, you work the t first!

  Still shaking his shell, the crab spotted a grocery across the road, and a dy walking out the door, carrying ter bags full of food in her arms.

  They give their ts bags?! What are they running there, a charity?!

  Somewhere to his left, the crusta’s sense of smell alerted him to peared to be a fish market, wedged between a small produce store and a butcher shop.

  A dy ropped out of a small window on the front of the shop, tending to her multiple dispy crates of fish fag the passing citizens.

  “Fish! Fresh fish!” she yelled in a practiced ear-pierg shriek. “We’ve got fish from the sea and from the river! Chey sele of salmon and bass! Squid and octopus too!”

  Hmm, a fish market, maybe I should check it out.

  “…We also got fresh shellfish straight off the rocks!”

  Balthazar took a sharp turn to the right and skittered away.

  Never mind, maybe I shouldn’t check it out.

  Upon reag the end of the street, the trio exited onte square, crowds of people moving up and down its pathways like schools of fish in a perpetually repeating dance.

  Carriages circled around the white stoer pte, slowly making their way to their entries as while maneuvering through the rivers of pedestrians, makiing across a challeo a crab used to the serenity of the tryside.

  Ohrough, Balthazar heard a small otion and saw a group of people gathering in a cirearby.

  “Step right up! Step right up!” a booming voice behind the onlookers said.

  Curious, the crusta found an opening through some legs and hips, pushing to the other side until he saw the se everyone was gathering to see.

  Sitting on top of a stoform was a rge basin with a spewing fountain at its ter, two marble statues of horses to each side.

  Balthazar shook his shell disapprovingly at the sculptures. It made no seo him why anyone would pce statues of horses of all things in a water fountain. Everyone knew horses were not aquatic creatures, so what logic was there in that? Now crabs, those would have definitely made for majestic statues to p that mo.

  Maybe he’d bring that up with the local authorities at some point. Clearly they needed some guidance, if having equestriaures shootis of water into a little pool is assed for decoration in that pce.

  The nonsensical fountain was, however, not the cause for the gathering of people around that area. Standing on top of an upside down milk crate eculiar man wearing a white buttoned down shirt along with suspenders holding up a pair of brown shorts. His arms were spread wide as he ushered people in.

  “e now, gather ‘round, gather ‘round, you won’t want to miss this!” he announced loudly, with a peculiar at that Balthazar had never heard before.

  Spotting the crab in the middle of the crowd, he poi him and said, “You too, gentleman in the impeccable chitin shell. Water-dwelling fel like yourself will surely have an i in what I have to show today!”

  “Me?” the surprised crab said, looking around while pointing a pi himself, as if somehow expeg anyone else there to be wearing a chitin shell.

  The popuce rubbed shoulders and bumped elbows as they piled up to get a good look at what was being promised, and the man, seemingly satisfied enough with the size of his audience, cpped his hands loudly.

  “Alright, everybody, thank you for your attention! My name is Roberto, and I came from very far away to visit your lovely city just to share something very special I brought from home.”

  He reached a hand into another crate near his feet.

  “This is something you will not find anywhere else. A secret grown in the bay of my homend. Its secret passed down from geion to geion. I give you… my sponge!”

  The salesman held up both of his hands like someone presenting a newborn to the world, except in his grasp what he had was a small and squishy yellow regle full of holes.

  “What in bzes is that?!” a gentleman from the front said, tipping up his top hat as he tried to take a better look at the preseem.

  “A sponge, my good sir!” the man on the milk crate replied. “Roberto’s Nearly-Infier Sponge!”

  “A what now?!” a oner excimed from somewhere else in the crowd.

  “It is a super absorbent sponge,” Roberto expined, “that absorb up to fifty times its volume in water!”

  He held for appuse, whiever came.

  “Perhaps a demonstration is in order!” the sweating man quickly said, jumping down from his crate as a couple of people from the back started leaving.

  Pg himself o the edge of the fountain’s basin, he held up the yellow item again for everyoo see.

  “As you see,” the salesman said, poking the sponge, “dry as a bone. But watch as I do this!”

  He dropped the sponge ier of the fountain, and it started making loud slurping noises, like a famished gobliing soup.

  Balthazar stretched himself up to look over the edge of the fountain.

  The water level was rapidly l as the yellow regle quickly grew denser.

  With an open grin of pride, Roberto picked up the soaked sponge and prese to the crowd. “Ta-da!”

  Despite the surrounding cmor and noises of the busy city streets, the crowd of onlookers surrounding the fountain was like a void of silen the middle of the square. Not a peep from those watg, except for the occasional sniffle or rubbing of someone’s fingers scratg their .

  “Tough crowd, I see…” the defting man muttered behind his dying smile.

  “What in the world would I need one of those for?” someo the front of the crowd asked.

  “Ah! A perti question!” said Roberto, hopping ba top of the crate, wet spoill in hand, and a tinuous stream of water leaking everywhere as he moved. “With its high capacity, this marvelous item could soak up all sorts of inve spills you might have while still remaining highly portable!”

  “ it soak up ale?” a man shouted from the back.

  “Well, it’s teically not rated for alcohol but—”

  “What if you dropped it in va, would it absorb that too?” someone else in the crowd asked.

  “What?! Why would—”

  “Are you going to put back the water you took from our fountain?”

  “I…”

  The crowd started going from sileo grumbling and quickly dispersing, no longer captivated by the promise of an impressive show.

  “Wait, e back,” the fumbling salesman pleaded, the wet spoill in his grasp, leaking over his shoes. “I haven’t even shown you how easy it is to squeeze the water back out or how light it feels to hold despite the amount of water in it…”

  Balthazar winced and quickly slipped away, the sed-hand embarrassment too unfortable to bear.

  People aren’t easily impressed in this city. Noted.

  While walking away, he gnced back at the salesman, squeezing the yellow spoo the fountain with his shoulders slumped.

  Who would think of selling sponges anyway?! Why would anyone need one of those things!

  Still shaking his shell at the uselessness of a super absorbent spohe crab and his crew tinued around the town square, trying to make their way to the other side between the rows of ing and going Marquessians.

  As Balthazar assing by the entrao a narrow alleyway, a whimper from within it caught his attention.

  He stopped and peeked into the alley.

  In there, a rough-looking guy wearing dirty gray clothes was grabbing the strap of a young woman’s satchel and pulling on it, while she struggled to hold on to it.

  “Stop fighting and hand it over!” the mugger barked.

  “Let go!” yelled the girl.

  A mugging? Balthazar thought, cog aalk.

  But, with a dismissive shrug, he started walking away.

  “Someone else will e along or call a guard, I’m sure,” he said to himself.

  After a few steps, he stopped, gng at Druma and Blue, who were both staring at him with slightly disappointed gres.

  Balthazar looked around at the passing people, eae of them in a hurry and focused on their own paths, rushing through to wherever they were going and doing their best to avoid everything and everyone else. All of them fully absorbed in their own little bubbles.

  The crab sighed.

  “Fine…”

  Grumbling to himself and his two guilt-tripping panions, the mert stepped ihe alley, where the mugger was still trying to take the girl’s satchel.

  “Hey,” Balthazar yelled. “Let her go!”