“Never mind, we found fairies…” Balthazar said, dropping his shell and rolling his eyestalks.

  The crab and his panions gathered clether as the specks of light formed a circle around them. Like small shiny sprites dang in the air, more and more of the fairies appeared from the darkness of the dense forest.

  Blue snarled, displeased and with smoke blowing out of her nostrils, but Balthazar made a calmiure with his front of her as he cautiously looked around.

  “Easy, girl. Let’s not start any trouble if we avoid it.”

  Standiweewo of them, Druma clutched his staff with both hands, eyes darting around as the specks of light tio grow well into the dozens now.

  “Boss has pn, right?” the scared goblin asked in a trembling voice.

  “Sure,” said Balthazar. “I always have a pn. My pn is to improvise.”

  One of the rger glowing orbs, about the size of an apple, came closer to him. As it approached, the crab’s eyes started to make out the shape of a tiny, vaguely humanoid figure within the bright light. What looked like a miniature version of a woman with rapidly fluttering wings on her bad a body covered in flower petals in pce of clothes looked into the mert's eyes.

  The fairy opened her mouth and started speaking. Or so Balthazar assumed. All he was hearing was a kind of high-pitched rhythmic buzzing, like an i he had never heard before.

  “Uh… hi?” the crab said. “If you’re talking to me, I have no idea what you’re saying.”

  The tiny creature frowned and started buzzing at him faster. As she did, all the other fae around them seemed to grow increasingly restless, moving about faster and more erratically.

  “Druma don’t think fairy is happy with boss,” the green assistant said as his legs started to tremble. “Druma don’t want to be trapped iree forever like he hear in stories when Druma was little.”

  Balthazar looked around nervously. Tiny or not, there were a lot of them, and he could tell they werely rolling out the red carpet for him.

  Wait! I got exactly the thing for this!

  Pulling up his system s, the mert selected one of his newer skills.

  [All-Tongue]

  [Skill - C tier]

  [Requirements: 40 CHA, 20 INT]

  [Cost: 5 mana]

  [For 15 minutes, your tongue reayone’s ears. No, gross, not like that. Se beings will uand your words no matter their nguage.]

  Perfect!

  After activating it, Balthazar looked at the fairy again and tried to speak.

  “Hellooo,” he said, rolling his words very slowly as if that somehow would help him be better uood. “I am Balthazaaar and I e in peeeace.”

  The winged sprite frow him again, but this time it seemed out of curious surprise, rather than anger.

  “You speak the fae tongue?” she asked.

  “Ah-ha! I do! Noarently,” the crab said with a mix of pride and surprise.

  “You are a crab,” said the fairy. “A creature of water. Yet you also spoke in the nguage of humans. And you smell of them.”

  All around him, Balthazar heard buzzing among the other fae, except this time it wasn’t unintelligible buzzing, but rather hushed whispers of disapproval.

  “Oh, yeah, those pesky humans,” the crab loudly excimed. “Always getting their stench all over everything. I ran into a couple of them on my way here. One of them even smelled like onion, if you believe that. Anyway, I’m clearly not a human, as you see. Not a big fan of them either.”

  Druma scooched closer to Blue and whispered, “Why is boss buzzing too?”

  The drake shrugged with a fused expression.

  “And yes,” Balthazar tinued, “I speak crab, fluent human, and have been w on fairy nguage tely too. That’s just me, a very polyp… a very poly-igloo… poly… A very well-spoken crab!”

  The fairy hovered in pce, unblinking, staring at the crab with an expressionless face.

  “I hope you are uanding me fihe crusta said. “I’m told I speak yuage fairly well.”

  The crab held for a rea, a frozen grin on his face. The fairy closed her eyes a out a long, exasperated sigh.

  “Sister,” one of the other sprites said, ing closer and being fully visible too. “Please let me try to unicate with the crab.”

  “Yes, sure, ght ahead,” the first fae said dismissively, turning and fluttering away while muttering under breath. “This crab sounds as dull as an adventurer…”

  The sed ouro Balthazar. She was slightly smaller, had pale pink short hair, and was wearing rosy petals around her body.

  “Hello!” the crab greeted. “o meet you, I’m—”

  “Whatcha want?!” the fairy unceremoniously asked, pg her hands on her hips.

  “Oh, uh…” the befuddled crab said. “Straight to the point, alright. I’m looking for someone. I came a long way to find him and I was hoping you could point me in the right dire.”

  “We ain’t tourist guides, shell-boy,” the tiny humanoid excimed in a high-pitched but impressively fident voice. “You should turn around and buzz off before we treat you like we would a human, know what I'm sayin’?”

  The fairy turned around and started flying away sassily with her nose up and arms crossed.

  “Please, I’ve e too far to turn around now!” Balthazar hurriedly said as her glow started disappearing in the darkness.

  “Sounds like a you problem,” she replied without turning around.

  “I’m trying to save my best friend!”

  “Same thing every other adventurer on a quest says. It’s always a friend, a princess, or some vilger’s pet.”

  “If you could just tell me where to find a guy called Tweedus I’d be off and never bother you again!”

  The glowing sprite suddenly stopped just as it was about to fully disappear betweerees.

  “Hol’ up,” the fairy said as she flew back to look at the crab. “You know Tweedus?”

  “Well… yes,” Balthazar replied with a shrug. “That’s why I’m trying to reach him.”

  “Ah! Ha-ha! Why didn’tcha say so sooner?” said the fae as she spped her own leg. “A friend of Tweedus is always wele in our forest.”

  “Wait, you know him too?” the fused mert asked. “But I thought you fairies weren’t very fond of the raen.”

  “Sure, but Tweedus ain't a man.”

  “He’s not?!”

  “No,” the fairy said, looking at the crab like he was the crazy oweedus is a wizard.”

  Balthazar stared at the tiny creature with his mouth half open for a moment.

  “But that’s not… He’s… You know what? Never mind that. If you know him then you must know how I could get to his home, right?”

  “Yep!” said the fluttering sprite.

  “Alright, great!” the enthusiastic mert said.

  A few seds passed with no sound made other than the idle buzzing of fairy wings in the air.

  “So…” Balthazar eventually said. “Are you going to tell me how to find him?”

  “Nope!”

  The crab dropped his shell in frustration as he pihe space between his eyestalks.

  “Any particur reason why?”

  “Sure,” the pink-haired fairy said.

  “That reason being…”

  “You haven’t paid us tribute. What, ya think we runnin’ a charity here, salty boy?”

  “Of course…” the annoyed crusta muttered as he pulled the strings of his bag open. “You’re lucky this is so important and I don’t have time to haggle. How much do you—”

  “E! Nah, nah!” the fairy excimed as she saw the shiny gold s Balthazar ulling from his bag. “We don’t want no stinking human money!”

  “What do you want then, fairy?!” said the mert, feeling at his wit’s end.

  “We take tribute in the form of gifts, treasure, tris. Actually valuable stuff, not something like… gold. Ew. And the name is Rada, so you’d better start using it, big guy.”

  “Alright, fine, fai… Rada,” Balthazar said, throwing his pincers up in agreement. “A trade of goods. I work with that. No problem. I’m a mert after all.”

  Pulling his Backpack of Holding dowarted rummaging through it as the lowing fairies all around him buzzed and chattered with curiosity.

  “I’m sure I’ve got somethihat will do it for you. What about a… potion!”

  The crab pulled a bottle ht liquid from the bag, holding it up for everyoo see.

  “Bh!” said Rada. “Human poison! We don’t want that crap anywhere near us.”

  “Fine, fine. Picky ts,” the traveling mert mumbled, shoving the bottle ba his backpad searg for something else. “Maybe a… butter knife? You guys could probably use it as a javelin or something.”

  The fairy looked at the dull khe crab was holding with her arms crossed and a disapproving scowl. “Filthy human tools.”

  Balthazar rolled his eyestalks auro his rummaging.

  “Some sandals? Uh… probably a size or two too big, now that I think about it. Jewelry? No, human-made garbage, bh, bh, bh. Maybe I could offer… wait, no, not giving you any of my pastries. Even I have my limits. ”

  The mert kept on searg as the fae watched him pull and toss aside items from his magical backpack.

  “An inkpot?”

  “No.”

  “A stick vaguely shaped like a sword?”

  “Nope.”

  “What about…” The crab dipped his eyestalks into the bag. “Why the hell do I have a chair in here?!”

  He tinued pulling item after item with growing frustration as nothing seemed to vihe fairy. Cutlery, lightly used napkins, a fingerless glove, a palmless glove, an unexpinable amount of corks, a witch’s wig…

  “Wait!” Rada shouted, pointing at the st item the mert tossed on the ground. “That right there!”

  All the other fae floating around suddenly became much mitated, buzzing with awe aement.

  “This thing?” Balthazar asked, holding up the hairpiece with a cocked eyestalk.

  A few paces behind, Druma leaned closer to Blue again as they tinued watg the crab buzzing unintelligibly.

  “Why boss keep evil witch hair?” he asked with a tinge of disgust on his face.

  Once more, the drake shrugged with a weirded out expression.

  “That is like… genuine hair from a witch, ain’t it?” Rada said with wide eyes.

  The mert gnced awkwardly at the wig held in his pincer. “Right… it… sure is!”

  “Witch hair is, like, super valuable to us faefolk!” the rosy pixie said. “We would love it if you offered us a strand of this treasure of yours as tribute.”

  Balthazar looked at the tiny, shiny eyes of the fairy and then at her buzzing sisters all around.

  “A strand? Sure.” With a swift snip of his pihe crab cut a lock of bck hair from Velvet’s wig. “Now you please just tell me where Tweedus is?”

  Rada received the small strand of hair into her arms with aed smile and eyes that seemed on the verge of tears.

  [Tribute accepted]

  [You have reached level 23!]

  [You have gained a boon: The Fairy’s Favor]

  [When you most and expect it the least, the fairies will favor you with their good luck.]

  The hell is that supposed to mean?!

  “Yo, pinch meister,” the fairy called, snapping her minuscule fingers in front of the crab’s eyes. “e with me. We’re gonna show you the to Tweedus.”

  Balthazar’s eyestalks frowned with .

  “The way… up?!”