“Nothier than a good nap!”

  The sun was at its highest in the sky, and the water of the pond was warm and fortable on the surface, while cool and refreshihe bottom. At the ter of it all, an old and rugged acacia tree with grayish bark grew out of a small islet, its sparse leaves swaying ever so lightly in the gentle summer breeze. All that could be heard in the m air were the birds singing, and the calm, tinuous flow of water rolling down the cliff-side rocks.

  Right by the edge of the pond, a steady stream of little bubbles would occasionally surface from where the rge crab had buried himself, leaving just the top of his gray carapace exposed to the sun’s rays.

  “I would not trade this for anything.”

  Balthazar was big and hard-shelled, truly a magnifit spe to behold, but ohat still appreciated life’s small pleasures, such as peacefully napping ier while the sun warmed his ba the afternoon, rily snapping his cws at the small birds that nded around his pond in the m. Napping and snapping, that was the life.

  And life was good at the little er of paradise that was his pond, a modest waterfall feeding it from the much rger river that surrouhe snoed mountain above, the imposing branches of the tral tree overlooking the peaceful surface, as a myriad of fish swam below and is buzzed above it. And no oo disturb Balthazar’s solitude.

  Except for the occasional birds.

  The pesky, smug little feathery balls, mog him from high up. He’d nab one, some day, and that would show them.

  There were no other crabs at that pond, only Balthazar. Ever since he could remember, it had just been him. And he had no pints, that’s how he liked it.

  Better alohan in bad pany, he always said.

  To himself.

  Because it’s not like he had anyone else to say it to.

  He wasn’t the sociable type, he didn’t want to have to share his favorite sunbathing spots. Having pany was highly overrated.

  He was a crab, after all. He had no cept of boredom. No, of course not. That was beh him.

  Just as the lonely crusta was dozing off, amid thrilling thoughts of what color of fish he would sna ter, something nearby disturbed Balthazar’s rest.

  Stomping echoed into his shell and jolted him away from his p. Rolling his eyes from uhe sand, he tried to shake off the blurriness of the sunlight. The stomping tinued growing louder, now apanied by the rattling of metals. It was getting closer, and it was ing from the road.

  Growing irritated, the sleepy crab raised himself from his muddy resting spot, just enough for his eyes to surfad spy his surroundings.

  A figure was fumbling his the stony path that crossed in front of the poically swaying to the left one moment, and then to the right the , struggling to keep a straight line forward uhe weight of a massive pack sitting atop his shoulders, nearly the same size as the man himself. The leather sack was almost bursting at the seams, with all manner of clutter stig out of it from every side, from pointy on hao rolled up fabrics of unknown types.

  “Adventurers. Urgh.”

  Of all bothersome types, Balthazar held a special disdain for adventurers. Only slightly below birds. Maybe.

  He would see them from afar now and then, traveling up and down the rocky road, always loud and proud, stompi and right, in a trot, as if they were in a rush to go somewhere. He never uood where anyone could possibly o go so often and so hastily. Sometimes alone, sometimes in a group. Some wore colorful clothes ahers, others bulky metals, but they were always a nuisao his peace.

  They hardly ever bothered him directly, as they had little reason to e down to the water on their way to… whatever it was their kind did. Sometimes one would stray off the path and e down to the shore, but they would quickly s their surroundings, see nothing that ied them, aurn to the road. The rudeness of just walking up to someone’s home, cheg it out, and then leaving without so much as a prreeting to the gracious host who generously allowed their presenot that he heir greetings, of course, but still, manners and all.

  The man tinued making his the road, or at least trying to, slowly. He was wearing a dull metal helmet that resembled the bottom of a kettle, with its strap hanging loose under his sweating , a mismatched set of leather pieces proteg most of his body, and a pair of almost worn out tall boots with cheap metal ptes c his shins.

  Balthazar was finding it eaining to take bets with himself oher the wild sway to the side would be the ohat would finally topple the overburdened adventurer, as he desperately tried kig a leg in the opposite dire to terbahe weight. If he eventually wo, he would pay himself up with a nice fishy treat afterwards. And if he lost the bet… well, he’d still have to pay himself with that treat anyway. Such were the perks of betting with yourself, you could never lose. “Heh, clever,” Balthazar thought to himself, with a soft tap of his cw to the top of his shell.

  As the adventurer he pond, Balthazar noticed his erratic path veering him closer to the shore the crab was resting on.

  “Right, I’m just going to pretend I don’t see him there, he will walk on by like all the others, and thehing will be nid quiet again,” the crab told himself, while submerging his body bato the sand, one eye left stig out to follow the figure of the man.

  The man tried to keep a steady pace, avoiding the puddles that challenged him, carefully choosing each step while grumbliween grindih.

  “Curse this encumbrance debuff!” the adventurer excimed to himself. “I hate, hate carrying capacity meics! But I’ll be damned if I’m going to drop any of this loot. No, no, no, no, if I’ve made it this far, then I’ll make it bato town. These bull horns may be heavy, but I’m sure they will fetch me a good price. They have to. Just a little more and I’ll make it…” With angry determination, he adjusted the leather straps of his pack, pulling the overwhelmi back up onto his shoulders, and nded orembling step forward on the stone.

  As Balthazar watched the adventurer’s approach from uhe water, he kept internally willing him to lean iher dire.

  “Don’t you dare, you fool…” the crab kept muttering. “Go away…”

  The heavy stompi resonating closer, one foot on a rock, another on solid dirt, skipping over the puddles.

  “You’d better not—”

  Balthazar buckled within his shell as his body caved into the sand uhe weight of the overburdened man, who had just stepped on his shell as if it was just another rock. And just as soon as he felt himself pushed down, the weight lifted and the rude boot carried on stepping forward to the stone, as if nothing had happened.

  “That does it!”

  It’s not as if the weight of the man even hurt him. No, he was a big, strong, hard-shelled crab, he could take it. The damage wasn’t physical, the damage was to his pride.

  With a rushing stream of bubbles, Balthazar lifted himself from his ir, emerging from the surface with the anger of an a sea monster being awakened off the deepest of os from a turies long slumber, water rolling down the sides of his shell, determination in his beady eyes.

  As the mighty lord of that domain turo the foolish offehe man tirying to find his footing on the nearby rocks, still clueless about his rude behavior. The crab stood proudly on all of his eight legs, tall enough to pass a grown man’s waist, and twice as wide, two thick pincers flexed in front of himself in an intimidating manner he ko always strike fear into the hearts of all the songbirds that dared nd on his shell.

  “Take that!”

  Balthazar lifted his right cw up in the air, the bright light of the sun shining on it like an instrument hteous vindication, and with one swift downward motioook a swipe at the man’s right shin, the metal pte proteg it crumpliween his cw.

  “What the—OW!” the adventurer cried, as he tried to turn around and face the sequences of his own as, but with his right leg firmly held in pce by the mighty pincer of karma, he finally lost his bance.

  With widening eyes, the doomed adventurer found himself falling over to the side, his helmet flying off his head, surprise and shock painted on his expression, as he was diving face first into a group of rocks that cluttered the sides of the pond.

  The adventurer’s head hit the stones with a loud crack, his ugly helmet spshed onto the water and floated upside down, his leather pack finally burst open spilling its tents everywhere, and the crab stood there, cw still tightly holding the man’s now limp ankle. He stared down, slightly fused, and gave it a small shake, as if looking for a rea.

  “Well, serves him right!” Balthazar finally said, letting go of the leg.

  The rudeness of these adventurers. Not only do they run up and dowh in front of his pond all day with no sideration for how much of a disturbahey cause, but now they would even step on him like some on stone on the road? No way, he would not take that lying down, even if that was his favorite position to be for most of the day.

  Balthazar turned and looked at the aftermath of the ruptured pack. There were all sorts of random tris and doodads scattered around his precious slice of heaven. A rge cooking pot had nded upside down on the road, a sword that went flying was now firmly stuck with its tip between some rocks, books of all types scattered by the shore, and even some form of undergarments had somehow gotten stuck all the on a branch of the tral tree, blowing in the wind like an embarrassing fg.

  An absolute mess. The more he looked, the more chaos he spotted.

  “Look at what you’ve done, you idiot!” Balthazar poked angrily at the sole of the adventurer’s boot. As was to be expected, he gave no respoypical irresponsible adventurer behavior.

  As he was shaking his shell in disapproval at the man whose face remained firmly buried between the rocks like some zy child who didn’t want to wake up in the m, Balthazar’s eyes caught something, a hint of a glint, something small shining from a small brown purse lying on the grouo where they both were. The sunlight was hitting it directly and refleg in an even more intense yellow that was ever so captivating for the crab. He had always loved shiny things. Ever since he was a wee little crab pying around in the sand, anything that shined brightly would always grab his attention. He had a very dull childhood, one could say.

  As he approached the mysterious source of the glow, he saw it was not ohing, but multiple items that had spilled out of the purse. Perfectly round, thick slices of a yellow metal with some kind of figure carved on its surface, all identical in size, shape, and design. Balthazar had never seen such a thing before, but he knew in that moment that they were simply… beautiful.

  With the care and precision his massive pincers allowed, he started dutifully pushing his precious reasures bato the purse, where their beautiful glint couldn’t capture anyone else’s greedy eye.

  The crab turned and sed the treetops, his eyes squinting in suspi. They were there, always there, with their bird’s-eye view, watg and plotting. He k well enough, but not this time, little ones, not this time.

  As he turned back to the now closed purse, he saw something else fall out of the adventurer’s pack. Some kind of rolled up tube of a smooth, pale material. It didn’t shine or refley light, but it still looked curious. It also didn’t look much like food to him, but he reached one arm forward to get a feel for what that peculiar thing might be.

  “Ah!” Balthazar screamed, and jumped a couple of paces back, whi itself was quite the surprisi, seeing as until then he didn’t even know crabs could jump.

  But the bigger surprise came from the mysterious roll, which had reacted to his cw’s touch by lifting itself up into the air, h slightly above the ground, while glowing with an intense, humming white light.

  This crab had seen many crazy things in his life, but never anything like this.

  Fine, maybe he hadly seen that many crazy things in his mostly sheltered life spent sunbathing in a pond, but even then, he was quite certain that ranked fairly high in terms of ihings to happen to a crab.

  Despite his apprehension, Balthazar sloroached the glowing item again. After all, it wasn’t doing anything, except hover there and ruin the decor.

  His curiosity took charge, aretched a firm, ched piowards the object a sed time. He touched it, and a slight shiver ran down his arm, as the tube unrolled itself, revealing a white, bright page, and a set of words appeared, glowing on its surface:

  [Scroll of Character Creation]

  [Allocate attribute points: 10]