Merchant Crab

Frenzied skeletons trudged on from every side of the dark hall, mindlessly dragging their dusty bones toward the crab.

Balthazar, however, found himself more concerned with the bright text floating in his eyes.

[Unclassified entity - legacy system access detected.]

He recalled the crow who had taken his system access months before and what it had said, about the Scroll of Character Creation and how it was an old relic from the early days of the system.

Is that what this thing means by ‘legacy?’

[Matching permissions found.]

And what is this about permissions?

Balthazar thought back to Star Beach, where he regained his access by using a new scroll. There too he saw the system recognize a special access when it allowed him to enable some kind of silent system mode, which was why he figured the crow never came back to bother him again.

It said something about a manager panel back then too. And now this thing also mentioned there not being a manager for this dungeon. Are those birds just a bunch of slackers at their jobs? Probably…

[Link to core?]

The merchant was never one to pass up on an opportunity. The way he saw it, if whatever the system was offering would let him enable another nifty little feature like that silent mode before, he was all for it. Whatever gave him an advantage over the birds and would mess up their plans, Balthazar was glad to say yes to it.

And if the core of this place really is the source of all the chocolate, hell yeah, I want to connect to it. Come to crabby!

Full of conviction and gluttony, the crab pressed yes on the prompt presented to him, thinking no further on any consequences or repercussions of his actions.

As was his habit.

A flash of bright light shot from the center of the hall, blinding Balthazar for a moment before he could process what had just happened.

The skeletons all around moaned and groaned, halted briefly by the sudden blast of light, but resumed their dragged march once darkness returned.

As his eyes regained enough focus, Balthazar looked around, but the light was already gone. The only sign left from its appearance was a faint trail of shimmering white light lingering in the air.

“What in the world is this?!”

Twisting his eyestalks down, the crab saw that the line of dancing light was connecting directly to his shell. His gaze followed it in the other direction, seeing it disappear into the distant darkness.

I don’t know what this thing is doing, but I don’t like it! It tickles!

The system lines in his view had changed to one single warning.

[Connecting to core…]

A thud behind him broke the merchant’s attention away from the words.

Crap! The rheumatic brigade is still coming for me. I need to get away from here.

The crab skittered forward, following the line of white light with his torch still in his pincer, but as he took a few steps the line simply dissipated.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

[Connection to core established. Analyzing…]

“Oh, great timing as usual!” Balthazar groaned.

With his only guiding light taken away, the crab spun around, looking for any signs of where to go.

[Updating…]

[Please do not turn off your system.]

“How would I even do that?!”

A cold, bony hand reached out from the darkness behind him and grabbed one of Balthazar’s legs, releasing a snarl as it found its target.

“Ah! Lemme go!” the merchant yelled, jumping in place.

As the yellowed undead came into the small circle of orange light from the torch, Balthazar realized it was only a half skeleton, crawling on the floor with all the bones below the ribs missing. It had something stuck to its mouth, but the merchant did not have time to look closer for what it was.

Out of instinct or simply desperation, he waved the torch down at the skull of his attacker. The skeleton’s grip on his leg loosened, and that was enough for the crab to pull himself free.

“Nope! Nope! Nope!” Balthazar exclaimed as he ran in a random direction. “I like chocolate, but not enough to be turned into the undead crab over it. This has officially gotten too spooky for me!”

As Balthazar turned to run in a different direction, the half skeleton on the floor screeched at him. Except it did not sound like a screech. It was a squeak.

“What in the…”

Looking down, the crab realized what was sticking out of the crawler’s mouth. A novelty party horn was stuck between its teeth, bobbing up and down precariously with every movement from the skeleton. As the undead reached for the crab with its arms, the noisemaker unfurled forward, producing a comical noise over the skeleton’s attempt at screeching.

“I don’t know what’s going on in this place, but I’m really not feeling the party mood, pal!”

Balthazar scurried away from the party crawler, looking for signs of an exit or safety.

Annoyingly, the system line in his eyes was apparently impossible to dismiss, making his job of navigating in the dark even harder.

[Updating…]

[Please do not turn off your system.]

“Come on, come on…” the crab muttered as he wandered aimlessly through the dark hall, torch in pincer and eyestalks darting from side to side. “Aha!”

A glint caught his eye. Something nearby was reflecting the orange glow of his flame stick, producing tiny sparkles of light. As he ran toward them, he saw that their color was golden.

Gold?!

His eyes widened. Perhaps going into that place had not been such a bad decision after all. If he couldn’t find the source of the chocolate, finding coin would certainly be a worthy consolation prize.

“It must be at least a pile of—”

The crab came to a screeching halt as he got close enough for his light to reveal what the source of the twinkling was—another skeleton.

Skeletons do not normally produce a glint, of course. And this one was as old, dusty, and yellowed out as the others. It was also covered in glitter from skull to phalange.

The shimmering undead turned and shambled toward the merchant, moaning and reaching one arm forward, tiny gold confetti shedding from its forearm and producing a brief rain of sparkles.

“Aw, hell no!” Balthazar exclaimed as he turned in a different direction yet again. “You guys can keep your shiny skeleton.”

No matter where he looked, all he saw was more darkness and silhouettes of more skeletons dragging their old bones toward the intruder in their halls.

“This is why I never go to birthday parties!” the merchant complained, ignoring the fact he had never been invited to one. “There isn’t even any cake!”

A tiny speck of white light in the distance made Balthazar’s eyestalks stand up.

The exit!

More than happy to back out from what had definitely been a bad decision on his part, the crab hurried toward the entrance tunnel he had come from, skeletons still chasing him from the surrounding darkness.

One lunged at the fleeing crustacean as he reached the long tunnel leading out, but some unseen force kept him from reaching low enough to grab the crab. Glancing back, Balthazar saw the savage skeleton struggling to stand back onto its feet, several balloons of multiple colors attached to its old bones by threads and messing up the creature’s balance.

I hate balloons!

As the light from the outside grew closer, the ever-persistent system decided to pester Balthazar yet again.

[Updating…]

[Please do not turn off your system.]

[Out of range. Losing connection. Please remain within range.]

“How about no?!” the crab yelled to no one in particular as he sped up toward the outside, hearing the skeleton party closing in on him.

The morning sunlight assaulted Balthazar’s eyes as he got closer to the exit, making it hard to see, but the sight of the sky, the treetops in the distance, and the blue waters of his pond brought a sense of relief to his heart.

Feeling the fresh air hit him and happy to be out of the stuffy, dusty environment of the dungeon, the merchant took in a deep breath as he sprinted to the outside.

[Out of range of the core.]

Suddenly, the crab’s world went blurry as the system covered up his vision with an opaque mosaic effect.

“Argh, what—Oof!”

Unable to see where he was going, Balthazar’s third left leg counting from the front tripped on a rock, sending him tumbling forward with enough momentum to do two and a half rolls on the ground.

The crab landed on his face, eyestalks spinning as he saw one last system line before losing conscience.

[Update aborted. Restart required…]