Balthazar stood outside his bazaar, with a mug hooked to his pincer, feeling the lingering breeze of the morning brushing against his bristles. Now that he had Madeleine’s winter hat, the crab found the cold much more bearable—sometimes pleasant, even.

It had snowed again while he slept, leaving a fresh new layer of white covering the ground beneath and the roof above him. The sky was cloudy but not dark, leaving the pond with an air of cold, peaceful tranquility.

“Ahh…” the merchant let out in quiet satisfaction as he dipped the straw sticking out of the mug into his mouth.

It had been Madeleine’s suggestion to try using some of the chunks of chocolate recovered from Semla’s eruption to make hot chocolate, and once again, the baker had been proven clever in her thinking.

While the brown rocks left in the wake of the volcano were too dirty and full of impurities to use in most baking recipes, she argued that some use might still be extracted from them. After grinding the chunks into a powder and sifting it with a metal sieve to remove the larger debris, the chocolate was melted in a pot over a fire, carefully stirring while keeping a close eye on the temperature. The resulting liquid was then filtered through a clean cloth several times, clearing it from most of the finer impurities.

As she had warned, the final product was a much less rich chocolate, in both taste and texture, but still good enough to make a cup of hot cocoa.

“Hmm, this isn’t half bad,” Balthazar muttered to himself as he took another sip through the straw. “A bit ashy, though.”

While pondering how to best improve the formula of the beverage—and possibly how to sell it at a premium—the merchant cast his gaze over Boulder’s Point and its surroundings, like a lord overseeing his domain.

Not too far away from where he stood on the steps of the bazaar’s back entrance, the crab could see John and Mason had just arrived to start their day of work on the kitchen project. Somehow, they had already set an outline of foundation stones all around the clearing, shaping what would soon be the limits of the floors and the base of the walls.

Balthazar remembered his own confusion back when John first worked on his trading post, so he decided not to start questioning how the two veterans only seemed to make any visible progress when he wasn’t looking. Some of that world’s mysteries were best left alone, for his own sanity.

Towering above the two retirees was a giant stone golem, ready to help. While John set their two lunch satchels down on one of their work tables, Mason was busy giving Bouldy instructions—or at least trying to.

“And the boulders need to be all the same size, give or take,” the carpenter said. “You got all that?”

The living construct smiled down at the old man. “Friend.”

“No, no,” the stoneworker said, shaking his head in frustration. “Not ‘friend.’ I mean, sure, I’ll be your friend, but right now I need you to focus on the task I’m giving you.”

“Friend?” Bouldy asked, tilting his head like a dog listening to a human.

The mason turned around to face his carpenter friend, opening his arms and slapping the sides of his thighs before crossing his arms in exasperation.

“I can’t get this thing to understand a word of what I say.”

John chuckled. “I think he understands you just fine. You’re the one who doesn’t understand him.”

Mason frowned and turned back to find the golem walking away toward the group of boulders the craftsman had instructed him to go to.

“You know,” the amused carpenter said. “I really would have expected a stonemason to be a lot better at communicating with rocks.”

The other man’s mouth twisted into a lopsided curl, clearly trying to hide more a smile than any real annoyance.

“Usually the stones I work with don’t talk back—or call me friend!”

Balthazar chuckled quietly to himself as he moved his attention away from the two elders and onto the dungeon entrance on the other side of the pond.

There, a thick rope and wooden sign continued to warn that the dungeon was closed for maintenance, but instead of Bouldy serving as the guardian of the entrance, there was now a cushion in his place—and on it a drake.

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Balthazar’s idea of moving Blue’s favorite pillow there had worked perfectly, and the drake now spent most of the day laying there, napping and being her general lazy self whenever she wasn’t busy flying around above the pond.

Unlike with the golem, Balthazar knew he couldn’t simply order her to stand guard by the entrance, so he had to work around the stubborn creature.

Claiming that moving her sleeping cushion there would let her nap in peace without being disturbed by the construction noises was easy, and then the other part of his plan was just a matter of delivery.

“So anyway, you can rest here for now, where it’s quiet,” the crab had said to the drake. “There shouldn’t be anything bothering you. You know… Except for maybe the occasional adventurer who thinks they are clever enough to get past you without being noticed.”

That was all it took. A brow rose above her gilded eye, narrowing on the merchant with suspicion.

“Don’t worry,” Balthazar continued. “I have no doubt no foolish adventurer could ever sneak past you. But they might try, haha! But it wouldn’t work, I’m sure…”

As the cunning crustacean walked away, one eyestalk glancing back at her, he knew his plan had worked flawlessly.

Blue slept on her cushion all day, head resting over her wings, but always with one eye half open, looking for any intruders attempting to get past her. Her pride would never allow that humiliation, after all.

Balthazar chuckled once again, this time at his own cleverness, as he moved his gaze away from the mountain’s side and back to his side of the pond.

He could not see Druma anywhere, but he wasn’t worried. The small assistant was likely just off doing some work nearby as usual.

Henrietta wasn’t around either, but that one he knew why. It was her day off, and she had gone up to Ardville with Tristan. What those two did spending so much time together, the crab did not know or understand.

The only one he could ever imagine wanting to spend so much time with was the one sitting right there next to him on that wooden step.

“Still as beautiful as the day I first laid eyes on you,” Balthazar whispered as he carefully picked up the slice of apple pie off his plate.

A brief bout of nostalgia washed over him as he recalled that fateful day so many moons ago when a foolish adventurer offered him a piece of stale apple pie in exchange for a greatsword. It was the day he learned about both pastries and trading.

“Good times,” the merchant muttered before chomping down on the pie with shameless gluttony.

As he chewed on the heavenly crust and rich filling, a whisper came from a nearby snow-covered bush.

“Hey, psst, Balthazar!”

The crab’s eyestalks turned to find the source of the voice, and poking out from between the foliage, partially camouflaged between its whiteness, he found a skull.

“Tom? What are you doing?” the crustacean asked after swallowing down.

“I snuck out of the dungeon to come ask you for something,” the skeleton said. “But since it’s daytime, you know I don’t like to risk being seen by some passing adventurer. They might start swinging at me—you know how those meatheads are.”

Balthazar peeked over the bush.

“Where’s Liz? Did you leave her inside?”

“Nah, I sent her back to Tudor’s before sunrise with a list of things we will need to start setting up your dungeon floor. She and some of the other guys should be back in a day or two with the stuff. But meanwhile, I’ve started work on getting to know the halls and doing some cleaning up.”

“Right, right,” the crab said, nodding as he wiped his mouth. “What was it you needed?”

“A mop and a bucket,” the peeking skull said with a half grimace. “Probably a brush, too.”

“Ah, sure, I can get you those. I thought keeping the place dusty and a little dirty would fit your intended dungeon ‘ambiance,’ though.”

The merchant skeleton winced slightly.

“Sure, but not that kind of dirty.”

The crab cocked an eyestalk. “What do you mean?”

“I found a hall in there, and I don’t know how to explain it, but my best guess is that some adventurer went through it while experiencing… intestinal troubles. Massive ones. Like, seriously, I know I haven’t had guts of my own in ages, but I don’t remember something like that being humanly possible! I’m not even sure how I’m going to reach that ceiling to scrub it!”

“Err, right… I’ll just go get you that mop now,” Balthazar hurried to say before skittering away awkwardly.

After giving Tom the cleaning supplies—and a generous dose of lavender-scented oil—the merchant watched the skeleton skulk away with a mop in one hand and a bucket in the other, back to the tunnel. Blue lifted her head from her cushion as he passed her, but when she saw who it was, she simply returned to her nap.

“What were the odds the story I made up would turn out to be true?” the crab pondered before shrugging his shell and turning back to the bazaar. “Coincidences, I guess.”

Morning was going by quickly, and there was trading to be done, he figured.

As he was about to enter the trading post, a small figure approached from his side, his head down and arms wrapped around a large book that had been given to him by a certain lunatic wizard.

“What’s the matter, Druma?” Balthazar asked, stepping back from the door frame to face his assistant.

“Druma want to ask boss for favor,” the goblin said timidly, his gaze pointed down at the ground and partially covered by the brim of his oversized wizard hat.

“Sure, buddy,” the merchant replied. “No need to be shy, so long as you’re not about to ask me for a raise, go right ahead.”

The small goblin shifted in place nervously for a few seconds before finding his words.

“Druma… Druma want to ask boss if boss can teach Druma how to read.”