"This is what happens when I leave Blue guarding the entrance and she flies off to do whatever elsewhere—anyone can just stroll in!" Balthazar complained as he stomped his way through the tunnel leading inside Semla Dungeon. "How did he sneak past you and all the other skeletons anyway?!"

"I have no idea!" Tom replied with a baffled shrug of his bones as he hurriedly followed the eight-legged merchant into the Halls of Semla. "We just stumbled upon his little corner while preparing some of the adventurer traps this morning, and every attempt at making him leave has ended with another skeleton joining him in his… I'm going to say, cult?"

"Gah, don't call it that!" the crab grumbled while skittering through pillars and halls. "Makes it all sound even weirder than it already is."

As they turned another corner, Balthazar noticed Tom had suddenly stopped following him.

"He's right over there, in that section of this hall," the skeleton said, pointing forward.

"You're not coming?" the crab asked, cocking an eyestalk.

"I'll hang back over here, thanks," said the undead merchant. "Last time I went near that kid, I felt this urge to start chanting your name." A visible shudder ran down Tom's entire skeleton. "No offense, but that was a very uncomfortable experience."

A shudder of discomfort crossed the crustacean's body too before he replied, "None taken."

Slowing his pace, Balthazar approached the hall Tom had pointed him to. A strange humming was coming from around the corner, and despite how brightly lit the floor was now, he noticed that section had an extra amount of light coming from it. As he rounded the last pillar, the crab realized the orange lights were from the staggeringly unnecessary amount of candles spread around that corner of the halls.

Rows of candles of varying sizes lined each ledge of the hall, while at its center stood a wooden table with a maroon cloth draped over it. Mounted on the wall behind it hung a large, framed canvas depicting a giant golden crab, its form clumsily rendered, as if painted by a child. Or an actual crab. Or a child with crab claws for hands.

"Holy cupcakes, that is hideou—"

"Mr. Balthazaaaar!" a loud, screeching voice exclaimed as a hooded figure popped up in front of the merchant.

"Ow! My ears!" the startled crab cried out.

"You don't have ears!" Tom's voice shouted all the way from the back.

"What?!" Balthazar yelled back at the skeleton.

The undead shook his skull and waved a dismissive hand. "Never mind, just carry on."

Turning back to the strange shrine, the crustacean found Taffy staring at him from an uncomfortably close distance with a huge grin plastered across his freckled face. The boy was wearing a black robe that was at least three sizes too large for him, causing his hands to be partially covered by the excess sleeves, and the bottom of the vestment to bunch up around his feet. The hood of the robe, which was pulled over his head, covered most of his hair and left just a curly patch of ginger mane poking out between his eyes.

"I didn't expect you so soon, Mr. Balthazar!" the overly excited local exclaimed. "I would have swept the floor already if I knew you were coming! Oh, goodness gracious! I'm so unprepared! I wanted to rehearse before you visited!"

"What the hell is all this?!" Balthazar blurted out, still baffled at the scene before him. "What are you even wearing?"

"Oooh! Do you like it?" Taffy said. "It's my ceremonial robe! The used clothes salesman in town told me that the members of any proper cult always wear sinister hooded robes, no matter the theme. It's the fashion, he said. I think we looked great in them!"

The crab cocked an eyestalk. "What do you mean, we?"

"Ah, myself and the first disciples, of course!"

The boy stepped aside, revealing three savage skeletons near the table. Instead of being naked or wearing party accessories like before, these skeletons had hooded robes on too, except with their hoods down, leaving their smooth skulls exposed. Even stranger, the trio of undead were prostrating themselves on their knees, bowing their heads and throwing their extended arms forward in adoration of the giant crab before them.

"It's so gratifying to find like-minded individuals who share my reverence for the ascendant crab!" the grinning boy said, clapping his hands together.

Balthazar smacked the side of his pincer against the space between his eyestalks.

"Not this again," he muttered. "I am no 'ascendant' or whatever you fools want to make me out to be! I am a merchant. A great one, yes, but that has nothing to do with being some stupid figure of myth!"

Taffy swelled with a wide smile and even wider eyes.

"Like every true hero, he is so humble!" he said. "Truly worthy of worship!"

"No, I don't need or want any worship!" the annoyed crab said. "I want people to buy my stuff and that's it! That's where I want my interactions with them to end, no need for adoration, prostration, lit candles, or… or whatever the hell that thing up there is!"

The ginger boy turned to look at the painting the crab was pointing at and then turned back to look at him with pride scintillating in his eyes.

"You like it?!" he said excitedly.

"No!" Balthazar replied promptly.

"I painted it myself!"

"And you're willingly admitting it?!"

"It took me almost a week to finish!"

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"Please take up any other hobby instead. Like moss watching. Or snail herding."

Seemingly unfazed or simply not hearing any of the crab's words, the boy pranced around the central table while throwing his arms open under the painting of the golden crab, causing his oversized sleeves to flap beneath his shrouded hands.

"This is going to be so great! I have so many activities planned for us, once enough people join in!" He suddenly stopped and turned around to look at Balthazar again. "Oh! That reminds me! I still haven't settled on a name for our sect. I was hoping you'd do me the honor of giving your blessing to the name I was considering."

"Whatever it is, you're not getting my blessing," said Balthazar. "At most you get some cursing from me."

Taffy rushed around the table again and took a knee in front of the eight-legged merchant, clasping his hands together.

"I was thinking of naming our order… The Cult of Carcinization!"

"Sorry, kid," the crab said, shaking his shell. "That name is already taken by some heretics from a faraway fishing village."

"Oh," the aspiring cultist said with a note of disappointment. "Really?"

Balthazar nodded. "Yep. And I have no interest in getting hit with a trademark infringement."

Taffy sighed before putting on his enthusiastic grin again.

"No problem! I'll just have to go back to the drawing board and come up with another, even better name!"

The merchant glanced up at the painting above the hooded fool.

"No, you definitely should stay away from anything that involves drawing," he said, before shifting his gaze back down to the boy and frowning. "Why are you even down here in the dungeon anyway?!"

"Ah!" exclaimed Taffy. "I initially thought of setting up my first temple in town, but then I was struck by inspiration—and also the ludicrous rent prices in Ardville."

The young worshiper spun around, looking up at the tall pillars with arms open as if basking under the warm light of the sun.

"This place was where my humble life was touched by the greatness of the ascendant crab. Where I first saw the light over my new path. It is the perfect place to recruit brave adventurers to our cult. It is your domain, Mr. Balthazar. And also… because it was free real estate."

Balthazar squeezed his pincers closed in annoyed frustration.

"Kid… For the last time—I don't want your worship, I don't want you to start a cult for me, and I most definitely do not want you wandering around these halls ruining our work."

"Yeah, you tell him, Balthz!" Tom's distant voice shouted from the back.

"But… but… Mr. Balthazar," Taffy started, his smile vanishing and his eyes turning into those of a particularly weird-looking puppy. "I wish for nothing more than to be your number one fan—nay, not just fan, your number one disciple! You were already the greatest crab to ever be a merchant in my eyes, but once I found you could also be an ascendant of legend, it was like my destiny was made clear in front of me!"

The crab placed both pincers on the kid's shoulders and brought both eyestalks to his eye level.

"Read my lips—I don't want a cult."

Taffy blinked rapidly a couple of times. "But you don't have any li—"

"Zip it! We already know that!" Balthazar interjected. "The point is, take your robes back to town and return them, because you're not staying down here with this nonsense."

The kid looked distraught now.

"But Mr. Balthazar!" he exclaimed. "I got an entire crate of these robes for all the potential members. I've ordered ritual chalices from the capital for the ceremonial drinking of the chocolate. It took me hours to light all these candles! And what about all the crab figurines?!"

"I don't care, just take—" the crustacean started. "Wait, the what now?"

"The carved figurines made in your likeness?" Taffy replied, pointing to a corner of the worship hall.

There, Balthazar saw one of the savage skeletons sitting on a chair, hunched over a small work table, using the pointy tip of his index bone to carefully carve a small piece of wood in his other hand.

On the table were dozens of little wooden figurines, each one about the size of an apple, carved with the image of a crab, down to the finest of details, such as eight legs, two pincers, and a chiseled jaw.

"Oh, wow, these are not bad," the merchant said, picking up one of the figures with his pincer.

"You like them?!" Taffy asked with a hopeful smile on his face.

Balthazar's eyestalks bobbed from side to side. "I mean, I guess the—Hey! No! I stand by what I said. You gotta go, kid!"

Skittering toward him, the crab grabbed his worshiper by the shoulders again and stared him down with fierce determination in his gaze.

"This is for your own good—but mostly mine, too," Balthazar said. "I want you out of here. This is a dungeon, where adventurers come for danger and loot. And also to die a lot. This isn't a place of worship, so you get how it doesn't even make sense to set up this… this… temple here, right? You'll just keep getting in the way, and you won't even recruit anyone anyway. Not to mention, this place is super humid. It would be awful on your bones."

"Say what?!" a distant skeleton voice exclaimed.

"I… I think I see your point, Mr. Balthazar," Taffy hesitantly said.

[The Gift of the Crab: Success]

"Thank you!" the relieved merchant said as he let go of the boy. "Finally, some reason made it through—"

"It makes perfect sense, now that I think about it!" the ginger fanatic exclaimed, suddenly raising his voice into an ecstatic screech again. "How did I not consider that! Of course, staying down here in a dungeon inside a mountain isn't the best way to recruit more acolytes!"

"Wait, what? No, that's not what I—"

"I will have much more success spreading the good word of our crab and savior Balthazar of the Pond if I travel the continent instead!"

The crab stared gobsmacked at the ginger boy. "I just told you that I don't want—"

"Come on," Taffy said, gesturing at the two robed skeletons to follow him. "Splinters, Rattlefist, let's hit the road right away while there's still daylight! I will make you proud, Mr. Balthazar, you will see! I will prove myself worthy of standing by your side as your first acolyte!"

Without waiting for a reply, or wasting any time to collect anything from the hall, Taffy simply headed toward the exit with the two aura-bound skeletons in tow.

Balthazar stood under the canvas containing the very abstract representation of his golden form, with a baffled expression painted across his face—which somehow still looked less awkward than the one painted above him.

"How does this kid always manage to do this?" he muttered before shaking his shell in disapproval. "Whatever, at least it got him out of here. He can go annoy someone else on the road now, for all I care. If I'm lucky, I won't be seeing him again anytime soon, and we can just go back to work."

As he was about to walk away from the improvised altar, the merchant stopped and glanced at the small table where the carving skeleton was a few minutes ago.

"I mean… they are pretty good, it would be a shame to let good merchandise go to waste," Balthazar muttered as he eyed the wooden figurines of himself.

After rotating his eyestalks to scan the area and hesitating for a moment, the crab called out for his undead friend.

"Hey, Tom? Bring me a box. I got something I want to take with me to the bazaar."

"What?!" the skeleton yelled back.

"Bring me a bo—" Balthazar started shouting. "Oh, for croissant's sake, just come here already! The kid's gone, you don't need to worry about becoming a fanatic for my lustrous chitin anymore."

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