The mysterious man kept walking up the road at a fast pace, with Balthazar and his friends trying to keep up behind.
“Hey, wait, hold on,” said the strained crab, trying not to fall behind. “What do you mean, expecting me? Who are you?”
“My name is Jasper,” the brown-skinned man said with a content smile, “and we have been looking forward to your arrival for a while, Balthazar. She told us you would be coming.”
“She? Who is ‘she’? Are you talking about Ruby?”
Once again, the adventurer smiled. “You must have many questions, as do we. All will be answered soon.”
Unsatisfied, Balthazar frowned, but it was Rye who spoke next.
“You have an unusual accent. You’re not from around these parts, are you?”
Jasper’s smile became a slight smirk.
“Neither are you, my friend.”
The archer leaned down closer to the crab.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he whispered. “Why is this guy so cryptic?”
“I don’t know!” Balthazar murmured back.
They continued moving through the road, now passing through several broken brick columns and ruined wooden structures.
“Are you taking us to Condor?” the merchant asked from a few paces behind the peculiar man, struggling to keep up with his stride.
“Look around,” he said, spreading his arms as he continued walking. “This is Condor.”
The crab’s eyestalks spun around, examining his surroundings.
Pieces of broken wooden fences from what seemed to once have been a stable. Sections of dilapidated brick walls where stores once were. Remnants of what used to be houses, now just a square frame filled with debris. Deserted streets filled with years of dead shrubbery and trash.
And above them as they walked, a large sign held between two tall pillars. It was broken down the middle, the right half of it lying half buried in the ground below. Together, their faded and barely readable letters would have formed a name: Condor.
“So this is the place?” the stunned merchant said.
“It is,” replied Jasper. “Or at least it once was.”
The strange adventurer continued on his way, walking like someone certain of where he was heading, despite the messy path of the surrounding ruins, which seemed to bother him none.
With a faint whistle of the wind blowing across the lifeless streets, and the drab ambience that seemed to mute any colors that weren’t grays or browns all around them, not even the sun seemed brave enough to shine directly on those lands, instead remaining hidden away behind a thick cluster of clouds that looked more like a permanent layer of smoke lingering above the town.
“What happened to this place?” the increasingly despondent crab asked. “Why does it look like this?”
“Many things happened,” said Jasper. “Condor was once a beautiful, thriving settlement, not too different from your neighbor town, Ardville. Full of life, color, and joy. Its streets were filled with hard-working locals and many passing adventurers looking for fame and fortune. But that was a long, long time ago, before problems started appearing.”
Balthazar’s curiosity increased at a similar rate as his frustration. “What problems?”
“Did you see the orchards full of apple trees outside town on your way here?” asked the now apparent tour guide.
“Uh, no? All we saw were desolate fields and abandoned farms.”
Jasper clicked his tongue as he continued forward, talking without even turning back.
“Yes, but back in the day, this town was surrounded by lush fields of fruits and vegetables, including delicious shiny red apples. One day, an adventurer rode through town, and he noticed something very particular.”
“What? That everyone around here was a loony?” said the crab.
The man laughed.
“No, not yet. Not back then, at least,” he said. “He noticed there was always a boy by the road leading from the farm fields and into town, and that this street urchin would always offer to sell any passing adventurers a shiny apple for 6 coins.”
Balthazar frowned. “What a terrible deal! But I bet adventurers still bought them, so good on the kid.”
“What the adventurer also noticed,” Jasper continued, “was that once he went into town, there was a general store there, owned by an old man, and that the merchant would buy a shiny red apple for 7 crowns.”
“What?!” the crab exclaimed with a scoff. “What a fool! That’s an awful price.”
Jasper smiled a knowing smile as he glanced back. “Perhaps, but the adventurer quickly realized the opportunity he had stumbled upon, and for the next few weeks, he would be seen going in and out of town nonstop, day and night, barely stopping to eat or sleep. He would go out, buy an apple from the kid, walk back, sell it to the store merchant, and then repeat. Countless times.”
“That sounds… stupid,” Balthazar said.
“Again, perhaps, but after doing it enough times, this adventurer emerged as one of the richest people in the region, and began traveling and spending his fortune in the most lavish of ways, which brought a lot of attention to him, and raised questions about how such a low level could have acquired so much gold.”
“And?” asked the walking crab.
“And soon after, the old merchant disappeared,” the tall man said.
“Hah! Probably went bankrupt from buying so many overpriced apples, and skipped town, the fool.”
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Jasper glanced at the crustacean from the corner of his eye. “It wasn’t just him. The little boy on the road outside town vanished without a trace overnight as well. The town merchant’s store also disappeared as if it had never existed, suddenly replaced with a stable.”
Balthazar frowned. “That does sound strange, but… what does it have to do with the state this place is in now? Were apples that vital for the social and economic stability of Condor?”
“No, probably not,” the mysterious adventurer said, as he kept moving forward, now in pensive quietude.
After a deafening moment of silence, he suddenly started talking again.
“Then one day, after that, a group of new adventurers arrived in town, looking for action and glory, as many do. They scoured the town boards and asked the citizens for any quests they could take, in their endless journey for experience and higher levels.”
“Sounds like the same kind of adventurers of today,” the crab said with a shrug.
“Indeed,” Jasper said. “At the time, one of the quests offered was to solve the problem of a haunted well. Apparently, the spirit of a heartbroken girl was keeping the locals from collecting water from it, and after following a series of clues, the adventurers were given the task of finding a specific spot in the nearby woods where a special type of tree with white flowers grew. They were the girl’s favorites, and casting one down the well would summon her ghost temporarily, providing an opportunity to face her and break the curse.”
“Alright, I’m invested in your tale now, go on,” said the curious crab. “What happened next?”
“The band of adventurers successfully defeated the spirit and completed their quest.”
“Great, hooray, happy ending,” Balthazar said with sarcastic disappointment. “So what about it?”
“Except, one of the members of the group figured something out,” Jasper continued. “If they collected more of the white flowers, and dropped them down the well again, the ghost would be summoned again. And again. And again. For as long as there were flowers to summon her with.”
The merchant scratched the top of his shell.
“I don’t get it. Why would anyone keep doing that?!”
The guide chuckled as he hopped over a small section of brick wall in their path.
“You clearly do not think like an adventurer, my friend,” he said. “Soon after this discovery, countless adventurers were visiting the town, picking as many white flowers from the woods as they could on their way here, to drop into the well, so they could slay the wailing girl of the well over and over again, and reap the loot and rewards from it, as well as the experience.”
“Oh…” the crab said.
“It wasn’t long until the cursed well disappeared, along with a large section of the woods, the beautiful white flower trees never to be seen again, with nothing in their place but a barren clearing.”
Despite the strange stories the man was sharing, his mood seemed unnervingly casual, and he continued leading them deeper into the ruins of the town with no sign of what their destination might be.
“Balthazar, I’m telling you, something deep in me is telling me to turn around and leave,” Rye whispered. “Do we even know where this guy is taking us, or are we just following a stranger through a ghost town for the fun of it?”
The crab glanced at his friends behind him. He knew the young man had a valid point, even if his instincts to leave were likely coming from the same source as his selective amnesia when something came too close to making him think about inconvenient subjects.
“So, is there a point to all of this that you’re telling us?” Balthazar asked the man leading them past a partially collapsed archway. “Because I still don’t understand how this place ended up like this. Either explain already, or I’m turning this parade around and leaving.”
Jasper continued strolling forward without turning. “A holiday celebration.”
“Excuse me?” said the puzzled crab.
“It was a holiday celebration that led to what you see of Condor today.”
“How? I mean, I’ve seen some adventurers partying pretty hard before, but this seems like a bit much.”
“One day,” the adventurer continued, “Condor dressed in bright colors and bright lights to celebrate a special event. Nobody really remembers what it was about anymore. The important bit was that adventurers came from all over the continent for the free souvenirs.”
“Hah, typical,” the crab said. “Who doesn’t love some free stuff?”
“Among them were these unique magical lotto tickets that, when used, had a chance to give an adventurer a permanent +1 to a random attribute. Or a free bag of roasted chestnuts.”
“Sounds like a win-win to me.”
“Each individual was only meant to be eligible for no more than one ticket,” Jasper carried on, stepping over toppled wooden market stands and washed out pieces of ripped flags on the ground. “Yet, somehow—don’t ask me how—one adventurer discovered that if he claimed his ticket, then left town, walked exactly 125 steps south, crossed between two specific crooked trees on the edge of the forest, circled back and passed underneath the wooden bridge instead of over it, and entered the town again but walking sideways, he would somehow be able to claim a free lotto ticket again like it was his first.”
Balthazar looked at the man with a baffled expression and his mouth half open. “What?!”
“Word spread fast among the adventurers,” Jasper said, unbothered by the crabs’ bewilderment. “Soon there were countless tickets flooding the town markets, being used, traded, and duplicated. It was… a huge mess.”
“Fine, whatever!” exclaimed the exasperated crab, finally coming to a stop. “But what the hell does any of that have to do with anything?!”
Jasper stopped too, placing both hands behind his back and admiring the sky above without turning to look at the group.
“A few days after this event, Condor was wiped off the map,” the man said, this time in a slightly louder and resolute tone. “Almost every local who lived here vanished without a trace. The buildings were practically uprooted overnight. What was once a land full of life became dead and inhospitable. No maps showed this place anymore, no signs pointed here, and nobody in the other towns talked about Condor anymore.”
Balthazar stared at the adventurers back, perplexed. “What? Just like that?”
Jasper let out a quiet sigh.
“Some said it was a curse that swept through the town overnight. Others claim a horde of trolls ransacked the place and kidnapped everyone. Some even believe adventurers did it. But no matter who tells what version of the tale, one detail is always shared between them all.”
The dark-skinned adventurer turned to the group, hands still behind his back.
“They all saw a large flock of black birds circling above the town the day before it happened, like a bad omen of what was to come.”
Balthazar’s eyes widened, and his eyestalks stood up. “Birds…”
“Look, this is a great story and all,” Rye interrupted, while stepping forward, “but I still don’t get the point in any of this.”
Jasper smiled at the younger man.
“The point, my friend, the moral to be taken from it all, is that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.”
The tall human turned his deep brown eyes to the crab and smiled again. “Tell me, Balthazar, are you a nail? Or a hammer?”
With a couple of confused blinks, the merchant stared at Jasper, unsure of what to make of his question.
“I… don’t know? But if you need a hand with some carpentry, I know this old guy that could probably help you.”
Jasper placed a hand on his chest and let out a hearty laugh as he threw his head back.
“She did say you were funny,” the strange man said.
“She? You mean Ruby?” Balthazar said, with his eyestalks standing up. “Look, as much as I appreciate the tour through this lovely town and its magnificent vistas, are you actually going to take us somewhere, or do we have to tip you first?”
Once again, Jasper smirked with that annoying knowing smile. “We are already here.”
“Huh?” said the crab, looking around confused.
They were standing in front of another of the many ruined buildings dotting the town’s streets. The same cracked cobblestone paths under their feet, the same broken fences around them, and just another dirty, dilapidated house standing behind the mantled figure that brought them there.
“She has been expecting you,” said Jasper, placing both hands behind his back again as he stepped towards the door of the house and stood next to it.
With a heavy thump and a creak, the door opened, and a tall woman dressed in red stepped through, her dark green eyes staring directly at Balthazar.
“At last,” Ruby said. “We meet again.”