When revolutionaries said the streets of Sol City would run red, Cyran assumed they meant with blood. Not… crustaceans. Hundreds of them. Little red creatures with pinching claws and scuttling legs. They were everywhere, taking up every available inch of space on the streets, reaching up and snipping at whatever they could reach. There was a deadly infestation in Sol City… one that put the ankles of all the common folk of the Capitol in danger.

Cyran gave one of the crabs a halfhearted kick, sending it flying through the air before it could latch onto his pant leg and cut him. Of all the things he expected to do during his pit stop at the island on the way back up home from Moonglade, Cyran could honestly admit that herding crabs had not been on his list. Political intrigue, possible plots, turmoil in the wake of what happened with Scern and the information that had been revealed, sure. But… crabs?

Well, at least he’d be able to bring home a good amount of crab meat for the kids and Del. While in the Crescent Isles with Cirice, she’d introduced him to a kind of meal called a hot pot. Crab would make a good protein for the meal, and not one that they got often up in the volcanic north. Yes, he’d kill a couple and bring them home for the others to enjoy.

If only there weren’t so. Damn. Many of them.

Frustrated and a bit tired after playing crab exterminator all day, Cyran reached down a hand and grabbed one of the angry crustaceans. It snipped angrily at him, trying to reach any part of him to pinch. “Oh, don’t give me that.” He chided the animal before turning to his companion, who had been helping him with the cleanup efforts - a familiar face, one he hadn’t seen in some time until they ran into one another while dealing with the crabs.

“Here, catch.” He called out to Blue Raspberry before twisting his arm and throwing it towards the ooze knight a couple of feet away.

Blue looked over as Cyran tossed the red snipper toward them with a smile. They'd been having a great time! The crabs couldn't pinch the ooze's ankles through their metal armor, so the claws weren't a problem at all, and they were delicious! Blue caught the crab in their mouth as casually as one would catch a piece of popcorn that was tossed at them and slurped it up, swallowing it whole. They'd been doing the same thing for hours now, picking up crabs and shoving them into their mouth. They'd lost count of how many they'd eaten already, but they were endless.

Every other crab, instead of simply eating it, they dropped the clicking clacking creature into a cloth sack. While the ooze was feasting, they were also helping gather some food for the children at Cyran's orphanage. Live crabs would make the journey all the way to the Ashlands better than dead ones and they'd taste much better fresh. But before they left, there were plenty of crabs around to have a hot pot in Sol City.

It had been a while since the two had met and they had plenty of stuff to talk about. Blue's new armor, how Cyran was doing, all the children at the orphanage, the people that had hired the assassin to kill Blue and why, you know, stuff.

It was at least entertaining to watch Blue Raspberry catch the crabs, no matter where Cyran threw the crabs for them to catch. Less entertaining to watch Blue Raspberry eat them. The sight made Cyran think back to when Cirice described watching Blue Raspberry eat things as slurping uncooked spaghetti. The sight of watching them chow down on tasty, fresh crab was unsettling, but a break from the monotony of the task. They’d been at this for hours with no signs of the ravenous crabs.

Cyran picked up another one and tossed it overhead, watching Blue Raspberry bend to try and snap at it. “Taking care of these one at a time is good and all, but we truly must find a more effective way to take care of them.” Cyran lamented with a sigh. “I don’t suppose you have a net on you to herd them?” Crowd control wasn’t really one of his specialties, but Blue Raspberry always seemed to have something odd and new up their sleeve seemingly at random. Cyran wouldn’t be surprised if they pulled up some kind of anti-crab item out of the blue.

He clenched his fist, calling the shadows to his aid - the darkness replied to his command, taking on a swirling, vine-like pattern, barbs of pure darkness spiking up from the ground and striking at the crustaceans.^[1] Cyran straightened, wiping at the side of his face. “There, that should hold the crabs for a moment. Thank you for helping me gather some of them. The kids are really going to enjoy this treat.”

---

1. Stinging Nettles

Blue finished slurping up a crab claw and looked over at Cyran again.

"Hmmm. Sorry. I don't have a net, but I guess I could start gathering them faster if you want. I was just having fun eating them, but I'll get more serious now!" Blue replied energetically, clanking a fish on their chest. Cyran wasn't having as good a time as Blue was here and wanted it to be over with. If that's the case, Blue didn't want to keep them bored any longer.

With a slight shifting of the metal plates making up their boots, a puddle of blue ooze spread out from Blue Raspberry's feet in every direction until it formed a circle five feet wide around them. They walked out of it, but every crab that scuttled into it became stuck, their legs glued to the ground by the blue ooze.

"You can sweep the crabs onto this." Blue pointed over their shoulder at the slime puddle that was already idly catching some of the scuttling crustaceans without help. "You can use this." Blue added, holding out a hand.

From their palm, more ooze seeped out as a gap opened between the plates. The ooze quickly lengthened into a long pole with a flay, blade-like end. In their hand they suddenly held a glaive made of solidified blue slime that looked like glass which they handed to Cyran to use like a broom to sweep the crabs up with.

---

Goo Puddle
Desert Blessing- Glaive

Cyran felt a pang of guilt when Blue Raspberry seemed to get the idea that he wasn’t having fun. “Oh, I’m enjoying catching them too…” Though he could do with less pinching around his legs, “There’s just so many of them. If you want once we finish up here we can go clean up other areas together. I hear that the docks have been having the same problem.” Where in the world were all these crabs even coming from? Surely they hadn’t all scuttled out of the ocean, right? That felt like an awful lot from the sea.

He picked up the slime-glaive, which surprisingly did not feel as sticky to the touch as he might have expected. Cyran hummed, and began once more setting about the task of sweeping the crabs all into one large goo pile. This was much easier than picking them up with his hands and risking getting nicked. For fun, he used the glaive to lob a couple of them from the ground into the air, to see if Blue Raspberry had any trouble catching those, either. Not unlike one of those hockey games that they played on the ice lakes up north, where the crabs were the pucks.

“At least there’s no infuriating caravan leader breathing down our necks this time.” Cyran offered with a grin.

Blue was relieved to hear Cyran was having a good time too. They even wanted to go help clean up another area!

"Ooh! Yeah! You think we can help clean the whole city?" Blue asked excitedly. If the ooze could drool, there'd be a river in the middle of the street from the thought of such a glorious feast. It didn't matter at all they'd already eaten enough crabs to burst out of their armor if they'd been human.

With Cyran better equipped now to handle the crabfestation, Blue also started to equip themself. The plates on the lower back of the armor shifted to open up a hole just above their waist, and a long reptilian tail with blue scales emerged. At the same time, plates on the sides of their torso also opened up holes to allow a second pair of arms to emerge, though these had no armor like the ones above them.

Blue thought about doing more to make themself even more efficient at cleaning up the crabs, but they were in the middle of a rather highly populated city. They didn't want to attract a lot of attention to themself by going all out with their slimy abilities. A couple of extra hands and a tail for sweeping seemed like plenty for now anyways.

They went about sliding their tail along the ground to sweep the crabs behind them into the puddle of sticky goo with using their arms to pick up the crabs in front of them quickly and shove them into their mouth.

Blue enjoyed trying to catch the crabs Cyran lobbed into the air by Cyran in their mouth. They managed to actually catch quite a few of them, and any crab they couldn't manage to catch was sent back up into the air by a swish of their tail for them to try again until they did succeed.

"Yeah, but if there was, he'd be really easy to prank right now. Lots of crabs to drop down their pants. We wouldn't even need a snake this time!" Blue laughed, picking up a crab and tossing it at Cyran.

---

Prehensile Tail
Extra Arms

“It’ll take a while, but I think we can manage.” There were a few other people and Sol City guards that were mulling about, collecting crabs and loading them into bags carried by mounts that were being hauled into the water. It looked like they were trying to deal with these animals without killing them, but there were so many wriggling around in nets that their combined efforts would still take some time. If going around catching crabs made Blue Raspberry happy, then Cyran didn’t mind devoting his evening to cleaning the city together.

Their back-and-forth game of catch went on for a while, with Cyran’s aim getting steadily better the more he practiced swinging with the glaive. Some of them soared a little wide over Blue Raspberry’s head, but they managed to catch those and throw them into the air to eat those crabs themselves. At some point, Blue Raspberry threw one of the crabs back to Cyran, which he managed to snatch out of the air with his hands. He didn’t eat it, but he tossed it into the slime pile with the others before it could pinch him.

“Ah, yes… I would advise against that.” Cyran laughed. Thankfully, there were no pushy merchants around to drop crabs on, and no Oriole to encourage such behavior. The young thief, along with Cyran’s other student, Andromeda, were on the other side of town cleaning up crabs somewhere else, where they’d join Cyran later.

Speaking of kids…

“How’s Astrid doing?” It had been a while since Cyran had last run into her.

"She's doing good, um, kind of. She was pretty upset after finding out about Avasha being dead and all... But then we touched a big bird and she felt a lot better. I'm not sure if she's completely better though. And I think there's still something else bothering her now too that she doesn't want to talk to me about." Blue paused in their crab grabbing and spoke sadly, resting their arms on their knees and looking down at the ground.

As Cyran swept another crab into the goo puddle, the glaive suddenly snapped, breaking down the middle, and then fully melting back into blue slime. Blue looked to see it fall to the ground into a small puddle and walked over, touching their foot to the mess. It slithered its way back into the armor, being reabsorbed.

"Sorry. I can't keep those solid for super long. I can make a new one."

“I could imagine.” Cyran didn’t particularly put much faith in the gods, but he knew that there were those who were more impacted in the wake of Scern’s revelation than him. His memories of the event were fuzzy, but he could recall fighting side by side with her against Ziev in that strange realm. “I’m glad she’s doing better… that you’re both doing alright. That was a harrowing situation to be in.”

The glaive he was holding suddenly snapped, leaving Cyran’s hands coated in that strange, sticky, fruit-smelling slime. He pulled out a handkerchief, attempting to wipe his hands of the substance while Blue Raspberry cleaned up the rest, but the scent still lingered in the air.

“No worries. I can make my own, as well.” Cyran pulled out a small, near invisible dagger from his belt, making a light incision on his wrist. Blood coalesced from the wound, forming an oblong paddle in his hands from his own blood.^[1] “If you make another, we can make a game of it. I know you can’t really spend much time in Frostgale, but they play this game on the ice where they hit a rock back and forth on the ice with sticks and try to score points. We could get Oriole and Andromeda to join us, too.”

---

1. Crimson Armaments - forming Paddle

"Huh? The bird didn't shoot any arrows at us." Blue said, looking at Cyran with a confused expression. What was arrowing about that situation? Bird can't shoot arrows. Or did he mean the something else bothering Astrid part? Blue didn't think that had anything to do with arrows either, but maybe it did.

Blue looked amazed by the paddle formed out of Cyran's blood. The ooze wasn't exactly familiar with blood, just pretty much knowing it as the red stuff that comes out of people's wounds, similarly to when they were hurt and some of their ooze lost its ability to stay together, turning into a blue liquid that leaked from their wounds. Blue didn't know people could control their leaking liquid! Wait, was this another suddenly growing wings situation?

"That sounds fun!" Blue smiled happily. That sounded like a great game, even if it was from Frostgale. Maybe they could substitute a rock for a crab. Blue would probably have to avoid eating it though. They walked over to the puddle of goo that had a layer of crabs trapped atop it. "Let me just clean this up and we can get going." They said as they began to roll the puddle up, the liquid semi-solidifying and rolling into a huge, crab-filled burrito.

With it rolled up tight, the armor plates in the front of Blue's torso opened up as wide as possible and they fed the burrito in, devouring the crabs and goo along with anything else that had gotten stuck to the goo. When it was all gone, the armor closed up again and Blue looked to Cyran with a toothy grin.

"Alright, let's go!" Blue said excitedly, wanting to go see Oriole and play the game, but then looking confused for a moment. "Wait, who's Andromeda?"

“Oh, not arrowing, harrowing…” Cyran attempted to correct them before sighing and shaking his head. “Let me rephrase. It was a dangerous situation. Not one a child or a… young knight should be in.” He paused as he tried to find the right words to describe Blue Raspberry. “I just worry about you. Everyone, really. It wasn’t-“

It wasn’t really polite conversation for an otherwise pleasant day.

“Well, there’s no need to relive it now.” The battle with Scern didn’t seem to bother Blue Raspberry as much as it did Cyran, which was a good thing. He leaned against his paddle while he watched Blue Raspberry rolled up the pile of crab goop before… picking it up and devouring it in their torso.

Cyran had seen a lot of weird, unsavory things in his life. It was par the course when one was a contract killer for a living. The scene of Blue Raspberry devouring an entire shipment’s worth of crabs in one bite, though…

That was definitely one of the most unnerving.

… Maybe he would let the others enjoy the crab pot when he returned home.

“Oh… she’s my new apprentice.” Cyran nodded when Blue Raspberry was ready, leading them a couple streets over where his apprentices were similarly dealing with the crabs. Oriole perked go when he saw Blue Raspberry, throwing his crab to Andromeda and immediately running up to give the knight a hug.

“Sir Wolfe!” He exclaimed, excited. “It’s been so long, I’ve missed you!”

Andromeda, on the other hand, looked far less pleased at the knight’s appearance. She was far less friendly than the young thief, and far more distrustful. She hung behind while the thief and the ooze-knight reunited.

"Oriole!" Blue exclaimed happily and dropped to one knee to give him a hug back. They hadn't seen the kid since they'd been escorting a merchant caravan in Frostgale. That had been a fun time, mostly. The caravan leader had been a jerk, but they'd gotten back at him by having a snake climb up his pants. The snake also happened to be Blue Raspberry, who also ate the man's pants after he'd thrown them off in a panic and then Cyran returned them covered in slime. Yup, fun times.

Oriole still called them "Sir" Wolfe. Honestly, it was undeserved since they weren't actually a real knight yet, but it was still endearing. And, they'd hopefully fix that soon! They pulled away from the hug and put their hands on Oriole's shoulders.

"Oriole! Big news! I met a real knight in Dragon's Cradle and she offered to help me join her knight order too! I really will be a knight soon, and then you can call me Sir Wole for real!" Blue said excitedly, shaking Oriole slightly in their overexcitement.

Blue stood up, taking a step back from Oriole and then realizing some more big news they wanted to share. They spread their arms out, swooshing their black-furred cloak behind them to get it out of the way to show off their new armor better.

"And check this out! I got a whole new suit of armor! Isn't it awesome? Oh!" Blue reached behind their back and pulled out their helmet, putting it on their head to complete the set. "It was made just for me by my best friend! What do you think?"

Oriole gasped as Blue Raspberry described that they were going to obtain a true knight title. Under the mask, their eyes sparkled with admiration. It seemed his admiration had not died down over the months they had been apart. “Are you going to get tapped with a sword and everything, too?” It was not the biggest aspect of knighthood, but it was one he’d read about in the past from books, and that was the part of the process he was the most fascinated about.

Then Blue Raspberry stepped away, spinning around so Oriole could get a full look at what they were wearing. Even the cloak itself was elegant… and the armor was more grand than anything Oriole had ever seen. And with the helmed to complete the look, Blue Raspberry looked pretty damn proper indeed.

“Whoa!” Oriole jumped up and down, excited. “Your friend is a genius! You look like you could serve the king himself!”

Cyran smiled at the mention of a friend. “Did Astrid make that?” He knew the kid was talented with the forge, but seeing her work up close was a different matter entirely. She was a prodigy.

He turned to Oriole and Andromeda. “Wolfe and I were thinking about making a little exercise out of cleanup. Play a game of hockey. We could make it… me and Andromeda versus Wolfe and Oriole. What do you say?”

Oriole looked delighted, while Andromeda looked like she didn’t particularly give a shit. But both of them nodded their approval.

"She's a super genius! You really think I could serve the king? Those royal knights have some real fancy armor. This armor is way cooler though, isn't it?" Blue laughed, thumping their fist against their chest with a loud clank. They were incredibly happy to hear just how much Oriole approved of their new armor. No matter how nice anyone else's armor looked, Blue would always think their armor looked the best no matter what anyone said. No armor could suit them better.

"Yup! She made it for me to replace the old one after, uh..." Blue started replying to Cyran, but cut themself off. That whole event was probably something Cyran wouldn't want to talk about. They changed the topic, looking at Andromeda and offering a friendly wave.

"Nice to meet you! I'm Wolfe." The knight introduced themself cheerily to the girl. They'd never met her before, so it was proper to do so. At least that was what they'd been told. They wanted to act proper though, since knights were supposed to act that way and they hoped to become one. Might as well get used to it before then.

"Alright!" Blue raised their fists in the air with a cheer, seeing the two apprentices agree to join in the game of hockey. They were so excited to play they almost forgot something important. They didn't actually know how to play hockey at all.

"Um, so how do you play hockey?" They asked, looking at Cyran expectantly, their hands on their hips.