"AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" Hylltywyll cackled madly as he rode along atop the massive crab, across the sands of the oasis.

The inhabitants of the Oasis cowered in their homes, in fear of the Fae's powerful crab army. At least, that's what Hylltywyll liked to believe. In actuality, they were trying to avoid the huge crabs, but the crabs definitely weren't followers of the Fae, or his crabby mount. In fact, they greatly disliked the oversized rival.

The crab was extremely large, even for a paradise crab. It stood well above the rest of them, its body wider than three of the others combined and its claws large enough to fit around a full grown man's waist, and probably strong enough to snip one in half too. Hylltywyll hadn't seen it happen yet, but he was pretty sure it could.

It better be able to do some awesome stuff after Hylltywyll -allegedly- used maybe a tiny bit of magic to "encourage" its growth. The crab infestation he caused in Sol City was starting to come under control and he needed to do something about that. Namely, march an army of more crabs there to replace the old ones. These giants ones he found in this oasis would do nicely. All they needed was a leader. A king crab. Hardshell the second!

His reign will be glorious. Once the other crabs start following along.

SPOILER: Click to show

Quest Name: King Crab
Participants: Two or more
Location: Zeinav Oasis
Post Requirements: 6 posts per person, 200 words per post
Reward: +1 Renown, Choice of 2 Common crafting materials

Description: A particularly large Paradise Crab has taken control of the Oasis, bullying out other male crabs in the attempt to dominate the area. This has caused both the larger crab and most other males in the area to become hostile, not only with each other but to travelers seeking refuge from the desert. They are becoming a hazard and something must be done. The crab population is important to the Oasis, so removing the large, aggressive male is not only for the benefit of the travelers but also the crab population. Go in, brave the horde of angry crabs, and defeat the aggressor.

What the...?

Eameia really doesn't know what to make of this odd situation. She came to the Oasis in hopes of reaching out to Kvasir about some business dealings the healer had with her brother. Maintaining the bridges Zarius formed has been an ongoing concern of hers for the past year. The mission is an easy one, just a simple social call. Or at least that's what it was supposed to be. But the arrival of a crab army led by one particularly massive specimen with...some purple fuzzy cat cackling from its back?

Gods. Nothing can ever be simple, can it?

She managed to climb up onto a roof before the large crabs stampede past and is now observing the chaos they're spreading across the normally peaceful oasis. The large-bodied crustaceans scrape their carapaces against the walls of buildings and knocks over pottery and market stalls as they swam through the dusty streets around the king crab. 

She hopes that Eirynor hasn't been trampled as the tall half-elf isn't currently at her side so how he's doing is unclear. Well, she doesn't need to spend too much time worrying about him. The man is more than capable of taking care of himself and avoiding trouble. Though how good invisibility is against crabs, she's not sure. 

The rest of the civilian population of the Oasis do not have many skills that can help them against this crabby infestation. The crabs are definitely causing a lot of distress and disrupting people's businesses and daily routines. While she'd prefer not to draw attention to herself, she supposes she should do something to try and help. 

Focusing on the fuzzy little crab rider, Eameia waves her hand and casts a spell that reaches out to the fae's mind and connects them mentally. 

"What are you doing?" She asks, telepathically. 

---

[1] Message

Before Eameia even finished casting her spell to try to communicate with the fuzzy creature, it turned its eyes directly toward her.

Hylltywyll sensed the casting of a spell nearby and looked to see someone standing on the roof of one of the buildings, looking back at him, one hand in the air weaving the magic together. He already knew exactly what spell they were casting, reading the formulae arcanum faster than it could be written, and felt no need to counter or alter such a harmless spell. A moment later, he heard the expected message in his mind and smiled.

"Hmm? What do you think I'm doing?" He responded to the question with a sarcastic question of his own and a smug grin. He forged his own mental connection to the stranger questioning his invasion plans, a stronger and slightly more invasive connection that allowed him to see and hear whatever they did. He enjoyed the scene from above of his army marching from the stranger's eyes.

It was chaos. The crabs weren't really following any direction or orders. Instead, they just... crabbed everywhere. Hm. His army needed more training. They'd never make it to Sol City like this. The other crabs seemed to be actively avoiding him, even. His giant crab mount clicked its claws and grabbed a barrel of coconuts, breaking it and scattering the coconuts everywhere. 

---

Expanded Mind
Mind Parasite

Hyll's reaction to Eameia's casting of a spell is definitely unnerving. Or just Hyll is unnerving in general. Both statements can be true. In her experience, whenever someone reacts to the casting of a spell before it's complete it means that you're not dealing with just some mundane individual. At least now she knows that she needs to be more careful about her casting in case this weird fuzzy creature has more tricks up its sleeve. 

That's proven even more true as she feels Hyll's magic creep into her own mind. The connection is different than the spell she cast, but she's not entirely sure how to deal with it.

Eameia makes a bit of an irked face at the tone in which Hyll's response reverberates within her head. Where is this attitude coming from? This little scrunkle clearly is nothing but hair and nerve. 

"I think you are terrorizing the locals and making a mess," she retorts.

That much is pretty clear. The crabs are not organized so they're causing all sorts of property damage as the swam moves through the streets. What isn't so clear is what Hyll's end goal is, and Eameia figures that asking simple questions is probably the best approach. 

"What do you want?"

Please, by the dead-ass gods, can this troublemaker just give a clear attainable answer.

Hyll didn't really care about the locals' feelings about the crabs or the damage they were causing. Sucked for them, but he had plans. It wasn't his fault the locals were so scared of some big crabs.

The sound of wood cracking and water spilling came from off to the side where one of the big crabs had latched a pincer around a small water barrel and given it a squeeze. The locals probably didn't need that barrel of water anyways, living in the desert. They'd be fine. This is an oasis, there's plenty of water.

"Oh, is that why you're here? Did the locals call for someone because of a few big crabs? Are you a crab exterminator?" He asked jokingly. Hiring some adventurer to get rid of his army. That was just rude.

This could be an opportunity though. He knew this girl had some magic, and was likely hired to deal with the crabs. Maybe she could be of some assistance here.

"Maybe we can help each other. The locals want the crabs gone, and you're working for them. I don't want to stay here anyways. I want to take these crabs somewhere else, but it'd be a little difficult even with my magic, and they're just not getting organized enough to march there. How about you help me take these crabs to Sol City, and I stop causing the locals trouble." Hylltywyll offered through the mental connection while he chuckled to himself atop his scuttling steed.

A giant pincer cracked open a coconut loudly, spilling the water inside across the sand.

Eameia stares at Hyll, appearing unfazed by his antics at least outwardly. Internally, her patience is running a bit thin, but maybe that's because of the heat of the desert. 

"No," she is quick to correct Hyll's assertion that she's some altruistic do-gooder under the employ of the locals. "No one asked me to help and I am not a crab exterminator. I just want my own business to not be interrupted by nonsense like this."

When her correction doesn't seem to sink in, she feels a bit irked at having to correct the little troublemaker once again. 

"I am not working for them," she repeats.

Just what about her makes him think that conclusion is at all correct? She hardly looks like a guard or even a local to the area.

She sighs, there was no point in arguing such a small point. What's more important is if Hyll wasn't actually interested in causing trouble here and just needed help being on his way, she doesn't have much of a choice to reject his trade offer, sketchy as it is. She can't help but wonder if this fae is somehow in league with the Wizard of the Wastes. This sort of flashy chaos seems right up their alley according to her brother's notes.

As the crabs continue to make a mess of things, she looks at Hyll. 

"Fine, do you have some sort of plan?"

She has to assume he doesn't, cause if he did then he probably wouldn't need the help of a stranger. This whole scenario strikes her as something that came into being through a severe lack of forethought and planning. 

Meanwhile, on the ground, Eirynor is having a hell of a time getting back to his employer with all the aggro crabs running around. His invisibility doesn't exactly work against the tide of crustaceans and after being chased around for a while he had to scramble up into a palm tree to escape them. He clings to the tree as a few "smaller" horse-sized crabs click their pinches threateningly below his feet. 

Hyll didn't really care about the specifics. If she was hired or called by the locals or not, it didn't matter. She was here to stop the trouble he was causing them, even if it was only to help her own business, so she was working for them. Whether for their good, for their interests, or for their money, she was working for them, in his opinion.

Also in Hyll's opinion, he was never wrong, so if he said she was working for them, she definitely was.

Hmmm, did he have a plan? His first thought was just to just ride the biggest crab and lead the army off to the city. It didn't seem to quite be working though. The crabs didn't see the big one as a leader, but as a rival. Territorial and stupid. They'd fit in perfectly in Sol City amongst the noble families. Maybe he should try and get them into the royal family's castle. Well, he'd have to get them to the city first.

He could probably get the crabs into his shadow, but then he was sure they'd destroy his hoard of treasure. Their snippy claws were ruining everything in the oasis and he wasn't about to let them crack and break all the shiny trinkets he'd piled up. They'd need to be contained or transported in another way.

"Do you have a cage?" Hyll asked through the mental connection.

Eamiea’s eye twitches. “A cage?? You must be joking. Does it look like I am carrying a giant crab trap in my back pocket???”

What a ridiculous question. Was this little scrunkle really so unprepared that all they could think of was asking for some way to contain hundreds of angry giant crabs?

“No. I do not have a cage.” She huffs through the mental connection.

Well, if he doesn’t have any better ideas, she would just have to come up with something herself. Looking around at all the crabs, she's not entirely sure where to even start with this situation. She isn't particularly good with animals, as much as she hates to admit it, Shael probably would be better suited to deal with this whole mess. 

Riffling through her bags, she tries to find something that could be of use. She pulls out a vial of sulphuric gas.^[1] That could work. If they can scatter the crabs from town perhaps the little fuzzy guy can get the bigger one out from between the buildings. 

The vial starts to levitate in Emaeia's hand and she floats it over to behind the group of crabs to try and drive them out of town rather than deeper into it.^[2] Releasing her telekinetic control over the vial once it's where she wants it, the glass bottle falls to the ground and breaks across the sand.

A plume of noxious smoke spreads out from the broken bottle and starts to agitate the crabs at the back of the pack. The crabs scurry over one another to get away from the cloud. 

---

[1] Sulphuric smoke bomb
[2] Telekinesis

Hylltywyll shrugged and shook his head, pretending to look sad. No cage. What a shame. A giant crab trap would have been perfect right now, with all the giant crabs. That's too bad.

Internally, he was laughing at just how upset one little question made the Fellblood. Of course he didn't think she would actually have a cage. Where would she be keeping it? He could keep things in his shadow, but it wasn't as if he thought everyone else was capable of such a thing.

"How about a really big box?" He transmitted his question through the mental link, doing his best not to transmit his amusement at her frustration through as well.

His slight chuckle dropped as he sensed a spell being cast and looked directly at Eameia with a furrowed brow. Telekenesis. What was she doing with that? He watched as a bottle floated out behind his crab swarm and dropped to the sand with a burst of noxious gas.

The crabs didn't like that at all. In a rush, they began to flee from the smelly cloud, scuttling between buildings and out into the sands beyond to get away from it. His own kingly mount had fled from the gas, but not as far. It seemed it wasn't as affected by the gas as the relatively smaller ones, or it just saw the now vacant of other crabs area as an opportunity to stake its claim on its territory more fiercely. Hyll didn't really know crab behavior.

"Hey! What'd you do that for?!" Hylltywyll complained, glaring at Eameia with a snarl on his face.

Eameia’s eye twitches at Hyll’s consistent tomfoolery. Gods, how did she get stuck dealing with this situation and this spindly-legged bundle of snark?

It doesn’t really matter how things turned out this way. What matters is that these damn crabs get out of the way. Seems the smoke bomb did work somewhat, but the purple wonderling doesn’t seem to appreciate her solution. He shoots her a nasty look and objects to the scattering of the crab army.

She does her best not to return Hyll’s glare with a smug smirk and just stares at him instead. As tempting as it is to get into a petty fight with the creature, it hardly will accomplish anything worthwhile and is likely a waste of time and effort. What’s more is that this chaos gremlin could be a bigger threat to her than she would be prepared for. He’s already proven to have magic similar to hers, who knows what other tricks he’s hiding up his sleeves.

“Had to try something. You were not coming up with any useful suggestions.”

While she might be showing a lot of restraint, she does let a little bit of her own snark seep through in her words. What's the worst that could happen?

Meanwhile, the crabs that were harassing Eirynor notice the commotion and scuttle off to avoid whatever might have caused the others to flee the area. Crabs might not be the smartest creatures, but they at least know they don't want to be around if there's something that might be in the mood for a delicious all-you-can-eat crab buffet. 

As the crabs wander off, the elf swordsman carefully climbs down from the tree and dusts himself off. Looking around, he doesn't immediately see Eameia which makes him a bit worried she might have gotten into some trouble. He rushes off to find her and make sure she's okay. 

"No useful suggestions!? A really big box is a great suggestion!" Hylltywyll countered indignantly.

How dare she suggest he's not useful! His ideas are great. The best, even. She just couldn't appreciate the genius in them. Delivering a bunch of giant crabs to Sol City would have been amazing. They suffered from being flooded with a bunch of regular-sized crabs. It would be hilarious to see them deal with these giant ones. Hyll even heard of weird hybrid species emerging around there, creatures that are half crab, half other pests and rodents, like flying squirrels. How they were appearing, Hyll didn't know. Maybe it was some Fae magic he wasn't part of. But it was still hilarious!

But now his hard work was being ruined. The crabs were being driven off and scattered. I mean, his hard work wasn't exactly going well, with the crabs refusing to listen and all that, but it was still his hard work! And now, he had hardly anything to show for it. All that was left was the one giant crab that was bigger than the rest, and it looked oddly happy, as if it had been the one to drive all the other crabs away and claim this place as its territory. Ugh. Freeloader.

Hylltywyll shot Eameia a glare, and then suddenly vanished. The crab he had been sitting on didn't even seem to notice his absense.

"You're no fun." Hylltywyll's voice came from behind Eameia, the small Fae perched on the wall around the edge of the roof with his arms crossed in front of him. "Maybe I should turn you into a crab and send you to Sol City."

---

Blink

Eameia pays Hyll's counter no mind. She's very close to just walking away now that the swarm of crabs has been more or less dispersed enough for it to be comparatively safe to walk on the ground again, but she stops when Hyll disappears and reappears closer to her. 

"...My apologies that my idea of 'fun' does not align with your chaotic nonsense."

She's wary and keeps her guard up. Hyll has already shown some of his cards, clearly being someone capable of using magic and not having a healthy fear of creatures that could have easily snapped him in half with their claws. Hyll's attitude, while annoying, isn't founded in sheer cockiness. Eameia is not about to assume he isn't a danger to her. If she knew Eirynor was nearby, she might feel a bit more emboldened, but she can't rely on the invisible swordsman to watch her back every second. 

When Hyll threatens to turn her into a crab, as ridiculous as that sounds, she doesn't take it as just talk. She doesn't know what other tricks Hyll has, and Hyll is a strange creature to begin with. Being turned into a crab isn't even that crazy of a concept to grasp considering something similar had happened to her brother and Cyran while out confronting an Ur-beast. Now, she's pretty sure Hyll isn't an Ur-beast, but she's heard it's possible to collect their breath for alchemical purposes so it isn't out of the realm of possibility that Hyll has something like that. 

"I would advise you not follow through on that threat. You may regret such an ill-thought-out course of action." 

Her own threat isn't an empty one either, but she's not about to tell Hyll who she is or her connections in case the Wonderling has connections she isn't aware of. It would be so much simpler if Hyll was one of the many people her brother had written detailed dossiers on, but she can't recall ever seeing an entry about someone resembling Hyll....Well, the hairiness does remind her of Beistmild, but besides that, there are no similarities. 

She glances behind Hyll as she spots Eirynor climbing up a ladder on the next rooftop over. That's a relief, but this situation is still a bit precarious. The mute half-elf spots her and Hyll and is quick to turn himself invisible and approach silently in case Hyll turns out to be an enemy.^[1,2]

Eameia turns her attention back to Hyll. "I have no love for the Capitol myself, but why do you think taking an army of crabs there is a good idea?"

---

[1] Invisibility
[2] Silent Step

Caotic nonsense? Hylltywyll scowled. What was she calling chaotic nonsense? His perfect plan of delivering a bunch of giant crabs to Sol City? Maybe it ran into a few kinks here and there, but it wasn't nonsense! Chaotic, maybe, but not nonsense! It was genius and she just couldn't appreciate it.

"Huh? Now you want to advise me? You didn't do such a good job of that when I asked you for help with my crab plan. In fact, you completely ruined it, so why should I trust any advice you give me?" Hyll asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm and more than a little annoyance. Who did she think she was to tell him what to do? And ill thought out? Now she was just insulting him. It was a perfect plan, and the only one who messed it up was her!

Hylltywyll  opened his mouth, about to giver her a scathing retort, when he felt something behind him. He could sense someone had used magic, and a quick read of the formulae told him there was now someone invisible on the next rooftop over. He gave her a wide smile, showing off his sharp teeth.

Oh, she was talking to him about ill thought out plans while she was having someone sneak up behind him? Him? The one who could sense magic and snuck around better than any little underling of hers ever could? Now whose plan was ill thought out?

"Why would it be fun to bring an army of crabs to Sol City? Because I already did it once before and it was so fun, I wanted to do it again." He answered with a chuckle. "Well, I guess I can just try again later when some crabby Fellblood isn't ruining everything. Bye!"

All at once, Hylltywyll snapped his fingers as he jumped down from the roof into the alleyway behind him. He would give up on his crab plan for now, but he wouldn't be leaving without giving a parting gift. He scrambled down the side of the building and disappeared into the shadows.

Up on the roof, his little parting gift was already in action. Eameia's skin began to harden and form into plates. Her hair pulled up into her scalp as it smoothed and flattened. Ears smoothed over and vanished. Her eyes shifted and her mouth morphed, lips disappearing into a horrible face. Spikes grew out along edges, and skin became shiny and smooth.

In no time at all, Eameia found her head head been replaced with a whole crab, legs swaying around her shoulders and a pair of claws clacking in front of her.

---

Expanded Mind
Hylltywyll's Shady Shelter
Alter Reality

Eameia’s patience with Hyll has pretty much run dry at this point. Her eye twitches as Hyll berates her for not helping him rally the crabs under his banner of chaos. She could fire back about how she hardly ruined anything because Hyll didn't even have the situation under control to begin with. At least now the little fairy wouldn't become crab chow. 

She opts not to continue arguing with the purple fuzzball, seeing no point as they just cannot see eye to eye on the matter. Not that she's particularly interested in making nice with him anyway. 

Her eyes narrow as the gremlin grins at her. What was he up to now?

“Once before?”

The fellblood vaguely recalls a situation in Capitol Landing her brother detailed in his journal about an inesplicable infestation of crabs. Was this little fae really responsible for all that? Well, given the present situation she supposes it couldn’t be too hard to believe it to be true.

Of course Hyll wasn't interested in hanging around and retelling the tale of his adventures in swarming the capitol city with crustaceans, and before Eameia can get any answers out of him, he disappears. 

Magic warps around her head and she looks around as the formulae arcanum sinks into her skin. 

"Shi-" is all she can utter before the spell takes effect and her head is transformed into a full bodied crab. 

Eirynor races up to her side as she flails in a brief burst of anger and freaking out. There's little the swordsman can do to help other than calm her down and get her to focus on unraveling the spell herself.^[1]

After a few minutes of humiliation thankfully not witnessed by anyone else besides the swordsman, Eameia manages to reverse the transformation and swears up a storm about the long-gone fairy. Eirynor silently supports her as always, though maybe in a week they can admit it was a little funny. 

---

[1] Formulae Cleansing