Crustacean

How it fights

A tank does not kill you. It outlasts you, which from the far side of an hour turns out to be the same thing. Edges dull on it and it is in no hurry whatsoever. What it takes from you is patience and every consumable you thought to bring; fights like this end when somebody runs out, and it has nothing left to run out of.

Field notes

Where the tide leaves pools the big crabs come up at dusk to pick them over, and where there is no tide they come up anyway, out of whatever wet dark they keep to. They walk sideways to the thing they are watching so as to keep the great claw between. A shed carapace on the shingle, whole and hollow, means the one that left it is close and soft and dangerous for it. They do not roar. The click is the warning.

Where it is met

Met in the Singing Dunes, the Still Row, Old Mine, Cruel Ridge, Emptied Quarter of Burnt Coast, the Drowned Weed Forest, Swaying Weed Forest and Shelf of Sereth Isles, by travellers of levels 1 to 30.

What it leaves

Worth hunting for the reinforcement and water resistance it leaves behind, when it leaves anything.

The roll

Under this kind stand twelve of the least sort, eleven of the common sort, eight tough and 25 elite, and nine named: Ashrow, the Second of beast, Ashwen, the Second of beast, Helwen, the Fang of beast, Maelwen, the Herald of scavenger crews, Mormaw, the Fang of scavenger crews, Skarmaw, the Fang of scavenger crews, Torgrin, the Right Hand of beast, Velrek, the Quartermaster of scavenger crews and Velrek, the Right Hand of scavenger crews.