The questions came rapid-fire at first, then slowed down as everyone digested.

Questions like: how old were you, were you really a brewer, do you like being a dwarf, did you get any Godly powers, what are ‘quests’, how expensive was your soul, what was it like kissing someone without a beard? I was happy to answer any and all questions, though I told Aqua I wasn’t going to answer the last one.

The first to voice a serious complaint was Johnsson. “Wait, I’m confused. Why does Richter seem to know what was going on already? And Aqua too.”

Bran, who’d just been drilling me on my ‘during death experiences’, turned away shamefaced, and Annie coughed uncomfortably. Balin twiddled his thumbs.

Johnsson’s eyes grew wide with dawning horror. “Wait, am I tha last to know!? You told everyone but me!?”

Opal growled as she punched Bran in the arm. “They didn’t tell me, either!”

Johnsson glared at her. “You don’t work with him! We’ve been practically livin’ together for over a year!”

“I was his doctor!”

I coughed. “I don’t see how that’s relevant -”

Opal held her hand up in a shushing motion. “You could have been harboring some kind of inter-dimensional disease! For shame!”

I blinked twice, as did everyone else.

“Uhh… that’s not how - “ Richter began, but Opal simply repeated, “FOR SHAME!”

“I still don’t think it’s fair. I feel completely and utterly betrayed!” Johnsson moaned. I got the definite feeling he was hamming it up for effect, but I really did feel bad.

Kirk held up his hand. “Honestly, Pete really does seem pretty normal to me.”

“You may not have a good baseline on what makes a normal dwarf, then.” Annie smirked.

“Not that anyone in tha Thirsty Goat is a good baseline.” Bran muttered. Opal chuckled and patted his back in clear couple language for: ‘You chose this hell, now lie in it.’

Johnsson nailed me with a steely glower, and I shrank back, explaining desperately, “I’m sorry Johnsson, we just never really hung out much. Richter figured it out during our lessons, Aqua and I butted heads over administration, I had to bribe Bran with otherworldly recipes, and Balin and Annie knew because, well, one was my boss and the other my brother!”

“You bribed Bran with what?” Opal asked, her eyes narrowing. “By Midna’s Mangy Mullet, this is certainly an eye-opening conversation!”

Bran gave me a look that screamed ‘someone’s getting spit in their soup’ and turned to talk down his betrothed.

“Well, if it’s just a problem of not hanging out, you just need ta come with me to more beardy parlours.” Johnsson said with conviction, as he shakily stood to pour himself a drink. “Aaron knows your beard always needs more care, and hasn’t that been fully explained. And I know you like wrestling, so we should go to some in the capital; they have the most amazing ring. Did they wrestle on your E-Arth?”

Annie waved to catch everyone's attention. “Alright, alright. Johnsson, we’re all sorry about keeping you in the dark, and Opal, please give us Bran’s ear for a moment. Peter, I really need you to explain a bit more about the Chosen of the Gods bit. Not the ‘I’m so special’ bit, but the ‘other Chosen may try to kill us’ bit.

I sighed and pulled at my beard. “According to my chat with Barck - “

“YOU TALKED WITH BARCK!?” Johnsson shouted, spitting beer across the room. Aqua shrieked as some got in her eyes.

“Yes Johnsson, do keep up. When we chatted, he made it clear that the other seven ‘Chosen Catalysts’ as he called them, would be trying to win this little contest. Oh, and apparently he broke some rules, and we don’t get as much Godly aid as the rest of them. There’s a big prize for whichever mortal-slash-God combo wins, including a wish for ‘anything’.”

Aqua whistled. “Oooooh, that’s bad.”

Balin nodded. “Especially if they’re anythin’ like Pete. What if one of them makes somethin’ even worse than Boomdust?”

We all shivered. I gulped and continued, “It gets worse! When I met the first other Chosen, that’s Berry, I got a quest giving me a pretty sweet reward for sabotaging her. I didn’t, of course.”

“Wait, Berry’s a Chosen as well??” This time it was Annie’s turn to be horrified.

“Once I knew about Pete, it was obvious.” Richter chuckled.

“She told me herself ages ago. Though I figured it out from Pete.” Aqua said, smugly. “I was hoping you’d figure it out yourself.”

“Hurts, doesn’t it.” Johnsson hissed. “Bein’ tha last to know.”

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“Can ya tell us de reward fer da quest?” Richter asked.

“Something called a Karmic Reversal? I already got one, let me read it.” I said, pulling up the information on it and reading it aloud.

Karmic Reversal [One Use Remaining] – You can call upon a karmic reversal to reverse the flow of fate. After one hour passes, the weight of destiny shall descend again. However, only Gods are truly bound by fate and it is the right of mortals to fight against its current.

“That’s what it says.” I explained. “I never really had an opportunity to ask Prophet Barnes about it. I think it means I can turn back or stop time or something?”

Opal whistled. “I’ve heard of similar abilities for highly Specialised [Doctors] or [Healers]. They can use it to save patients that are certain to die.”

“Phooey, I donnae believe in Fate.” Balin grumped, hugging Annie close. “We choose our own destinies.”

“Aye, but some destinies ‘ave a greater weight than otha’s.” Richter hedged. “If yer in da belly of a cavern whale, your destinies are mostly short and few.”

I nodded. “I think that’s what it means to ‘fight against the current’. My current fate is to be a few more meters down the road to Kinshasa tomorrow. If I chose to use [Karmic Reversal], maybe something else would happen. The wheel would fall off, or we’d be attacked by monsters or - “

“OH DEAR GODS!” Annie yelped. “AGAIN!?”

“Are you tryin’ ta get us killed, Pete!?” Johnsson shouted, hopping to his feet.

“I’ll check on tha camp!” Richter rushed out the front of the wagon and sprinted off.

I stared at everyone flabbergasted as they jumped into motion. “What!? Just saying it doesn’t actually make bad things happen! Last time nothing happened to Balin, right Annie!?”

“Hold him down and shut him up!” Aqua demanded, advancing with wide arms.

I screamed as I was buried ignominiously beneath a pile of dwarves. And a single extremely heavy human.

—

I rubbed at my aching shoulders, where [Regeneration] was busy repairing my sprain. “I still think it's ridiculous. Mentioning something aloud doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.”

Malt plonked down beside me in front of the fire. I was on the first watch with him since I’d been kicked out of the wagon for ‘welcoming a test from the Gods.’ Two of Balin’s party - Aishablue and Manny were chatting on the other side of the fire along with a couple of Copperpot’s guards.

In Canada, the tradition was to mutter ‘Knock on Wood’ whenever we said something that could be considered bad luck. I’d always thought it was meant to ward off the devil or something by knocking on wood, but I’d learned late in life that I’d been doing it completely wrong. You weren’t supposed to knock on wood, but on anything but wood. When you said something unlucky, any listening faeries would work to make it happen, but if you followed it up by saying ‘knock on wood’, but instead knocked on some plastic, they’d think you were just talking nonsense.

Not that I agreed with it, but in a world where the Gods were always watching and liked to test people’s worthiness… ‘he was asking for it’ took on new meaning.

“They’ll forgive you, eventually.” Malt passed me a tankard full of brew and I stared at it suspiciously. He smiled. “It’s some of your Liquid Gold. I know you don’t like True Brew.”

“Ah, in that case, thankee.” I took a drag and sighed. Still not perfect, but it would do.

We sat and stared at the fire for a while. A passage from a book about not looking at fires on watch ran through my mind, but I ignored it. We were a large enough group that bandits would avoid us and my [Minimap] was set to ‘Monsters’. Plus, we had that terrifying glass mantis thing out there somewhere and Manny’s glassfly-eye-spies. That gnome was scary!

“Do you mind if I ask a question?” Malt broached the silence.

“Aye.”

Malt began to speak, then snapped his mouth shut with a *clack*. “Yes. you mind, or yes, I can ask?”

“Yes, you can ask.” Malt elbowed me in the ribs and we shared a chuckle. “Go ahead, I may or may not answer.”

“You act a bit old for your age, sometimes, you know that Pete? So tell me, why did you want to get to Kinshasa so badly? You’ve been pushing yerself so hard that at this rate you’ll burn out before you even hit a hundred. I’ve seen it in young dwarves countless times over the years. The ones that never become old dwarves, that is.”

“Huh…” Conceptually, I understood that my new body would last hundreds of years - barring a monster attack or acute liver failure - but my brain still wasn’t fully accepting the implications. Would I burn out? I was slowly turning more and more dwarflike, but Peter Phillips was originally human. I set the thoughts aside to answer Malt’s question. “Part of it is to spread me brews to more dwarves. I want everyone to fall in love with Liquid Gold, to laugh at a friend splitting cheeks with Ass Blaster, and get blitzed on Barista Brew. The Octamillenial is tha best stage fer that. Minnova is small compared to tha reach and population of Kinshasa.”

Malt nodded. “Aye, I can see that.”

I looked up at where the ‘crack’ was, far above us. Now that it was nighttime, the ceiling was pitch black, with only the floating lanterns above us shedding dim light into the massive cavern. A ghostly wail echoed through the hills and the watchers all sat to attention, but it’d come from far off, and we were all soon at ease again.

I continued, “but it’s more than that, too. There’s still so many new things to try, places ta go, and ingredients to test. Kinshasa’s tha gateway to tha surface world, and I want ta see it.” I also wanted to complete my dwarven influence quest to get [Manasight], so I could finally start playing with magic. Magic brews! Fireballs! Both alcoholic and flamey! And now that I had an influence quest for gnomes, there were probably similar ones for the other races too. What wondrous quest rewards would there be for those??

“Ahhh, an adventurer. I know tha type. It takes some, like yer giant, Kirk; the wanderlust.” Malt sighed. “That’s even more dangerous than tryin’ to change the Sacred Brew. I hope you don’t run off and leave your crew behind.”

“Not a wanderlust, it’s a crafter’s lust. I want to be the best. DO the best. To share my love of brewing with the world. Not just dwarves. Humans. Elves. Dragons. THE GODS.” I grasped my hand in the air, as if capturing a dream in the palm of my hand.

Malt stared at me, sideyed, and took a sip from his mug. I waited for him to speak again, but he remained silent. We sat quietly for another hour or so, listening to Manny and AIshablue discuss the common monsters of Deepcore Dungeon, and staring into the warmth of the fire.

When it came time to switch shifts we shared a cordial good evening, and Bran and Opal took our places.

I settled into my cot on the wagon nestled between Balin and Johnsson, and was soon fast asleep.

Of course, nothing attacked us that night. That would’ve been ridiculous.