Finley sat there, looking at the thing that had haunted his daydreams. A large barrel with a tap on the bottom stared back at him.

It wasn't right. The last attempts had been awful, in truth.

He would get his hops. He would get his wheat. But what he wasn't getting, so far was a batch of brew that actually tasted like someone professional had made it. It had started. It's something he was curious about. Brianna, one of the warriors, had talked to him about how to actually make beer and he'd listened for a little bit. She was too busy not making beer somewhere else to come back and help but she'd come in and gave him some pointers.

He was grateful for the help.

Planning to sell things on the airship was a relief.

It was far better than his current predicament.

It kept him from being distracted, Their current situation was untenable.

"Are you sure you don't want to talk to Andrew about this?" Zan said, fiddling with the gears.

"He's got enough on his mind," Finley said. "He's making a conscious decision to let the team down."

"He literally made an airship so he could fly all the way down here without having to fight a sea monster."

"I stand by what I said. What dwarf in his right mind would not be working on any project that involved beer? It's like he's mental or something."

The two of them were standing on the front of the deck towards the bow of the ship.

When making any sort of alcohol, there was always a small chance of failure.

This meant that the barrels could explode. Finley didn't think it was likely and if there were explosions, this was the group that could take care of it. But still, it was fastened to a piece of the ship away from the goats that wanted a piece of it.

"How are we on fresh water?" Zan said.

"Oh yeah that's a problem. I just realized that none of the water here is going to help us out. It's too warm right now."

"You didn't want… Oh, you didn't ask? Stella could have cooled it down for you."

"I wanted this to be a surprise for Stella," he said.

Zan waved around the deck.

"You're doing this out in the open. Stella is a bit oblivious, but not that much."

"We only have so much beer left. Of course I'm going to do it out in the open where the other beer is. I'm just going to put up a little sign here, that nobody really tries to go after this. They know it's a work in progress. I'm just really hoping that this time it works," He said.

Zan was waving one of her hands up and down as she had a little flame floating around it. As he watched, she rotated the flame around her hand and then tossed it up in the air. She tossed it to her other hand before returning it to the spinning motion she started with.

"Level six already!" She said.

Finley groaned. Once again, the Chosen were getting ahead of him by leaps and bounds. Zan had chosen fire as her affinity card and had apparently been working at it day and night. Finley was pretty sure that if he took that card and tried to use it himself, he would just sputter out.

He would be unable to do anything with it. He was spent.

"I just don't see how you guys advance so quickly. Like.. "

"How long does it take you to advance?"

"I was working on my bartering skill. Well, bartering/ appraisal. Before you guys were around? I could only work on that when I was actively bargaining, or at least that's the only time that it ticked up. But that means that every time that I was traveling? That was all wasted time. But these little things that Anthony has me doing? Giving you guys a salary every week organizing the supplies, that has gotten me to level four."

"That's great! But wait how long did that take? And how long did the first three levels take?"

"The first three levels took about ten years. I wasn't actively trying to do it until the later end."

"Ten years?"

"Ten years."

"Are you serious?" Zan said, taking a mug of beer from one of the kegs that they had actually filled with real beer.

Well, his beer was real beer, in a sense that hit all of the pieces. They just didn't fit together correctly yet.

"Skill progression is slow. That's why these heirloom cards, like the ones that Valerie has from her grandfather, are so important. That's why good cards get passed down through families over time. But I didn't have a family. Or Lee did but I didn't."

"Lee?"

"Lee is the name of the Tinker that... I merged with."

"Oh yeah I forgot about that," she said. "Hold on. Let me let me see what's going on with my cards. You know that this whole thing with the fire has helped advance my wizard card as well, right?"

She showed her card to him and he gaped.

Epic Class Card: Wizard Level 5

Skills:

Magic Control Level 5

Arcane Spell Casting Level 7

Learning Level 5

Spell Book Level 6

Enchantment Level 4

This card grants mana.

This is a soul card and cannot be removed.

As a wizard, you can transcribe and cast spells that you encounter of an appropriate level into your spell book. Your spell book is intangible and cannot be removed from your personal bubble.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"Your spell casting is already at level seven? How and... and also how?" He said, his mouth agape. "Probably some Chosen bullshit."

"This isn't normal?" she said.

"This is far from normal. You would have to be literally fighting all day for years to do that and..."

"And it's only been a few months?"

"Like here, take a look at my druid card. And my Tinker card."

Rare Class Card: Spore Druid Level 5

Skills:

Wild shape Level 2

Plant and Fungal Control Level 5

Elemental Magic Level 1

Survival Level 4

Medicine Level 3

This card grants mana.

This is a soul card and cannot be removed.

As a spore druid, you have enhanced control over plants and Fungi.

Epic Class Card: Tinker Level 4

Skills:

Appraisal Level 4

Identify Level 3

Animal Handling Level 5

Storage Level 3

King Level 2

This is a soul card and cannot be removed.

As the last remaining Tinker, you have the ability to induct new people into the family.

"Here's a question for you," Zan said, closing up their experiment. "Do you think that the travel time has anything to do with it? I see that you have gotten animal handling to level five. You had the horses that whole time, correct?"

"I had my mares, yes," he said. "Are you saying that I'm better at animal handling because of that?"

"We have to deal with our horses a lot, so yes. In fact, we need to give them a chance to spread their legs down here," Zan said. "Otherwise we're going to have to send them back to the promontory and have them graze there, right?"

"We should probably do that next. That ground is fertile, especially since I had the time to work it. Do you want to go see how the horses are doing?"

Zan nodded.

When they got downstairs, the horses were feeling restless. Finley looked around for some help.

"Has anyone seen Sonya?" he asked the goats and horses, trying to not inhale to the best of his ability.

"Check downstairs?" Andrew said. "Why?"

"We've got to get the animals to graze and probably fill up the barrels. I know that we're low on hay and they're a little stir crazy."

"Her mission is over. She might be uh... with Anthony," Andrew said. He was by the stairway that went to the lowest levels, tinkering with some switches.

Finley rolled his eyes. There was horny and then there were the humans that he associated with. It was like they were all trying to get in something that they hadn't gotten in their past lives.

"Well that's unfortunate. Nothing we can do about that so why don't we-" Finley said, talking faster and faster as he moved.

"You're going to have to wait," Zan said. "What are you working on now?" She moved closer, not asking for permission. Another thing that the humans did a lot was get up really close.

Andrew held up a half circle of a dark metal.

"This is going to be part of a mount for a flame flinger," he said. "I'm trying to figure out how to make a big one to attach to the side of the ship."

"More firepower would be useful," Finley said. Andrew handed him one of the pieces.

"This is meant to go on the railing. I'm going to have to affix the flinger to the floor as well. I'm thinking that I can get a little larger here."

A blueprint was spread out on the small table that he used for work. Large tools weighted each corner and aside from the blueprint, the table was covered in parts.

Anthony and Bob had remarked about how much care that Andrew seemed to take with his implements. Finley was just happy that he wasn't making a larger mess. He knew that the dwarf was capable of doing so. The only thing that was larger than the dwarf smith, was any mess produced by a human. The horses and goats were exempt. Their messes had an actual purpose.

"Have you thought about what we would do if we got hit by black flame?" Finley said.

"The scouting team has been giving me a few engineering textbooks. I think that I have a found a solution," he said.

"Well, what is the solution then?" Finley said.

"You're not going to like this."

---

Finley did not like it. Upstairs on the deck, the cannons were now nailed into the fresh wood. He was so glad that the boat had been made a long time ago. Otherwise he would have been able to feel the pain of the trees that had made up its deck.

"You think that this flimsy thing is going to hold? You've seen the flame flinger right?" Finley said.

"I don't think that the bolts themselves will hold it in place," Andrew said, pointing out a few of the features. Bolts and washers connected the base of the cannon.

"What Andrew is trying to say is that the cannons themselves are going to be so heavy that they can't move. And that's going to be part of the draw," Zan said.

"There's no reason to make them heavy just for them to be heavy. Does the heaviness serve a function?"

Rather than saying anything, Andrew held it a hand to Zan. Zan deposited one moat of mana into his palm. Pulling back a lever, a small door opened. Then, he placed the moat into that door and pushed the lever into a third position.

"Stand by!" Zan yelled, causing Finley to jump. "Go!"

The boat rocked backwards a tick.

Andrew hit something else and a beam of flame flew out. It hit straight into one of the fjords, leaving a burning mark. Where once it had been black and covered in lichen, the entire spot was whitewashed and smoking.

"Holy Goat Lord," Finley said, dropping to one knee. "You just... You just made that and it just?"

"He's calling it the Rage of Dragons," Zan said.

"If I only had some black flame mana to work with? Then this would be such a good weapon. But this is a normal flame. Normal and magical flame but ultimately normal flame. Something catching fire by this is not going to die a slow painful death. It's just going to burn up and if it's resistant to flame, then it won't burn up at all. But either way it's going to get hit like a cart full of bricks just fell on it."

"A few minutes ago I was complaining to Zan about how you had no time to spend on working on my beer project. Right now? I am kind of worried. If you ever come back then work on one of my projects again that it might turn to Tony's. So please keep up the good work."

Finley, utterly demoralized, stood up and placed his hand over the cannon, no, the Rage of Dragons.

"Oh! There's Sonya!" Zan said.

The woman was heading to the top deck when Zan pointed her out.

"What the heck was that?" Sonya said. "I know that- holy shit did we do that?"

The cannon was still lined up to fire directly at the fjord.

She was the kind of human that could put two and two together. She also smelled like she could be heading to a teenage romance novel convention. Finley tended to avoid those, but it was good for business to sell food in the outskirts. So long as he kept the skirts paying, that is.

Sonya walked up to Andrew and placed her hands on her hips.

"This is my fault," Finley said. "Someone said that you were...uh busy. Andrew wanted to show us the newest version of the thing that will take dragons down for us."

"It needs a few test runs, it all."

The dwarf man looked about as pleased as a Tinker horse that had won a race. Sonya looked about as pleased as a Tinker chief to find his daughter in the wrong wagon.

"You need to let us know when you're testing things that could potentially destroy the ship. We have people here as well as goats and horses," she said.

"Ah! Yeah that's what me and Zan wanted to see you about. We need to graze the horses and let them run around for a bit. We have a lot of space here but they're restless. It sounds like you could use some time away from the ship as well."

Sonya eyed him suspiciously.

"Back to the promontory then?" She said.

"I would appreciate that. Andrew can even get to his workshop and exchange some of the things there."

"Oh! Me too! I want to be on land for a while and I think I'm close to copying your spell!" Zan said.

"Alright. Let's head to the gateway," Sonya said.

Finley tapped into his sense of whether the horses were and pushed them to assemble. Downstairs, Sonya began opening the portal.

Zan ran through with her spear at the ready. Behind her, Andrew and several of the goats rushed forward.

They came in through the other side and finally finally saw the fresh air and green grass that he had been craving.

"Oh fuck yes!" Zan yelled. "I got it now! Gate!"