Chapter 137

A Decade Against Two Years

Brewer’s Reputation: 356

The Scholars had the idea to make a layout for the tavern. Dream Cutters manifested stone block mirages and place them where walls would be erected. They also placed them where the globe bar would sit, where the cave would slope out to, and where pathways would lead to beer gardens. With more than one hundred people helping to build the tavern—in one small way or another larger way—I didn’t expect to feel the way that I did. The effort in planning and constructing such a theatre-large building wasn’t even one one-twentieth of what it took for me to build my humble cabin. All I had to help with was the design, and even that was reworked to better ends. Yet, despite the lack of energy required from my end, I was still sapped.

We all put our work down on the ethereal plane and returned to the woods to camp for the night. The moon was huge and nearly white, and trees stood at the foot of their own black shadows. Abigail and I camped away from everyone, and she softly snapped her fingers together. The sound of beer tinkled against glass with every one of her snaps. She couldn’t be more than one hundred bottles away from completing her quest.

While she brewed, I attempted another golden chapter beer with rye and bronze livik hops. I stared at my Collector’s Journal in horror when I learned that the quality was 01/100 Lesser Chimeric. That meant that it was my worst brew since reaching gold rank.

“Damn it,” I said.

“What’s the matter?” said Abigail.

“I haven’t botched a beer this bad in a while.”

“Were you attempting a golden chapter?”

I rose, kissed the top of her moon-warm head, and said, “I’ll be right back, I’m gonna go for a walk.”

She squeezed my hand and stroked the back of my hand with her thumb.

I ambled over shadows that lay like black stripes. Cocoons reflected the moon upon the canopy and made the woods seem like one large spider web. I paid little mind as I strolled up the beach. The sea ran up the sand and slipped into it. Fireflies dotted the sky over the sea. They drift in and out of the woods. Their wings droned low. Around the Mist Hidden wall, the sea glowed with its bioluminescent reflection.

“Some view, eh?” said a hard voice.

I was so startled, I tripped over my own boot. My knee dented the sand, and I picked myself up.

“Not the smoothest landing, but a fine jump,” said a man sitting at the edge of the woods. “You might just make it over the mist hidden wall if you keep giving it your all, boy.”

I slapped the sand from my pants. “I didn’t know anyone else was here. Have we met yet?”

In perfect moonlight, I recognized a man. It wasn’t his features that I recognized, nor his voice. It wasn’t his disarming smile that I recognized, nor his eyes. It was his bearing. His clothes were well worn. His boots looked to have been thrice repaired. His beard was rough, and his hands were meaty, like he could bend with them.

It was something else entirely that I recognized. His left lapel was in rough shape. It was stretched, and I recognized why. I had stretched the same spot on my coats over years of blowing at the base of fires and shielding my eyes from the smoke.

His beard was rough cut, and it wasn’t unreasonable to guess why. When you lived in the woods for so many years, flimsy blades break at some point, and all you have left are your axes and knives.

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His trousers were scratched at the thighs where one would try to slip through thorn bushes. His boots were each malformed which only came from constantly drying them out after walking through mud and rain. I recognized a woodsman.

“No, no,’ the man said. “You’ve had your hands full, and I can tell you’re not too keen on all of us being here. I’m Balthazar. Bal is fine.”

“I’ve resigned myself to it. Won’t be for much longer.”

Bal gestured that I should sit with him.

“Why not,” I said, and I sat with him.

“Moon’s bright,” said Bal.

“Hmm.”

“Pretty color.”

“Hmm.”

“I’m the same way,” said Bal.

“What’s that?”

“I’m a woodsman. Far, far east of here.”

I knew it! “Brewer? Collector?”

“Brewer. I understand you. I do. I’ve been out in the woods going on thirty-five years now.”

I whistled.

Bal chuckled. “Thought I’d turned down enough traveling quests that the system would know better than to give me another one, but then this quest showed up. Guess the system missed getting rejected.”

“Hmm.”

“But then I thought to myself, hell, why not? Let’s give the system a little surprise while these legs are still good for walking.”

“Hmm.”

“Most I’ve ever talked to people,” said Bal.

“It’s tiresome,” I said.

“Not for them. But it is for us. We’re not used to it, and we’ll never get used to it.”

“Well, it won’t be long. And the tavern is really a decoy.”

“Nobody here’s so dim they can’t see your tavern for what it really is. Have a little more faith in people.”

“After some of the advice I’ve gotten lately…”

“Your golden chapter beer, eh?”

“It’s not for a quest or anything. I just want to brew a beer that can come close to some of the best I’ve had.”

“You’re trying to brew a golden chapter by measuring yourself up to others?”

“I can’t brew anything good enough. If my skills were to blame, I could just focus on leveling up, but that’s not the problem. There’s probably nothing meaningful enough within me to craft something that amazing.”

“Any Brewer that’s made a golden chapter beer will admit they’d failed at it before they could succeed. I can swear by that.”

“Abigail’s had the best advice. She had me focus on Memory attributes to get closer.”

“Golden chapters share an experience beyond what memories alone can tell.”

“I realize that,” I said. “I’ve gotten to try a few.”

“What about your beers? Do you know what you’re trying to say?”

“Sure, but whenever I start to say something out loud, it seems so trivial.”

“You’re calling your words trivial before you’ve even finished putting them together. How can you know what other people will think of your story if you never share it? That’s like trying to fell a tree by first cutting down your own leg.”

“How do I know if an experience is worth sharing?” I said.

“It’s not about worth. It’s about really having been there to live through the experience. Just living through it is enough.”

“I’m not sure I have anything to share that would matter to anyone.”

“There you go again, trivializing. If there’s anyone for you to measure up to, it's yourself.” Bal waved his hand in an arc at the sky. “Imagine it’s thirty some odd years from now and you could drink one of your beers—a golden chapter beer—what would it taste like? What would it be loaded with, eh?”

Fireflies the size of goblins wandered up the beach and flew around the Mist Hidden wall. In what seemed like no time at all, the northern wilderness had become filled with the monstrous creatures. Towering trees stood like pillars under an infinite dome. Ah, how quickly things changed. And things will continue to change.

In all the change myself and my woods had been through, it was easier to remember the past few years than it was to the decade prior where I’d been completely alone. I had memories of that decade, but far more memories of the last couple of years since I met Thrush.

Of all of those memories, which did I want to remember the most? Not for anyone else, but for me? Which would I bottle to revisit later?

Bal popped a bottle and poured us beer in two beaten copper mugs. “Cheers,” he said.

“Cheers.”

“Don't worry, boy. Sometimes you have to tune the world out for a moment. You’ll do just fine.”