Chapter 49

Rice

Brewer’s Reputation: 680.

Dream Cutter Stone Shard Quest: 13,300/15,000 shards.

The atmosphere on my Beyond The Cabin shone with spectral colors. Ethereal ingredients glowed their mystic, holy, unearthly, and ghost colors all at once. The chestnut trees expanded away from the cabin. It still drizzled autumn leaves. Black cohosh flowers dominated the landing where the log house sat. Barrels made of ethereal forged labels bobbed in rows upon rows, extending into the distance until they looked like scales of a dragon’s tail. No sun and no moon didn’t mean it still wasn’t evening. And before the day was completely over, there were a few things that needed to be done.

I brewed more ethereal dungeon beers to prepare for the continued trade with Hiccup. And since we were stopping at the log house, I thought it was a good idea to wrap ethereal forged labels into jars to contain all the ingredients we had foraged while on our long hike. I stuffed an ethereal pot with dried, black chokeberries. I gazed out the many windows as I worked.

Abigail suddenly appeared on the sand amidst the black cohosh and fourrure blancs. She looked to have freshly bathed after gardening on her Gift #1 ethereal plane. She smiled warmly before employing her Brewer’s Bubble skill to hoist a Thrush-sized ball of water. With a scoop of bouncing bet soap and heat from her Fire and roast skill, she threw in a tunic and pants and let them soak in midair.

Without breaking stride, after what must have been two hours of gardening, she jumped right into brewing beer. I watched while I wrapped another forged ethereal label into the shape of a pot and filled it with river-beauty shoots. Using Brewer’s Bubble once more, Abigail gathered together more water than I had ever seen her use at once. I gazed on in absolute awe. It was like she had lifted a lake from the earth. Her arms trembled. Her feet slid apart to brace herself. So much water…What could a diamond rank Brewer do? Fable rank Brewers? Could they hoist planet shapes of water above their heads? Abigail was clearly pushing her skills to their maximum and the glimpse into the true capabilities of a Brewer absolutely floored me….

With but a gesture, ptooey streamed in a thin drooping line from one of Slime-tooth’s black barrels. Grain and hops followed. She often paused, lowered her head, panted, then renewed her efforts until the beer had completed fermentation and stored into waiting barrels.

I packed another pot with scallop-toothes yaupon leaves that we had roasted to near black. I secured the lid on the pot; then looked out the window once more. Abigail was still at it, this time with a much smaller sphere of water. Instead of barley, she withdrew rice from her inventory. She went still, she seemed to sharpen her focus. I could almost see the gears turning behind her eyes. She left the bubble of wobbling rice beer to float beside her while she made smaller batches and experimented with every one of her Foam Cascade subskills. As she tasted each one, nodding or shaking her head, I stowed the starchy pickerelweed seeds we’d painstakingly foraged.

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When I next returned my attention out the window, Abigail had her nose in her own Collector’s Journal. Several bookmark tassels swung from pages. She traced words with a finger and flipped back and forth between pages.

I made another ethereal pot and filled it with the narrow leaves of lady’s-thumb—not before pressing my finger tip to the triangle print pattern in the middle of some leaves.

A cascade of splashes drew my attention. Each small experiment Abigail had brewed had hit the sand. She returned to the larger sphere of rice beer. After incorporating her selected Foam Cascade subskill, she bottled the beer in red-amber glass bottles. The glass had reflections I’d only ever seen on yellow topaz. Each bottle received a twist of silver foil over the cork. Then with the trace of a fingernail, and a skill I was unfamiliar with, she etched the label into the glass.

I stored away the parsnip-like roots of wild ginseng.

One by one, Abigail donated each rice beer toward quest shards. Each beer transmuted in the air before her. All but one. She passed by the window with a smile; then entered the log house.

She slipped into my arms. “I’ve got about six thousand and three hundred more shards to collect; at the same time, I’ve reached a milestone.”

“Your Brewer’s Bubble was gigantic.”

“I’ve reached level three thousand nine hundred ninety-nine in Brewer’s Bubble.”

“You’re on the brink of diamond rank—Abigail, that's incredible!”

“But I’m not really on the brink. I’ve got so many levels to grind with other skills. Then I’ve got to climb through quality tiers. Diamond rank is still something that might take more than my lifetime to achieve.”

“You hit a ceiling with Brewer’s Bubble. That’s still a reason to celebrate.”

She pulled away just enough to fit a bottle of her freshly brewed rice beer between us. “Celebrate with me.”

She poured us full V pitcher’s of her rice beer. We clinked pitchers.

Her eyes went big. She smiled and blushed. A giggle escaped her.

“I hope you like it,” she said.

The aroma—vapors of arctic air—reminded me of rice pudding. That was the simplest way to put it. There were notes of icing, sweet porridge, and cheese-cake stuffed pancake. What a shame I couldn’t dine on the flavors of mere smells. I breathed the aroma like I’d been starving. In my mind, there was a perfect pastry beneath my nose. I couldn’t open my eyes. I lived for the beauty of this beer’s deceit! Oh damn—just the smell!

I went in for the heady foam that mushroomed over the pitcher rim. Abigail had already bitten through hers. She dabbed at her lips with the back of her hand; then whispered, “Sweet Pillow sub skill.”

I sank my teeth in the cool foam. The bubbles were star shaped and I felt their points shatter on my tongue. The foam was softer than a pillow. I chewed the foam like I chewed air. I drank the milky sweetness that melted from the dying foam. The foam was something meant for kings! Nothing I’d ever had had been so good.

Abigail laughed and smiled big. “Drink!”

The aroma, the foam, it was nothing compared to tasting the very beer itself. On my first sip, I grasped Abigail’s shoulder. Her bubbly laughter rang in my ears.