Chapter 51
Ethereal and Light
Brewer’s Reputation: 658.
Dream Cutter Stone Shard Quest: 13,300/15,000 shards.
“Morning,” Abigail said.
Steam rose from two mugs on the table in my cabin. Blurry-eyed, I joined her for black tea. A small fire crackled in the stove. Between quiet murmurs and swift sips, we kissed a few times. The morning was cold, she was cold, but our lips were warmed with tea and with small, brief kisses. How new it was to hear someone else's clothing rustle in the early hours in my cabin. When she cleared her throat, my eyes awakened a fraction more.
“I need to catch up on ethereal beers today,” I murmured.
“I’ll be studying,” she said.
I thanked her for the tea; then drank a sip of Beyond the Cabin.
On the ethereal plane, I flew up to the woven ball of still growing oak and sat cross-legged in a nest of hanging moss. There I forged ethereal ingredients for hours while I struggled to maintain undivided focus on the task. Mythic, holy, unearthly, and ghost colors enthralled me. Every single grain, hop, drop of water, and fleck of yeast came to life between my hands like the smallest stars. And in the spectral colored atmosphere of the plane, high above the log house, I felt for a moment like some deity expanding the cosmos. I added tons of newly forged ingredients to the ever growing rows of ethereal ingredients. All my Forge Ethereal skills progressed to around 1933.
Without missing a beat, I used my Clone Ethereal Beer skill to clone Dellia Lucerne’s Dungeon #1, #2, and #3. However much I would have loved to wrap forged ethereal labels into giant pumpkin shapes, The traditional barrel was easier to manage and store. My Clone Ethereal Beer skill rose to level 1890. Ethereal Dungeon Master rose to level 919—still in bronze rank. However, my Planes Cutter Master skill rose to level 1033!
[Congratulations! Your Planes Cutter Master skill has reached silver rank!]
[Mana replenishment while on ethereal planes has increased to double speed.]
[Sleep on ethereal planes offers a deeper peaceful rest at half the time required.]
[All ethereal skills have increased by 1 level.]
[Forge Ethereal Label cannot receive level up past the silver rank max of 1999.]
[Light, color, texture, and atmosphere of your ethereal planes can now be modified.]
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[Dream Cutters can now build at twice the speed on your ethereal planes.]
Dream Cutters? Dellia had asked me to reconsider the quest to hire Dream Cutters to help me with the Loved Ones Mausoleum project. She’d said they would make it easier for me, but how? I heaved a sigh.
Now that my Planes Cutter Master reached silver rank, I attempted to brew Ethereal Dungeon Beer #4, but it didn’t work. My Ethereal Dungeon Master skill was 80 levels shy of silver rank. That would be the skill to let me brew using the dungeon core.
I returned to my cabin. Abigail sat against pillows on my cot. A bottle of beer glowed from some special attribute that threw light bright like a lantern upon the pages of her Brewer’s Guide to Magic Ingredients. Embers squealed and hissed in the stove. Our eyes met. She closed the book and tossed it on the mattress.
“I’ve been harvesting all the red squash today,” she said. “I brewed some new attribute beers. Do you like this one? It uses petrified wood—juniper. The attribute is called Highlighter.”
“We should take a night walk with a couple of those.”
“Could we? Tonight?”
“It’s a date,” I said.
She leapt up from the cot and threw her arms around me. I bumped against the table. She laughed wildly; I chuckled.
“We could go down to the sea,” I said.
“And watch the Mist Hidden barrier.”
“We could take the trail up to the cove. It gets darker there in the pines.”
We packed a dinner of various filets of salted fish, tomato soup, and sow-thistle salad. Then we left the cabin and took the trail down to the sea, hand in hand. We talked shop for most of the way, and stopped to touch the bark of the oldest oaks along the way. We laughed back and forth, and more than once spoke at the same time after a lull.
Abigail read up on her Brewer’s Guide to Magic Ingredients at the dock—I had interrupted her in the middle of a paragraph earlier. Perhaps it was the clouds that had darkened, or the strengthening wind, but the fish were quite active. I cast my fishing net out while Abigail read. On my first throw I caught 14 herring. I exclaimed and gaped at the catch. I cast out my net for the next 2 hours. The line pressed into the crook of my fingers. Sea salt became powder in my palm. My fingers slowly pruned. But my inventory filled up with herring!
On my final successful catch of a couple of sea bream and small fry, Abigail’s boots clapped the dock. She crouched beside me as I pleated the net for organized storage.
“I brewed an Anti-gravity ale for you,” said Abigail.
“Just a sip then. I still want a laid back walk with you. It’s already getting darker.”
Abigail pivoted and turned her gaze to the graying sky. The clouds were rushing overhead.
“I think you were right,” she said. “It’s going to storm.”
“You all right being caught in it?”
“I’ll prepare a few Shelter attribute beers.”
Apart from the Mist Hidden wall, the surf was the brightest feature under a dark sky. It was near twilight. Before we turned to take the trail up to the cove, lights flashed in distant southern clouds. There was no thunder, no jag of lightning.
Abigail withdrew one of her beers that was bottled in a wrapped ethereal forged label. Chimeric colors lay upon the ground. Some of the colors washed over the trees. Then she withdrew her Highlighter attribute ale. We were instantly encircled by an orb of bright yellow-green light.
“I wanted to compare the two,” said Abigail.
“Can we drink it?”
“You won’t end up glowing or anything.”
“Not even for a moment?”
Abigail popped the cork from the Highlighter’s bottle. She took a sip. A warm yellow glowed through her cheeks.