Chapter 76

Hands On.

Brewer’s Reputation: 536.

Dream Cutter Stone Shard Quest: 14,990/15,000.

The large barn doors to the brewery had to be muscled open. The wilting jasmine and clematis which covered the doors were ripped from their stems. Snow piled in the persistent flowers that grew in our meadow.

“I’ll have to brew some more Sheltering Bubble attribute beers for the winter,” said Abigail.

The mash paddle with teeth marks in the handle hung above the threshold. The tuns were tarnished. Old oak barrels were derelict. Leaf matter and the debris of nature covered everything. Cobwebs hung in the corners. An abandoned bird’s nest lay empty in the rafters.

Abigail slipped her hand in mine and squeezed. As we stood together, our gazes roamed the brewery. The chatter of Thrush and the adventurers became low background noise.

“It’s been a while,” I said.

“I haven’t used equipment in years.”

“Barnacle-eyes was the last one to use the tuns.”

Abigail ascended a short staircase set before the mash tun. She peered within. “We’ll need to deep clean.”

The tuns had collected wayward leaves. The coolship was in terrible condition. It was also filled with leaves, even sticks. There were spaces between the staves that formed the rectangle.

“I have one broom,” I said.

“Just use Brewer’s Bubble. Cover everything in Brewer’s Bubble. Apply Mash Master for heat.”

After her demonstration, I did exactly that. Using my levels 1999 Brewer’s Bubble and Mash Master, I spread a huge bubble of water on the floor and rolled it around the barrels and into corners. I soaked up every infinitesimal dust into the bubble and strained the debris from the water out in the forest. Side by side we worked. It must have looked like we were dodging giant bubbles of bouncing water as we danced around the brewery.

Barnacle-eyes would have been beside herself with laughter, chasing the bubbles around. It was hard not to worry about her, and it was getting harder and harder not to worry about Slime-tooth as well.

Abigail and I inevitably bumped into each other. We fell right over into laid shafts of sunlight, laughing on the way down. We stayed there for a moment longer than we needed to with nothing but smiling eyes and almost contained laughter.

“I think everything’s just about brand new,” said Abigail.

“I’m going to fetch water from the stream up the northern trail.”

“What are we waiting for?”

She pushed herself up from my chest and helped me up. With arms around each other’s waist, we ambled out into snowfall. We shared warm-warm beer on our way.

Along the way, the sunlight faded and the sky darkened. Larger snowflakes fell. A quick wind whistled through the trees. Remaining leaves tumbled down. We discussed styles of beer until we reached the ravine and drew water using Brewer’s Bubble. We filtered sediment until the water was crystal clear.

“My favorite thing about the north is the snow,” said Abigail.

“It snows everywhere.”

“Not like here.”

On our way back to the brewery, we admired the ever present cocoons which accumulated snow. They wriggled more fiercely now and we took turns guessing when they would emerge. The cocoons always sheened a reflection of the sky, and they turned the wilderness into a bright silver. Through vistas in the canopy, we could see more gargantuan trees which our barrels of Aggravated Wild Growth had been affecting. So many more trees were gigantifying. A thrill of excitement crawled up my spine. The woods were changing, deepening.

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As we slipped into the brewery, I picked up a few questions that the adventurers were asking Thrush. When asked if he would share the dreambons he was wolfing down, Thrush said “no”. When questioned about his run in with Margaux, Thrush’s belly rumbled. When asked about his history and species, Thrush never responded. The last thing I picked up was that Perage asked if Thrush would show him how to smoke meat. The scent of burning oak shortly drifted through the brewery doors and over our heads.

We sat on barrels and used barrels as tables. For the next hour, Abigail and I studiously went through our respective inventories and picked out grain, hops, and yeast.

For a brown lager, I used one of the grains that I had received alongside the Saint Maxt barley: Benting barley. The kernels were the color of rust. It was a barley cultivated on floating isles with flavors that ranged from grilled eggplant, charcoal, toasted black sesame, and cookie dough.

It was hard to argue with the feeling that Geanut hops would be the best choice for a brown lager. They were common hops and used predominantly for classic brown ales, offering earthy and nutty notes. I could work to bring out toasted acorn flavors and blend it with the charcoal profile of the benting barley, or I could work to bring out praline flavors from the hops and pair that with more cookie dough flavors of benting barley.

I stumbled over the yeast. I knew which ones were wild and which ones were earned from previous loot chests. Of course there was ethereal yeast; however, I wanted to stick with ingredients which offered more concrete flavors.

“Selected your ingredients?” said Abigail.

“I have. What are you going for?”

“Maybe it’s the cold weather; I’m finding myself wanting to brew red ales again. I’m going to try for a grand red ale.”

“Grand? What makes it grand?”

“I’m using the same red ale recipe that I’ve been fond of for so long now; however, I’m going to adjust the recipe for the first time ever to make a select version. The term Grand lets people know that in brewing my red ales, I’ve taken special care and adjusted the recipe to make a better red ale.”

“I’d like to brew a Grand ale.”

“What do you think you’re most known for?”

“Among humans, probably the ethereal dungeon beers; among monsters, goblin spit beer; and among besties, warm-warm beer.”

“So let’s say you refine your recipe for goblin spit beer. When you do something different that improves the beer above your normal recipe, then you could call it Grand. But you couldn’t really make a Grand stout at the moment because you don’t have a line of stout beers you're brewing.”

“Have you brewed a Grand ale before?”

“I’ve thought about it.”

Abigail was the first to use the mash tun. She returned from the woods after using Brewer’s Harvest to collect several bushels worth of her selected grains. She used a blend and carefully picked through them by hand. I meanwhile made fire beneath the mash tun and brought her 50 gallons of water to a near simmer. Steam seemed to struggle to rise from the water. Bubbles the size of fish eyes popped at the surface. I stirred with the mash paddle.

“Ready,” said Abigail.

The brewing process began. She dumped her hand selected grains into the mash tun and took the mash paddle. When she said, “Fire!” I stoked the fire. When she said, “Cool!” I scattered the burning logs into the embers beneath.

Oh how good it felt to brew with my hands again! Quest path skills did wonders for brewing, but there was something to be said about being hands on as well. There was something so thrilling about wrestling with fire, stirring the mash like the mash paddle was a long wand, and constantly blowing the steam away from your face, just to brew beer. And it was exhausting. When Abigail transferred her wort into barrels for fermenting, it was my turn to wield the mash paddle.

“Fire!” I said. “Cool!”

And so it went, with deliberate care, until I too transferred the wort into barrels for fermenting. And just as I set the last wooden ball onto a bunghole for an airlock, Hiccup sold enough of my beers to complete my quest.

[Dream Cutter Stone Shard Quest Complete!]

[15,000 of 15,000 shards acquired!]

[Congratulations! You have earned the Dream Cutter Stone!]

[Absorb Dream Cutter Stone to acquire Dream Cutting skill.]

Perage waltzed into the brewery. “Incredible smells!”

1500 brilliant shards flew into mid-air from my inventory. Like a storm of shattered ice crystals, they coalesced into chandelier formation. The air rippled out from the chandelier. A moment of silence passed. The shards imploded in silence with a blinding flash of sunlight—but sunlight as seen through eyelashes in early morning.

It took a hard blink and a head shake to clear my vision. Left floating in mid-air was a bauble the size of a pie pumpkin. Its contents could be seen through clear walls. Storm clouds of saturated colors mixed with pastel colors in a slow moving atmosphere. Faces materialized in the drift. Pictures of objects morphed into pictures of other objects. Looking into the bauble was like looking into a thousand dreams at once.

“A Dream Cutter stone,” said Perage. “I’ve a few in my collection.”

“What does it do?”

“You haven’t any idea? Let us promenade. I’ll tell you everything.”