Chapter 92

Gold Ranked Brewer

Brewer’s Reputation: 478.

The myriad flowers in our meadow did not survive the blizzard which had broken Abigail’s Sheltering Bubble attribute. In the mornings, while we waited for our coolship collaboration beer to finish fermenting, we tilled the land and transplanted flowers from our ethereal planes. All the while, it had only gotten much colder. We each kept an ethereal forged waterskin of warm-warm root beer at the ready.

We put an apple tree in the middle of the clearing which had been growing in Abigail’s Gift #1 ethereal plane. After patting the fresh earth around the buried trunk, we heard a giant pop from inside the brewery. It sounded like a heavy door being slammed shut.

We frowned at each other.

The brewery doors burst open. Foam hushed out of the huge square doorway. Foam also seeped between spaces in the boards of the walls.

“So that’s what happens when you mix two Foam Cascade subskills,” said Abigail.

Glittering beer foam surfed across the earth and hissed at our ankles. The mix of Pearl Bubbles and Downy Dew had created a remarkably sparkling foam. It was white as bone and seemed to emit its own light from the surface of every micro bubble. There was a pearly sheen to the foam, as though abalone shells had been crushed by mortar and pestle and sprinkled throughout. The foam expanded in a surge. It rose to our thighs. Abigail laughed with delight.

We waded to the brewery. Every stride forward sounded like silk dragging over silk. All the while, foam continued to rush out of the brewery. With arms above our heads, we battled the foam as we entered the brewery. The foam was so loud, that it sounded like some sort of ogre sighed without stop.

The coolship, being large enough that four could swim in it, was easy to find. I bumped into one side and shouted through the foam until Abigail found me. We put up a fight against the burgeoning foam. Great sweeps of our arms parried the rush of foam until we were able to make a little cave. Every half minute or so, we had to use our hands to shovel more foam out of the way.

“I’m trying to get to the beer!” Abigail shouted.

I dunked my face in the foam, but my lips could not reach the beer. My cupped hands should have been able to scoop the beer, but I could not find it!

“I can smell it,” said Abigail.

“It’s very biscuit,” I said. “And grapefruit.”

“I should hope so with Togo hops!”

“Ah it smells like caramelized waffle!”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Then the Galisha Canyon barley was a good pick!”

“I can’t get to it!”

Abigail suddenly burst with joy. “Hawkin! Try the foam!”

At that point I had been trying to reach the beer with a large soup spoon. I leaned back out of the coolship until my feet were on the floor once more. I scooped from the atmosphere of cascading foam and ate it.

It was soft as wet meringue. The foam was thick enough to chew! I could hear it sparkle and pop through my jaw. The taste had a fragrance of wet sky just after a light drizzle. If sunlight could be poured like hot sugar to stiffen meringue, that's what I tasted. I had never tasted a beer so soul-relaxing. I was so relaxed, I had to steady myself against the wall of the coolship. I was so relaxed, I dropped my spoon; but I heard no splash!

I searched through the foam for my spoon.

“I still can’t get to the beer,” said Abigail. “Brewer’s Bubble is only getting the foam!”

Aha! I felt the handle of my spoon, deep down. But when I pulled the spoon out of the foam—

“—We have a problem,” I said. “This isn’t my spoon.”

Abigail doubled over in laughter. Her hand appeared upon the coolship wall like she was hanging from a cliff. She pulled herself up, and it looked like she was emerging from a lake of foam. “That’s my spoon! I lost mine too!”

We laughed hard, soundless laughs. And every now and then as we searched for the other spoon, we burst into small laughter. By the time we found it, suspended in the foam, we no longer had to battle the rush of foam all around us. It was smoothing away.

Once more we cut as deep into the foam of the coolship as we could with our spoons. The spoons sounded like they were blades being dragged through sand. At last, Abigail came up with pale-wheat colored beer in her spoon. Her eyes went big with excitement. I dunked once more for a scoop and finally came up successful too.

The beer tasted like rye waffles made of cake batter straight off the iron.

“I think this is the best beer I’ve ever brewed,” said Abigail.

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

“Let’s call it Cake Waffle.”

“Shall we barrel it? Bottle it?”

“Ethereal forged bottles. How about that?”

Soaking wet, with beer foam crackling in our hair and behind our ears, we bottled every last drop of Cake Waffle beer in the coolship.

Though it wasn’t a golden chapter beer…

[Congratulations! You have reached gold rank!]

[You have reached Brewer Level 2012.]

[Alchemical Control will now work on gold rank recipes.]

[Skill acquired: Dual Ribbons.]

[Skill acquired: Paired Stars.]

[Skill acquired: Carbonation Manipulation.]

[Your mana pool has doubled.]

[Previously brewed and cellared beers will not evolve into gold rank, Lesser Chimeric Quality. They will evolve into the highest quality tier in silver rank. Grand Honorable 100/100.]

In the falling whispers of residual foam, I stood stupefied. My gaze eventually found Abigail’s.

“I…reached gold,” I whispered.

Abigail had tears in the corners of her eyes. Her expression conveyed agony. Suddenly she seemed different. Something about her seemed smoother. I felt an aura emanate from her. Her eye color was more vivid. Despite the seeming agony in her visage, she seemed to have shed a lifetime of small stresses from her shoulders.

She crumpled to the floor, put her face in her hands, and softly cried.

I joined her by her side. “Abigail, what happened?”

“I’m diamond.”

“Diamond rank! Abigail, diamond rank!” Then, “I don’t understand, isn’t that wonderful?”

“You don’t understand. …You don’t understand.”