As the party ramped up, Jeb began to wonder if it might have been a mistake to bring his own Brews. It wasn’t that they were poorly received. No, the Druids had been very complimentary, and many of them had given him constructive feedback as to how he could improve his works in the future. The fact that so many were so knowledgeable was, in fact, the issue at hand.
For whatever reason, each Circle seemed determined to show the others up with their best Drinkmaster. The Circle of Moonlight was the first to present something, and a young Druid brought out a small bottle of liquid that was tinted just the slightest bit violet. It shimmered as the young man poured everyone in the circle a small glass, and Jeb noted that the bottle did not appear to empty at all.
“To the Circle, which waxes and wanes like the moon above, constant in its motion!” someone called, and everyone took a sip of the drink. The few of his bees which had been buzzing around the glass moved so that Jeb could take his.
The first thing Jeb noticed was a deep berry flavor. Not far underneath it, however, was the slight burn of alcohol. He could taste the fire that they had used to distill it. As he swallowed, the soft light of the moon cooled off the burn. Jeb tasted the waves rising and falling as the flavor settled around his tongue.
On the second drink, Jeb tasted deep and rich tones. The liquor had somehow become far darker in his mouth, even as the liquid in his glass remained that pale purple. On the third sip, he listened to the Druid describe what he had made.
“This vintage of Distilled Moonlight was taken from berries which blossomed under the light of the full moon. Water was collected during the new moon, and it was fermented with an Unbound yeast. The strain has not seen sunlight in fifty generations, and it was bred to produce stone fruit esters, adding a depth to the berry wine. Once Brewed, it was Distilled nightly from waxing half moon to waxing half moon, beginning at dusk and ending at dawn.”
Having finished his recitation, he turned to Jeb.
“I really liked it!” Jeb said happily, finishing the last of the glass. As he took his last swallow, he felt a sudden sense of melancholy wash over him.
Seeing his sorrow, the Druid brightened even more. “You see that it was aged as we fled from the Empire! I am impressed by your palate.”
Hearing the Druid’s explanation, Jeb turned his Magical sight inward. To his surprise, the drink had been causing him to feel the melancholy.
“Lucas, you brought a sorrowing drink to a night of celebration?” a Druid from the Circle of the Sun said, spitting on the ground. A bottle of what seemed to be liquid gold appeared in his hand, and another young Druid ran out from the crowd to pour the Drinkmasters a glass.
Inside of Jeb’s glass, it was far less opaque, though still significantly more than the first drink had been. The liquid clung to the sides of the glass as he swirled it, smelling like the first day of harvest. Jeb raised the glass to his lips, hurriedly bringing it down as he saw that the Druid was preparing to give a toast.
“To the Circle, which like the Sun sustains and nourishes us!”
Everyone took a drink, and Jeb followed their lead. As with the Distilled Moonlight, the predominant flavor was berry. Unlike the Moonlight, however, the Liquid Sun carried citrus and grassy notes. Jeb swallowed stretched, feeling like he had just woken from a midday nap.
“Bah,” the Bear called out, stepping into the circle with a large keg and a number of mugs. “The boy brought us drinks which served as Brews first and Magics second. Bringing drinks that are more Magic than matter is hardly sporting.”
He poured a deep amber ale into each of the mugs, tossing them to everyone in the circle and the various hangers on that it had attracted. Looking around, Jeb saw almost everyone at the party was watching the Brewing competition. The other Druids, noting as much, rearranged to make room for the circle to expand.
“To the Circle, as indomitable as the Wilds!”
Watching the Bear take a deep pull from his beer, Jeb followed suit. Even before the Druid spoke, he knew that this had been wild fermented. There were Magics in it, to be sure, but Jeb had trouble pinning down what, exactly they were, even as he took another long drink.
“This beer was brewed from wild oats and cultivated hops,” he said. “Once Brewed, it was aged in a barrel crafted from living wood.”
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The two Druids which had gone before clapped politely as the Bear swept into a deep bow, and Jeb joined the rest of the party as they did as well. He was unsurprised when the next Druid to step forward began by denigrating the work that the Bear had chosen to showcase.
“The only Brews the Wizard brought were dark ales. Do you have no sense of shame at trying to show up the guest of honor?”
A woman who seemed to be burning stepped forward and gestured to the young Druid by her side. The young Druid was also a Bear, Jeb noted.
Walking around, the Bear gave everyone a tall and thin glass filled with a light sparkling wine.
“To the Circle, which is both its members and their bond!” Jeb quickly understood that she was a member of the Circle of Swarms. Seeing that everyone else drained their entire glass in one go, Jeb did as well. The sound of all the glasses slamming against the ground was more than a little surprising, and he hoped that no one noticed that he threw his down a heartbeat late.
“Char, you’ve outdone yourself,” the Bear exclaimed when the sound of glass had gone away. Discreetly looking at the ground, Jeb saw that the fragments of glass had turned into small blossoms and leaves.
“I can’t take too much credit.”
Despite her humble words, Jeb noticed that small flames had begun to leap off of her. Their golden hue showed that she was proud of her work.
“What was your yeast’s goal with the Brew?” the Bear who had poured and distributed their glasses asked.
Jeb saw a few of the other young Druids stiffen, if only slightly. At first he was confused. After all, plenty of Druids had commented on the choices that different Brewers had made, and pointed questions were no more common than the genuine. In the silence that followed the question, Jeb played through the different conversation that had gone on through the party. With a start, he realized that no Druid had questioned or criticized a member of their own Circle during the party, as far as he could tell allegiances.
The woman’s flames died down, though Jeb noted that her skin still crawled with embers of light. “That is a fantastic question Brian,” she said, turning to him. Turning back to the rest of the crowd, she continued, “I find that it is best to encourage the young Druids to ask questions to deepen their Fundamental Understandings. Marigold, don’t you agree?”
Whatever tension had faded from the room suddenly came back with renewed vigor. Marigold stepped forward, and a boy who resembled the one Jeb had sparred against followed her.
“Char, I do not think that a Trialist Celebration is the appropriate time to discuss matters of pedagogy.”
Char cut her off with a wave of her hand. An afterimage of flames followed the motion. “The boy needs to decide which Circle he will start in. I think that he has a right to know that some Circles believe in open inquiry and others take the philosophy of ‘sink or swim’ more than literally.”
In the silence that followed, Jeb’s head rapidly swiveled back and forth between the two Druids. He quickly grew dizzy, and paused for a moment to figure out why. With a start, Jeb realized that he had gotten a little drunk at the party! Moving his head more cautiously, Jeb did his best to gauge the sobriety of the rest of the party. To his relief, he was far from the drunkest person in the room. If anything, Jeb had a sense that he was among the most sober. It certainly explained why the two Druids were so combative with each other.
As he remembered why his mind had traveled there, Jeb heard Marigold and Char continue to argue. Having tuned out for a while, he was no longer entirely certain what, exactly, they were fighting about. The older Bear came over to him and shrugged.
“They get like this every now and again,” he said, gesturing to the place where Magics were beginning to swirl.
“Are they not friends?” Jeb asked.
A booming laugh was the first response, and the Bear wiped away tears with a paw that Jeb realized could easily remove someone’s head. “They are not, though not in the way you suppose. Char and Marigold have been partners for well on three decades now. They just enjoy the occasional verbal bout.”
“Um,” Jeb said, trying to find the words to explain that the fight between the two was about to break into far more than just words. Before he could, however, the Bear’s Magic swept over the two of them, killing whatever workings they were trying to craft.
“Arthur, you always stop them just when it’s getting fun,” Lucas said. “Just once, can’t you let them duke it out?”
Arthur rolled his eyes. “I could, but only if you are willing to explain to the Archdruid why every Druid below Fifth Tier is unable to advance for the next three years.”
Seeing the confusion on Jeb’s face, Lucas explained.
“If there’s one thing that your Trial taught us, it is that you have no experience with combat, let alone Magical combat. When two Mages duel, especially with heated tempers, the Magics they cast tend to run wild.”
“That makes sense,” Jeb replied, thinking about his experience with the Alchemical Storm.
“Now, while I am unsure how you were raised with Magic,” Lucas continued, “in the Enclave we spend the first Four Tiers working to settle our own personal Magics within our Fundamental Understanding. That takes, among other things that I am sure you will learn all about in the coming days and years, significant amounts of meditation to align our Magic with our Will. Unaligned Magics seek out Wild Magic. In the case of our young Druids, the amount of Magic the two of them,” he nodded at the couple, who were now laughing in each other’s arms, “would have released is enough that it would have completely destroyed whatever foundation the children had been working on.”
“I think I understand,” Jeb said.
“Now you two have finished,” Arthur called, “let us see what the younger generations have made!”
A number of bottles and barrels suddenly appeared on the table between them. The keg of Fire Whiskey that Jeb had brought was among them, and he gulped. It had definitely been a mistake to bring his Brews.