"I don't...how did you even get this?"

"Bawk."

Ted grabbed the small paper bag and rushed it to the fridge. He tossed it in and went back to the stove and started to boil five gallons of water.

"Hey, have you seen Narissa around?" Sentenza asked as he walked into the kitchen. "Sid was going to clear out some cobwebs, and since she lost the bet too, I was going to grab her to help out."

"Huh? I don't know."

"You seem a bit preoccupied. Something up Ted?"

Ted grinned. "I don't know how she did it. But Nugget came into here earlier with two sacks of milled grain and some hop!"

"What, hop hops? Like for beer?"

"Yeah! All prepared and everything. It's crazy!"

Sentenza scratched his neck as his eyes darted around. Suddenly, they stopped at the window, which was now covered by a curtain. "When did that happen?"

"Hmm? Oh, I didn't even notice that." replied Ted as he slowly walked a barrel over towards the stove.

Sentenza nodded. "I think...I'm going to head for a walk."

"Mhm that sounds...wait, it's still flooding out there."

Sentenza lowered his hat over his eyes. "Don't worry, I know what I can handle. I just need to...take some time for myself."

Ted stopped his preparations and looked at Sentenza. "Seriously, is everything alright?"

Sentenza forced a chuckle. "Nothing you need to worry about with me Ted. Just need to clear my head a bit." He paused a moment, and then with a slight frown asked, "Was any of that stuff Nugget left wet at all? Did it seem like she had been outside?"

"Uh," Ted tried to think back. "Well, the stuff was dry, and I'm pretty sure she was too. At least I think so? I was a little distracted at having all of this crazy stuff suddenly here."

"I see...thanks anyway Ted. I'll be around later. Oh! And if you see Narissa, tell her to get started on the cobwebs in Sid's room."

"Sid has a room?"

"Of course he does. We all do." chuckled Sentenza before he disappeared out of the kitchen.

"But...I don't have a room..."

Hey there buddy!

Ted nearly jumped out of his skin as he felt someone standing right behind him. He spun around and said, "Ah man, you startled me!" As he caught his heart that felt like it had tried to leap from his chest, he took a second glance at Death. "Where did you get those?"

Death tilted down his sunglasses as if to look at Ted over the top of them. It was just undercut by the fact he had no eyes, just empty sockets, as he was just a skeleton.

Pretty cool, right? They were in my room, which is looking pretty sick! Never really had my own space like that before.

"You still seem a lot less stiff," Ted commented. "Have you already been drinking today?"

Nah. Just been living unlife to the fullest! I figure I'm officially unemployed, so there's no reason to not cut loose. Just like relax, you know?"

"Huh, well that's actually great to hear. Glad you're taking things so well."

Oh yeah. My original world can deal with the fallout of a lack of death on their own. Not my problem anymore! Huhuhu.

"While you're here, any chance you could help me? I need to get this barrel onto the counter, and it'll be tough to do on my own."

No problemo, bro! You can count on me.

The two of them managed to get the barrel up, despite Ted's lack of strength, and Death's lack of any muscles whatsoever. With it up there, Ted pulled picked up a thermometer and checked the temperature of the water. It was only one hundred degrees.

"Seems it needs to wait a little longer. Alright, let's grab those bags and dump them into the barrel."

Alright, but what are you up to my man?

"Well, we've come across roughly ten pounds of milled grains and a few ounces of hops, so I'm making an American wheat beer."

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Oh what? You're the one who makes the alcohol around here? I figured it was imported.

Ted sighed. "We told you that the man in black demanded alcohol as payment. How would he also be the one supplying it?"

Uhh...he's not good at business?

Ted shook his head as he started to dump the sacks into an empty second pot.

Well, want to let me know what's going on, so I can help? Or is this more of a one-man job aside from lifting stuff?

Ted nodded, "Actually help would be nice. All grain beer can be a lot more complicated than other stuff. Okay, so the basics is that we need to turn the starch in this grain into sugar and collect that while leaving behind the grain itself. Back where I was from, they had special bags you could just steep the grain in like a teabag. But we don't have that, so we're doing it a slightly more complicated way."

Oh cool. So, you're making oatmeal kind of?

"I guess, just less tasty at first. See, we want that water to get up to just over one-hundred and fifty degrees. Then we'll pour it over the grains and let it steep for about an hour while stirring it and trying to keep it at that temperature. Which is why there's that second pot. We'll turn the stove on low if it gets close to one hundred and fifty. We just need to really babysit it and make sure it doesn't get too hot or too cold. As that gets closer to an hour, we'll put more water in the first pot, and heat it up until it's almost boiling. We'll pour that in and try to keep the water just under one-hundred and seventy degrees and collect just the water, trying to make sure we don't get any of the grains with it. And that'll be about seven gallons maybe? It'd be better if I could check the gravity, but I'll just have to eyeball it without any equipment to check that."

Then it's done?

"Ah, no. Then it's time to boil it for about ninety minutes. When there's sixty minutes left, we'll add in a little over half an ounce of hops and keep it boiling. It'll want to boil over constantly at this stage, so it's important to keep stirring it. Finally, we'll need to try and cool it down as fast as possible. So, we'll set up an ice bath in the sink, dunk the pot in there and stir it until it cools down to around sixty-two degrees. Then we can add the yeast, which would be better if we had a different variety than baker's yeast, but it'll still work. Then it's just slamming it into a barrel, and through the time machine set for a couple weeks."

Then we'll have a beer?

"Well, I think we'll need to add some priming sugar to help it carbonate, since flat this beer will be terrible, but other than that and another quick round in the time machine, yeah. It'll be ready by tonight easy. Even without a time machine, this is usually just a week of fermentation, and then one to two weeks of sitting in bottles or a keg for conditioning. It's a pretty quick recipe for some decent beer."

Death scratched the top of his skull as he nodded along. Why'd you call it an American wheat? What's that mean?

"That's the kind of beer it is when it's at least half wheat grain, and we had about six pounds of wheat and maybe four of some kind of barley. We don't have the right kind of yeast for it to be a hefeweizen, so it's definitely an American wheat. Especially with the small amount of hops. Both of those tend to rely more on the flavor of the grains themselves than overwhelm the beer with hops."

Huh? You need a special yeast for different kinds of beer?

"It's complicated, but essentially yeah. Yeast converts sugars into alcohol, right? Well different strains can add in different flavors. Same with different kinds of grains. But there's these special German yeast strains that are supposed to add hints of banana and clove. Because of some chemicals in them that had similar flavors that the yeast released as it converted sugar to alcohol."

That sounds overly complicated.

"Yeah, my uncle never cared for all that stuff. He said a beer is a beer. Of course, he didn't really replicate results well, with each run of alcohol tasting at least slightly different. Brewing can involve a lot of complicated math, equations and precise measurements, but in the end, it is still just sugar, liquid, and yeast. You can fancy it up as much as you want, but at its core it is incredibly simple."

Easy to do, hard to master, eh?

"Depends on what you want to do with it I guess. If you want to sell it you probably need to worry about precision and duplicating your results, but if you're just making some stuff for you and your friends? Well then I'd say you can master it pretty well without worrying as much about all the complicated stuff."

What about whiskey? Isn't that made from concentrated beer or something?

Ted laughed. "Oh boy, that's a whole other monster. First off, forget hops completely for that. Now, corn is more popular, but..."

----------------------------------------

"Sentenza."

The assassin spun around as he closed the fabric over the entrance of his wagon. He saw Sid standing in the rain a few feet from him. "What is it?"

"Playing dumb at this point seems like a miscalculation," responded Sid as he pointed towards the wagon. "I've seen the secret you have in there. Why hide it?"

Sentenza's hand twitched towards his pistol, but his slicker was covering it. Slowly he moved his hand back away from his waist as he scowled at Sid. "You better watch what you say. It'd be awful easy for an accident to send you flying with the water over the edge in this storm."

Sid shook his head. "I do not like coming to conclusions without all of the information. I am simply requesting you give me that information so I can comprehend this."

Sentenza started to walk away towards the side of the wagon, and Sid followed behind him. "Who else have you told about this?" asked Sentenza as he kept his back to Sid and subtly started to unbutton his long rain jacket near his waist.

"I have been waiting for an opportunity to discuss this with you away from the others." explained Sid. "There was no reason to alarm anyone until I had the full picture."

"What if you don't like how that picture looks?" asked Sentenza as he leaned against the wagon and slowly slid his hand into his slicker. He had just undone one button, but it was enough for his hand to slip inside.

"It would depend."

"Then what would you be most likely to do? Say you didn't like my answer, that it made things worse. Give me the odds of different things you might do."

"I cannot say until I have all the information. Speculation at this point is pointless. I need to..."

BANG!

In a flash, Sentenza had spun around and fired a bullet that pierced right between Sid's eyes. The AI crumpled to the ground immediately, and Sentenza sighed as he walked up to Sid with his gun still in hand. "Darn machine. Why couldn't you have kept your nose out of my business."

Without any more hesitation, Sentenza fired the remaining bullets in his six-shooter into Sid's back. With a sigh he blew off the smoke and slid the hot gun back through the hole in his slicker and into its holster. He knelt down and grabbed Sid's arm before lifting his body up over his shoulders and carried him off into the sea of bushes as the storm raged on around him.

Sid let out a low groan and stirred slightly. Sentenza glanced back at his closed eyes, "Tsk. You're one tough son-of-a-gun you know that? Too bad it doesn't seem to be enough though." He grunted as he continued on his way.

Eventually Sentenza looked back at Sid with what seemed like a hint of remorse. "Stay asleep for your own sake Sid. I can't figure heading into that purple thing will be anything but painful. Let alone if its full of water." He readjusted his shoulders and tossed Sid up higher onto them. "Drowning is not a fun way to go. Fellas always looks so desperate as their lungs full with water instead of air."

----------------------------------------

Bakade was in the woods carving a small figurine out of wood with her sharp claws. As the sound of gunshots echoed quietly in the distance, she turned her head. In a flash, she was gone. Moving through the forest quicker than the wind, she came to the edge and tore through the landscape, until she got to where the shots had come from. It was Sentenza's wagon. She got down on her hands and searched along the wet ground. It didn't take her long to find traces of a one-sided struggle. A body slumped onto the ground, and then heavier steps clearly carrying it away.

She was a skilled stalker, and it was not difficult to follow the trail. She just never would have guessed what she'd find at the end of it. Sentenza was carrying a silver body towards the edge of the world. She stayed low and moved to the side as she watched in shock, unable to make a single sound. The water was rushing violently towards the edge and threatened to carry away Sentenza with Sid. He had to stop as he struggled to keep his footing.

With a quiet grunt, Sentenza slumped Sid off of his shoulders, and into the stream of water. His body stuck fast for a moment as Bakade stood paralyzed. Sentenza looked down at Sid and shook his head. With a sharp kick, he got the AI's body unstuck, and the water rushed him towards the edge. The current seemed to pick up as Sentenza stumbled forward and was almost carried away himself. He tried to keep watching, but every second he delayed he increased his own chances of going over the edge. With a frustrated grunt he turned away from watching Sid's body and carefully made his way back against the current.

Bakade was shaking slightly, with her mouth agape. All while Sid was picking up speed as he approached the edge. Her body started to move before her brain could catch up. She rushed through the water like the silent killer she was. As Sid was sent flying over the edge, she dug her claws deep into the soggy ground while she reached out towards him and just managed to grasp his skeletal arm. Of course, that wasn't the end as the water seemed to take on a life of its own and desperately pushed against her and Sid, threatening to send them both flying down off of the edge. Her hand, dug deep into the soaked ground was their only lifeline, and it felt more tenuous with every second. With the sound of the rushing waters, Sentenza didn't even notice Bakade was inches away from death. His only focus was on making sure with each step he didn't get dragged away as well.