Chapter 111

Stumped

I made haste up the road. Unsure if the monster would return. I corked the portal beer but kept it in hand. Ready for anything.

How on earth had the monster been unaffected by the Slow Time attribute beer. Unheard of! It was something to share with Hiccup and see if he could make sense of it.

I couldn’t remember a more terrifying experience in my life. I had no control over the monster. I wondered then if my portal attribute beer would have worked. Would anything have worked? Would my armor have protected me? It was easy to reason that I had the tools and weapons to keep me safe, until I kept circling back to the fact that the Slow Time attribute beer had no effect on the monster.

The road away from the ambush grew narrow. The monster’s footprints were deep and I followed them for two days until I arrived at a short bridge. Creek water rushed beneath it.

This is the bridge I’m supposed to find. Now I’ve got to follow the stream.

But I noticed that the monster’s footprints didn’t begin again after the bridge. On closer inspection, they veered off the path and towards the stream. The same direction Mr. Thrush must have gone.

Oh no!

I doubted Mr. Thrush would have survived an attack by that monster. Still, I made haste, even drinking some of my Speed attribute ale. I kept a keen eye to the banks of the creek. I looked for blood. Body parts. A black cloak.

When I was exhausted, I set up a quick camp and slept fitfully for a few hours. In the mornings, I rushed down stream until I heard the cowbell leaves ring. They grew at the perimeter of a crescent lake and I was relieved to see that Mr. Thrush had already been there and gathered the roots. Plenty of Cowbell plants were obviously missing.

But I also found the monster’s deep footprints. They came out of the stream and followed the edge of the lake. I became nervous, half expecting to find Mr. Thrush dismembered in the tilled earth.

I found nothing but deep footprints.

Weird. The monster was obviously here, but there aren’t any other footprints. If Mr. Thrush arrived and foraged the cowbell plants, his footprints would be here. And if the monster had eaten him prior, then the plants wouldn’t have been foraged.

I was stumped, but it was a good thing I’d stocked up on ingredients from Wex at Poppy Wings. It was time to brew a libation attribute beer.

I harvested barley and hops from the tilled earth before me. I brewed enough to fill a 750ml bottle and tossed in a few wild ghost pipes. After using Kiss of Yeast and Flash Ferment, I used Alchemical Control. The beer contained a brief explosion before changing colors into a glowing sky blue. Then it was complete.

[Clairvoyant Tracker.]

[Gold Rank. Respectable 02/100]

[Abigail Yak.]

[Brewed in a pinch, this beer offers a quaffable expression of earthy pale malts, and a slightly bitter, herbal hop flavor. Has a nose of unearthed mycelium.]

[Special Attribute: Clairvoyant Tacker. When poured as a libation, this attribute will illuminate the tracks of animal and beast in the surrounding radius. Radius and brightness are reflected by the rank and quality of the beer.]

Alright, Mr. Thrush. Let’s see if I can track you.

I poured a generous libation.

The beer poured like thick, blue, incense smoke. Hit the ground like a lazy droplet of smoke. All around the area, tracks began to glow sky blue. Began to brighten until clearly visible. There were no animal tracks. In fact there was only one set of tracks. The monster’s.

My jaw dropped.

The tracks were chaotic. They littered where the cowbell roots had been pulled from the earth. It looked like the monster had been the one foraging cowbell roots!

But the monster was too short to have been Thrush. Either there’s magic at play, or… No… The feeling I got when I bumped into Thrush at the inn, the cloak, keeping his face covered… It has to be the same person. Has to be!

Hawkin has control of a terrifying monster. A monster powerful enough to rattle my bones with fear. Me—a gold ranked brewer! There’s got to be more to this story than I realize. On the other hand… I must be missing something and there has to be a chance that they’re not the same person, right? I just… I just don’t see it.

I lowered myself to the ground and spent a good hour contemplating these recent developments. Part of me refused to believe that Mr. Thrush and the monster were the same individual. I didn’t like the possibility.

I returned up the creek to the bridge and used a speed attribute beer to race through the oxidizing, rotting carnage of dead bandits. My mind was busy the entire time, considering the implications of the monster on my hands.

I paused after passing the bandits where the monster had sprinted through the forest, leaving behind a trench of plowed earth. Nature had been violently parted to either side.

After a deep breath, I followed the path.

If they were separate individuals, and Mr. Thrush went south, I felt I could count on Hiccup to keep an eye out for any of Hawkin’s beers hitting the market in Lavenfauvish. Thus, I felt content chasing the monster north. After all, that’s where his path led.

The next city is Jewelweed. I can either expect to see Mr. Thrush again, clad in cloak, or I can expect him to circumvent Jewelweed entirely. He’s leaving behind an obvious path. I’d be a fool not to follow it.

I traveled for days, straight along the path of destruction. At the speed that the monster had rushed off at, my speed attribute beers could not compete, but I had to do my best to keep up.

The path continued north until intersecting at the road that extended from Omes Arbor to Jewelweed. Thrush’s footprints then followed the road at a much slower pace. A steady, more human pace. There weren’t lengths of great distance between one foot and the other anymore. They simply strode on with purpose.

You’re going into Jewelweed. Aren’t you?

There was only one way to find out.