Chapter 12

Identify the Unknown

Thrush

Barnacle-eyes and I returned to port after a few days. When I leapt off her sloop, the whole thing bounced in the water. It made the sea splash onto the dock.

“Well that was an adventure,” Barnacle-eyes said. “Can we have some smoked fish now?”

“I’ll put the fish to smoke and we can have some in a few hours.”

“Can’t wait! Can’t wait!”

I put my nose to the air and took in the scents of the coast. I smelled the salt of the sea. The dying leaves. The earth that prepares for colder weather. Two humans that were marching up the coast. Hawkin and Abigail. I heard them clearly. Their scents were strong, as though they were just-

-Hawkin and Abigail emerged from a southern trail. They were laughing back and forth. Each had some drunk in their eyes. I could smell the beer on their breaths. Fantastic beers.

“Thrush!” Hawkin said. Abigail waved and smiled.

They approached, but stopped to gape at the piles of raw materials and barrels on the shore. Hawkin gestured to the mountain of barrels.

“What’s all this?” He said. “Where did all this come from? Are these old barrels of mine?”

I went ashore and in a matter of moments returned everything to my inventory.

“Incredible,” Abigail said. I sank into the sand and had to climb back out. “How are you carrying so much? Did I just see you stow away whole trees?”

“The weight cannot kill me,” I said. “It does not burden me, and keeping my inventory beyond full helps me level up.”

Barnacle-eyes joined us then after mooring her sloop. She said, “you should have seen Thrush when he was on the sloop! He almost sank the whole thing! I’m going to have to get bailing buckets if he gets any heavier.”

“I could brew Anti-gravity attribute beers for you, Thrush,” Abigail said.

“I remember that beer,” I said. “Hawkin made one. It only lasted for a moment.”

“You brewed an Anti-gravity beer when you were bronze?” Abigail asked Hawkin. He nodded. “I believe bronze ranked Anti-gravity beers offer only a few seconds of the attribute. Silver offers an hour or so. Gold rank Anti-gravity beers offer about half a day or so of 30% weightlessness, stacking.”

Hawkin consulted his Brewer’s Guide to Magic Ingredients while Abigail and I looked over his shoulder. As it turned out, Abigail was close to correct.

“How about it?” Abigail said. “I’ll brew you a bunch of Anti-Gravity attribute beers that you can use whenever you want.”

“How much can I have?” I said.

[You have entered negotiations.]

Abigail, Hawkin, and I strolled up the meandering path to our cabin while we talked. I let her know I was using my Merchant skills with her because it helped me level up. She became wary after that, but I ignored that; I meant her no harm.

She didn’t want me to purchase the beers from her, she wanted to give them to me. The only problem was that she didn’t have many white hops on hand to brew the beer. Hawkin did have quite a bit of white hops and offered to give them all to her. She had enough to brew 50 barrels of Anti-gravity attribute beers, and I told her I could just drink them straight from the barrel; no need to bottle them.

When we returned to Hawkin’s cabin, Abigail sat with me round the fire pit. She brewed a single bottle of an Anti-gravity attribute ale and offered it to me. I only took it in exchange for a high-five. The transaction made her chuckle.

I tossed the bottle of beer into my gullet. I broke the bottle with my throat and felt the glass and liquid flow to my stomach. My Composition told me exactly what it was.

[Abigail Yak’s Anti-Gravity ale.]

[Gold rank. Level 71/100 Chimeric.]

[Brewed using Budo White hops, this ale boasts a decadent creamy body. Though the color is white, the taste is similar to shortbread and pastry cream. The malt is slight with hints of drying hay. Viscous for an ale, it can be enjoyed as a hearty breakfast or dessert beer.]

[Special Attribute: Anti-gravity. Imbues the drinker with 32% weightlessness for 6 hours. Stacking.]

Not a moment later, I felt a huge weight lift from my shoulders. The red warning in my inventory screen still told me I was grossly over the limit of a human’s carry capacity.

“How do you feel?” Abigail said.

“Lighter,” I said. “I still have an inventory warning.”

She “hmm’d” and brewed an entire 15.5 gallon barrel’s worth of the Anti-gravity attribute ale. I lifted the barrel aloft, and chugged the whole thing over a full minute.

“Wow,” she said. “Are you all right? That’s an incredible amount of beer to drink at once. How do you feel?”

“Good,” I said. “I’m still one thousand times over my limit, but that number was way higher a minute ago. This is good.”

Abigail shook her head in disbelief and said, “you’ll need at least a barrel at a time then. I can brew about fifty more barrels for you. Then I have to go get more white hops.”

“I would be grateful for that,” I said. “I don’t want to sink Barnacle-eyes’ sloop.”

“There’s something else I was wondering,” she said. “Hawkin mentioned that you have a stat called Composition which tells you what you’re made of and what things are.” I smiled. She shivered. “Could I have you identify some things for me?”

“You want to feed me more things?”

“Flowers mostly.”

“I’ll eat anything.”

“What about things that are poisonous? Toxic?”

“Anything,” I said. “Hawkin told me humans don’t like the taste of poisonous things. But I like them.”

Abigail withdrew a burgeoning journal from her inventory. The spine was swollen. Leaves and flower petals jutted out from between pages. She spoke of her hike with Hawkin over the last month while she flipped pages. She pointed out flowers that were now fond memories for her. She smiled as she talked. She laughed. And then she plucked out a flower for me to try.

The stem was green. The flower had been flattened, but what remained of the petals were still white, small, and fluffy. I popped the dried flower into my mouth and swallowed it. As soon as my Composition told me what it was, I relayed the information to her.

[Black Cohosh Flower.]

[Found among deciduous forests in the far north.]

“Black cohosh,” Abigail said. “That’s wonderful! These imbue beers with the Dream attribute! That’s fantastic, Thrush! Thank you so much!”

“Do you have any more?” I said. “I wouldn’t mind eating some more.”

“I don’t want to give you what little black cohosh I have left, but we can try other flowers that are unknown to me. How about that?”

Abigail fed me flower after flower and I helped her identify the unknown.