Chapter 38

Shards and Attributes.

Hawkin

Snow fell with the deepening cold. I wasn’t surprised to find my cabin buried in snow when I threw the door open. I heard Thrush’s swiping paws clear a path through the snow, and I held the door open until the beast with mammoth eyes and a fang-filled smile arrived.

“I’m guessing you completed your first quest,” I said.

“How did you know?” Thrush said.

“It’s written on your face. What did you barter for?”

“Candles. Big candles.”

Thrush withdrew the candles from his inventory. Candles whose colors varied in hues of browns and yellows. They were crude and malformed with flaking bits. Given that there was no light in the cellar, Thrush had made an awesome trade.

“Let’s celebrate over a new beer,” I said. “How about that?”

“With your goblin spit clone brew?” Thrush said.

“I’ve just finished a new batch of that, using our new… ingredient. I won’t know for a few days if the clone was successful. I was thinking of tapping into the firkin of Hiccup’s Ol’ Sludge.”

After tapping the small keg, I poured each of us a mug full.

“I’ve got squash over the fire,” I said. “Tomatoes cooking on the stove.”

Hiccup’s Ol’ Sludge was a doozy of a beer. The foam was caramel colored with flecks of black, as though sprinkled with coal dust. The beer itself was as black as night and sheened dream-ish colors. It went down like liquid obsidian, tasting of prehistoric, sweetened tar; of sun-scorched slate that was freshly pried off the mantle; of a blacksmith’s quenching oil, having never been replenished.

“You should brew beers like this one,” Thrush said.

His eyes throbbed and pulsed out of sync. Bubbles traveled in the veins of eyes, navigating through their mossy depths and delivering color to his huge irises. His eyes darkened. His fur blackened. His massive eyes reflected the stove and its dancing flames. Flames that seemed too still to be real.

I poured a drop onto my collector’s journal.

[Hiccup’s Ol’ Sludge. Sludge Stout.]

[Silver Rank. Respectable.]

[Originates from Hiccup’s Brewery in Lavenfauvish.]

Firkin fermented using scorched barley, Hiccup’s isolated yeast, Black Pinntale hops.]

[Special Attributes: Slow Time.]

The stove’s fire was evidence that time had slowed. Thrush and I watched a single flame rise and flicker in the span of two minutes.

“This is something special,” Thrush said. “Why don’t you brew beers like this?”

“I’m only bronze ranked at level six. I’m hoping that brewing all this beer for GloomGlower is going to help raise my level quickly. Between brewing and getting skill books from small quests, I’d like to rank up. I never had any interest ranking up as an axe wielder before. I only went up to level three hundred and thirty seven before I quit society.”

“What happens when you rank up?”

“I’ll probably be able to enjoy the benefits of brewer specific attributes, as well as being capable of making them.”

“Like the brewer portal?”

“Like the brewer portal,” I said. “What about you? How about we open up your loot chest.”

Thrush’s face was priceless as he opened his loot chest. If priceless were the right word for such a face of horror. His was a face that I was growing quite accustomed to. Strange, that such a beast was more of a friend to me than any human had ever been.

“Let’s see,” Thrush said, gandering. “Skill books, coin pouch, a Merchant’s credit journal, and…”

Thrush lifted out a glowing shard. It was as if he’d found a piece of stained glass that forever let the sun refract through. It glowed an ethereal white, yet cast short spikes of rainbows all around it.

“...a Merkul’s Merchant Tent shard,” Thrush continued. “So says a system notification.”

“A shard,” I said. “A few classes have specific items you can unlock by collecting the shards. I’ve heard of this. Your system must show you the item with a fraction. One out of something. What is it?”

“One of one thousand shards,” Thrush said. “If I collect them all, I get a tent?”

“Apparently.”

“It will be my first tent! I’m going to collect them all!”

“I’ve seen traveling merchants set up tents to sell and buy wares and goods,” I said. “That tent will probably be a huge boon for your class in some way. I’m sure it’s more than a just a tent.”

Until Thrush acquired it or spoke to Merkul, it was all left to mystery. He gathered his items into his inventory and told me he was headed out to smoke fish and absorb his skill books. I took the opportunity to return to brewing.

I trusted that I had the missing ingredient for brewing goblin spit beer and brewed 5 barrels at a total of 25 gallons of beer. I siphoned a good stream of goblin ptooey into each barrel and left them to ferment. By the end of the day, I’d leveled to level 8 through all the effort. Brewing esoteric beers helped me to level up through experience more so than brewing my Greater Poor Man beers. Leveling through brewing, in combination with skill books made me feel good about my progress.

Notifications came and went on a daily basis. Most of them requested that I travel, with the potential to earn awesome rewards. I happily continued to decline them all, choosing to grind the quests that kept me in my woods.

Before going to bed, I decided to brew something for myself. Something small that could fit into a 750ml bottle. I wanted it to be an attribute beer, but I had no idea where to start. Blue yeast earned me a mana beer. White hops earned me an anti-gravity beer. These were notes that I kept in the back of my collector’s journal. I decided on brewing another mana beer.

What I really wanted to brew as a brewer’s portal attribute beer. I found it absolutely thrilling to have been able to visit those summer fields where Dellia sometimes strolled. Or that hill at the bottom of a bowl of mountain ranges where that woman had been.

How do I make my own beer like that?

It was information locked at a specific level. I’m not sure asking Dellia would earn me the information I was after. I just had to keep leveling.

There’s got to be a method to brewing attribute beers. If blue yeast produces a mana beer, and different colored hops produce effects, then perhaps it’s the hops that bring attributes to beer. However, some of the beers with attributes didn’t have colored hops in them, so that must not be the rule. Damn. I wish I had a recipe book or something.

What would have normally been frustrating was in fact exhilarating. I knew a trove of information awaited me at certain benchmarks of my quest path. I couldn’t wait to get there.

After brewing, I needed to address a few things. I worked a bit on coopering more barrels and then inspected my foodstuffs. Another barrel of cabbage had been broken into. The ground of my cellar hadn’t yet compacted since we excavated, so I saw the fresh prints of the Blue Besties. They came and went from new tunnels in the walls. Their footprints were like large squirrels.

How am I going to deal with you guys?

The only thing I could do in the meantime was to move all the food stuff against the wall of the ramp. That way I’d have an easier time checking on them every now and then. Yes, the Blue Besties could still climb the ramp and break into more barrels and jars and sacks, but at least I could keep a closer eye on things.