Chapter 50

Brewery House

Hawkin

It was a still day. Wind did not sweep the forest. Snow did not fall. There weren’t even sounds of lumbering goblins. I woke up with a bit of an ache in my bones from all my labor lately. An ache that was soothed with a hot cup of roasted chicory tea and a deep breath of bitterly cold morning air.

Thrush followed me outside with his own mug of tea. BarnacleEyes followed him outside with her own mug. She complained about the tea tasting worse than earthworm dung.

The rest of the day went about as usual. BarnacleEyes followed me wherever I went, asking what I needed help with. She’d tried to follow Thrush into the cellar, but Boggo didn’t like her presence, so Thrush kicked her out. After brewing 10 barrels of beer, I took BarnacleEyes outside and asked where she wanted her shed.

“Right here!” Barnacle Eyes said, having turned the corner of my cabin. She pointed at the wall beside the wood pile.

“Here?” I said. “Right next to my cabin?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If that’s what you want, but wouldn’t you rather have your own little plot of privacy across the way?”

I pointed opposite the clearing, to where BarnacleEyes found nothing remarkable. She insisted on keeping close to me in case I needed help with anything.

“Are you sure?” I said after we talked about her options at length.

“Double sure,” she said, holding two fingers up.

“Then we start today.”

“What can I do?”

I fetched Thrush, who was happy to oblige me in building the goblin her shed. Thrush excavated a plot and I went to peel beams of wood from the old oak that still had a lot to give. Though we couldn’t finish the shed in one day, at least we had many of the materials ready.

While Thrush smoked us some fish, and I put some squash to roast, I sat back in bed and carved a bunch of treenails for joinery. I would need a ton for both BarnacleEyes’ shed, and for the expansion of our brewery.

Then I read up on my Brewer’s Guide to Magical Ingredients. It was an entertaining and eye opening read. There were beers that granted the drinker a bit of speed; others that gave the drinker the most vivid dreams imaginable; and others that wrought untold destruction when used in battle.

Most interesting were the ways in which beer was used. Drinking beer was the most common way to use an attribute beer. Pouring libations was another, and breaking the entire bottle was yet another. There were others that I hadn’t had the time to get to. If I had taken the time to explore more, then we would have ended up with blackened squash.

“Squash?” BarnacleEyes said when I’d set a soup of salted squash before her, and another before Thrush.

“It’s better with smoked fish,” Thrush said, withdrawing a heaping of smoke-crusted fish from his inventory and plopping it into the goblin’s bowl.

BarnacleEyes loved the smoked fish and politely hated the squash soup.

For the rest of dinner, we planned the construction of BarnacleEyes’ shed. The plan we’d come up with was a good one which incorporated lessons learned from having built mine. It even came along quite well the very next day with 3 pairs of hands to help. Thrush did most of the work, shoving treenails into the joinery holes without barely an effort.

For every board and wooden shingle we built up and installed, BarnacleEyes got more and more excited. She worked hard to help build her own shed, and deserved to be the first to open the door we’d just put on.

“You first,” I said, gesturing.

“I’m first,” she sang. “I’m first!”

The task to build a shed after spending all day brewing was worth it to see the happiness make her feet dance. The goblin was speechless. She didn’t even want to come out for the rest of the day, choosing instead to enjoy the empty content of her shed.

When night shrouded the land, she invited us in to have dinner there. We sat on bare floorboards with only the moon through the window and a few candles to light the room. Thrush and I had smoked fish heaped over shredded cabbage, while BarnacleEyes only had the fish.

“Will you help me make a bed?” BarnacleEyes asked, once I’d poured us all some beer for dessert.

“Of course,” I said. “What else do you need?”

“A place to put my boots. A place for my pliers. For my dress.”

“That sounds like a plan to me,” I said.

“When do we start building the brewery?” Thrush said.

“Tomorrow I suppose,” I said.

“Can I help?” BarnacleEyes eagerly said.

“Of course. We’ll do things step by step and you can help anytime you like.”

Step by step was a tedious and tiring journey which took us through several days of bitterly cold weather. We delivered another round of shipments to GloomGlower, and by the end of the week, our brewery house was built. All except the walls.

“Sturdy, sturdy,” BarnacleEyes said upon kicking the last support beam.

Twelve thick support beams held a high ceiling that Thrush had just finished installing the shingles on. He leapt down and fell through snow and layers of ice. He was smiling when he slashed himself free. His mammoth monster eyes pulsed and throbbed out of sync.

“When do we do the walls?” Thrush said.

“I’ve got to cut more wood for panels,” I said. “We’ll do it bit by bit everyday. Until then, let’s build the mash tun and lauter tun.”

Until we had those two pieces of equipment ready to go, I simply worked on brewing the very same beers day in and day out. I’d brewed enough to reach level 92 in my Brewer path, and used Mash Master enough for that to reach level 32. I took what little spare time I had everyday to brew an extra 15.5 gallon batch of Greater Workman’s Ales in order to level up my new skill, since that was now the biggest quantity of beer I could use the skill on. I was hoping to be able to use it on both the mash tun and lauter tun, at least until I ran out of mana. At the rate that I was progressing, it would only be a matter of time.

“Hawkin,” Thrush said. “I was wondering if you have any more mana beer.”

Snow began to fall around the brewery house.

“I’m about to run out of that stout, aren’t I?” I said.

“Could you brew some for me? Our next shipment will be the last installment in exchange for the Fable Stone.”

“I see,” I said.

“I’ll be discussing with GloomGlower our next move.”

“We’re supposed to double our production, right?”

“Remains to be seen, but that was the hope,” Thrush said.

“He’ll be paying for both batches from now on?”

“Remains to be discussed. Can we double production?”

“If we put up the walls this week, and collect more firewood, then yes. Especially if I have the time to level up Mash Master. Then it’s for sure.”

“I’ll need a mana beer when I talk to GloomGlower,” Thrush said.

“I’ll make sure you have some for your meeting. You need it for your merchant skills, right?”

“Yes,” Thrush said, withdrawing an entire deep sea coral fish that he’d smoked with the skin on. He swallowed it in one long gulp.