Chapter 19

B.I.G.’s Ice Billy Goat Lager

Abigail

[Earth Raiser Sour.]

[Gold rank. 11/100 Greater Chimeric.]

[Brewed with isolated yeasts of the northern wilderness, this Through The Ages conditioned sour ale has a nose of candied peaches, sweet cream, and green apple. The beer appears opaque pastel. Thick as a meal, this beer pours slow as honey-water.]

[Brewer’s attribute: Earth Raiser. This beer is to be slung upon the ground to break the earth.]

I held a bottle of my Earth Raiser sour ale in each hand. I shook each one as I pressed my thumbs to the top. Beer began to spray out like a lashing whip. I slung the arcs of foaming beer in long rows near the shack Hawkin had built for my stay here. I veered across the clearing as I continued slinging beer in rows. Where the beer landed, the earth rumbled, churned, and upheaved. When the beers were all but empty, the land looked like it had been tilled for planting. For the next few hours, I planted. I started near my shack and sowed black cohosh seeds. When I ran out, I began sowing random seeds of flowers I’d collected on my hike with Hawkin. It was a cool day but I was sweating from the labor. My hands were dirty and stank of rich humus—my favorite smell in the world.

By the time I had one row left, I heard knocking in the woods. I rose to my feet, inhaled the fragrance of disturbed earth, and listened. The sound was that of an axe splitting wood. Hawkin was hard at work planing planks for a cabin he wanted to build on his new ethereal plane.

I finished my last row of sowing and then washed my hands with my Brewer’s Bubble skill. I sipped at a mana potion while I entered the woods and followed a trail and the sound of Hawkin’s axe.

I saw him at the foot of a massive felled tree. He divided sections of the tree with ease. Powerful swings added even sections of wood to one side. It took him a few strikes to cut through 15 feet of tree. He was smiling; the work brought him joy.

I gave him distance and walked around the massive tree until I was in his line of sight. When we made eye contact, I gave a small wave. His next swing faltered; he brought the axe down and leaned it against the wood.

“Hey,” he panted.

“How’s your project coming along?”

“This has been one of the craziest years of my life. I built a brewery, a shed for Barnacle-eyes, a small something for you, a cellar on an ethereal plane, and now another cabin on another ethereal plane.”

“That’s a mouthful,” I said. “Thank you again by the way. I like my little shack. I’m growing fond of it, and I’ll be certain to compensate you for the trouble.”

“You’re easy to be around,” he said. “That’s compensation enough for me. It's nice to talk with someone who loves the outdoors.” I blushed. Then he said, “How did your planting go?”

“It made my day,” I said.

“You’re done already?”

He offered me a seat on stacked planks. I made myself comfortable and shared my gardening plans through the fall and winter.

“I bet it’s going to be beautiful,” he said, “but how are you going to keep the weather out?”

“I’ll be brewing some shelter attribute lagers. The ones I have in mind work like your Mist Hidden attribute. We’ll basically live in a bubble—unless you’d rather not, I don’t want to trouble you.”

“Nonsense. I welcome more nature. Your plans sound delightful. Wouldn’t it be something if we could plant an entire world of flowers on an ethereal plane?”

“I’ve yet to see the new ethereal plane.”

“I’ll take you someday, I promise. I just want to get used to it first and figure things out. It’s… disorienting.”

“Memory attribute beers can be like that sometimes.”

“I have a few from my last loot chests,” he said. “Care to try one?”

Hawkin withdrew from his inventory a small collection of memory attribute ales. I recognized all of the brewers and suggested we try B.I.G.’s ice billy goat lager. Hawkin poured a drop onto his collector’s journal and showed me the depiction and description.

“Let’s throw this beer into a couple of stemmed tumblers,” I said and withdrew the glassware from my inventory. Hawkin poured us the gold rank lager, we smashed tumblers, and then drank.

The memory began on a plateau of ice. The wind felt like a frozen knife. I witnessed my breath (the breath of the person) plume into the air in a long blast of fog. The fog turned into ice crystals, shattered, and then scattered in the wind. I felt a deep chuckle emanate from my throat. I knew then this memory belonged to a man.

There must have been someone with him, behind him, because the man said, “George. Look!”

George’s gaze focused on the infinite stretch of ice. Not far from George and the owner of the memory, ice began to crack. The sounds bounced up and down the world. Holes began to explode from the ice. Up came white monsters whose fur dripped with water. The water then formed ice crystals that covered the monsters from head to toe.

After only a few seconds of emergence, each monster became a walking crystal of ice. Enough monsters emerged from the depths of the water that I could feel their migrating footfalls thunder through the ice. My body shook as the slow stampede infinitely went by.

“Amazing,” I heard George say.

“They are the Keul-Diu! Fantastic!”

Then the memory was over. Hawkin was smiling at me.

“Memory attribute beers are something special,” he said. “I quite like them.”

“Sometimes they’re messy,” I said. “They can be very dream-like but sometimes very nightmare-like too. Depends on the skill of the Brewer. Sometimes Brewer’s like to imbue horrifying memory attributes.”

Hawkin grunted at that. We enjoyed our beers for a moment before he said, “Do you brew Memory attribute ales?”

“I do,” I said. “They’re some of my favorite attributes. Mine go for high prices.”

“May I buy one?” I laughed heartily and nearly fell from my seat. Hawkin’s arm came around me to catch me before I fell. I righted myself and he blushed after withdrawing his arm. “Is that stupid?” He said.

“I’m not going to make you buy one, dummy. I’ll give you one.”