Chapter 154

As Safe as the Razor Clams

Brewer’s Reputation: 4,110.

Dream Cutter Stone Shard Quest: 13,300/15,000 shards.

Goodbye Barnacle-eyes and Remember-not. Goodbye Boggo.

They raised sails. They sailed through the Mist Hidden barrier. The ketch burned briefly with the bioluminescent aurora-like flames. Then they were through and all that was left was the cool crashing sea.

A creaking ship no longer banged against the dock. Sails no longer fluttered. Butterflies no longer circled where seagulls would have. The mooring line no longer protested. The lack of sound was like a hole. I knew I was going to miss Barnacle-eyes one day. I didn’t know that sounds would come with that.

I could only hold onto those sounds by remaining planted upon the coast. If I moved, if I went about my day, would I forget those sounds? I remained so that I could think of each of them and catalog them in my mind.

I tried my best to catalog the best ones: Barnacle-eyes’ humming which sounded like a cowbell strapped to a cat, Boggo’s skittering which sounded like a mouse behind a wall, and his bursts of game-playing too.

Abigail stayed with me for some time. When at last she left to brew more Honey Cocoon attribute ales, I meandered along the coast. It was strange that I missed my friends already when I had come north to be alone in the first place.

Their absence returned me to that northern isolation. I wanted to feel happy but I couldn’t budge the bittersweet rock that weighed my heart down. I was content for the moment to feel half happy.

With that happy half, I employed myself in brewing beer. I chose to brew a light beer in the bottom fermenting style. I used barley, hops, and yeast earned from my loot chests. For the foam, I used the Erupting Streams sub skill for the first time. Being a level 1, it took a tremendous amount of mana. When the beer was done, I poured myself a silver boot’s worth.

I was not expecting for the foam to hush as it fountained to the rim of the boot. Foam streamed over the rim and down the ankle and heel. Though it wasn’t a spectacular show of foam, like other Foam Cascade sub skills, it was still beer foam, and it did not stop slopping onto the ground. Foam ran down the boot, over the toe, and even down my arm to my elbow. I took a sip. Foam cascaded over both my cheeks and my chin.

How in the world could I drink this?

I choked down the beer and held the boot at arm’s length. Foam streamed. I felt like I was holding the top of a staff made of hushing bubbles. Even when I set the boot on the ground, foam continued to flow from it like an active volcano. Perhaps it would have made for a good round in a chugging competition in a tavern, but I didn’t know what I could seriously do with a sub skill like that.

After the beer, the mess, I took a look at my stats. Hop Wallop had leveled to 1930, Fire and Roast had leveled to 1644, and I earned a level for the Erupting Streams sub skill. My quality tier also rose to 94/100 Lesser Honorable.

But there was more to do. More levels to gain. And I still hadn’t broken through into gold rank. So I spent the rest of the morning until noon brewing Ethereal beers on my Beyond the Cabin plane. I took from the sky of forged ingredients and began with Ethereal Dungeon beers for Hiccup. Not only did I use Forge Ethereal Label for the barrels for those beers, but I forged extra ones to be used later. Forge Ethereal Label rose to level 1622. My Ethereal Dungeon Master skill rose to level 680.

I stopped for a lunch of walnuts and a salad. After lunch I picked up my axe and went down to the sea. I rolled up my pants and waded where the razor clams flourished. With the bit of my axe, I pried them off the rocks and each other. One by one, I collected them in a forged ethereal label basket I wrapped together. Working carefully so that I didn’t slice my foot, I took my time and enjoyed the glare of the sun on the sea. I squinted to see through its reflection on the water. When I bent over to reach through the water, the sea sometimes chose that moment to slap my face with a wave. But I relished the wet salt and seaweed flavor of the sea.

And the razor clams were at my mercy. They were vulnerable. They could not run. They could not hide. Their armor was nothing to me, and even less so to Thrush who enjoyed them very much. I took extra for him. When I had a good bushel’s worth of razor clams, I hefted the chimeric colored basket up and marched up to my cabin where Thrush stood, staring into the forest with his jaw hung down low. He looked ready to fly into a rage of starving hunger again.

It was just as well that I wanted to return to the sea. Thrush had his space to lose control of his hunger, and I wanted a moment to enjoy the full sun on my face. So I did as the razor clams do. I put myself on the coast, but upon the sand in plain sight. Unlike the razor clams, I was protected by the Mist Hidden barrier. I was safe to take a farmer’s nap out in the open where the sea drowned out all sound and the wind was constant and the sun could relax my body so that I may sleep deeply.

It had been a while since I fell asleep on the sand. And maybe, when I woke up, this would have all been a dream and I still had the morning left to say goodbye to my friends.