Chapter 1

Greater

Hawkin

Brewer’s Reputation: 600,730.

“You caught that?” Barnacle-eyes said.

Through chuckling, I said, “Yea. Imagine that.”

The goblin and I had been watching the leaves fall. 3 or 4 would fall every few minutes or so. All of them were orange, and came from one of the maples at the edge of the clearing. There were a couple of bronze-brown leaves that fell too, but the orange were striking. From our seats at the fire pit, I caught an orange leaf.

“I wanna catch one!” Barnacle-eyes said.

Then she was on her feet, chasing falling leaves. She left her tin cup of goblin spit beer precariously over the edge of the log she’d been sitting on. I shifted her tin cup so the wind wouldn’t take it down. It looked like she had a few sips left.

Since I was at the end of a silver boot’s worth of an old ale of mine, I decided to brew another beer and visit the ethereal plane.

I engaged my silver rank Brewer skills, along with a few bronze rank Brewer skills I’d recently acquired.

[Brewer’s Harvest. Level 1020.]

[Fire and Roast. Level 210.]

[Brewer’s Bubble. Level 1005.]

[Mash Master. Level 1000.]

[Hop Wallop. Level 450.]

[Brewer’s Chill. Level 1000.]

[Alchemical Control. Level 1002.]

[Kiss of Yeast. Level 1001.]

[Flash Ferment. Level 1005.]

[Foam Cascade. Level 10.]

[Forced Carbonation. Level 670.]

I cast barley seeds onto the ground around me. Those seeds became sprouts, then grew to bear kernels in the blink of an eye. The kernels popped off from the grass, and streamed towards me in a thin line. They germinated and malted as they crossed the distance.

Using my Fire and Roast skill helped me add a touch of color and aroma to the grains. Brewer’s Bubble took it from there, and fresh ethereal river water flew out from a gourd in my inventory to collect into a wobbling sphere in mid-air. The malted, roasted barley grains soared straight into the large bubble. That’s where I activated Mash Master to steep the grains at a stable temperature.

Color filled the bubble. The color of glinting brass. Or a golden wheat field that held the lounging body of sunlight. When the mash was sufficient, taking a fraction of the time to brew with my Brewer quest path skills, I withdrew the wort from the grains and let them drop into the fire pit.

Hop Wallop drew from my inventory: fresh green hops harvested from the ethereal realm. With a guiding gesture, I slammed those hops into the floating Brewer’s Bubble. Steam rose. Sufficiently hopped, I strained the hops out as well.

Brewer’s Chill quickly brought the beer to a fermentable temperature. I threw in a Lesser Planes Cutter shard and used Alchemical Control with the magic shard to imbue the beer with the Lesser Planes Cutter attribute.

I afterwards engaged the Kiss of Yeast and Flash Ferment skills. Then Forced Carbonation. All that was left was Foam Cascade. And since Foam Cascade was a relatively new skill, therefore still bronze at level 10, it required quite a bit more mana and took the longest of all the skills to use. The tricky part was to focus on the head that I wanted the beer to have. I knew little about the skill, but focused on imagining a bubbly head. I wanted the autumn wind to steal little bubbles like it does to summer dandelion seeds.

Finished, I continued using Brewer’s Bubble to guide the fermented beer into a waterskin. I poured a drop onto my collector’s journal.

[Lesser Planes Cutter Crisp Ale.]

[Silver rank. 01/100 Respectable.]

[Brewed by Hawkin.]

[Brewed using a mix of ethereal harvested ingredients and isolated yeast from the northern wilderness. Light, effervescent, crisp and clean. Tastes of fresh baked biscuits. Has aromas of dried straw and freshly clipped hay.]

[Special attribute: Lesser Planes Cutter. One sip of this attribute ale will transport the user to the ethereal realm between the northern wilderness and the eastern Vale of Ara. The user will have 24 hours on the plane before they return to the exact same moment they drank from this beer.]

Without further ado I sipped from the ale.

In the blink of an eye, I found myself standing on the ethereal plane where the honeysuckle was ripe with pollen. It was partly cloudy this time. A first.

Sun rays came down in shafts like arms. As though the sun had hands, it gathered the dew from the honeysuckle.

Fragrances of ripe goldenrods streamed like currents of wind through the plane. That honey-esque aroma relaxed some part of my spirit. I enjoyed spending my time there amid the curly dock, the flowering brown knapweed, the poppies, the multitude of flowering life. These things were wonderful to be around. Almost as wonderful to be around as the woman who approached me now.

Her hair began where the lilacs bloomed. Her dress was made of sunflower petals. Her eyes were the color of poppies. All the poppies.

“Hawkin,” Dellia Lucerne said. “So good to see you.”

“Good to see you,” I said. “Would you like to sit or walk?”

“I don’t often have legs to walk with. Let us walk together. Take my arm.”

I took her arm and we ambled.

A halo of peaceful monarchs hovered above her hair made of lilacs. When my eyes followed the length of her hair, all I saw was a distance of earth. Of rows of lilacs. Of queen anne’s lace.

“Hawkin,” Dellia said.

My eyes followed the land back to where I stood. Where cosmos flowers were bursting with volume. They were thickly clustered together and formed a new dress for the goddess. In the moment where I tried to see where the plane ended and she began, she’d changed her appearance. Her dress was made of daisy petals now. And I still could not determine where she ended and the plane began.

When she laughed, I didn’t care to know anymore. A gentle tug brought me out of my thoughts and we continued to amble.

“I apologize,” I said. “I’m still not used to your company.”

“How are things with you?”

“I’ve been forging ethereal grains. I have five ethereal barley grains now. I’ve still got to Forge Ethereal water, yeast, and hops.”

“Tell me about Thrush,” she said.

Thrush had been busy hunting game, so there wasn’t much to say about him. He’d reached silver rank in his Merchant quest path. Dellia raised her eyebrows and nodded at that. Otherwise, he’d been smoking fish or red meat.

“He’s also been spending a lot of time with Boggo lately.”

“Boggo?”

“The blue bestie.”

I told her about Abigail, Barnacle-eye’s sloop, and our ongoing schedule for brewing goblin-spit beer for the orcs and goblins.

“A lot is happening in your part of the world,” she said. I smiled at that. “It’s a wonder you still have time for forging.”

“Forging ethereal ingredients is time consuming,” I said. “Difficult. It requires more mana than all my other skills combined.”

“I’m happy to see that you're spending time on those skills. You’ll be using them shortly because I will no longer be creating Lesser Planes Cutter shards. Your time on this ethereal plane is coming to an end.”

We stopped. I looked at her. At her eyes that were made of the juices of berries.

“It’s time?” I said.

“You knew this day would come,” she said. She gave a gentle tug to my arm and we ambled once more. “I will withdraw Lesser Planes Cutter shards from your world indefinitely. As a reminder, I made this plane for you. I’m taking it back. You will forge your own Planes Cutter ingredients. You will use your Planes Cutter Master skill to brew Greater Planes Cutter attribute beers with forged ethereal ingredients.”

“What’s the difference between the Lesser Planes Cutter beers I’d been brewing, and Greater Planes Cutter beers?”

“Greater Planes Cutter beers will transport you in real time. When you spend a day on the ethereal plane, it will equal a day in your world.”

“Why can’t I continue to use the Lesser Planes Cutter attributes?”

“You can for the meantime, but as soon as you can brew a Greater Planes Cutter beer, I will close off this realm to you. Understand, Hawkin, that this plane has been a gift to you. It takes extraordinary amounts of… …the complexities of a goddess… …to maintain.”

“Will I be able to return here? Even with a Greater Planes Cutter ale?”

“No. You will have to build your plane as you see fit.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“I can sense that,” she said.

Then she was gone. Her arm was no longer in mine. Instead, I found myself leaning against a lilac with my arm around the trunk.

I ambled the plane for hours, thinking. When I found myself at the river, I turned back to look across the summer fields.

I can’t believe my time here is coming to an end. I wonder what the other ethereal planes will hold in store for me.

Shame I can’t show Thrush this place.