Beers and Beards

Chapter 80: Release Day

I awoke to banging, and the familiar sound of Whistlemop screaming at my door.

I sighed and pulled myself out of bed. I was exhausted. We'd barely managed to get the conditioned bottles properly labeled and stacked last night, and today was probably going to be a zoo. At least the hard work was worth it!

Quest: The New Brew Complete!

For the third time in dwarven history, a new brew has graced the world! All rejoice!

Reward: One Karmic Reversal

Agility Increased!

All that running around has increased your agility by 1! New agility is 12!

I still didn’t really know what a Karmic Reversal did. The description wasn’t overly useful either. I really needed those theology lessons from Prophet Barnes.

Karmic Reversal [One Use Remaining]: You can call upon a karmic reversal to reverse the flow of fate. After one hour passes, the weight of destiny shall descend again. However, only Gods are truly bound by fate and it is the right of mortals to fight against its current.

At least the agility was nice and clear. I flexed in the mirror as I grabbed some clothes, and admired my toned and hairy pecs. Looking good Pete!

“Balin, wake up!”

*Moan*

I threw a pillow at him and it bounced back onto the floor. He rolled over and blindly grabbing under his bed. "Where's me socks! Not leavin' without me socks."

I pulled on a tunic and pants and made my way to the door. “It’s release day. We have lots to do. I’ll go grab us coffee, so get my dress armour ready.”

That’s right, today was Feud day!

Our bottle conditioned brew had turned out perfectly! It was clear as topaz, with a generous fizz that bubbled inside the bottle. Just the bottle itself was amazing to look at, let alone the experience of opening it up to a satisfying *pop*! The beer was smooth and consistent, with zero acrid aftertastes or bloody sticks floating in it.

The crew at the Thirsty Goat went wild when they got to taste it last night. It still tasted awful to me though. At this point I was willing to murder - something - for some hops to use as a bittering agent. Anything other than that Godsawful alchemical bundle of sticks.

Then there was the ‘gimmick’ and oh, what a gimmick. I was usually against gimmicky beer, since it pigeonholed you and was usually a cover for bad flavour. Our gimmick was just the juicy wet cherry on top, the fabulous flatulent fruit.

It was why we'd decided on the name: ‘Ass Blaster’. Gutbuster had been a close second.

I stumbled to the door and threw it open. He was wearing that Godsawful rainbow suit and tophat combo again.

“What is it this time, Whistlemop?”

“Pete! Pete! You won’t believe this! You need to get to the Grand Market! RIGHT. NOW!”

I moaned. “Now what?”

—

We knew we were approaching the Grand Market because of the line. It started several blocks away. It was noisy, surly, and loud.

We tried to push through first. “Excuse me!”

“Get in line, bub!”

“No skippin’!”

“I’ve been waitin’ since yesterday! Get to tha’ back!”

Whistlemop, Balin, and I scurried off to an alleyway, but simply found another line snaking through the backstreets.

“What is this?” I groaned. “We don’t need another riot, today of all days!”

“I’ve not seen a city so worked up withou’ a monster stampede.” Balin huffed.

“The Honourable Guild of Brewers decided to release their brews at the Grand Market too. These lines stretch between my cart and their garden.” Whistlemop hissed. He peeked outside the alleyway and then looked back at me. “It looks like they aim to piggyback off the success of your advertising.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, now they’re okay with the way we do things?”

“Did you see those lines!? They’d need to be idiots not to!”

I grumbled. “I thought they were! Browning is at least. This feels like Drum’s doing, or Malt.”

I hadn’t been idle for the past two weeks. My first task had been scouring Minnova for a good artist. I'd found one through Lilyweather: a gnomish [Artisan] named Littlefoot. He was an incredible artist, his every stroke capturing both the essence and energy of his subject. He was also the first gnome I’d ever met without a moustache. Apparently, he regularly sold it to local beardyparlors in order to afford paint.

He’d been overjoyed to take part in such an ‘interesting’ new project. I gave him enough gold to hire a small army of art students to silk-screen bottle-labels while he did the big stuff.

Initially, I was worried the central square merchants wouldn’t want to help me. In fact, they’d been more than willing, they’d been downright accommodating. Because of the auction underlying the Grand Market, those that lost were always happy to find some way to give the Main stores a black eye. Our Feud was the perfect opportunity to nail one of the big Guilds to the wall, and the little guys all wanted to see it happen.

The result? A fancy poster declaring the ‘Great Minnova Beer Feud’ could be found attached to nearly every stall in the central square of the Grand Market. The poster starred Penelope holding a bottled beer and rocketing into the sky, propelled by - well, let’s just say that if Penelope was capable of understanding that poster I was a dead dwarf walking. A label featuring the same image was affixed to every bottle of Ass Blaster.

I'd also paid some people to loudly talk about Midnas involvement. Nothing like city-wide knowledge of a God's attention to keep everyone honest.

The next thing I’d done was put together a jingle riffing on Stacey’s Mom that I’d titled Thirsty Goat. It contained glorious lines like: ‘Thirsty Goat has got me eatin’ oat’ and ‘I’m in love with Thirsty Goat’.

It wasn’t my best work. What mattered was that the Ordinances allowed Bards with an entertainment license to sing in establishments and squares at specific times. There were very few limitations on what they were allowed to sing, so the local taverns and gathering places had been overrun with various renditions of Thirsty Goat for the last two weeks.

We also sold a few singing coasters, just because.

The publicity had the added benefit of keeping the eye of the city on the Brewers Guild, which likely helped keep them honest.

“We need to get back to my cart!” Whistlemop hissed. “Aqua and Annie are selling beer as fast as they can, while Johnsson and Richter help my guards keep order. It’s not enough, we need Balin’s glorious [Golden Armour] to direct the crowd.”

“Wait, then what do you need me for?” I asked.

“This situation is entirely your fault.” Whistlemop snapped. “Take responsibility and be helpful.”

“Want me ta use ma armour to push through the line?” Balin asked.

“No. We don’t want to set everyone off…” I drummed my fingers on my thigh and considered. I looked up to the top of the single-storey building we stood beside.

“Is there any reason we can’t run on top of the buildings?” I pointed.

Balin and Whisltemop looked up.

“Are you crazy!?” Whistlemop shouted.

“It would technically be trespassin’.” Balin began, then paused. “Even then, so long as ya’ leave when yer asked it’s not even a fine. Lotta drunk dwarves wanderin’ into the wrong house in a big city like Minnova.”

“So we could do it, if we’re fast enough?”

“Aye, but we might end up in a fight if someone inside gets mad at us fer runnin’ on their roof.”

“That just means we need to avoid houses with occupants.” I began searching for a barrel to stand on.

“How are we gonna do that?”

—

From up on the rooftops we could see the lines stretch off into the distance. Everywhere we looked there were dwarves, gnomes, and the occasional human waiting patiently in the queue. Impromptu games of hitball had started up in various locations, and it looked like entire clans were out. I even spotted a picnic.

After a few minutes of careful running, we dropped down into the Grand Market. A couple people pointed at us, but we were soon lost in the milling crowd.

“That’s an incredible Blessing, Pete!” Whistlemop applauded.

“Seems a waste to use it like that.” Balin grumbled.

“Actually, that's exactly how a minimap is supposed to be used.”

As we made our way through the crowd I began to see dwarves holding bottles of our beer. There was also the occasional !!BRAAAPPP!! followed by uproarious laughter. The mood in the market was practically festive.

Mostly. Some of the other merchants were understandably irritated by all the commotion.

[Translated from angry toothless gnome] "My Cabbages!"

Everywhere we walked the name ‘Thirsty Goat’ could be heard. Balin and I looked at each other and smiled ecstatically. It looked like things were going poorly for the Honourable Guild of Brewers.

Ahead of us, Whistlemop’s cart stood out from the rest of the square. An enormous billboard with a picture of Penelope blasting off proudly pronounced: “Come try our new bottled beer. It’s so fresh and fizzy that your vitality can’t contain it. The Thirsty Goat proudly presents: Ass-Blaster!"

—

Master Brewer Browning’s eye twitched as he looked down on the busy beer garden from the Master’s Booth. He should be overjoyed! At this very moment, the spotlight should be moving away from those perverted pro-drinkers and back onto his Guild where it properly belonged! This was his moment!

“Ooooh, look at ‘em!” Malt crooned beside him. “We’re gonna be swimmin’ in gold by tha’ time this is done! Maybe I’ll be able to afford ta get the missus one o’ those rune-inscribed foot-baths!

Browning’s hands clenched so hard his nails drew blood. He couldn’t believe it! They never planned to release the radler at all! Now he was stuck with hundreds of gold worth of rapidly spoiling lemons with nothing to show for it. Worse, that awful goat song was stuck in his head and he’d been hearing it in his nightmares.

“This isn’t a good thing, Malt!” Browning ground out. “Look at them! They’re buying our beer, but then they’re leaving! They’re not talking about it!!!”

“Yes, I can see that, Browning,” Malt chuckled. “I have to wonder where this ‘Ass-Blaster’ came from. They must have had a batch already brewed. The bottles can’t have been something they came up with on the fly either. They baited you into this Feud, you know. You got played, Browning!”

“Damnit!!” Browning smashed his fist against the railing, and some of the dwarves in the beer garden looked their way. One waved a hand holding a beer bottle at him. He gritted his teeth and turned away. A faint *Braaap* echoed out behind him, followed by laughter.

“I can’t believe this! Beer that makes you- you-”

“Gassy?” Malt looked aside as an apprentice ran up and passed him a package.

“It’s disrespectful to the beer!!” Browning raged. “As if the radler wasn’t bad enough! This turns our Sacred Brew into an object of mockery! How will any dwarf take us seriously ever again!?”

Malt carefully unwrapped the package. “We change our name to the Honourable Guild of Tooters?”

“THIS ISN’T FUNNY, MALT!”

“Oh? I’m having a lovely time. This is one of the biggest beer festivals I can remember, and I’m a good deal older than you, Browning. A fact you keep forgetting.”

Browning turned to look back down at the crowd in the beer garden. He counted at least a dozen of those bottles, and everywhere he saw one, dwarven heads were bent together in discussion. “What are we going to do! We might lose!”

“Mhm. Sounds like a ‘you’ problem.”

“This could alter the image of beer forever!”

“Actually, these bottles seem very well suited for beer. The stopper on top is rather ingenious too. I wonder if those youngsters came up with it?” *pop*

“Why aren’t you more worried about this, Malt! Those upstarts are going to destroy the image that we’ve spent millenia creating! The image that you spent centuries building!” Browning pointed down to where a trio of dwarves were competing for the loudest fart. “Look at these fools!”

Malt chuckled. “The label is fairly amusing. I can imagine my family crest on one of these. Maybe on a brown bottle, instead of clear? I wonder how it tastes?” *glug*

“Who cares how it tastes! This is a catastrophe!” *rumble*

Browning wheeled back to look at Malt, who had a bottle to his lips. Browning’s mouth dropped in indignation as Malt shrugged.

“It’s quite *burp* tasty. Almost exactly like True Brew, but with a bit more fizz.”

“MALT!” Browning roared, his face twisting up with rage.

!!BRAAAAAAAPPP!! "Hoh! 'Scuse me!"

—

Everyone in the garden looked up as a primal scream erupted from the raised wooden structure that contained the Master’s Booth. The scream was followed by a brief scuffle, and then someone in the booth shouted “[Shatter]!” One second later, every glass bottle in the vicinity exploded, showering everyone with glass and fizzy beer.

Accusations were leveled, fists began to fly, and the garden was soon overrun with sticky, swearing, dwarves.

A patrol of [Guards] arrived moments later and quickly dispersed the crowd. They wereintrigued to learn of the exploding glass. After all, a similar event had set off a riot in the Grand Market just a few weeks ago. The culprit was still at large, and City Hall was very interested in finding them.