Brewer 1's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Brewer 1 read the festival notice twice, then let the gears in their chest tick faster. The grand tasting was six weeks away. Win it, and every brewer in Thynderfall would know their name. But their copper body brewed only plain ale, and plain ale never won anything. Brewer 1 was a walking still. Steam pipes ran up their back. Gauges glowed on their belly. A single blank eye sat in the center of their brow, and a wrench hung at their hip. They lived above the Steamworks Alehouse, where the timber beams smelled of hops and soot. Every morning they filled their tank, boiled it, and poured out ale that customers drank without a word. Not once had anyone leaned back and grinned. The problem was the recipe. Judges wanted a signature hops variety, something no one else could match. Brewer 1 had tried the common green cones from the market. They tasted like everyone else's beer. Tonight they cranked the boiler high and dumped in a double handful. The gauges spiked. Steam hissed from every joint. Brewer 1 tapped a sample and sipped through the intake valve. Plain. Flat. Wrong. Brewer 1 dumped the batch down the drain and gripped the wrench until their fingers ached. A knock rattled the alehouse door. Brewer 1 opened it to find Rook the Alchemist filling the frame. The ogre magi was red-skinned, yellow-eyed, with a black goatee and a hooded robe trimmed in gold runes. He held a thick black book under one arm, its edges bristling with colored bookmarks. "Your steam woke half the street," Rook said. He did not wait for an invitation. He stepped inside, eyed the empty tank, and sniffed the air like a hound. "You are brewing garden ale and expecting a crown." Brewer 1's eye narrowed. "I use the best hops the market sells." "The market sells what everyone brews." Rook set his book on the counter and flipped to a bookmarked page. Diagrams and runes covered it. He tapped one drawing: a hops cone with silver-white petals. "This grows on the high ridge. Wild. Bitter as a curse. No brewer has bottled it, because no brewer survives the climb." Brewer 1 leaned close. The petals in the drawing looked like nothing at the market. Their gauges twitched. A signature variety. Exactly what the judges wanted. "Show me where," Brewer 1 said. Rook closed the book and smiled with too many teeth. "I'll draw the map. But the ridge is not kind to copper things. Rust wants you. Cold wants you. And the ones who live up there guard those cones." Brewer 1 lifted the wrench and slid it back into its loop. "Then I leave at dawn." Rook tore a page loose and pressed it into their hand. On it, inked in gold, was the ridge trail and a single silver cone. Brewer 1 held the map to their eye. The plain-ale problem was solved. A far harder one now waited on the mountain.