Brewer 1's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Brewer 1 climbed the ridge trail at dawn. The map led them to a shelf of stone where silver-white hops grew in a thick patch. Their gauges spiked. This was the prize. But the moment they stepped close, a huge shape rose from the rocks. The guardian was a beast of matted fur and long claws. It planted itself between Brewer 1 and the cones and let out a low growl that rattled the copper in their chest. Brewer 1 backed up a step. They had no food to offer. No trick to distract it. The wrench at their hip would only make the beast angrier. Their eye swept the shelf for anything useful. A voice called from below. "Don't just stand there staring at it!" Brewer 6 came up the trail, longer arms and legs carrying him fast over the rocks. He looked almost like a mirror of Brewer 1, a copper keg on legs, but a bold six was painted on his barrel. He stopped, spotted the guardian, and puffed a cloud of steam. "I followed your boiler noise. Half the valley heard you leave." "It won't let me near the patch," Brewer 1 said. Brewer 6 crouched and pointed at a shadowed crack in the stone. A cluster of slender mushrooms grew there. Their cone caps caught the last of the moonlight and shimmered blue and pink. "Beasts like these. My kind saw them dig for glowing caps up here before." Brewer 1 understood. They knelt and pried a clump of the shimmering mushrooms loose. The guardian's head snapped toward the glow. Brewer 1 tossed the cluster across the shelf. The beast lunged after it and pinned the caps under one paw, sniffing and chewing. "Now," Brewer 6 said. They rushed the patch together. Brewer 1 stripped cone after cone into their tank. Brewer 6 filled his own barrel with fistfuls of silver-white petals. The bitter smell was sharp, unlike anything at the market. Brewer 1's gauges climbed with joy. The beast finished the mushrooms and turned. It roared and charged. Brewer 1 and Brewer 6 scrambled down the trail, tanks packed full, claws tearing the air behind them. They did not stop until the ridge fell away and the beast gave up the chase. Brewer 1 checked their tank. It held enough silver-white hops for a dozen batches. They had done what no brewer had done before. But Brewer 6 patted his own full barrel and grinned through his single eye. "Good haul," Brewer 6 said. "I'll be entering the tasting too. May the better brewer win." Brewer 1's gauges dipped. The rare hops were no longer theirs alone. The one who had saved them was now the one to beat.