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Book 2: Chapter 25: Axeschlagen

I really, REALLY, needed to get on teaching Bran how to make pretzels. Or maybe I’d just sell it to Knickknack as a retirement present and be done with it.

Opal came by roughly an hour into the drinking and was swept up by Bran into a kiss. Or she swept him up, to hear Aqua tell it. I didn’t see it, since I was busy teaching a ring of rapidly expanding dwarves how to play Hammerschlagen. Or, as I had adapted it to dwarven methodology - Axeschlagen.

A few beer pong tables littered the party grounds, but it seemed the lack of violence in the game inherently limited the number of players. It only took me a minute to decide that Oktoberfest’s second most dangerous game was perfect for dwarves. And Knickknack had all the supplies we needed too!

“Can you explain it again, Pete.” Kirk asked, looming over the crowd. He was hefting a large double sided battleaxe. Beside him, Zirce and Emma were busy dulling down a bunch of junk axes from Knickknack’s surplus weapons section and passing them around. Next to me, an enormous tree slice had been set up on some bricks, putting it at thigh height for a dwarf. The wooden circle was just over two meters in diameter, which left plenty of room for people to crowd around it.

“Sure –"

I was interrupted as a white head butted my knee. Penelope stood there, slightly swaying with her goat shaped drinking bowl in her mouth.

*meeee - hick - eeeeh* [Translated from Prima Donna Goat] “My bowl is empty, *hick* and if it is not filled I - I - I will use that axe on you, servant.”

“Give me a second, Penelope.” I waved her off, then turned back to Kirk. “It’s easy enough. First, ya need to drive a nail into the wood so that it sticks.” I took a nail and drove it partway into the round with a single hefty blow of the back of a woodsman’s axe.

“Not much of a game.” One of the dwarves in the circle muttered.

“Shaddup, it hasn’t started yet. Kirk, you do it over there, and Beatbox you do one over there, I need to make sure it’s an appropriate height for gnomes.”

“Absolutely!” Beatbox said chipperly. He’d only come away from the beer pong tables because of the promise of a new drinking game. He took a hatchet from the twin’s pile and similarly drove his nail into the round. Kirk had to take two swings to get the hang of hitting such a low target.

“This is much harder than it looks!” Kirk proclaimed, then got down onto his knees for a better angle.

I continued with my explanation. “Now comes the actual hard part. We’re going to take turns tryin’ ta hit our nail into the wood with tha pointy part of the axe. If ya miss, you have to take a drink, if you succeed, we go right round around the round. Heh.”

Beatbox caressed his hatchet. “What if you never miss?”

“Then go drink some more and come back!” I chuckled. “The winner is the first person to fully bury their nail.”

I swung my axe pointy end first, missed and had to take a drink. Kirk swung his, and managed to bury it in the round. He grumbled and pulled it out, the recoil causing him to swing the axe back and spang another dwarf on the helmet. While the two of them set to fighting, Beatbox calmly landed a blow to his nail and nodded to me.

“Everyone got it?” I asked the assembled group. There was a chorus of assents.

“Aye!” “Yep.” “Looks fun!” “Ya HIT ME with an AXE!” “I said I was sorry!!!” “Halp! Me drink! Somebody get this goat offa me!”

The round was big enough for a dozen people to stand around it, and soon the sound of axes into wood and metal on metal joined the general merriment.

One hour later a posse had gone out to get a set of fresh rounds, and Kirk was carrying Beatbox in his arms. The two of them were singing an upbeat sea shanty of all things. Kirk had to have taught it to Beatbox given the complete lack of sea down here.

When I was a boy, I went to sea,

Upon a pirate ship.

I traveled the world, because you see,

I’d had a little nip.

My mother wept, the day I left

I\'ve never missed her yet.

I packed my bags, and fled that nag,

To be a scally-wag!

Do you hear the white horn blowing, you drunken pirate scum?

The day is lost, the law has won, make for the setting sun.

Way hey, belay it all, bear aw-ay west.

Way hey, belay it all, bear aw-ay west.

With a keg of gin, to set to rights,

Wind in my mizzenmast.

I sailed west, eight days and nights,

On seas of fortune cast.

I went on raids, I plundered maids,

I tell you, I got laid!

Though all I found, when I came round,

Was that I’d run aground!

Do you hear the white horn blowing, you drunken pirate scum?

The day is lost, the law has won, make for the setting sun.

Way hey, belay it all, bear aw-ay west.

Way hey, belay it all, bear aw-ay west.

There were a few more lines, and by the time the pair had sung it twice, everyone playing Axeschlagen was singing along.

Add one to Kirk possibly having a checkered past. I really, really hoped we hadn’t hired a literal pirate for his pretty face, giant legs, superb waitering skills, and lovely singing voice.

To be fair, the giant could really hit those high notes.

—

The party was a massive high, the day after… was a massive crash.

I was the only person in the Thirsty Goat today. Well, Zirce and Emma were here too, but they were just cleaning. Everyone else was either laid out, or getting laid. Bran and Opal had disappeared at some point, and Balin never returned to our housing last night. Markus, Moony, and Jeremiah had left at the start of the party and never returned. Aqua was passed out inside the boil kettle cuddling a hungover Penelope, and Richter and Johnsson were asleep in each other’s arms under a picnic table again. Kirk was unconscious on the roof of the Thirsty Goat.

Sigh…. I could try asking Emerelda out, but she was kind of intense. Lillyweather still reminded me a tad too much of my daughter and her friends. There was always Raspberrysyrup, goodness knew we had enough in common, and Lemontwist would be overjoyed. But… it didn’t really feel like we meshed in that way. For one thing, she groaned at my puns instead of laughing at them.

Another time Pete, another time. You have work to do, and not much time to do it.

Zirce stuck her head in the door, and then Emma peeked in underneath, her vision mostly obscured by Zirce’s pink beard. “Hey boss man! Whatchaupto, eh?” They asked in unison.

Easterners were weird.

I sighed and rubbed at my temples. “Are you two done with the cleanup?”

“Everythin’ except the rafters.” Emma nodded.

“Not doing those without Kirk.” Zirce finished. Then the pair giggled for some reason.

I was still getting used to the twins. They were a lot more bubbly than most dwarves, almost gnomish in their general attitude and outlook. I’d asked Richter about it, and he’d told me that Eastern Crack was where the majority of the gnomish enclaves had originally settled. They were on the far reaches of the dwarven kingdom, and suffered the nobility poorly. Culturally speaking, Eastern Crack had split from the West several octamillenia ago.

“So what are you doing.” Emma asked, peering around the office.

I had three erdroot variants on my desk. Normally, erdroot resembled a cross between a yam and a ginger-root. Kind of like a fat ginseng, actually, complete with the lined tan skin. Most of the local shops sold basic white erdroot, which tasted kind of like a potato with a dusty texture.

That didn’t mean there weren’t more variations, and I’d gotten my hands on a couple dungeon erdroot. They were more expensive, but money wasn’t really an object right now. One had an orange tinge to the skin, another looked normal but was purple inside, and the last was dark brown with black flesh.

My book of Alchemical Ingredients: A Primer called it a ‘Burnt Umber Erdroot’ and it had alchemical properties that included a slight stamina boost and perception boost when eaten and prepared properly. It was essentially caffeine, which was appropriate, because…

“I’m considering using one of these as a malt.” I said, matter of factly. A coffee stout, which was what I was planning to make, used roasted malt and dark malt in a mixed proportion, along with some coffee added in at either the cold crash or boiling stage. I personally preferred using cold brew at the cold crash, as I found adding a boiled brew in the boil step made the beer too bitter. I was hoping one of these dungeon erdroots would be my missing dark malt.

The problem was that I didn’t know how the malt-houses prepared these things for brewing. That was a secret all their own, and my experience on how to malt barley was worthless here. All I knew was that the final step for erdroot was to roast them a bit in a kiln we had here at the brewery.

At least, that had been a problem before I’d learned of Burnt Umber Erdroot. Because it was an alchemical ingredient, the [Alchemist] who provided our bittering agent had some basic knowledge of how to prepare it. Alchemist Black had sent me this ‘maybe malted Burnt Umber Erdroot’ to try, and I was eager to take a crack at it.

Zirce walked over to poke it.

“So, what will that do to the beer?” She asked. “It won’t… make it all black will it?”

“It may.” I shrugged. “Actually, I kind of hope it does. I plan to mix it with coffee and pitch it to Copperpot. If it’s the same colour as coffee that may help sell it to the gnomes.”

“Eugh. I don’t think I could drink black beer.” Emma made a face.

“It’ll look like shite you know.” Zirce added.

“Oooh, like when Uncle Uric had that infection?” Emma nodded.

Zirce giggled. “And every time he went to the bathroom - “

“Enough!” I begged. “I really, really, don’t want to hear the rest of that story. Yes, it’ll probably be a really dark brown, possibly black. And if tha dwarven community sees it as bein\' a completely separate thing from the Sacred Brew that’s actually helpful. Thank you for yer insight. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m really worried about the rest of this month.”

“Why?” Zirce looked suddenly worried.

“It’s days are numbered,” I said gravely. “All 32 of them.”

“What?” Emma said in confusion.

“Never mind… go, clean the kitchen or something. Make sure to sweep around Johnsson and Richter.”

“Can do, boss.” The two said in unison and trooped out to the brewpub, buckets in tow.

I sighed and slumped back in my chair. I had so little time that losing a day of work like this was like a physical blow. I could not imagine several hundred more years of this. I was going to need a vacation soon, or I was going to crumple harder than a suit of plate-mail struck by a treant.

Well, I had a sack of these umber erdroots to play with, so I should probably get the last ingredients I needed. Cold roast coffee was made by steeping coarse grinds with a filter in cold water for twenty-four hours, so I was going to need to ask Joejam to put on Erd’s largest cup of coffee for tomorrow. Out of habit, I activated a quick [Flash of Insight] as I made my way out the door.

Uh… where was John?