Beers and Beards

Chapter 39: The Journey

“Alright Balin, give me your hand.”

“Ugh, how aren’t ya tired yet Pete?”

“Easy, my vitality is seventeen.”

“That’s disgustin’, how?”

“I’ll tell you later. Focus on climbing.” I pulled and yanked Balin up on the boulder with me. I turned around to look at our goal. Only another hundred meters or so to go.

We’d found a section of road that had gone around a large… hill was the correct word, but mountain felt more appropriate now. We’d figured that a climb over the ‘hill’ would save us several hours of travel.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

“Watch it!” A rock slipped as I walked and bounced towards Balin’s head. He swore and ducked underneath it.

“Barck’s beard, Pete! This was a terrible plan!”

“You agreed to it!”

“It looked easy from down below.” Balin muttered, as he struggled to draw in breath. Balin’s vitality wasn’t nearly as high as mine. An increase of five worked out to be roughly a one and a half increase of the lower value. That meant the climbing was hard, but without several bags of ore the actual effort was pretty much a cakewalk. For me, anyway.

“Aye, but think of the view we’ll get from the top!” I trudged upwards, while this time I ensured that my feet were on steady stone before I took each step.

I waited for Balin at the top and we crested the hill together. The ‘horizon’ stretched before us; we were even higher than the ridge at the mining camp. This hill was about halfway to Minnova, but most importantly… the main highway lay directly beneath us.

A few other travelers and carts were on the road, even this far off from the city. We were high enough that they looked like ants from here. I shuddered slightly at the thought of ants and turned to Balin.

“Do you need to rest for a bit?”

“Aye. Gimme a moment. I need a drink.”

He grabbed his flask and took a deep drag.

“You know, water would probably be better in this case.”

“Did ya bring any?”

“Eh… no.”

“Me neither.” Balin groaned. “We do have lots of beer though. Nice of Bran ta do that fer us.”

“Alcohol isn’t that great for dehydration, it’s a diuretic.”

Balin sighed as he took the flask away from his lips.

“Pete, if you want ta keep a low profile, ya shouldn’t be usin’ words like ‘diuretic’.”

“Hmmm… that’s a good point.”

“What’s it mean? Alcohol gives ya tha shits?”

I chuckled.

“No, it means that your body uses a lot of water to flush out the alcohol. Do you know anything about the liver?”

“Aye, it tastes good when ya spread it on bread.”

“Ugh. Your liver is the organ responsible for removing toxins from your body.”

Balin’s face pinched up. “Pete, I know ya don’t like beer, but callin’ it toxic is a bit much.”

“Oh hush. Doc Opal was a good enough doctor that I have little doubt dwarves are aware alcohol is bad for you.” I wagged a finger as I spoke,

“I’ve heard that’s true fer humans.” Balin nodded, “But it’s not too bad fer us unless ya completely ignore raisin’ yer vitality.”

“Really?” I considered what he’d said. Vitality gave stamina, but it also provided resistance to disease and poisons. Dwarves had a naturally higher vitality, which made them more resistant to alcohol. That made the fact they were total lightweights even weirder. Maybe more of the alcohol crossed the brain barrier than normal? Then why hadn’t I been affected by dwarven alcohol even when my vitality was still around twelve? A mystery. I gave up thinking about it after a moment and continued the biology lesson.

“Your liver metabolizes the alcohol into something your body can handle before it gets dumped into your urine. What little alcohol that’s left goes stays in your blood, but a lot of it also aerates through your lungs. All of this requires water though, which means alcohol makes you thirsty.”

“Mah lungs!?” Balin held his hand up to his mouth and breathed out before smelling. “Is that why yer breath smells bad after beer?”

“No… that’s because nobody brushes properly. I don’t know why we don’t have massive cavities.”

“What’s brushin yer beard got ta do with it?”

“And you call me a dirty goat.”

We chuckled together for a moment before I continued.

“There’s ways to test how much alcohol is being removed from your body. In my world there are machines called breathalyzers that can detect the amount of alcohol coming out of yer lungs.”

“Neat! They tell ya how drunk you are?”

“Yes, kind of.”

“So you’d know how much more before ya pass out?! You could party all night with that!”

“That’s… not… sure. Yes, you could use it to party all night.” I pulled out my own canteen and took a drink. “Here, drink some of mine, it’s got a way lower ABV.”

“What’s ABV?” He took my tankard and looked at it suspiciously.

“It stands for Alcohol By Volume. My radler has almost half as much alcohol as yours since it’s watered down.”

“That makes sense.” He took a couple of deep drinks and then exhaled with pleasure while he wiped his beard with his arm. “Now that yer not hidin’ it, yer full of neat info!”

Dwarven ale had a very low ABV, close to two percent, while most earth beers were closer to six or seven percent. That was one of the things I hoped I’d be able to change when we got to Annie’s brewery. With my higher vitality, I could barely get drunk on regular dwarven ale.

“Alright let’s try and hit the main highway before we take another break. Are you better now?”

“Fresh as a dwarven househusband.” He waggled his eyebrows at me.

“Please tell me that’s not a real saying.”

“I won’t lie to ya Pete.”

—

The trip down the hill was fairly uneventful. The main highway was nearly ten meters wide and paved with some kind of rough granite. It intersected several paths to other mining camps, and we slowly met up with more travelers as we walked. It was usually other miners or mine personnel, but the occasional company of armored guards marched by on patrol, their armor clattering as they marched. Balin called them the ‘Highwatch’ and it was their job to keep the roads clear of bandits and monsters. We chatted with some of them, though most were either in too much of a hurry or too tired to make good company.

The trickle of travelers turned into a flood, and soon we were simply one of dozens traveling towards the city. There were miners carrying picks and shovels, merchants on their carts laden with food and goods, and adventurers. Oh, the adventurers, now there was something out of pure fantasy. I saw a few dwarves in basic leathers, their bandoliers full of throwing axes and hammers. There were gnomish mages decked out in robes and magical accouterments, their eyes crackling with magic. Plate-clad warriors carried axes and swords bigger than they were, alongside every other kind of weapon you could imagine. They all radiated power and menace, and everyone gave them a wide berth. I even saw a single elderly bearded human dressed as a mage go by in a cart. He was traveling with several dwarves and they passed us by in an instant.

I turned my head to watch them go. “Are there a lot of humans in Minnova?”

“Nah, just a few oddballs. There’s more of ‘em in tha capital.”

What surprised me the most though, was the sheer variety of bodies on display. Yes, they were mostly gnomes and dwarves, but they were nearly as varied as humans back on earth.

There were black and brown skinned dwarves, and some with pink or green hair. I saw one black-skinned warrior with a massive broadsword walk by who had a freaking afro for a beard. He met up with his party and high-fived a gnome who looked like the evil wizard from a kung-fu movie, complete with east Asian features and a fu-manchu. There were tall dwarves, short dwarves, dwarves in armor, dwarves in robes, and dwarves that were nearly naked. A dwarf had passed by wearing nothing but a loincloth and an incredible series of tattoos. I think he caught me staring, because he winked and wiggled his butt as he walked away.

“Balin,” I pitched my voice low and asked the burning question on my mind. “Why were all the dwarves in the mining camp white?” I’d gotten used to the basic whitebread beard combo from the mine, but I’d been sorely mistaken thinking that dwarves all looked like that.

Balin shrugged, “Crackian dwarves are mostly pale skinned with dark hair. The city has all sorts though.”

“Why would dwarves have dark skin when they live underground?” I watched the afro-bearded dwarf as he walked off into the distance.

“They’re from South Erden, near tha equator. Down there they actually live on top o’ tha mountains, and it gets hot. They’re mostly here for tha dungeon. Greentree is a good dungeon fer new adventurers.”

I thought back to Opal’s lessons.

“There are three inhabited continents, right? North Erden, South Erden, and Drakken?”

“Aye, though only dragons live on Drakken.”

“We focused on North Erden in my lessons... South Erden is mostly savannah, right?”

Balin nodded, “and full o’ some of tha scariest animals in tha world! Some of those beasties can even kill monsters!”

“Are there lions? A big yellow cat with a giant fuzzy mane?” I asked excitedly. I loved lions, and they took second place on my ‘coolest animal’ list to the all powerful moose.

“Sort of. There’s pinsirs, which look like big mountain cats. They got six legs, stripes, and a mohawk.”

“Whew, sounds nasty.” It wasn’t a lion, but it might do.

Balin clapped me on the back. “We’ve faced a stoneant swarm! Ya won’t find anythin’ nastier outside of a dungeon!”

We eventually hitched a ride from a passing cart full of faintly rotting cabbages. It was driven by a crotchety gnome named Gimbletack, no wonder he was crotchety, and he had been willing to give us a ride into town for a couple of coppers. Balin said it would be nice to walk, but I was itching to enter the city I’d only seen at a distance. Minnova was still a fair ways away, through gullies and over small hills, and I just didn’t want to be stuck walking all day. I enticed him with the prospect of seeing Annie even a few hours sooner.

Gimbletack was a terrible conversationalist. I tried coaxing some smalltalk out of him, but it always ended in disaster.

“How long have you been a cabbage farmer?”

[Translated from angry toothless gnome] “I have been cabbaging longer than you prime specimens of dwarven youth have been alive.”

“Wow. Is it fun?”

[Translated from angry toothless gnome] “It is about as fun as this conversation, you handsome and intelligent dwarf.”

“Do you take cabbages to any other cities, or just Minnova?”

[Translated from angry toothless gnome] “If you ask me any more questions I will most certainly make you walk.”

That was about the gist of any conversation, except with a lot more gummy swearing. Thankfully, the cart ate up the kilometers, and we arrived at the outskirts of Minnova well before evening. Balin fell asleep partway through, but I was barely even tired and I was too excited. We went up a small rise, and there it was: the city of Minnova.

Even from over a kilometer away, the walls rose up into the sky. They stretched for several kilometers to either side, and I could see hundreds of plumes of smoke from cook fires and forges. The center of the cavern was several hundred meters above us, and an enormous purple crystal embedded in it poured light into the cavern. A few clock towers and several steeples peeked over the wall; the bustling sounds of the city were audible even from this far away. I took a deep breath and inhaled the scent of civilization; it was glorious.

I shook Balin, who was gently snoring; he awoke with a yawn. “Hey, you, you’re finally awake! Look, we’re here!” I quipped.

“Aye, we made it, Pete.” Balin sat up and looked around. He smiled as his eyes fell on the approaching walls. “There it is, our new home. Tha city of Minnova.”

[Translated from angry toothless gnome] “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”