Chapter 291: Chapter 260 – Braumeister

"Dwarves as a people had always been fascinated with alcoholic drinks since ages untold by the history books. Legend has it that they even made the inventor of the first such brew their first king.

 

What we do know for certain is that they are responsible for the proliferation of the commonly found ales and meads of this day and age. While other races also had their own brews, none had reached the same sort of widespread popularity dwarven brews had.

 

Among the dwarves, they called the brewers who had made new palatable concoctions and other masters of their crafts Braumeisters. Some of these had even revolutionized the way drinks were made.

 

For instance, take the newest Braumeister, Orloff Himmelsbrau, who was ennobled a century ago. His rise to fame led in a change of doctrine. Previously undesired rot affinity mages suddenly became a hot commodity, where their services were sought after all of a sudden.

 

Few amongst them managed to replicate what the Braumeister had done, though, even to a lesser degree." - from a Socioeconomics lecture by Garth Wainwrought, Dean of the Levain Institute for Higher Learning.

As it turned our, finding the residence - if it could be called that - of Braumeister Orloff Himmelsbrau was an easy task. The very first dwarf Cal asked pointed out a direction, and even added a "Can't be missing it" to the end, and when she reached her destination, she understood why he said that.

 

The mansion of house Himmelsbrau was a large, three-story estate that sprawled the entire area it occupied. More than half the building housed walkways and ladders over several gigantic barrels, from which the unmistakable scent of brewing alcohol wafted out.

 

A line had already formed before the mansion's closed gates, one where a bored-looking guard either told people to return for an appointment at a later, noted time, or more often than not, just shooed people who thought themselves more important than they were with a bored look on her face.

 

Because of the efficiency of the guard, the long line moved fast. It was not ten minutes before it was her turn, and the guard looked upward - she had to, since Cal was almost two heads taller than her - and asked Cal to state her business with some actual curiosity in her voice.

 

In response Cal produced the signet ring Aideen gave her, along with the letter. The guard took one look at the ring before she yelled in dwarvish towards the inside. Moments later another, younger dwarf came over, to whom the guard handed over the letter while saying more words Cal didn't understand. She at least caught Orloff's name in them though, before the younger dwarf sprinted into the mansion proper.

 

While Cal managed to communicate well with the dwarves of Knallzog before, the language used there and the one used in the Kingdom Down Under were distant cousins at best.

 

The dwarves themselves understood each other well somehow even if they each spoke in their own language, something to do with low noises other races couldn't even perceive properly,but to foreigners who only learned one, the other language might as well be unintelligible.

 

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Cal had some familiarity with the language used in Knallzog, since the Kingdom had traded with the Empire often prior to the civil war. Merchants from Knallzog were not an odd sight, and she had met a few and picked up the tongue herself in her early years.

 

It had not taken long - less than ten minutes - before the younger dwarf returned and relayed a few whispered words to the female dwarf on guard duty. Cal had been asked to wait a bit on the side during that time, so she had not missed it.

 

"Ya may proceed," said the guard to her in badly accented common. Cal heard a small ruckus behind her as she ducked under the gate's somewhat too low opening, probably others in line complaining why she got to come in, only for them to be cut off by what she presumed was a rude scolding from the female guard.

 

At least the tone she used recalled one most people used when they said unsavory things about another's parentage.

 

The younger dwarf led her towards the side of the house with the gigantic barrels and all the elevated walkways. Dozens of dwarves were busy at work atop those rickety-looking - but likely magically reinforced - walkways, each one dressed in pristine white robes and with their hair and beard covered by a fine mesh of sorts.

 

Cal felt a magical barrier as she passed the entrance to the area, one that was meant to cleanse and sterilize people entering the region, she guessed. The young dwarf put on some gloves and passed her a set of the same white robes she saw the workers inside wear, as well as a mesh for her hair.

 

The robe was a bit short for her. Where for those dwarves it reached all the way down to their shins, for Cal it barely reached her thighs. She gathered her long braid and twirled it around before she put on the mesh to keep it in place, and noticed that the young dwarf had dressed similarly.

 

He led Cal towards the further end of the area, the deepest section. Cal marveled at the gigantic metal barrels likely used for brewing as they passed them by, each one easily two and a half stories tall, where the workers did their job from walkways poised over the top of the massive things.

 

Nearer the back were a quartet of smaller metal barrels, only ona and a half stories tall each, and notably more slender than those outside, with all sorts of gauges, levers, and devices she had no idea what for on their surfaces.

 

The sweet, intoxicating alcoholic scent was especially intense this far back, and had a different, more ethereal quality to it. Cal thought that unfinished brews had no business smelling that good, and it took her a moment to notice the dwarf who descended from one of the walkways and came to greet her.

 

It was a face she saw in Paradise many years ago, the wizened old face of the white-haired Braumeister, Orloff Himmelsbrau himself.

 

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