Andrastane fire. The fire of the gods.
That's what I heard them call it, as it flickered and fell below a heaving cask
of such a mundane yet astringent liquid as Quintarian whiskey. The Brewmasters
all knew the power the fire held - yet still - they allowed the Gutter Boys to
work in such close proximity.
It was our job to scrub the thick,
malodorous molasses from the underside of the barrels: to be used in tarring
the barges that delivered the various spirits and liquids that found their
birthplace in Brewtown. The flow of the various brew pits would end up as far
north as the Whispering White Peak and as far south as Allingtown Bay - yet
throughout - it was consumed in the same fashion: heartily, with good company
and beside a considerably subtler flame than Andrastane.
A flame of Andrastane, though similar at a
glance to a regular flame, danced in a more decided fashion. It jumped and
flickered of course, yet seemingly within a predetermined space. On passing,
the draft would cause the flame to billow aside, yet only to a very specific
point, as if halted by something I had always been unable to see. Of course,
the Brewmasters never shared their secrets outside their guilds, but even I
wasn’t completely blind to the power they wielded. Sorcery quite obviously
played a part in the containment of the flame and as a result, I was yet to
witness the power the flame itself held.
As I apathetically stooped through the
dense heat to Barrel 27, I immediately noticed an unharmonious change in what
was usually a mundane and frankly unnoticeable task. Though I'd spent the last
nineteen years under these barrels, I'd developed a numbness to any sort of
visual or audible stimuli the gutter could offer me. The only occurrence that
seized my attention on a daily basis, was the bellowing of the drunken
Brewmasters, audibly crippling Gutter Boys for not working hard enough.
On reaching the flame below Barrel 27, it
seemed to grow as if raising in an oven, and in emulating the baking of a loaf
it gradually shifted its colouring. The orange flame deepened to a sickening,
tainted black, as the oily tongues now licked the edges of their prison, and
their whispers grew to screams. At the lip of the gutter, the Brewmaster of
Barrel 27 lay in a drunken coma after sampling that little bit too much of his
own produce.
There was nothing to be done. If any other
Brewmaster ceased to tend their flame, it would have the exact same outcome,
exacerbating the already catastrophic situation I was now presented with.
Alarms now the only things blazing in my brain, I found the word, 'Run!' forcing its way from my lips as I
searched for a vessel to tame the fire.
As I scrambled back to the flame with my
newly acquired tea pot/fire suffocation implement, all went quiet. Not a single soul was present. The
flame now billowing to epic proportions and engulfing my person.
Silence.
A silence so loud, not even my harrowed,
guttural screams could escape.
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