Alric could put it off no longer. If nothing else, he had to clean the shelves. He had acquired a lot of bedsheets from Moreen for many purposes, to quote Moreen, “You can never have enough cloth.” Alric was testing this theory, but the warehouse was so dusty that he had kept them tucked safely in his item box instead, where they could not immediately become worse. With a sigh, he stood and moved toward the larger space.

  He had only taken a few steps when a loud, hollow banging echoed through the warehouse. He paused, then grinned. A distraction. Any excuse would do, especially one that arrived with noise and demanded attention.

  He hurried to the wide loading doors and pulled them open to find a large wagon waiting just outside. Two horses stood at the front, relaxed, tails flicking lazily as they surveyed the nearby buildings with the professional indifference of creatures who had seen warehouses before and expected nothing good from them. Behind the wagon, a middle-aged man turned to face him, his skin deeply marked by sun and years.

  “Ya ordered grain?” the man asked, hooking a thumb toward the back.

  The wagon lacked anything resembling a tailgate. Alric had to climb onto a narrow step that felt optimistically placed, requiring a brief and undignified scramble that suggested the wagon had been designed by someone who believed effort built character. Once up, he peered inside.

  Large burlap sacks were stacked tightly together, the air thick with the warm, dry scent of grain. He was expecting two more loads like this one. It felt like a great deal, though he knew from experience how quickly grain vanished once work truly began, usually accompanied by complaints.

  He hesitated, then decided this was as good a time as any to test the limits of his item box.

  He raised his hand and focused.

  The sensation that followed was deeply unsettling. It was oddly satisfying in the way drinking bubble tea through a straw was satisfying, resistance, then sudden give, as stubborn masses yielded one by one. Bag after bag vanished into the box, but as they did, Alric felt something change.

  A weight settled somewhere deeper than muscle or bone.

  It wasn’t painful. It wasn’t even unpleasant. It was simply different. If he were forced to describe it, it would be like wearing one thick sock and one thin one. Either pair on its own was fine. It was the mismatch that his body of suddenly swapping was something he couldn’t quite ignore, and that his mind kept poking at, just to be sure.

  When the last sack disappeared, the wagon stood empty.

  Alric exhaled slowly and stepped back down.

  The merchant stared into the wagon, then into the warehouse, then back at Alric. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and finally settled on a long, careful look, as if considering whether this was a good story or a bad one.

  “…Well,” the man said at last. “That’s saved me a bad back.”

  Alric smiled faintly. “Thank you for the delivery.”

  The man nodded, still looking mildly haunted, climbed back onto his wagon, and drove off without another word, leaving behind the uneasy feeling that he would be telling this story later, and no one would believe him.

  Alric walked back into the warehouse feeling slightly different. He wasn’t sure what to make of the sense of weight that wasn’t. He figured he would get used to it. He was about to lock the doors, then decided to leave them open, on the grounds that locking things was for later, when he understood what was going on.

  Heading to the shelves, he no longer had an excuse. He filled a bucket from the well and carried it inside. Taking one of the bedsheets, he dunked it into the bucket, then proceeded to wipe down the shelves. The more he worked, the more futile it felt. The dust came off the shelves, yes, but the floor underneath turned muddy, as if the warehouse were quietly pointing out that this was not how it preferred to be cleaned. He sighed, but continued as best he could. Eventually, the shelves at least felt acceptable, which was a category he was learning to respect.

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  He filled his copper cooking pots with water and paused, noting that even the well water wasn’t quite clear. He grimaced. He now had a new problem, which appeared to be the theme of the day. He needed to press on, however. He took out the magical heating stones. He had bought four, and they were his most expensive purchase so far, which meant they would almost certainly try to kill him if mishandled.

  He put cloth into the pots, pulled on gloves, transferred mana to a stone, and dropped it in as it began to heat and fizzle. He observed that the stone boiled water faster than a kettle, which was reassuring in the same way that discovering something bites faster than expected can be reassuring, provided it does not bite you.

  When he tried to return the heating stone to his item box, he had to concentrate hard before it eventually popped out of the water. The effort made Alric think that if he did this too often, he would get a headache. He would need a pair of tongs from the dwarf next, assuming his hands survived until then.

  Still using the gloves, he took the pots outside, carrying them awkwardly, dumped the hot water, and began to hang the bedsheets between the shelves, only burning his arm once during the process, which he considered a small but meaningful victory.

  He looked at the result. The sheets hung open. He retrieved a sack of grain. Draping a bedsheet over a pot, he poured the sack in. He realised too late that it was full of sticks and other debris, which suggested that nature had been involved in grain production longer than he had. Sighing, he took this outside and dug through the grain, removing the worst of it. He poured well water over it and tied the bedsheet closed.

  He then placed the bundled grain, a teabag as he thought of it, onto one of the draped sheets to germinate. It should be done in a day or two.

  He stretched. Moving to his room, he began digging through the grain bags one by one, removing sticks, debris and what had to be horse dung.

  He needed sixteen. When he reached nine, he decided cleaning was better than this, which was saying something. He made more teabags and filled one of the shelved sections of the warehouse. Despite his aching back, he did the other side too, so it was done. He moved over to the casks.

  Keep it clean and do it with passion.

  These were the wise words he’d heard from a brewmaster once, when he’d gone to a craft brew meet with his college friends. They were annoying words right now, largely because they were correct, as he looked down at his casks.

  He brought over the pot of boiling water he’d prepared for this. Looking over the casks, he saw a new problem, which at this point felt less like bad luck and more like a schedule.

  The pots were large and deep, which made them heavy and unwieldy. He let out a sigh. Putting on his gloves, he managed to pour some of the boiled water into the casks’ small bung holes, only burning himself twice more. Once sealed with bungs, he rolled them around. He repeated the process several times, only burning himself one more time, which suggested he was learning.

  He added funnels and tongs to the growing list of problems he would need to talk to Stromni about.

  Speaking of Stromni, he heard a voice from the wagon entrance. “Ho! Alric, ya here?”

  “Here,” Alric responded from where he was rolling a cask, which had begun to feel like his natural position.

  Stromni entered, noting the hung sheets and bundled grain. He let out a low whistle. “That’s a lot o’ grain there, lad,” he said, looking over the many teabags. “I brought ya your weird tool, though.” He held up the strangely bent piece of copper.

  Alric’s eyes lit up. Taking it, he studied the shape. Yes, this would work. It would work perfectly, which was often a dangerous thought.

  “Before you get excited, Alric, I want to see how this works,” Stromni said, folding his arms.

  Alric nodded. He dipped the device into the water pot, filling one side of the S, then lifted it so Stromni could see.

  “Alright. You’ve seen how bubbles come out of beer, right? So look at this.”

  Alric crouched and put his mouth to the lower opening, blowing into it. He couldn’t see the bubbles, but water splashed into his face, which told him everything he needed to know and several things he did not.

  “And so?” Stromni asked sceptically. “What’s beer bubbles got to do with it?”

  Alric nodded and set the device onto a nearby cask, covering the bung hole completely.

  “If I seal this bottom part with wax, the bubbles can escape through the water, but the water stops anything else from getting in,” he said with a grin.

  Comprehension dawned on Stromni’s face. “Ahh. So the beer can burp, but no one can fart in it. I think I understand.” He paused, then frowned. “But lad, don’t you want the outside getting into your beer? Everyone I know uses open vats. Adds flavour, I think.”

  Alric had to stop laughing, the fart analogy hitting him harder than it should have. Wiping a tear away, he shook his head. “Not my beer. I want to control what goes in.”

  The dwarf shrugged, clearly unsure what to make of that, but prepared to be impressed later if necessary.

  “Well, if that’s it, lad,” Stromni said, turning slightly.

  “I need about five more of these things that stop farts,” Alric said quickly, “and I need two other things too.”

  It took many drawings, but Alric managed to convey the idea of tongs and a funnel. Stromni grew annoyed when it became clear that funnels already existed, just under a different name, and that Alric was insisting on reinventing them anyway.

  The dwarf shook his head. “Ya always need the strangest things, Alric. Your beer better deliver,” he said, giving him a sceptical look.

  Alric shrugged as he walked the dwarf out, which felt like the correct response to both dwarves and scepticism.

  Looking outside, he saw it was late. He decided he had done enough for one day. He ate some plain stew and went to sleep.