HC:Pacifist | Ch. 100 - The Crafted Hem (Patreon)

You've accepted [Skirting the Wool].

"I'm happy to help you, Mr. Thadeus." After a few seconds, Roth added, "Thank you."

"You're welcome, young man. Now get to work. I'll be there if you need me." Thadeus ran back to the shop.

Roth dove his hands into the box, pulled a handful of the material out, and started going through it. Whenever he encountered any significant piece of debris entangled into the wool or saw an end that seemed glued together or rough, he cut it off with Thadeus's small pair of scissors.

Roth started by pulling a whole fleece and looking for stains. There were different colors of stains in the wool. Some were yellow, others were brown, and others were deep red, almost black. It almost looked like blood, which made Roth apprehensive. He decided to ask Thadeus about it.

He found him busily looking at a ledger over his counter.

"Excuse me, Mr. Thadeus?"

"Hey there. How goes the skirting?"

"It goes well. Just a question, I noticed that there are different stains in the wool. Should I pull those out?"

"Well, it depends on the stain. Sometimes the wool can look slightly darker or grayer in places, but that will come right off when you wash it."

"What if it's a yellow stain?".

Thadeus frowned. "Well, that means that particular sheep wasn't very healthy. Any yellowish wool will be subpar. Skirt it."

"What if it's brown staining?"

"That's probably manure or dirt. If you see it's become hard and encrusted to the point of making it very difficult to remove, skirt it. If it's not so serious, it will wash off."

"What if it's a dark-red stain?"

"Dark-red?" Roth could see Thadeus Adam's apple move quickly as he gulped.

"Yes. It almost looks like blood. It's not blood, right?" tested Roth. Thadeus smiled reassuringly and put a hand on Roth's shoulders.

"It's probably dye. We mark the sheep with dye to tag them and more easily find them. That dye doesn't wash off easily. Skirt it." Roth sighed in relief. He had thought it was blood. Good thing that Thadeus was a man of principle who cared for his sheep.

"Anything else?"

"No, sir. Thank you. I'll be done in thirty minutes and return to get you."

"Very well!"

*

After removing any stained pieces of wool as Thadeus had instructed, Roth looked for any random pieces of debris that were stuck in the wool. Sometimes they were little pieces of hay, other times random pieces of dirt, and even some grain. He patiently went through it and pulled out any debris he could find.

After thirty more minutes of work, Roth proudly studied the results of his work. The wool still seemed brown and gray but was of a much lighter color after he was done. He happily went to the storefront to look for his mentor.

Thadeus promptly came to the back of the store and examined Roth's work. "Very good, very good. It looks much better now, doesn't it?" Roth nodded.

"You did very well, but something you can keep in mind for next time is to remove any strands that are too short. The fleece should be consistent all the way around. It makes spinning it easier. If you find any bits shorter than most of the body, place them in that box. We can then find similar trimmings from other fleeces and use them for other things. Got it?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Good. Now, I'm going to teach you how to wash wool."

Chain quest activated: [Skirt the Wool] has changed to [Wash the Wool].

Wash the Wool (Common)

After removing debris from sheep's wool, it's time to learn how to wash it.

Quest objectives: Wash the wool in the box and report to Thadeus.

It was a chain quest. Nice. Roth took him to another corner of the workshop. Like the other workshops, Roth was surprised at how much space it took. When you walked the streets in the commercial district, all you saw was the shopfront. But once he had seen some of the warehouses in the back of the shop, Roth realized these were deceptively spacious.

Thadeus placed all of the wool fleeces that Roth had skirted onto a little cart and asked Roth to push it as he followed after him. Roth suddenly felt like he was in the supermarket shopping with his father. Roth felt a catch in his throat at the thought of his late father. Even if he hoped to see his mother again, there was no way he could ever see his father again. Troubled by dark thoughts, Roth followed after Thadeus past the racks of wool and was pulled from his misery by the sound of a distant bleat.

"Baaa," it was faint, but it wasn't far. It seemed to be on the other side of the door.

"Was that a sheep?" asked Roth curiously.

"Yes. Although we buy some of the wool from other producers, we also produce some right here." Roth paused, wondering about what Thadeus was telling him.

"Aren't sheep supposed to be outside?"

Thadeus took a deep breath in front of Roth. As someone with anger management issues, Roth recognized the signs of annoyance in his mentor. His shoulders and neck were stiff, and his fists were closed. Why were these questions annoying him? Was he talking too much?

"We do have pastures outside of the city's walls, but we bring them in to shear them. They'll be back to their green pastures soon." His voice didn't match the body language. He was keeping his voice neutral. Roth looked back at the door from where the sound had seemed to come from.

"Can we go see it?"

Thadeus stopped suddenly and turned back to face Roth. "Listen, young man. You're here to work. I'm not sure I appreciate all these questions. If you can't stick to doing what I ask, there's no point in having your services." Roth gulped.

"Sure. Sorry." Sighing, Thadeus put on his professional smile once again and resumed his march. Roth was having a funny feeling about this. Thadeus took him to a side chamber with a tiled floor as if it were a bathroom or a kitchen. There were multiple faucets on the sides of the wall and piles of buckets off to a corner. At the center was a big pot, and to the sides, there were several tubs.

"This is where you'll wash the wool. You have a small amount of wool here, so the buckets will be just fine." Thadeus grabbed one of the buckets and took it next to the faucets. "You'll get hot water from these. Fill the buckets. I think fifteen will be enough. Then, you separate the fleece into bits like this and soak it in the water. Use this little stick to get the wool under there. But while putting into the bucket, and soaking it, agitate it as little as possible. Got it?"

Roth nodded.

"What this will do is that it will help clean off some of the smaller debris and will separate the lanolin from the wool."

"What is lanolin?"

"It's a natural oil sheep produce. It's very good for the skin," said Thadeus while pointing at his face. Roth grimaced at the awkwardness of this NPC. His skin looked normal. What was special about it? "Lanolin is precious, so once you're done washing the wool, dump the bucket's content into that large vat at the center."

"I get it. How long should the wool soak?"

"20 to 25 minutes." Thadeus looked at his wristwatch and raised his eyebrows. "Oh my. I got distracted. I have a supplier who said he'd come over. I'll come back after half an hour. Alright?" Thadeus ran off. As soon as Thadeus ran off, Roth set a timer on his system for 30 minutes.

He hurriedly started filling each of the buckets and pulled apart the fleece into different parts, just like Thadeus had done. Then, he put each fleece in its bucket. Oil started coming to the surface as the wool came in contact with the hot water. That was probably the lanolin. The oil brought with it small pieces of dirt and debris and held them on the surface, away from the fleece. How about that? It really worked.

Roth looked at the timer. He'd done everything in under 5 minutes. All he could do now was wait for the wool to soak. He walked out of the door and peeked around the corner, waiting to see if there was anyone in the warehouse. All was silent. Roth ran toward the source of the bleat he had heard earlier. He found it was unlocked.

Roth opened it, revealing a staircase leading down to a dark basement. Roth felt a chill down his spine. He wasn't sure if this was correct or not, but then he heard another distant bleat. There were sheep down here. Roth looked back at the warehouse and walked down the stairs.

Downstairs, Roth could hear Thadeus' voice. Hadn't he said that he was meeting a supplier down here?

"...if it comes out stained? I can't use wool such as this!?"

Roth slowed down his steps and tried to be as silent as possible.

"When stressed, sheep become more susceptible to parasites and disease, sir. We're still trying to balance..."

"I don't care if they're stressed!" Thadeus' voice was shrill and sharp. All the pleasantness that Roth had heard in him wasn't there. He was unrecognizable. "Give them antidepressants or hallucinogens or something."

"But, sir, that is going to increase production costs."

Roth tried peeking around the corner, but a big piece of machinery was blocking his view. He took a deep breath. It was time to try his new skill.

Camouflage!

Roth's skin became transparent. He put his hands before his eyes and saw a slight haziness. Good thing this tunnel wasn't well-lit. The darkness would help him go unnoticed. Roth slowly went around the corner and tried to stick as much as possible to the darkness and shadows. Even though Thadeus was a tailor, he was still a level 65 NPC, and Roth wasn't sure how easily he'd see through his disguise.

Roth checked the timer. If he didn't attack nor was attacked, he could stay invisible for 10 minutes. It would be more than enough to check things out. Roth made it slowly but steadily to the machine and peeked. For the first time, he could finally take a good look.

This was a lab of some kind. There were twenty sheep tightly held in cages. Thick bands of leather kept them immobilized, and multiple IV tubes were plugged into them. Some of them had a very small coat of fur, and Roth felt disgust at the amount of different scars on the poor animals' skin. They probably had been sheared recently and it looked like the shearer had done a terrible barbaric job.

The most outstanding sheep, though, looked like living balls of wool. Even though Roth was no shepherd, nor did he have any experience with sheep, he could tell right away that the amount of wool the sheep had was unnatural. The wool was so thick, and there was so much of it, that the animal's head and legs disappeared into it. They were doing something to the animals.

"... I don't think you give us enough credit, sir. Thanks to our work, we've helped you get a 1000% yield from the sheep."

"If I have to remove a tenth of the wool away because they are unhappy, I'm getting less profit. Fix this! You Beanies already suck me dry as it is. I don't want my profit margin to suffer unnecessarily. I'll go to the Raviolis or the Gazpachos if you don't do anything. Or worse, I'll go to the Peace Corps." The man he talked to was bald and wore a white lab coat. That was all that Roth could see from here.

"Haha. Good luck trying the Peace Corps. It'll be suicide. After all, you're the one who came to us in the first place."

Chain quest activated: [Wash the Wool] has been changed to [Entanglement].

Entanglement (Uncommon)

When learning to become a tailor, you've discovered that Thadeus uses experimental chemicals to force sheep to produce more wool. You're outraged by the animal cruelty that you see.

Quest objectives: Free the sheep and take them somewhere safe.

"Make sure that you don't cut them when you shear them. One of the worker boys I hired for the day noticed the blood in the fleeces."

Roth felt the anger build up in his chest. The dark-red stains on the fleeces. It had been blood! Thadeus was lying to him.

Ch. 99 - A Matter of Principle

INDEX

Ch. 101 - Raid