CHAPTER 68: Dwarves and their sandals
Hana and I realised we needed better shoes for ourselves. Since we returned from Shimmerstal we needed more casual pairs of shoes, and our existing ones could probably do with a bit of repair. Cobblers made new shoes to order, and the initial measurement was necessary as a three-part process of purchasing. The second part required pre-fitting where the uncomplete shoe was checked for size correctness and then the final fit and payment. In Obon, materials were a bit difficult to come by and for that reason shoes were more expensive.
Our resident cobbler was in a small shop not too far from the Dryad. Hana and I were patiently waiting for the first measurement when I overheard a conversation between the store owner and a customer going for their final fit.
“I’ve never seen so many orders from the dwarves for sandals. I received thirty orders for female sandals, and I must deliver in two months!”
“Really. Is that something they normally buy?”
“No, they have some serious drawbacks about their hairy feet, and they usually buy boots or shoes, but never sandals. Also, there’s no dwarves here in Obon yet the demand is so severe they sent a courier from Shimmerstal risking life and limb to get here through the Blister Oak Forest.”
“But you’re okay with receiving the business though?”
“It’s finding the raw materials and then making all those sandals that’s the issue, there’s no way that I am going to make a profit if I am going to have to order in from the capital. I may have to turn down the order and refer them back to the capital the way things are going.”
It was a moment of revelation for me. The sudden order of safety razors from the dwarves suddenly made sense. It turned out that dwarves had a thing about the hair on their feet, they were particularly sensitive to it and didn’t like others shaving them. I discovered later that you can call dwarves a lot of names, just don’t mention their hairy feet. It’s a quick way to die. Having the new type of razors meant that they could safely and anonymously shave the hair off their feet without needing help, unfortunately dwarf physiology made it difficult to reach their own feet and using a knife blade was just not an option. Dwarves preferred to wear closed shoes for that reason. The introduction of the safety razor was going to set off a revolution once I released the design to them. I couldn’t help but laugh manically.
“Bwhahaha.”
“Are you okay?”
Asked a concerned Hana.
“Yep, just fine. Only planning my future profits.”
She admonished me, obviously taking licence at my quip.
That was a game changer. It meant anything could be reproduced meeting those requirements Ara mentioned. “Hey Hana. I can make those shoes with a creation core by just adding the materials and a design. What’s your thoughts on that?”
Hana thought for a moment.
“How do you sometimes say it? It would be cool. But I can’t help wondering if these people would suffer as a result?”
Hana was talking about the cobbler. If I could make shoes cheaper than the cobbler, I could easily undercut him. But at the same time, I would be removing his expertise and experience from the market, and I didn’t want to do that. It would hurt people if I railroaded the existing system and would do more harm than good. Eventually there would be a world where only certain makes of shoes could be found and anything else would costs far more than most could afford because cobblers were that rare.
I guess that could go for anything. I needed to rethink what impact a creation core would have on society if I could ever reproduce them. Olivia’s comments to me a short while ago about destroying existing economies came to mind.
That could change a lot of things for Obon. The key would be to make it easier for someone like the cobbler to make shoes by using the core, but to still apply his skill in making them. Perhaps the first model had to be a physical template on which future ones could be based.
The cobbler was a small, rounded man who looked the sort of person who was generally happy with life. Certainly, Obon hadn’t been the boon town he might have hoped for, but he seemed content. When he had finished with Hana I asked him a question.
“I must apologise but I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with your previous customer. How many sandals do you require for the dwarves?”
“No, please don’t mind it. It plagues me that I’m expected by the cobbler guild to produce a ridiculous fifty pairs of sandals. I’d have to workday and night to supply them.”
“Would your guild accept more if it were possible?”
Hana asked, suddenly interested in the man’s plight. My question to her earlier about making shoes with my creation core may have led to her understanding the purpose of my question.
“They didn’t state implicitly, but I suspect any number of shoes would be acceptable.”
“We can help you.”
“Huh?”
“Huh?”
I was as flabbergasted as the cobbler. It was my intention to do business, but I didn’t expect Hana to take the lead. Come to think of it, didn’t Hana do the negotiations with the old lady selling second-hand clothes in Shimmerstal? I decided to take a back seat and watch Hana do the talking.
She managed to talk the man into accepting three hundred sandals at one gold each. He would provide us with an example of the three sizes he wanted, and we would produce one hundred sandals of each size. I didn’t know what to say except to include the thread we needed to make three hundred sandals. And like that, we committed to making sandals for the dwarves within sixty days’ time. He was happy to provide us with a deposit to help us secure the materials, but we waived the right, after all I had more than enough bullfrog hide to make the sandals. The only issue we had to resolve later was how we were going to slaughter those bullfrogs still fresh in my transfer storage? I looked at Hana.
“We need people to help us to slaughter those bullfrogs.”
“What about Tomu? I bet he knows a few people around town.”
“You really want us to use him for that?”
“Have anyone else in mind then?”
She had me there. When we found Tomu, he and a group of his friends were sitting in the same disused porch when I found him the first time I arrived in Obon.
“Hi Tomu. Would you like some work?”
“Why should we work for you?”
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Said one boy.
“Yeah, why should we?”
Said another just as Hana stepped forward. She spoke in a clear and malevolent voice focused on Tomu’s friends.
“He wasn’t talking to you.”
Their bravado left them like rats abandoning a sinking ship. Heck, Hana’s presence was even enough to intimidate me, never mind them. Tomu however, was smiling ear to ear. He had just been elevated in the presence of his friends. He nodded eagerly so I explained.
“I have some marsh bullfrogs that need slaughtering, can you find people before tomorrow that are up to the task?”
“Will you supply the knives for the job, and can the people keep them?”
Tomu knew I was an apprentice blacksmith with access to metal and knives. His question was a wise one.
“Very well, I’ll supply ten good quality knives.”
His eyes widened. That was a lot of knives, people would no doubt be interested and other than the money it would be a good attractant to the job.
“How much for each frog?”
He had no idea about how big those animals were, so determining a cost would be guessing.
“Meet me tomorrow morning, first light at the slaughtering area outside the dungeon. Bring as many people as you can. We can agree to a price there.”
He seemed particularly pleased with that and ran off with his friends to start congregating his labour force.
With Hana in tow, I headed out of town towards the dungeon. After an hour’s walk we arrived there. It looked like a low, nondescript hill that no one would look at twice except that it was the only hill in the entire region. We avoided the front entrance and headed straight for the eastern side of the hill where judging by the dry, scattered bones we had reached the slaughtering place.
“Hana, I have no idea what I need for a slaughterhouse and tannery?”
Come to think of it, I may not need to cure the skin, only put it into a useable state so that it could fit into the core. I’m sure Ara would need more
“You really didn’t think too well about this did you?”
“Well, you know me. I tend to be a little reactive with things.”
I imagine you would need a covered area to stay out of this sun, and a hard floor for better drainage and to wash and clean the floor better. Hooks to hang up carcasses for processing and a good supply of water to wash with, buckets to store water, and knives to slaughter with. Then having an enclosed storage area to hang pieces of slaughtered meat would be good.”
“Thanks Hana, you saved me.”
“Baka.”
My thoughts however were already far away. I needed to create a communal slaughterhouse first.
My civil skills were improving and as a result I raised a slaughterhouse in only a couple of hours. It didn’t have any complicated structures and it was just big enough to house a few carcasses at a time, five frogs perhaps? It needed a slightly slanted roof, supported by pillars and an area large enough to hold a few Bullfrog carcasses. It also had hooks for hanging meat and making it easier for processing and a solid floor for working on. I created an underground water storage unit while using the water I collected from Wildemere basecamp to supply water. There was enough water to last a long while still. I really missed that place, just not the drama in getting there.
Within three hours, I completed everything along with the iron buckets, hooks and some very sharp knives made by mixing some steel with a little Orichalcum to stop them rusting and keeping a good sharp edge. Heck, I even made a worker’s latrine along with sealed long drop and an offal processing point.
With that all done I decided to focus on something different. I already knew that Ara could separate out the Mustite from the marsh iron by programming the creation core. I could simply throw the pieces of iron onto the creation core, put some EE or marsh stones onto it, then let the core separate out the metals. But I wanted to practice my skills a little and to do an experiment.
I emptied about a ton of marsh-iron ore onto the ground a distance away from the slaughterhouse. Using transmutation and then applying a new flame skill, baked shaped forms into ground beforehand. I then slowly melted my marsh iron ore into the forms. I needed to keep the heat going for as long as possible and to do that I surrounded my forms with a wind barrier and added carbon dioxide from the outside atmosphere to act as an additional warm blanket while reducing oxidation. It worked wonderfully, making the process far more efficient on my EE. I could at least say I learned something from global warming.
Within an hour I had about twenty large and still cooling marsh iron ore ingots. I stored them in my transfer storage, I would allow them to cool another time. Transfer storage froze time relative to me as opposed to my pocket dimension storage that allowed time to progress inside it. That aside, there was one more thing I wanted to build while we were there. My attention, drawn to the quiet figure of Hana who had been patiently sitting there watching me all the while. I was a little concerned for her, although I was enjoying myself exploring, I felt that she didn’t have much to do during those times. She never once complained about the things I did. Ever since the time at the mesa where we were forced to fight the monsters, Hana was less aggressive towards me. I started enjoying her company, I looked forward to seeing her again, even if she was only a little distance from me.
When early the next morning we arrived with Karato and Olivia on the cart at the new slaughterhouse, he suddenly exclaimed when he noticed my new constructions.
“Eh? I don’t remember buildings here. Who built this?”
Hana’s rolled her eyes towards me in an exaggerated way.
“About that…”
I said while rubbing my head.
“Never mind, I got it.”
He knew exactly what Hana implied. Half an hour later my heads-up indicated that Tomu and his company of fellow slaughterers nearly arrived. My heads-up was full of green dots. Tomu looked like the leader of a band procession with half the town trailing behind him. All he needed then was an oompah band to back him up. Twenty-seven people arrived, half of them looked well into their eighties and nineties. I confess I initially doubted the proficiency of those elderly folk, I mean just how were they going to handle those massive Bullfrogs? When I released five Bullfrogs out of their storage, they slid onto the slaughterhouse floor with all the marsh water they originally came with. The eclectic group arrived and surrounded the carcasses, chatting excitedly at the sight of the wet amphibians. I shouted in a loud voice above the din.
“Does anyone here know how to slaughter these Bullfrogs?”
Thankfully, one of the granddad’s slaughtered a Bullfrog many years ago in his youth as part of a quest to retrieve bullfrog hides. He was at least able to supply guidance to the rest of the team on the best way to go forward. They were able to preserve a lot of the meat and bring it back to Obon, of course they didn’t have the plague of monsters to bother them like they do now. The granddad’s knowledge of slaughtering would be invaluable to us. The grannies poked the carcass like sharks circling around their prey, prodding and touching to test the freshness of the meat. We haggled a price for skinning the Bullfrogs and slaughtering them, Tomu turned out to be a proficient negotiator in the process. Slaughtering a Bullfrog would normally cost one silver per person for each Bullfrog. To keep things easy for me, I decided to give Tomu the meat from one of every five slaughtered Bullfrogs as payment for everyone’s work. Between them, Tomu could sort out who got what of the Bullfrog. Even then, the value of the meat would far surpass the cost of their labour. Considering that, I requested the remaining four bullfrogs be butchered into nice practical pieces and a third of the meat cooked into decent meals. I would supply the spices, luckily I had purchased enough from Shimmerstal, although I doubted I would have much left afterwards. I couldn’t but sigh, I never expected I would use all those expensive spices I purchased that quickly. Cooking would take more than a few days. For each batch of bullfrogs I delivered every five days they were going to be busy for at least two moon cycles processing them. As my agreed bonus, those who slaughtered the Bullfrogs over the moon cycles could keep their knives when all was done. Just the price of my knives would be worth all the effort and, over the coming days, finding willing workers was the least of Tomu’s problems.
All arrangements went through Tomu and I fully supported him. If anyone had issues with that, or gave Tomu any problems, they were free to leave. Sorry Tomu, I really put you out there. One day I would make it up to you if you survived.
Bullfrog meat that fresh was an expensive delicacy. The fresh meat would sell for a high price, but since it only had a shelf life of only three days, a limited amount sold locally. Merchants would usually purchase the rest of the cured meat, a well sought-after commodity, especially amongst the nobility.
However, I had a small surprise for them in the form of a gift. I pointed to a large, enclosed building next door three times the size of the slaughterhouse.
“Let’s enter that warehouse, I have something to show you all.”
The building was two storeys’ high and the only way to access the interior lay through a small hole in the roof. A broad staircase next to the building led up to the roof and from the hole in the roof, stairs on the inside led downwards. Once inside there was dim light shafts coming in through small air holes high up on the walls. In the darkness large chunks of ice lay on the floor, hinting at the building’s important function. It was a massive cold room. Unseen to everyone were the numerous marsh stones embedded inside the floor. The stones had a cooling attribute and would maintain a constant freezing temperature. Once the temperature inside the building stabilized, I expected the EE consumption to be minimal. Then I only needed to visit there every few cycles to replenish the EE in the marsh stones.
Another hidden aspect to the building was the cellular structure of the floor, roof and walls that trapped air pockets, preventing any cold loss or heat ingress. For Obon it was a major world class technological advancement. From my perspective, I just built the world’s biggest ice cream fridge.