038

--TheirWorld--

Following Gorseth’s instructions, Guin found a small cottage with a charming thatched roof. A creaking signpost indicated that it was, indeed, the leather worker’s cottage, with the name ‘Hoth’s Leather’ scrawled in block print. It was calm, and quaint, and felt just a bit out of place in the woods; she could imagine it being very picturesque in a wide, open meadow. An orange and black cat sat up on the roof, letting out a large yawn as a butterfly landed on its nose.

Hoth — or the man that she was assuming was Hoth — was an older man. Probably in his seventies or eighties. Guin found him sitting on one of a couple of rocking chairs outside on the porch, skins hanging all around it. The man sat solemnly, smoking a pipe and watching the world go by with a blank stare. He was skinny; so skinny, that he might have passed as a skeleton, but his eyes were bright in his hollowed face, amidst mottled skin and sagging wrinkles. His long, frazzled white hair looked to be thinning, though it was tied back into a low ponytail, and his beard was still full; busy, but well trimmed.

Though his stare seemed to be directed elsewhere, it didn’t take him long to look up at her as she approached him. Despite his elderly appearance, there was a youthfulness to his grey-blue eyes that seemed to be asking why she was there.

“Hello,” she bowed nervously. “Are you Hoth, the Leatherworker?” The old man raised an eyebrow at her and directed her to sit on a chair next to him. She did so, and introduced herself. “I was sent to you by Hunter Gorseth. I want to gain leatherworking skill. He said that you were the person to talk to.”

While she was talking, Hoth’s eyes had moved to her cloak. Pipe in hand, he pointed.

“M-My cloak?” she asked. He nodded. Though a little unsure, Guin took the cloak off and handed it to him. Ever so gently, he lifted it from her hands and looked it over, tsk-ing as his wrinkled hands ran over the soft of Amikavi’s fur. “What’s wrong with it?”

Hoth sighed, and pushed himself out of his rocking chair. He plopped the cloak back on her head before sticking his pipe in his mouth and heading off inside the cottage.

“Um, sir?” Guin went quickly, but she was silenced with a wave of his hand, indicating that she should follow him inside.

The walls were covered with various wares and leather goods. A rack of skins and furs was over in one corner, next to a large chest of small drawers. On the back wall, shelves were filled with tools and other goods. In the center of the room was a large wooden countertop with several containers of tools, nicknacks, and marble slates.

Guin stared in wonder at the many projects that she assumed had been done by Hoth himself. Gorseth had made it sound like Hoth was a practical sort of man, that his goods were simple but useful. This assumption had been wrong.

Thin shirts, thicker armor pieces, quivers, bracers, sheaths, finger tabs — all things that she could easily see the other hunters walking in and picking up before going out on a hunt. What really struck her, however, was the perfect, magnificent designs and patterns on each. From big to small, simple to intricate, it was all art.

“These are amazing!” Guin expressed, looking at just a handful that were lined up on a shelf. Liorax appeared on her shoulder, and pushed off to take a look for himself. The old man, however, didn’t appear to care what she thought.

Instead, he shoved a thick piece of leather in her face and motioned for her to go to the counter, where he knocked on one of the thick slabs of marble. He set himself up with several kinds of tools in a neat fashion, then did the same for her. Between them he placed a bowl of water and pointed to her, then to his eyes, then to the leather in front of her. Understanding that she was to watch, Guin nodded, and observed.

Hoth began his work by cutting the leather into shape, then wetting it, then used several different tools and components to make a basic belt with a simple pattern. It was truly a simple thing, and took him only moments to craft — though watching him was like watching birds fly or deer run; naturally graceful and beautiful to see.

Her own attempt, however, was not quite so successful. Still, it was far simpler a process than she expected, and with Hoth’s guidance, she produced something useable, if not beautiful. And as she finished, her UI sounded off:

>

The old man inspected her work with his mouth set into a firm frown, though he seemed to accept in the end. Next, he crafted a simple leather bag and instructed her to do the same. Once again, she marveled at the flow of the steps and process he proceeded at, while ultimately fumbling at her own work, passing at a relatively low mark, by her guess. Still, progress was made. After the bag came a bracer with a much more intricate design. Each of the recipes were copied into a crafting book that she had gained access to along with the skill.

Reproducing the last of the projects to his satisfaction, he then gave her a quest to make eight of each. Similar to the skinning quest she had before, finishing the quest through Hoth would unlock access to the intermediate skill.

Seeming to be no longer interested in furthering her education, Hoth left her to it, and went back outside. This suiting her just fine. Guin took out the large number of pelts and leathers that she had acquired thanks to her hunting from earlier and set them on the worktable.

Luckily, the game allowed her to skip the tanning phase, and even gave her the option of using the skins with or without fur without the hassle of doing it herself. It was likely, too, that Hoth benefited from this system earlier. She knew that there were quality benefits if she did do each step by hand, but she had no desire to get caught up in a genuine crafting or harvesting class as she had only so many hours in a day, and each step could take up to many days to complete. So, she pulled them out, each in turn, and set herself up.

It took her very little time to finish thanks to those mechanics. With each accomplished craft, the faster she got, and she herself saw noticeable differences in the quality that she produced. In fact, she quite enjoyed it. While skinning was really a means to an end for her at the moment, she enjoyed the creative energy that she spent on the leather projects — so much so, that she probably spent far more time adding designs to each piece than she should have.

“Liorax,” Guin went, looking up to see the fox staring a piece of leather armor. “What are you doing over there?”

For a moment, the fox spirit was silent, then, he looked back at her with a grin. “Have you accomplished your mission, Candidate?”

“Stop calling me that,” Guin told him.

“Shall it be half-Che then?”

“Must it be anything other than ‘Guin’?”

“I must amuse myself somehow.”

Guin sighed. “Whatever,” she said. “I’m done here. Are you finished looking around?”

“I am,” Liorax gave a broad smile. “This has been an enlightening visit to say the least. I wonder if that old man noticed.”

“Noticed what?”

But the fox grinned and pounced through the air and out the door. With a sigh, Guin followed, once again finding Hoth on the rocking chair just outside the cottage. To finish the quest, she showed him the work that she had done, and he reviewed each. With that, her quest completed, and she earned the intermediate skill that she needed in order to complete her quest for her class.

“Thank you, Master Hoth!” she said, but he shrugged at her.

Liorax settled in on her head and started swatting her nose. “My pelt!” he went. “Attach my pelt!”

Snorting as subtly as she could, Guin waved his paw away as if it were a fly. “Um,” she went, her attention back on Hoth. “Could I use the workshop a bit more?”

However, the old man’s eyes were once again, not on her.

His eye twitched a bit as he stared at the top of her head, where Liorax sat, continuing to swat at her nose. The old man reached up and lifted Liorax off her head by the cuff in one hand, then took Guin’s cloak off with his other.

“Wha—!” the blue-grey fox scrambled, paws in the air. “Foul mortal! I am the Harbinger of Death! Fear me!”

“Not over here, you’re not!” came a snickering voice from the roof. Guin looked up and saw the orange and black cat stretch as it jumped down to Hoth’s shoulder. “In these woods, you’re just a nasty ol’ fox. And your girl, here, well, she needs a lot of work, doesn’t she?”