Submission (#64) Approved

It was perhaps one of the weirdest experiences Ubeu had ever had doing an errand when she heard that The Splinter Carpentry needed help. What she thought would be a simple fetch quest ended up becoming a whole slew of problems that build one upon the other. But Ubeu was massively stubborn, and didn’t want to give up on a job she started, so she stuck through it until the end.

But that didn’t mean it wasn’t strange.

It began with Ubeu arriving at the Carpentry, where the family told her they had run out of axes. They needed extra paws, specifically ones willing to go to the Ol´Scrap Blacksmith to get them ‘the axe’. They gave her the coin to give to the blacksmith for the axe, which Ubeu handled rather roughly, before she sought out the location.

Delivering coin made her feel… uncomfortable. Sure, she wasn’t going to be using it, but the very act of handling it and participating in a trade that involved money made her feel icky. For so long, her colony and her family had told her about the dangers of coin. How it sparked greed in city cats and how it was collected en masse to lord over the poor. How her own ancestors had been living in horrible conditions because of the damn things, and how now she was transporting that very item to a blacksmith for a tool that was to be made in exchange.
Ubeu thought about this the whole way to the blacksmith. She considered various options before settling on the conclusion that because she was currently living in Greendoze, she did have to make some exceptions to work with the people there. Only by ingratiating herself with the citizens would she earn their trust, and if she earned their trust it meant more allies when she inevitably had to confront the guild. That is, if she couldn’t get enough of the guild members on her side already. Which, considering how things were going, was probably not going to happen.

It wasn’t the solution she was the most comfortable with. But at least it didn’t seem like the citizens she was working with were exceptionally wealthy. So it was… fine.

Upon arrival at the Ol´Scrap Blacksmith, Ubeu was a little disappointed to hear that the blacksmith was out of material and needed her to run an errand for her to gather supplies from the metallurgy. But that was fine, it wasn’t too much of a set back, and the river wasn’t too far away, so off Ubeu went. She had hardly opened her mouth to explain the situation to the workers at the metallurgy when they told her that they needed more coal.

Ubeu spent a moment blinking blankly at them all. She felt like she was going on a wild goose chase! Running from place to place to gather supplies with no end in sight! What was next, being told that the miners were out of coal now??

Luckily, the workers pointed her to their own coal supply, and Ubeu spent a decent portion of her afternoon hauling coal to the furnaces for the workers. It wasn’t too bad, in the end. She washed up in the river and got to watch the workers make the materials needed to supply the blacksmith. The fire burning in the furnaces, the flicker of the sparks and the flames, it was mesmerizing and reminded her a little bit of the bonfires that the Lake of Plenty would sometimes hold for festivities. A tiny, mismatched reminder of home, perhaps.
She thanked the workers and brought the materials to the blacksmith, whom she was also able to watch as she forged this special, one of a kind axe. That process was also rather fascinating, and Ubeu was unable to stop herself from asking all sorts of questions. The blacksmith seemed pleased to answer them, and even suggested that Ubeu take up smithing work if she was so inclined. Ubeu didn’t know how to break it to her that just because she found it interesting didn’t mean she wanted to spend time doing it, but in the end she just told her bluntly. Luckily, the blacksmith didn’t seem too offended.

Once the axe was made, Ubeu dragged it rather haphazardly back to the Carpentry. The family was mildly aghast when they saw how she had handled their precious cargo, but she assured them it was in perfectly good condition and she’d only been dragging it through the dirt, not dulling it along stones. For some reason, the family didn’t seem much soothed by that, but they took the axe regardless and rewarded her with coin. At this, Ubeu tried to tell them that she didn’t need it, and that she’d rather them just remember her name and keep her in mind for later, should she need a favor. The family scoffed at this, as if the very notion was ridiculous, and insisted she take the money. After a brief back and forth where Ubeu was unable to convince them, she took the payment and hastily made her leave.

The tortoiseshell vowed to get rid of the coins as soon as possible.