Callie's Heroes

PART VIII - THE PERFECT HAT

Callie started to run, but then realized she wasn’t sure exactly where to go. She found a staff member moving a wheelbarrow, and ran up to him, panting slightly.

“Quartermaster Fullo. Where can I find her?”

“Fullo? I think her office is in the Tannery building,” he answered, verbally stumbling from being pressured.

“Great! Where is that?”

It took a couple more ‘where is that’ questions before Callie finally had an idea where she was going, and was off in a sprint again. As she ran, she sorted through in her mind how to describe what she needed the Quartermaster to make. If they could make the right hat, it was just going to be perfect!

Ten minutes, and one wrong turn, later, Callie finally arrived at a large barn-like building. The wide doors were open, but a few people were working and she didn’t want to get in the way. It reasoned that if Fullo had an actual office, there must be another entrance. Glancing around the corner of the building, she saw an Ogre-sized door that looked promising. As she got close, Callie saw a wooden sign over the door with the word ‘OFFICE’ painted on it in the strange letters of this strange world.

“Huh, this must be it,” Callie chuckled to herself, as she pushed the smaller inset door open.

Through the door was a fairly typical service counter, along with the overwhelming smell of leather. She could hear multiple voices calling out in the distance, but the immediate area was quiet and empty. It seemed like the basic hustle and bustle of an active workshop.

“Hello?” Callie called out. There was a booster next to the counter and she stepped up, instinctively looking for a service bell to ding. “Hello?” she called again.

“Little One?” Quartermaster Fullo said, peering around the corner. “Shouldn’t you be in training? Is there something you need?”

“Yes. I do. I need you to make me a hat. A special hat.”

“Is the one you have not serving you?”

Callie reached up to touch the side of her Ranger hat. “No, this one is fine, great even. No, this is for my friend Jesca.”

Fullo had a confused expression on her face as she approached. She was wearing a leather apron that was covered in dust and grime, and smelled of sweat. Obviously she had been working on something. “Why would this Jesca need a special hat?”

“It’s kinda complicated, but also kinda cool.”

Fullo blinked, having heard that word used recently. “I don’t understand. You have my attention, though, so explain from the start.”

Callie immediately launched into a Jesca-esque babbling tale of them rescuing the unicorn, and then Jesca waking up with a second class, and that the unicorn was now bonded with her and …

“Okay fine! We’ll make you this special hat!” Fullo said with exasperation, cutting off Callie with a laugh.

“Great! It’s called a Fedora. Do you know … no, you probably don’t. So it is made of soft leather, with a …” Callie mimed a hat on her head trying to explain all the design elements of a perfect Fedora. Fullo just had a confused look on her face.

“Um … maybe I could try drawing it?” Callie suggested. “It won’t be a very good drawing but probably better than I am at explaining it.”

“Fine, we’ll try that,” Fullo said, seeming a little cross with Callie’s chaotic request.

The Quartermaster led Callie over to a short-height workbench, and then stepped away for a moment, returning with a few pieces of parchment and a charcoal pencil.

Callie looked at the parchment and tried to visualize the Fedora her grandfather had. He’d loved the Indiana Jones movies, and purchased a knock-off hat at some point, thinking it was cool. On him, it looked cool. When Callie’s father had found it in a closet after her grandfather died, he tried wearing it too. It didn’t look nearly as cool on him. But Callie remembered holding it, and pictured it on the page in front of her.

Carefully she began to sketch, following the outlines of the image she held in her mind’s eye. She traced the curves of the brim and the pinch of leather in front. Even the cute little black ribbon. Then, she drew it again, this time rotating it to look from the side. Finally, a third time as if looking from below, showing the inside band. She couldn’t draw, but she was in a zone. She was going to make this perfect for Jesca! Plus, besides being cool, she’d need it with her new Heightened Senses perk anyway to deal with the sun, right?

After a couple minutes, Callie finished, releasing the final picture in her head and looked down on what she had drawn, fully expecting to have to again apologize for its awfulness. It was actually … good? It wasn’t at all artistic, like Xin’s drawings. Instead, it resembled a schematic or diagram of something, mimicking completely the image she had held in her head. Callie looked down at her hands, amazed, just as Xin had when she had learned of her own beautiful skill.

Fullo walked back from the shelf she was straightening and pulled the parchments from in front of Callie. “All of you Gnomes say you can’t draw, but then you make something like this. You engineer everything!”

All Gnomes can do this? From Tinker maybe?

“It’s a styled design, but simple enough. You said leather?” Fullo said, rotating the pictures slightly

“Uh huh. But it's super fuzzy leather, and soft. Almost like a leatherish-cloth. What’s that called?”

“A felt?”

“Yes! Strong, but not very thick or stiff.”

“That’s not actually leather. It’s tightly woven animal fur, and I don't have any of that here.”

Callie’s heart fell.

“But, I do have a soft leather I could use,” Fullo suggested helpfully, still looking the design over. “It would have a similar feel and weight to high quality felt.”

Would that work? It was good enough. Yes! The shape is what mattered.

“That should work. Oh, it had silk cloth on the inside and a sweatband.”

“I don’t have silk, but I have a lightweight cloth I can use, and something more-absorbent for the band.” Fullo set the page down, taking up the pencil. She made a few marks on the design Callie had drawn, and then a few notes off to the side. “Why is this hat so important to you? You said she needs one for the light, but you’re pretty insistent on this design.”

“My grandfather used to wear one,” Callie said, before realizing she may have said too much, but she couldn’t stop her mouth in time. “He’s … gone now.”

“I know your memory is largely missing, but that is a good memory to still have,” the Tigerkin said with a smile. “I believe we can honor it.”

“You can? Thank you thank you thank you! You’re the best! All of you! This is going to be great for her.”

“I can have one for you by tomorrow morning. I’ll have it delivered to you, so you can gift it to her yourself. If it needs refinement, see me again and we can make another one with those adjustments.” Fullo looked down on the Gnome. “We’ll get it right. It seems important enough. And a fun challenge for us, as well.”

Callie was giddy with excitement on so many levels. On one hand, the idea of bringing a tiny piece of Earth culture to this world via fashion made it suddenly feel just a bit more like home. On the other, Jesca was simply going to look so … bad … ass!

“Callie!” a voice called out, jolting Callie’s attention. It was Fizzlebek, walking in from the back area. “Someone said there was a Gnome out here, and didn’t mention it was Pama. I just knew it had to be you. What brings you here?”

“She needs a hat,” the Quartermaster said, chuckling, as she flashed the pages to him. “A special hat, apparently.”

After giving Callie a hug, Fizzlebek took the pages and leafed through them. “Very … unique,” he finally said, sounding a little doubtful. He looked at Callie and raised an eyebrow in question.

“Excuse me,” a voice called from a doorway to the back. “Fullo, you’re about to boil over back here. Should I take it off the heat?”

“Damn!” Fullo snarled, as she snatched the drawings from Fizzlebek’s hand. “Forgive me, I need to get back. Recruit, let me know if you want any changes from what we send you in the morning.” Quickly she half-jogged around the doorframe and out of sight.

“Why do you need a hat like that?”

Callie quickly launched into a much-calmer explanation of what had happened to Jesca that morning. Of course, Fizzlebek was dubious of the idea of someone getting a second class, but bought into the idea once Callie confirmed they had done a scry and that the Master Trainer had accepted what happened. He also knew of the Beastmaster, and the special, historical meaning that word had with the Beastkin. Callie finally explained the need for the hat, first focusing on Jesca’s new senses perk, but ultimately using the same excuse she had with Fullo.

“How goes the processing of the … ” Callie started to ask, changing the subject but trailing off as Fizzlebek quickly held up his hand..

“Let’s step back into my work area,” the Artificer said in a low tone, gesturing with his head. “We can discuss it there.”

Curious, Callie followed the Gnome, and he led her into a small room with a small-height workbench and table. Immediately obvious on the table were several dozen potion vials, each filled with a silvery liquid. The workbench had various things that were likely alchemy tools; a mortar and pestle, various flasks, a few cast-iron bowls. It was definitely a workspace.

“Sorry, everyone here knows what we are processing,” Fizzlebek said. “but a lot of them are uncomfortable with the idea, which I understand. We promised to limit discussion and work to a few areas they could avoid, for their ease.”

That actually made sense to Callie. On a logical level, in part because of her Wilderness Survival skill, she understood that animals had their uses. They fed and clothed people, and other parts could be used in various magical ways. But, it was a unicorn, and that was certainly disquieting if your brain moved past the logic.

“It’s going well,” the Gnome said, answering Callie’s original question. “We should be done by tomorrow. The body you brought back has been unbelievably useful. I can use much for enchanting, or the crafters can in their weapons and armor. Most will be sold, though, so we can use the funds to buy more raw materials and Symbiotes.”

“What are these?” Callie said, looking at the array of vials.

“Unicorn blood,” Fizzlebek said. “It makes a person younger.”

“Like a Youth Potion? What about the parasites?” Callie asked, remembering Lhawni mentioning something about unicorn blood being able to make you young again.

“We purified and removed the parasites, so they are clean. As for their use, it’s only given out to people who have been caught in an aging attack of some kind, from a ghost for example, rather than just make someone younger.”

“But anyone with enough money could buy one to make themselves younger. Wouldn’t that just mean rich people live forever?”

Fizzlebek shrugged. “Even if they managed to find some on a black market, they couldn’t live forever. You can only ever drink so much unicorn blood; about one vial’s worth. After that, it’s as if you have potion sickness with it. Drink more and anything could happen, usually something bad. Plus, even if someone swallowed a whole one of these at once, they’d get, perhaps, fifty years back, maybe a couple more, and that would be all they could ever receive. Smaller races like us, around one-hundred, maybe even a bit more. Most people only need a small amount to offset age damage.“

“Interesting,” Callie said, looking at a vial in each hand. The silvery liquid inside seemed to resemble liquid mercury, which she remembered from her high-school chemistry teacher handing a bottle of the stuff around so everyone could feel the weight. “How many did you get?”

“I need to double check, but somewhere in the mid-fifties, total, I think. I’m going to inventory and package them later this afternoon on the chance I can recover any more. Eventually we’ll send what we have back to Imor.”

“So you just drink it? How long would it take to work?” Callie asked, curious.

“That’s right. Just drink it like a potion. Not sure how long. If I had to guess, a few hours. Overnight, maybe? Not very long, that’s for sure.”

“Neat!” Callie said as she walked over to the workbench, just casually looking at the items on it. “I know about the horn, but what do some of the other parts do?”

“The hooves can be used in a footwear enchantment that allows you to run for much longer durations, and the hide repels magic, so that can be used to line shields or armor. The tail hair can be woven in with rope to make it enchanted and nearly unbreakable. There’s even uses for the teeth, bones and the muscles. Unfortunately, your arrows pierced her heart, so we can’t use it, but otherwise, nothing will go to waste. Processing has been going slow, though, because I am putting a good, long-duration Preservation spell on everything, so it will last until expert crafters make the best use for it.”

Callie had continued poking around while Fizzlebek had been talking, and was about to open a little hinged wood box, but Fizzlebek snapped, “Don’t open that!” With a guilty look, she quickly set it back down.

“Why, what’s in it?”

Fizzlebek made an uncomfortable face. “It’s her …”

“Wait!” Callie said, holding up her hand and cutting the Gnome off. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” She quickly raised her hands and stepped away from the mystery box.

“Sorry. Again, nothing goes to waste.”

“I know.” Callie walked back to the table, shaking her head. “But just … nope, don’t need or want to know.” She glanced back over the table, seeing all the vials of blood, and then had a thought. “Let’s change the subject. A question for you.”

“What’s that?”

“Hypothetically, what could you do for enchantments on something made of leather?”

“How do you mean?”

“Something long and … weaponish?” Callie added, trying to be coyly vague.

“What? Oh! You mean a whip for the Beastmaster?”

“Yeah,” Callie said, smiling. “She’s going to need a pair for her new class. What could you do to help her out?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never enchanted a whip before. Probably that storage enchantment like on your bows, since there’s no metal. It really depends on the quality of the materials and the final weapon.”

“What if one were to, say, use some unicorn tail-hair when making it, or even use a little unicorn hide?”

Fizzlebek brightened. “I like the way you think! If you ever stop being a Ranger, you should become an Enchanter. It would be more work as a non-Wizard, but you’d probably like it.”

Callie grinned. “I want to learn to make magic food, like your wife can, first. Then enchanting!”

The blue-haired Gnome rubbed his chin. “If I put some unicorn bone into the handle as a core, and wove some tail hair into the length of leather…” Fizzlebek paced, motioning in the air a series of spirals as he pictured the weapon in his head. Finally, he said, “At least two enchantments, I’m sure. Probably even a third, but that would depend on a lot of unknowns. I don’t think I have any enchantments that are specific to that weapon, either. I have a book of weapon enchantments back home, though. I can check to be sure. There might be something I can adapt to a whip. Unfortunately, leather tends to not hold runes well, so there’s not much we can do there.”

Callie put her finger to her lips. “Thorn is probably going to come by later today, or tomorrow, to order whips for Jesca. If you can do something special, make sure nobody tells her. I want it to be a surprise. He probably would have some thoughts on what might be good enchantments, though.”

“I can do that,” Fizzlebek nodded, whispering conspiratorially as well, an excited grin on his face. Obviously the idea of a never-done project was calling to him.

“Speaking of Jesca,” Callie said. “I probably need to go wake her up. She needed a quick nap.” Then she added, “Reynard gave us the day off while they figure out what to do about Ranger training.”

“I heard what happened to him. I assume they’ll ask Vonn to help out,” Fizzlebek said with a shrug. “She’ll do it, I’m sure.”

“I assumed she would, too, but I’ll let them figure out what’s next. Thanks for chatting,” Callie said with a bounce, the two parting with a hug, Callie gleefully skipping back out the office door and into the sunlight. Indiana Jesca! She was going to be so amazed!