The main town in the 2D RPG West of Loathing is a humble town called Dirtwater. Spend enough time in a podunk town like Dirtwater, and a character will start to feel salty, bitter, and sour. If a cowpoke's in that kind of a pickle, it's time to visit the Abandoned Pickle Factory.
Check the wall of the jail to find the Wanted Poster for the Gherkin Brothers. It's the fifth and last one on the right. This reveals the location of the Abandoned Pickle Factory, and there are a few things to know before moseying out into the wilderness to bring those varmints to justice.
The enemies the player faces at the Abandoned Pickle Factory are ghosts. Fighting them is optional, but if the protagonist decides to take them on, they're highly resistent to Spooky damage and vulnerable to physical damage, silver, and fire.
The Abandoned Pickle Factory
The Abandoned Pickle factory, which is actually the Haunted Pickle Factory, is located on the eastern side of the mountains. When it appears on the map, it's to the southwest of the Circus and north of the Lost Dutch Oven Mine.
The waking nightmare that the player experiences when touching the doorknob on their first attempt to enter contains the clues needed to complete the puzzles inside. There are other ways to get this information. Characters with a Mysticality score of 20 or more can relive the dream sequence, or players can fight the ghosts inside each room and read the numbers from the tokens they drop.
The Cukes Room
The trick here is to get the vats at an equal number. It doesn't matter which number, so it's the second easiest of the three puzzles and possible to finish just with some luck. There's a more practical solution, however, for those players who don't want to waste time guessing.
- Use levers #1 and #2 to put the third hopper to 1.
- Use the other levers to get the other two hoppers to 16.
- Pull lever #3 five times, and all three hopper levels will be the same.
The Salt Room
This one isn't even technically a puzzle; it's just a matter of learning the meanings behind the terms "coarse" and "fine." The "coarse" salt corresponds to the hundreds place in the salinity meter's reading, the "fine" salt corresponds to the ones place, and the unmarked one in the middle is the tens place.
The dial has to read 976. Once the dials on each lever go past nine, they just start at one again, so this is pretty hard to mess up.
The Vinegar Room
The temperature of the vinegar starts at 93 degrees and the player has to get it to 190 using bellows and steam. A release valve is available if the character needs to start again, and the supply of coal is unlimited. This is the most difficult of the three puzzles, but at least everything required to solve it is readily available.
There are several ways to get the temperature of the vinegar to 190. The player can either start at 93 degrees, or reduce the temperature and start at something lower. One of the most straightforward is to start by lowering the temperature instead of raising it.
- Use the release valve to lower the temperature to 70 degrees. This will take a number of tries.
- Shovel 50 coal into the stove and use the bellows. The temperature should now be at 170.
- Shovel three more bundles of coal and use the bellows one more time. This should bring the temperature to 190.
Aside from retrieving the bounty on the Gherkin Brothers, the other nice reward from completing these quests is the Ghost Pickle. Eat this food and be almost impossible to hit in melee combat for a whole day.