Well now my baby account can't get the required number of Plushy Beasts, and I know that there is something not working correctly because I requested from my other 2 accounts, and only 1 of them got the request and could send the Plushy Beast. 2 hours later and my other account still has not received a request. So here I sit stuck with 3 Plushy Beasts and unable to move on.
I don't understand why the amount of gold needed to skip that step doesn't go down as you receive the needed materials. If it costs 35 gold to skip that step, then each Plushy Beast should be worth 7 gold, and if you get 3 out of 5, you should only need to use 14 gold to skip. But, of course, S8 wants their money.