DAY 26

My breath fogged in the air as a light drizzle of rain came down. Temperatures were starting to drop, though I was still quite comfortable. I ran a hand over my arms, where tan and brown hair, or rather fur, was growing in fairly thickly. My beard was thick enough to be able to comb my claws through. Maybe I was soon going to get an answer to whether or not it snowed around here. I ate another pile of meat, and many of the bones. I kept the long bones and antlers, tying them onto the side of my pack and stuffing the rest of the meat into it. My muscles ached, especially my chest where I had been slammed yesterday, but it wasn't painful anymore. Stretching felt so good and kindled a warm feeling in my center.

Even though I wasn't uncomfortable in the cold, it would be nice to have a fire. I added that to my mental list. It would be a point of pride if I could find or make a firestarting kit myself rather than getting one from Jordan or the town. That would take flint, presumably. Not that I was all too sure where to find some flint. Was that the one commonly near rivers?

My exploration had brought me to the southeast side of the hill. Hilly places seemed like a good spot to look for minerals.

I walked slowly, browsing for berries and feeling pretty good even if I was soggy. Making preparations for winter would make sense, though the easiest plan would be to spend it at Jordan's.

There was a bit of allure in challenging myself to see if I could. A lot of work would be required to survive even part of the winter. I couldn't rely on there being easy foraging and hunting. Fire first, then probably a hearth for the cabin.

The rain stopped as the sun rose. When I got back to the hill it did indeed have several areas of exposed rock. Everything was still wet, so I doubted that banging rocks together would make any sparks. I spent the time just looking. A few sections of rock were dark with a bit of orange with a few shiny highlights. Others were pale and flakey. One section was almost hidden behind a boulder that had cracked off of the hill. This rock was dark, with streaks of greyish red colour. It smelled rusty, and when I got out my hammer and smashed a section of it a chunk broke off. The label confirmed it. Crude iron ore. This section had a fair amount of it, and I had no idea how deep it would go into the hill. What I could see should at least make dozens of iron ingots. I was tempted to grab more, but I didn't want to weigh myself down until I was ready to head back to the cabin. The ground had dried off by now so I put the piece of ore in my pack and went back to the shiny looking rock.

I picked the rocks with the shiny highlights and smashed a likely candidate with my hammer. It split with a sharp sound . The rock had crumbled, leaving me with...a smaller chunk of stone. I tossed it back onto the ground. I suppose it would have been too easy if I could find iron and flint in the same hillside.

The river would be to the north from here. A lot closer to my cabin. I'd have to waste time and backtrack this way if I wanted to collect more iron, but iron was useless without a forge, and I couldn't make a forge until I had fire. For that matter I wasn't sure if I'd even be able to make a forge. Squishing rocks together might not work, and I wouldn't even know if I were missing some simple component.

I headed roughly towards the middle of the two clearings so I would at least explore some new ground. Other than the stale trails of some rabbits nothing had come through this area recently. The goblins seemed to be thoroughly avoiding going towards the river. That divine treaty had some real impact on them. Jordan had crossed the river, and I got the impression that other humans did as well. Must be nice to be the ones on the winning side.

Once I got to the river it took a few minutes to find a rocky stretch. Almost right away something white caught my eye. The label popped up, identifying a small chunk of rough flint. I pulled out my knife and tested it, trying to strike a spark. Doing so took quite a few tries, this was definitely lower quality than what Jordan had in his kit. Nevertheless it worked, just not very well.

I tossed that in my pack and continued searching. Fifteen minutes later I had another handful of chunks, all rough quality. That seemed to be all the readily available ones so I got my hammer back out and started cracking open likely looking larger rocks. A dozen of those yielded three fine quality flint chunks. These were noticeably easier to strike a spark with. I decided these were good enough for now and headed back towards the crossing.

Back at the cabin I dumped out all the flint into a basket except one piece of fine flint I wanted to keep with me, dropping the iron ore in another, most of my sinew bundles into yet another, and the chunks of meat into my last basket. Three cheers for not needing refrigeration. It was nearing noon now and I wanted to try some experiments with the flint. I did a quick search through my wood pile, finding a fine quality stick. I took that back inside and put it on the table with a chunk of rough flint and sinew. It took a moment to focus on what I wanted, a spear tipped with sharp flint, and then I pressed the pieces together. They joined, leaving behind a flint shard.

Discovering this worked was excellent. I could probably negotiate a good deal out of the goblins and I could make these with readily available components. Though, so could they, presumably since they were making wooden spears for themselves right now but they might not have any flint since they were scared of the river. Besides it wasn't like they would be hurting any humans with the river between them.

I went back to dig through my wood pile, searching until I found two more fine sticks. These I combined with fine shards of flint, to give to Grob and Abe. Then I made another nine rough flint spears. This all made a fairly hefty bundle, but I'd be able to manage it. I grabbed another fine piece of flint and pocketed it, then used sinew to tie all the spears into a bundle.

Carrying them all the way to the cave was far more exhausting than I thought it would be and I had to stop multiple times. I wouldn't have been able to do it at all one week ago. It was mid afternoon by the time I got there. The mossy sentries in the trees hooted and whistled quietly to each other as I approached.

"Hey, can you ask Abe to come out here?" I dumped my bundle down and leaned against the tree. They just whistled some more, but a minute later Abe emerged.

"What?"

"Hey, I brought you something." I said as I untied the bundle of spears and held out one of the fine quality samples to him.

"Oh, sharp!" He held the spear up and stabbed it through a leaf. "How did you make sharp?"

"That's flint. I want to trade these with you."

"Trade for what?"

"Human things. If you find any."

"Human things?" He frowned a bit, then waved "Come, come! Good spear. Sharp!" Other goblins started rushing over, so I grabbed the other fine spear and followed Abe.

We went into the cave. Grob was lounging across his throne with his legs hanging off the side. One of the smaller goblins was feeding him from a basket of berries, and a few others that were attending to the witches. He glanced up when we entered but didn't move.

"Grob, I brought you a gift."

"Gift?" He straightened up to look, accidentally smacking one of the smaller goblins and sending it tumbling.

"Sharp spear." Abe announced, holding up the one he held. I handed the other to Grob, and somewhere in the process it expanded so it was his size and now twice my height. That one didn't bear too close scrutiny, reality might collapse. The result however was that it was nearly scraping the ceiling, and he swatted a goblin with the butt as it swung the spear down. I wasn't even sure if Grob would be able to fit through the doorway anymore without breaking the tunnel. Surely it couldn't be comfortable hunched over all the time, but there were no signs of the diggers expanding the cavern.

"Very good!"

A commotion started up outside, followed by a loud yelp and a goblin ran in bleeding from a cut on his chest, disappearing into a side room as another entered and looked around suspiciously while clutching a spear protectively.

"I brought some other spears."

"Good. Bring food!" He bellowed, and some goblins rushed in with some baskets of meat and berries and mushrooms.

"Eat. Feast." Grob plucked a handful out of the basket and dumped it on me in a shower of meat chunks.

More goblins entered, some bringing more baskets, and pretty soon it was getting rowdy. From somewhere a few pairs of small drums appeared, and then surprisingly one of the witches started singing in a much stronger voice than I expected out of someone so withered. There didn't seem to be words, just rhythmic vocalizations. A few buckets of truly awful rotgut started going around, which smelled like someone had pissed into paint thinner and tasted worse. I may have just started a new goblin holiday.

Abe pulled me into a side tunnel. This one was piled with miscellaneous junk. Piles of scrap from broken baskets, a pile of sticks and bones, various rocks, a broken wagon wheel, and other junk.. He was muttering to himself as he dug through the pile, and then pulled out a dented copper teapot.

"Human thing. Take."

"Thanks." I inspected it, and surprisingly it had the name of the person who crafted it, Lyanna. I suspected that only items crafted by "gods" showed their names. It did make me a little curious about what happened if multiple people had the same first name. Surely there had to be quite a few, since there were thousands of them. I tucked it into my pack.

Abe went back to the main hall, grabbing the bucket of rotgut and guzzling it as a smaller goblin protested. Everyone was well distracted now, so I slipped out and headed home.