The majority of the next day was spent as the previous days, training, building, and healing. But when nightfall approached, there was a mad rush to load up the wagons with the bread and fish that had been prepared for the trade.

Two wagons were stacked full. John, Drew, and several guards escorted them to the edge of the lake. The guards had been made aware that the village traded with Goblins, but they still didn’t believe it.

“We’re going to have to find a better place to meet. We can’t drag all this along to the entrance, and it was a lot of work for them to drag it all here last time,” John said, as he got off the wagon.

“When we talk to Vrichik, we’ll see what we can come up with. Ivan and Monty said there was another entrance in the woods, remember? Maybe we can clear a path to it. Or, maybe they don’t mind coming out here for all the food.” Drew shrugged as he walked next to John. They were followed closely by a few guards. One stayed with the wagons.

The moon was out, but the sun still peaked over the Forest as they headed in the direction to the entrance by the lake. They arrived within the hour and waited for the Goblins.

As the sun finally went down, a skinny little Goblin exited the cave. It peaked around, finally noticing the humans. It motioned to the cave. Vrichik, followed by several others, made their way to John and Drew, drawing the attention of the guards who were visibly tense.

John waved them back. The pair walked over to meet Vrichik who seemed a little bit rounder than he had before. The guards kept a wary eye on the meeting.

“Good evening Vrichik.” John put out his hand. Vrichik smiled wide and shook it.

“Friend John.” He waved behind him. Goblins began exiting the cave with bags of ore.

“We have 80 fish. 40 bread. That is 18 bags. Do you have it?” asked John. He showed on his hands how many. He couldn’t remember to what extent Vrichik knew numbers.

Vrichik stuck his finger in his nose. “No. This many.” He held up both hands and then another.

“So 15. That’s fine. You can still have everything we brought, but it’s back on the wagons. Can you haul the ore there again?” asked John, again.

“Yes. Much work.” Vrichik turned and grunted at the Goblins who began to drag the bags toward the wagons.

“Vrichik,” Drew interjected. “Is there somewhere else we can meet. This is much work for you and us. Is there somewhere closer to our village?”

The Goblin looked at John. “Friend?” John nodded yes. He seemed to think, and then replied, “Hmmp. Yes.” He pointed towards the woods. “Past sticks.” He looked around. “I show. Done.”

John looked at Drew and shrugged. “You’ll show us when we are done?” The big Goblin nodded yes. “Okay then. Let’s get this done quickly.”

The march back to the wagons was much slower. The Goblins were paired up, lugging the large bags.

John chose this time to tell Vrichik about the Basilisk and the collapse of the cave. He explained what happened. The Goblin nodded his head as John told him about clearing the collapse, finding the mine, and the eventual escape from the Basilisk. He then told Vrichik about how they brought the whole tunnel system down behind them, all the way to the exit in the mountains.

“Were any of your Goblins hurt? We didn’t realize the whole system would collapse,” ended John.

“No. Light.” Vrichik made a move with his arm then spread them wide. “Boom boom boom.” He brought his arms down.

“I don’t know what that means.” Drew looked at John. “A snake, big snake, brought it down?”

Vrichik slapped himself in the face. “No.” He turned and grumbled to a few Goblins who were following. A whole conversation ensued in their language. Finally, he turned back to the pair.

“Big cave.” Then he brought his arms down again.

“Ohh I get it. Even the big cave collapsed. By the light. Well that should definitely keep the monster out,” answered John.

Vrichik shivered. “Yes. Big monster.” He squished his hands together.

“Well I’m glad you’re all ok. I was worried we may have caused some of you to be hurt.” John smiled at the big Goblin who smiled his toothy, terrifying, yet friendly, grin back at him.

They reached the wagons. The group offloaded all of the food and likewise began loading all the ore bags.

Vrichik spoke. “Need bags.” He pointed to the wagon. “No more.”

“Dump out the ore into the wagons. They need the bags back I’m guessing,” instructed Drew. Dumping them all out added a little time, but within an hour the two wagons and the guards were headed back to the village.

John, Drew, and Vrichik followed the treeline west, trusting the Goblin that he knew where he was leading them. They continued west past the sawmill and the end of the woods and now followed the base of the mountain.

Eventually they came to a large boulder, and Vrichik stopped.

He turned to the duo. “Follow.” He walked up to the boulder and disappeared behind it.

Carefully and cautiously, Drew and John followed. The rounded the large boulder and behind it was a dark tunnel. Vrichik stood at the entrance smiling.

“Here.” he waved his arms behind him.

“How did Monty and Ivan miss this? I mean I didn’t see it either until we were right on it, but they’re very good at what they do.” John peaked inside. His trait didn’t kick in, so he didn’t feel any danger.

Drew apprehensively approached. “This will definitely make it easier to trade.” He gave John the side-eye then spoke to Vrichik. “Thank you Vrichik. Is it ok to meet here instead?

“Yes. Less work.” He smiled. “15 moons again. Bye friend.” Without waiting for an answer, the large Goblin disappeared into the cave.

John and Drew turned to look at each other but said nothing. They began walking almost directly south using the moonlight to guide them.

Finally, once they were away from the cave, Drew spoke. “While I’m worried how close this entrance is, Vrichik didn’t need to show us it. I think he kept it hidden for a reason. They probably didn’t trust us, but I think showing us this has shown us that maybe they now do.”

“I agree. But I think our next step is to build a tower to the north. You can bet that they’ve been using it to watch us. Of course, there is the entrance in the woods too, so who knows.” John looked behind him. “I don’t think they’d do anything, but better to be safe than sorry.” Drew nodded.

They talked about the Goblins on the rest of the journey south.

Once they were in the commonhall, they discussed what would need to happen in the coming days. They went to bed with a general idea of what would be done. The village was finally taking shape.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next week flew by in the village. Many projects were finished and new ones were started.

The biggest project started was the windmill near the east entrance that would be used to grind wheat into flour. The base was made of stone and was in the shape of a hexagon. On top of the large base, Vin was building the structure that would stand about thirty feet tall in total. The large sails would be attached to a long metal shaft that went into the interior. From there, similar to the sawmill, various gears and shafts would turn a large grinding stone at the base.

The large metal shaft was only possible now because the blacksmith was completed. Ivan, through sweat and practice, had learned the blacksmithing job a couple days ago. He enlisted the help of Gerard as his helper. The boy did the various tasks of manning the pump, getting more ore, and helping clean. Together, they slowly began to create small items needed, such as nails, as well as shafts and gears to replace the wooden ones in the sawmill. Twice the previous week, a gear had snapped and needed to be replaced.

Not once had any scout or look out seen an Ogre. Either they didn’t know where their village was, they didn’t care, or the group was wrong and the Ogres they killed truly were the last ones. And not once had a Goblin been seen either. So either they weren’t interested in the daily doings of the humans, or they were good at hiding.

Drew continued to run the day-to-day, but John had finally taken charge of the village, deciding what was needed. He continued to train, too, even adventuring outside the village to hunt to gain strength.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

John sat on the wall facing south towards the bridge. By his estimation, the caravan from Innsbruck should be arriving either today or tomorrow, so he had placed extra sentries to keep an eye out.

He’d spent much of the previous week getting to know the villagers, training, and hunting. John turned around and jumped down from the wall. It was now at least ten feet high all around and completely surrounded by abatis, spears, and several pits near the entrances. There were now a total of six towers as well. New ones had been built on the north wall and in the northwest.

John walked around the village and was impressed with the amount of growth in the past week. He waved at several villagers as they went by him; he headed to the new warehouse that was built above the cellar. As he entered the doorless building, he greeted Bethany.

“Good morning Bethany. How goes it?”

She looked up briefly from her paper then continued to write. “I’m fine. It’s fine. We have quite the stock of items at the moment.” She closed the book and walked over to him. “I like your idea of signing out items, especially weapons and such. It sure makes it easier on me knowing where things are.”

John smiled. “I thought it would be helpful. I’m here to do just that by the way, sign out a bow and arrows that is.” He looked around at the multitude of racks, crates, barrels, and shelves. “Once we get that barracks built, we’ll move all the weapons and armor to there so it’s more readily available. We’ll keep the same system though.”

“Perfect,” she replied, heading back to a pile of pelts that had been delivered last night. She looked over her shoulder. “Good luck hunting, John. And be careful.”

He waved and left the blacksmith. He walked to the new stable near the southern exit that kept a few horses. He saddled one and headed south across the bridge. Game around the village had become scarce, so they decided to hunt farther away to allow the animals to build back in number.

John rode for a couple hours and then turned east. Far to the south, he could see the Verdant Forest, but that wasn’t his destination. The last time Inara had been out here hunting, she noticed quite a few tracks that led to a small group of trees. That’s where he intended to hunt today.

After another half hour, he saw what he thought was the grouping in the distance, so he dismounted his horse and tied it to a nearby tree. Making sure his sword was securely fastened, he slung the quiver of arrows over his shoulder and made his way to the trees slowly, bow in hand.

He slowly stalked up the side of a small hill, trying to hide in the tall grass. In the distance, the tops of the trees could be seen. As he got closer, he was able to see that it was actually a pretty large group. The trees were so thick that underneath the canopy was pitch black.

John kneeled in the grass to take stock of the area. Sparse trees populated the area giving him a few places to hide behind. The grass was waist tall and thick. He decided to make his way to a tree that was about a hundred yards from the treeline.

From his vantage point, he saw no movement, neither in trees nor in the grass. He decided to climb up onto a branch to see better and to possibly take a short nap. It had been a long journey.

A short while later, he was woken up by a sound below him. He peaked over the edge of the branch to see a large fox scratching at the ground, presumably looking for dinner. He slowly nocked an arrow and pulled back on the bow. From this distance, he couldn’t miss. He let go, penetrating it through the neck, instantly dropping it to the ground.

“One down. Many more to go.” The kill emboldened John. He dropped down from the tree. He removed the arrow. He’d clean it as soon as he had a bigger group of kills.

Where there was one fox, John figured there would be several more. Staying as low as possible, hiding in the tall grass, he quietly crept closer to the trees.

His instincts were right. At the edge of the trees, several foxes, some quite a bit smaller, could be seen entering and leaving, possibly, he thought, into a den. And while he wouldn’t kill the smaller ones, the larger ones were fair game to him. In a few minutes, he had bagged another three kills. That was quite a feat considering after his first kill, the group scattered into the grass and trees.

He dragged the three bodies to where the other laid. He turned back to the trees. “May as well see if there’s anything inside while I’m here.” Having already scared away the local game, he walked into the trees near where the foxes had been playing. He had his bow at the ready.

The undergrowth was thick. The numerous sticks, brambles, and plants constantly caught John’s clothes. He unsheathed his sword to slice his way through. “Ivan would not like me using a sword like this,” he laughed to himself.

He walked for several minutes before coming to a clearing. In the clearing was a small pond. He walked up to it, knelt down, and splashed some water on his face. He looked around at the secluded area. “This would be perfect to build a small lodge in. It’s hidden from the outside and not too far away from the village. We could even use the trees around it to watch the area for any threats.”

John nodded to himself. “But, for now, I don’t think I’ll tell anyone about it. Just wish I’d brought my fishing pole.” He walked through the trees for about another hour before deciding to gather the foxes, dress them, and head back.

He fastened the cleaned foxes to the horse and began the trek back to the village. The scenery around him was similar to the entire plateau, but it seemed so peaceful. Perhaps it was because it’d been so long since he was alone.

He traveled due north where he knew he would run into the shore of the lake. In the distance as he went on, he saw several deer as well as indications that other animals had been nearby. The grass, in this case trampled grass, was a dead giveaway that game was in the area.

He had hoped to see the wagons heading west as he got to the lake, but unfortunately, they weren’t visible in either direction. Disappointed, he went straight back to the village.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

John arrived back in River’s End late in the evening; the sun was far to the west over the Forest.

He dismounted the horse, stabled it, then took the foxes to the butcher area. “We’re going to need a building for this. And tanning animal hides is really start to stink up the area. We either need to build one up by the blacksmith or out near the animal pens.”

After dropping off the animals, he cleaned himself up and entered the commonhall for dinner. Everyone was gathered around eating, playing cards or games, or enjoying the music. It truly was a good time in the village.

Drew joined John at a table. “How was hunting today? I saw you heading out early this morning.”

John looked up from his plate. “It was good. Really good. And quiet,” he replied.

“Yea, I can imagine. It’s been quiet here for over a week, which let me tell you, has been nice.” He changed the subject. “The group from Innsbruck should be here soon. Have you decided yet about Samuel? He’s worked hard while he’s been here, and he doesn’t seem to be as sketchy of late. I guess it was just his persona.”

“I guess it depends on what if anything we need from him. He’s finished the paths. The apartments that are done all have fireplaces big enough to cook in. The flour mill base is done.” John ate the last bite of food.

Drew thought about it, then answered. “I mean, if we keep building, we’ll need more work done. But we can always hire someone again later. I say we don’t renew it.”

“Sounds good to me.” John stretched his arms. “Did you finalize the trade agreement? I know it depends on what they send, but if it’s anything like we’ve been getting, we kinda know. Some things we won’t need anymore, like nails and such. Pretty soon we’ll be self-sufficient. I really don’t know what we’ll need from Innsbruck.”

“Salt for sure, and it’s expensive. Oil. Maybe we can trade blueprints for buildings and equipment. Especially if they want our ore.” Drew smiled.

“Yea. Let’s see what they bring with ‘em in the next day or so. Then we’ll decide.” John yawned. “Riding all day wears me out. See ya tomorrow Drew.” They waved at each other, and John left to get a good night’s rest.