Zeke sat crossed legged next to his dying campfire, hard at work. Using a stone dagger to chip away at some sizable logs he'd procured from the forest floor just as dawn broke.

He gave the sharpened log a few more scrapes and pushed the point into the embers. The heat would remove the moisture and burn splinters, allowing it to hold it's edge for a longer time, after a few seconds of burning he tossed it into the small pile he had amassed.

Zeke was making fortifications, the reality of the last fight had sunken in, he was not invincible just because the enemy was stupid. His little cave wouldn't be a secret forever and Zeke would need to be ready to repel the gobs once they undoubtedly attacked. Of course, Zeke had considered leaving the cave, finding another place to settle himself or even try to find a civilization. If push came to shove, he would, but for now, Zeke would do his best to defend his current home.

With a stockpile of cheval-de-frise prepared, Zeke moved onto the abundance of leather he had 'gathered' last night.

Leather armour? or use it for something else? that was the question.

It would be nice not to get stabbed so often.

He also couldn't think of any thing else to use the leather for, so his choice was rather obvious.

Zeke fetched one of the several leather vests and cut out a wonky rectangle the size of his arm with his metal dagger, then placed the rectangle template on another vest and cut out a replica. Start simple and work up from there was Zeke's mindset. He poked in some holes along both sides of the leather's length and threaded a fibre belt in a criss-cross fashion, creating a leather tube. A minute of tugging, readjusting and stabbing his own fingers he had created a simple leather vambrace.

Zeke slipped the vambrace over his left hand, placed his arm on the floor, then dexterously navigated his opposite foot to hold the armour down and used his free hand to tie of the fibre in a simple knot. It was an awkward process, but it worked, he had created his first piece of amour.

The construction was easy enough and Zeke created a new one for his other arm. It turned out a little better.

Next on the list were boots. Zeke often found that the infinite number of little stones outside and even some in his cave would leave cuts on his feet, in that sense his feet had suffered the most punishment of all his body. A pair of leaher boots would do well in protecting him, they should be a step-up from vambraces in terms of difficulty.

Zeke place a foot on one of the few untouched leather vests and cut around it for the boot's sole. Next, a short rectangle with one end that was shaped in a semicircle. After poking some appropriate holes he carefully sewed the thick pieces of leather with a couple of fibre belts, and by his third attempt he had made a leather shoe.

Well, it was more like a slipper at this point so he added a thin leather strap that wrapped around the ankle and could be twisted into a knot, keeping the shoe firm in place. It wasn't a fully fledged boot like he hoped to make. Boots were unexpectedly tedious and complex, but it still, the newly made footwear functioned to keep his feet free from the annoying stones and prickled bushes he walked through, which was good enough.

As an afterthought he made a pair of slightly larger vambraces.

He popped his foot in the leather vambrace and tied it around his calfs, his shoe looked more boot-like now. If he couldn't make a boot as one item, a two-part boot would be just as acceptable. It wasn't like Zeke was trying to make a fashion statement with his crudely put together armour, he just wanted something better than his mostly naked glory. Anything was better than nothing.

Zeke turned his attention to the scaled vest the goblin rogue leader had owned. It wasn't as tough as bog leather but the overlapping nature of the scales made it better for deflecting blades and arrows. Zeke examined the armour carefully, he wanted to use as much material as possible with as little cutting as possible.

He back and forthed a few ideas involving scaled pants, a scaled helmet, scaled reinforcement to his leather vambraces or even just stretching the vest over his broader back without changing anything at all.

The fourth option was the most appealing as Zeke had been stabbed in the back before, in the literal sense, and it wasn't pleasant.

Zeke picked up the armour and started pulling his thick-set arms through the armholes. It was tight, but it did fit. The vest pulled on his shoulders unforgivably and failed to cover his lower back, but it could be worn without much alteration. It looked ridiculous, but the less he changed the armour from it's base design, the more strength it could retain.

Zeke struggled to pull it off, he actually had to cut the armholes a little to get his arms free, so much for not cutting it.

Once he was freed from the armour's grip he began to cut the armholes vertically, from top to bottom. A disregard for fashion can only stoop so low and wearing kid-sized armour was Zeke's deal breaker, something had to change.

The cut-off pieces of the scale armour was carefully sewn back together with utmost care, adding more length to the back. There were no second tries with this precious material. He would use the scales to cover his whole back and use the regular bog hide for the front, a happy compromise.

Zeke battered and bruised himself as he put his ideas into practice, the work was slow and meticulous. So many time did Zeke want to abandon the work and search around for a human-sized goblin's clothing to plunder, but he stuck with it.

Four long hours trickled by as Zeke gave the armour some finishing touches, a few dagger sheaths were sewn into the chest and a couple of leather pouches were attached to the back for whatever future purpose. He also upgraded his loincloth to leather and added a proper sword sheath.

Zeke held the masterpiece vest to the ceiling, a maniacal smirk twitched on is lips. He couldn't wait to show the local goblin population his new armour. He was sure they'd love it, after all, it was originally their armour to begin with.

Done with the armour making Zeke shuffled his stiff limbs to the pile of sharpened logs, there were about twenty of them in total and of varying sizes. One by one, Zeke carried the logs out side and placed them in a shallowed ditch he dug with one of the many stone swords from his arsenal. He had them packed together side-by-side around the cave in a semi-circle that had a narrow entrance in the middle, a choke point of sorts.

After the wooden spikes were lined up in the ground Zeke shoveled the dirt back into the ditch and stomped back to it's compact state. Zeke stood back and admired his handiwork from afar. The spikes poked out from the ground at random heights, from waist-high to shoulder-height, from a goblin's point of view it would seem gigantic. He also made sure to place the shorter logs between the larger ones, to discourage any eager uglies from jumping over a weak point.

It wasn't perfect, it could be knocked down with a little effort and it stood out like a sore thumb. It was also close to the tree line, so any climber would be able to leap over the wall from above, if their legs could survive the drop that is.

Zeke began to rip out berry bushes from a little further in the forest. The night was setting and Zeke had one more glaring improvement to make. With an excess of bushes in tow, he began to place them in front of the wall as a dodgy camouflage. While obvious to him, he hoped that the goblin's lower intelligence and perspective would help keep his cave at least a little obscure.

The day was done and Zeke collapsed to his rough pillow, his arms like jelly from constant movement. He dreamed of legions of goblins marching into a comically large pits and being impaled upon wooden spikes. Zeke's dreams had been so pleasent recently.