Homesteading in a fantasy world

It was now time to start making the longbow. I was a lot more familiar with making this type of weapon than making the big ballista bow limb.

This helped me to choose better and the first one I picked turn out to be excellent. It didn't even struggle against me that much and by the evening, I was done.

Skill increases basic bow making level 8

It still needed some work. I needed to add horn tips to the ends, and I needed to make a proper bowstring. I just used a piece of rope for testing.

Before the sunset, I went on a small watch to see if there was any activity at the forest edge, but there didn’t seem to be. So after a quick wash, I went to eat dinner and go to bed.

Next day, after my chores, I start by finishing off the longbow by putting in the tips the same way as I did with the ballista and making the bow string from sinew. Then I started making the bolts for the ballista.

Considering the strength of the ballista, I ended up with over 2-meter-long bolts. I used the simple 2 feather end and connect the head similarly to how you would connect a spearhead.

For that reason, I made a hole on both sides of the head fitting so you can drive a nail through it and then bend it sideways on both sides to make a strong connection. But I also added some of the tar, so it will sort of act like glue.

I needed to cover the longbow and ballista bow limp in vegetable oil a few times to make it resist the weather better. I’ll do that for the rest of the day every once in a while.

Making the ballista bolts was quite easy. I also made some with stone tips to make it an even 20. But now was time to make the harder and more time-consuming ammo for the longbow.

I actually wasn’t ready to make them yet. The problem was connecting the arrowheads to the shaft. For that I need something to heat up the tar to cook out more moisture to make it thicker so I could use it as a glue.

For that I wanted to make a container out of metal so I wouldn’t waste my good cooking pots. So, I needed to fire up the forge.

But that wasn’t the only reason to do that. I got more metal, and I can make more arrowheads for the regular short bow and the longbow. But I also wanted to make armor.

Now just leather armor is better than nothing, but it's also not the best. I have a lot of mismatched small pieces of armor that I got off the goblins and that would be perfect for making something called the brigandine armor.

This was one of the most used armours before plate armor became cheap enough for it to be used by the bigger portion of the population.

But even then, it had some advantages over plate armor, most notably its flexibility. Big minus was the improved weapons that made it less useful, but this was not a problem against the goblins.

It was made by having an overcoat of cloth or leather and then riveting metal plate underneath. I will be making the version that I can connect with leather straps in the front.

So, I could put it on myself, unlike some of the versions that were on the side or on the back, making them unusable without help, similar to plate armor.

The plate size depended on the maker, but I was going to use open hand sized plates and make them a bit overlapping, giving some extra protection.

I will also make a sort of a gambeson underneath. I do not have the fabric needed to make a full one with 18 or even 30 layers of fabric needed, but I can try to make it as thick of a one as I can.

Everything else must unfortunately be made out of leather because all the metal large enough will be going into make the brigandine armor.

I start by measuring out myself and then transferring it onto fabric and then cutting it out. It will encompass my entire torso, giving me excellent protection. It will sort of look like a vest.

Now that I have the reference I need, I can fire up the forge and start to make the simple pot for tar cooking.

Then the brigandine plates and then finally I will spend all the rest of the metal on making arrow heads.

The pot was simple enough to make out of one of the bigger pieces of metal armor. I just had to pound it into a bowl shape, and it was done. It will not hold much, but it also didn’t have to.

Then came the time to start making the plates. I was strong enough so the plates can be thick, so I tried not to make them too thin and if they were thin, I just left them for the arrowheads.

It took quite a long time to make it all, but I still finished before evening. The thing that made it take longer was to get the general shape of the plates and then punching in holes for the rivets that will hold them in place. Every plate had 8 holes for me to connect around edges.

I could have made fewer holes, but I feel that would have compromised the connection a bit too much. I didn’t have a lot of metal left after that.

I only got another 50 short bow arrowheads and 35 longbow arrowheads. This time I also did some armor piercing ones for longbow, just in case I need them.

Skill increases basic smithing level 7

It was now time to start making the arrow shafts. Only wood I have that I could use was oak because the other woods I have are too light to make a proper arrow for a longbow.

I had some wood left from squaring up the log and other builds, but I wouldn’t have too many. Thanks to the piercing cut, it made it a lot easier to make.

But I wished I had another ability that would make my knife sharper as well, when doing more precision cutting.

I did all I can and ended up with a bit over 100 arrow shafts for the longbow. I’m just a bit short on metal arrowheads, but that is okay. During battle, some arrows will break so I can reuse the heads with them.

When the shafts were done, it didn't mean that they were finished. I still need to inlay horn into the back so that they wouldn’t crack when fired.

No goblins came again and I’m starting to feel that they might be gathering their forces for a bigger push.

But I guess I will have to wait and see. I’d love to go and scout out what is happening, but my defences are not quite done yet.

Another day came and when the chores were done, I continue making the longbow arrows. They were quite long and needed to be quite heavy, otherwise they will damage the bow.

This bow was a strong one. Without stats, I would not be able to pull it. This will not be my main bow because most of the goblins don’t need this powerful of a weapon to be killed.

My main shooting bow will still be the short bow. I can shoot 4 arrows a second with it compared to the one a second for the longbow.

I got all the arrow shafts and cut a slit into the end and cut horn into the correct size; but looking at the supply of horn I have, I will not be able to fit every arrow unfortunately.

I would fall short quite a lot, but then a memory came to the surface, and I quickly went into the woodshed.

This building was quite a large one, for obvious reasons. The winters can be long and cold. This gave this building an upper area.

I needed to get the ladder to get up there where multiple highlander cow horns were stashed. I will now have plenty to finish all the arrows.

This place was full of broken and other miscellaneous items that I was going to have to sort through someday.

I quickly made a sort of a burning pit with stones holding up the pot I made. I poured in half a bucket of tar to fill it up.

I didn’t make the fire big because I needed to slowly cook out the moisture. I didn’t want the mixture to start to burn.

This will take some time and I used this time to watch for goblins for a little while, but I still didn’t see any of them.

This was making me a bit anxious, but my current needs to finish making every necessary item came first then going scouting. When on watch, I started to figure out how to mount the ballista onto the tower.

I need room to still fire a bow, so I have to use the corner that was towards the river and the bridge.

Shooting anything to the left will be extremely awkward because I needed to lean over the railing, but it's better than not being able to shoot a bow.

If I had the time and materials, I would like to remake the tower into a proper fighting and watchtower, but that needs to be a future project.

I didn’t need the base that I made because I was going to connect it to the corner log, and it would be even more cramped if I used the base.

I had to take out the rope used for the bow testing apparatus to have a long enough piece to pull up the ballista.

If not for all that extra stats in strength, I would never have been able to pull it up. It looked amazing up here, but I quickly noticed a big problem.

I wouldn’t have anywhere to put the bolts or more arrows. Currently, I was only holding 100 arrows up top, but that will need to be changed. I will need to build an extension to the backside over the current alarm system.

But even then, I still put 2 bolts on top of the tower just in case something happened while I was building the extension.

By this time, the tar mixture was ready, but I just put a bit more wood to keep it from solidifying because I needed to build the extension and the simple frame so I could hide the ballista.

I need to use the cloth from grain bags and nail them onto a frame I made that will go over the ballista to cover the ballista’s shape.

For the extension, I used the good boards that I have from before that came from a lumber mill. For the supports, I used some of the few remaining lumber I have.

It didn't take me long to carve out the joint and lay out the flooring and build the sides. Now I have a good and big enough place to store bolts, arrows and bows.

I need to make changes to the alarm system, but it still works the same as before now just pushed back even further.

Then it was time to finally start to glue together the arrows. It was a messy job and when evening came, I went to clean off everything.

Skill increases basic fletching level 5

I had finished all the arrows I can for now. I only had to add feathers to them and then it will finally be done. Then start the work on armor and the disguise for the mission.