Homesteading in a fantasy world

First thing I do is make leather vambraces, shin guards, and thigh guards out of leather. They are a quick build that will use leather rope to tighten them on to me.

When they were ready, and I applied their first tar coating, it was almost time to get the poison sumac inside the barrel.

But first I filled the containers I made with tar. When those were full, it was time to start dealing with the poison sumac.

I moved carefully, and I did it quite slowly, but once full I set everything used on fire and went to find the lid. Making a hole into it so I can put in the fuse.

I used oil and tar left in the bucket to soak a long piece of cloth. I wrapped it around some birch bark and made quite a long fuse. Using some cord to bind it together and make it extremely tight around the hole so nothing could spill out while I was moving.

I also made smaller fuses for the containers and then took them all in front of the house, where I was going to gather all the necessary items I need.

I went and found the torch that I also covered in oil and tar to make it easier to light. Also added to the pile a goblin spear and the foldable walkway in its backpack.

Now came the question of how I can quickly carry them all to the necessary location. For the containers, I need to make a leather satchel.

While I was doing that, I also looked and thought about my disguise. I was not going to wear any armor for this outing because I was already carrying so much weight and I wanted to be sneaky. Also, that way, wearing the disguise will not be too much of a hindrance.

I felt that I was rushing too much, so I took a few deep breaths and calmed myself down. That helped me concentrate on the current job and not think about other things.

I wouldn’t want to make a bad satchel that will break and make me lose all my Molotov cocktails. When I finally finished and loaded it up to test it. It seemed to be holding well enough.

Next, I worried about the barrel. It was going to have a similar strap system as the satchel with a lot thicker strap so it would hold the weight.

It was not going to be easy carrying that much weight, but it was going to be necessary, and I think with my current training I can accomplish this.

When I finished it, I started to work on the disguise. From the cloth I have left over from making the gambeson. I dye it green and made cut wood strips to make it look like a goblin's head shape.

I have only ever needed to make Halloween costumes once for my “NO”.

The question is, will I make any other pieces for the disguise? My clothes are already quite green and honest the head is the most recognizable when all you see are shadows.

If anyone would see me well enough, no matter what my disguises is, I will be discovered. So, I will only make the head piece and hope that this will be enough.

I only had one more thing to do, and that’s to add to my hip quiver a place to store my short bow. When that was done, I did a final check on the goblins, and it didn't look that they were aiming for an evening run on the bridge.

So, everything was ready except perhaps me. No matter how necessary this was, so I can defend my land, it's still a hard thing to do every time.

This will be yet another horrible thing I will not try to think about in the future. All I can do is take a few deep breaths to center myself and go into the mindset of war.

First, I put on my forest gears greenish clothes. I will not be wearing any extra armor simply because I need the movement speed and I need to be as light as possible because everything else will weigh so much.

I put on my sword and the hip quiver. Then goes the satchel onto the left hip. Next is the backpack with the foldable walkway and then I put on the barrel.

Making a mental checklist, I confirm I have the torch and flint and steel. All checked, I pick up the goblin spear and start to not walk but jog upriver towards the place I crossed before.

When I made it there, the first thing I did was put the barrel down and rub my shoulder. The weight wasn’t the worst, but the strap was. Even though I made it a lot wider, it still hurt a lot, but nothing I couldn’t deal with.

I quickly unfolded the bridge and brought everything over. The walkway didn’t much like so much extra weight, but thankfully it hold, and I made the crossing.

When I was geared up again, it was time to start moving towards the goblin encampment. Thanks to it being summer, today’s sun went down late and I was able to make it close while still having sunlight so see.

Making it here was a horrible journey. The barrel was too wide and cumbersome, so crossing thicker parts of the forest was a pain in the ass.

And unfortunately left a trail that they might find sooner than I hoped and might lead them to me quicker. But I guess that would be inevitable no matter what.

Now that I was quite close, I was able to take my time and slowly sneak around. So, I would be coming from the other side while not leaving an obvious trail behind me.

Hopefully, this will confuse them and lead them away from my farm. I will also use the same way I got in to run away more towards the village to cross the river somewhere closer to it and use the road do quickly get back.

Was this a bit of a flawed plan, yes. I hadn’t done any scouting of the river so upstream, and I was going to have to move through an unknown forest.

But honestly, this entire plan feels like it will crack if any of 100 things went wrong. I just need to hope that luck is on my side today.

I was quite far away and dropped most of my things to climb up a tree to get a better view of the encampment.

There seemed to be more goblins tents around. Not a good sign for me and I slowly watched as movement slowed to almost nothing.

It was most likely midnight now, and it was really hard to see anything but shadows. It was time I put on the mask, leaving the foldable bridge here.

I also put everything else on and start moving towards the hill entrance nearest to me. As I got closer, I put the barrel in front of me and crouched down a bit to make myself look more like a goblin.

The goblin spear I was holding was helping me hold my balance in this position and hopefully making myself look more like a goblin.

As I got to the tent area, I was glad to see most were sleeping and while there were a few campfires still burning with some active goblins around, I stayed clear of those.

It was still a tense and extremely exhausting work because of the way I had to walk, but I was quite close to the entrance now.

I could get a better look inside and there are multiple chambers. I am guessing four that housed female goblins and a big center chamber where they kept the developing goblins.

I didn’t see any doors that would hold back the smoke from going everywhere and the ceiling was low enough that the entire thing should be consumed by smoke.

To my surprise, it was extremely quiet, seems like the female goblins still need to sleep and there was no movement.

I sneaked quite far inside, almost to the central chamber. I laid the barrel down gently to not make noise and took out my torch and flint and steel to light it.

As I was lighting it, I had to make noise and some of the female goblins started to stir. As I got the torch burning, I heard a word in goblin spoken.

When I looked back, I saw one of them watching me and my so obviously fake mask. I quickly turned around and used the burning torch to light the fuse.

It took only a moment for it to catch fire and I started to run away as quickly as I can. The goblin started to scream something in its language and everyone else woke up.

As I got out, I heard a whoosh and a crack, meaning the barrel caught on fire and already the tar expanded so much that it broke apart the barrel.

All around me, everything was starting to move like an anthill after being kicked. I quickly took out one of the clay containers, lit it, and threw it up towards the hill where the nicer looking tent and the big main tent were.

As it fell to the ground and cracked, it spilled tar all around and a moment later it caught on fire and spread quickly. I kept running away and throwing them as far back towards the hill as I can.

I had to dodge a few waking goblins, but they were still too sleepy to think straight. When I was finally out of Molotov cocktails, I dropped the torch and started to really run towards the forest where my walkway backpack was still laying.

As I dropped my torch a moment later, I had to throw myself to the ground because a ball of fire flew over me and hit a tent to my side, making a small explosion and causing more tents to catch fire.

I quickly crawled on the ground, hidden by the numerous tents. When I felt I was far enough away to be unseen, I popped up and started running.

It seemed that it worked because no other fireball was heading my way. I run as quickly as possible but I still tried to stay behind as many trees as I could.

When I got the backpack on, I quickly took a look back. And I could see fire and smoke everywhere. From the base of the hill, there were big columns of smoke leaving from multiple places.

It seems that my plan worked excellently. Currently, over 1/3 of the entire encampment’s tents were on fire and it seemed that it was still spreading. I don’t expect it to spread much further thanks to the number of goblins there to help put it out.

As I saw multiple groups of goblins leave in every direction, I quickly started to run away. They were most likely trying to search for me, and I was not going to give them the opportunity to find me.

It took me almost until sunrise to reach the river and find a place to cross. I think they didn’t catch my trail quickly enough, and I also used trees to climb up and then jump a few to make them lose my tracks.

This seemed to work because now I was running down the road incredibly exhausted and sleep deprived but still running at top speed trying to get back as soon as possible. When I finally made it back, I looked over my notifications.

Combat results

frontier farmer level 12 --> frontier farmer level 15

animal husbandry level 7 --> animal husbandry level 8

handyman level 7 --> handyman level 8

basic running level 8 --> basic running level 9

basic combat strategy level 3 --> basic combat strategy level 6

beginner mental fortitude level 4 --> basic mental fortitude level 1

fitness enhancement level 1 --> fitness enhancement level 2

basic camouflage level 2 --> basic camouflage level 4

basic stealth level 5 --> basic stealth level 7

new skills gained

basic alchemy level 1

stats gained

Strength + 8

Dexterity + 5

Vitality + 8

Endurance + 3

Empathy + 1

Intelligence + 1

POV Goblin commander

“Give me the damage report I’ve been asking for, FOR THE PAST FEW HOURS, I WANT IT NOW.” As I watched the shivering goblin, I felt disgusted. Why were they also so useless?

“Commander a a al all the female breeders are dead from the poison smoke as well as the new meat developing in the central chamber.”

“We lost almost half the tents and about 40 goblins to the fire. Most of the food supplies have been ruined by the poison smoke as well c c com commander”

“One of the enemies was seen leaving towards the south. Some say it was a tall looking goblin, but no one saw it well enough c com commander”

How could only one enemy have caused my entire future to go up in smoke? “Shaman, you said that you were able to fire a fireball toward it. Did you see it any better?”

“No commander, all I saw was a shadowy enemy but the head did look similar to a goblin one, but its arms and legs looked more like a human. So, I’m not certain what kind of creature it was.”

“Thank you, shaman. I want every roaming hunting party and raid group back here YESTERDAY. We need to prepare to attack whoever it was and get all the scouting party’s searching and find me the location of this enemy.”

“Now everyone leave but the shaman.” As I watched everyone leave, my rage was boiling me from the inside.

“Shaman, when can we get more breeders evolved? Currently, the human presence is extremely low, and we need to use this time to grow as big as possible.”

“Commander, I am afraid that we are done. We will not be able to reach the state we were in during our lifetime.”

“If I try do forcibly change the current female population, we will get only one if we are lucky and then we are completely done.”

“They will need to born naturally and it will take a long time to get so many female goblins.”

“I know, shaman, I know. If I get my hands on whoever is responsible, I will squeeze their head apart and drink their brain. Now leave me and don’t return until all the sub commanders are here.”