Homesteading in a fantasy world

This morning after my chores, I set up the gear I will need to go into enemy territory to scout and, if needed, kill.

I brought enough food to last one day. I had to do some modifications to the backpack as I added some extra straps onto the side so I can secure my sword and extra arrows to the sides.

I can’t have my sword on my side because it will simply make too much noise in the brush, and it might make it difficult to climb trees if needed. Knife was still going on to the belt as well as the hip quiver to the other side.

With my water skin filled and my foldable walkway in the backpack, I did not set off to the other side of the river but moved towards the tower for my now regular watch.

Leaving most of the gear at the tower's bottom, I go up for another watch. At first, I thought I would go to the other side first, then catch them off guard in the forest and attack them.

But I’m hoping that the same thing will happen as yesterday, and I will just need to move fast over the river to be able to follow the ones that go back to wherever they are staying.

It was a long wait, and I was thinking that they might not come today, but when it was starting to get towards evening, they finally showed up.

This time there were seven of them, with two staying in the forest like yesterday. The difference today was that there were 3 goblins that looked like the poor ones before.

As they walked closer, I was wondering if they were running out of goblins, and I might not need to worry about them for too much longer.

That thought changed as they reached the bridge and the well armed ones forced one of the poor ones to cross one of the main supports, poking him with spear so that he would cross even though he didn't want to.

I watched the goblin as he walked similar to the pirate’s walking of the plank. He knew both sides ended with his death, but moving forwards gave him fractionally better odds.

He didn’t want to die, and he was ready as soon as the trap activated. He tried to escape, but that actually made his situation worse.

Because he was able to dodge some of the spikes, it just meant he didn’t die instantly. It took him a few minutes to die screaming at the top of his lungs.

It was a quite a cringe worthy moment and to make it even more unpleasant I got a skill level in trapping from all this suffering .

But as soon as he died, not a moment later, another goblin was forced to try and get to the other side. The upgrades to my trap worked and when he tried to climb over, he slipped and fell into the river.

I tried to watch him and the next goblin that was forced to cross the other main support this time. It didn’t take him long to drown in the river, and it was quite a sad sight. They just weren’t made for water.

This one wasn’t so alert and ready to escape and got killed instantly as soon as the trap activated. As I looked at the other two goblins, they were discussing something.

I didn’t understand anything until one of them mimicked with his dagger the motion of an axe and then pointing at the spike traps at that point the other one nodded and they walked off towards the two that were at the forest edge.

They were discussing for some time before I saw them leaving. If I hadn’t been more vigilant, I might have missed that one just went only a little further into the forest and then start to watch.

He wouldn’t have the perfect vision because he was too deep in, but if I hadn’t seen him walk there, I wouldn’t have noticed him.

I’m guessing that they want to know how the traps are reset. I wasn’t going to give them that chance.

I climbed quickly down on the side of the tower that was facing the bridge so that the raised part of the bridge will hide most of my descent.

I grabbed my gear and moved back towards my farm, but soon, when I thought I would be out of vision range, I turned towards down river to make a crossing further away from here.

I had no time to waste, so I ran at top speed. When I was certain I will not be seen crossing and when I found a good place to do so, I quickly unfolded and then assembled the walkway.

If I didn’t have the extra strength from my stats and the counter weight skill, I would have found it difficult to lift up and almost place the walkway into the correct place, only dropping it so that the spikes will bury themselves into the dirt.

Getting the empty backpack back onto my shoulders, I walked across it. It held up excellently as testing showed and the spike really helped stabilize the whole thing.

I packed it up again, and I was standing on the other side in under 5 minutes with the entire thing packed up and I wasn’t even doing that at top speed.

When I made it inside the forest, I went a bit deeper in but still stayed so I was able to see the forest edge and started to sneak my way towards the last known position of the goblin that was left to watch.

I was lucky that he didn’t think of hiding himself better from an approach from his back. All the sneak training I had done in the grasslands has really paid off.

I was able to get quite close without him even noticing me and I think I could get even closer, but I just didn’t see the need.

I did 3 quick shots in less than a second and all were flying towards him. One of them aimed for the head and 2 for the back. All three hit in rapid succession, killing the goblin instantly.

I did a quick survey of him, but left everything but the arrows there. I didn’t want to lose track of the other group and where they were heading.

Even then, moving as fast as I did, I almost didn’t catch the trail because there were so many other tracks for goblins, and they all seem to take different routes to get here.

When they finally did come into sight, I got a level in tracking. I wasn’t here to kill them but to see where they were going so, I was forced to stay as far away as possible so I would not notify them of my presence.

Being sneaky and patient for this long was difficult. I constantly looked back so I would familiarize myself with the way back. It’s one of the most common mistakes people make when traveling in unknown locations.

When you only look forward when moving and it was time to go back when you turn around, absolutely everything will be completely new and unfamiliar, so to successfully make it back, I needed to memorize both directions.

I now know why they didn’t come at the same time every day. It was because they were too far away from my farm from where they were going.

I suspected that because they were setting up a small camp, if you can call it that, to sleep in for tonight.

Finding a tree that I could see them from that still had leaves covering me so they will not see me. I climbed up and found a comfortable spot to sleep in. I went to sleep before they did. They were still talking and laughing animatedly around the fire.

I woke up before the sunrise and was sore all over as I looked over the campsite, they were still sleeping.

It took them another hour to wake up and start moving and during that time I was really contemplating on killing them just so they will wake up and start moving.

When they finally did, I climbed down. It was extremely easy to do thanks to my constant training and stretches. I was certain that if the tree canopy was thicker, I could just follow them on the trees.

It took them a few hours to reach what I will call a proper campsite with one huge tent-like structure and with a lot more surrounding that.

There were goblins everywhere, but some walk around the perimeter holding spears and looking like they were guarding the area.

They have cleared up quite a lot of forest here to make their campsite and I climbed one of the trees that had concealment but still vision over most of this.

I now have time to see what I was up against, and it wasn’t a pretty sight for me there was hundreds of goblins, if I had to guess about 300 of them.

The campsite was situated on a small hill, I saw there were entrances into it. The tents themselves covered the entire hill and a bit of the surroundings. They were mostly made from animal hides.

I then spent over 4 hours monitoring their activities and I noticed an interesting thing. Most of the food that they collected, and they collected a huge amount, was going into the underground hill.

The entrances inside the hill were quite big, and I wanted to see into that place. I then turned my attention onto the guards and watched how they move.

Turned out they mostly just moved how they felt like, but I did find a big hole thanks to that to get me where I wanted to go.

I was able to climb down, move and climb up a tree where I could better see inside and inside was quite a horrifying sight.

There were extremely fat female goblins that were constantly being fed the food that was brought in. I thought maybe these were their leaders or something like that, but one of them soon gave birth.

What I will call an embryo like thing that she expelled. It was then taken further back where I think I see more of them. I got a good enough look at the thing and I think it was a new goblin.

It was probably taken back where it was warmer so that they could develop further, and I can’t call it hatching because they weren’t actually in an egg but similar to that, I think.

The frequency of the births seemed to correspond to how much food they were eating. They were almost like ant queens.

If this continued, they were going to overrun me completely. I looked around more, noticing how the nature looked. The goblins were acting like locusts, consuming all to grow their numbers.

I now was able to put together all I have heard about them in my memories. Why the goblin hordes were talked about so frightfully.

If they got large enough numbers, they would leave entire regions devastated and bare of almost everything. If they continued here like this, my entire farm will be consumed.

It was at this moment that I noticed a group of goblins going out towards my farm and the leader of the team looked to be the same tall and mean looking goblin that has been there for the past three days.

There were seven of them today as well, but there were no longer any of the poor-looking ones. All looked like fighters.

Three of them were carrying iron axes proper ones similar to the one I use but rustier and the handle have seen better days, but still with a little bit of work they would be serviceable.

I bet they will try to hack down the spike traps so they could cross. Took me a bit until I had enough free space I needed to sneak out and start to follow them.