Homesteading in a fantasy world

My morning chores finished, it was time to get started with forging. I gather the goblin weapons and armor I have gotten, as well as one of them supporting plates that was left over from the plow build.

This was the biggest piece and was going to make the front end of the ballista. I started by bringing the ballista main block, as well as all the wooden pieces that I needed to make from metal.

I need them for reference. That will make my life a lot easier when forging. Thanks to the tar making, I have some extra charcoal so I can take my time and make every piece correctly.

Moving the blower was now even easier thanks to all my training and everything else. I was going to use one of the axes that I got off the goblins for my metal cutting.

Making a hole or slits into hot metal is necessary with this build especially for the front end. First, I needed to stretch out the plate. It was a bit too thick, and I needed it to be a bit larger.

When that was done, I heated up the two spots I needed to cut a slit in to. Using the goblin axe and the hammer and my increased strength, it was easy. The biggest problem was the anvil being too small, but I was able to make it work.

After that it was actually time to start bending it into the box shape I need. When the top part was bent the correct way, I also made holes there. I need some way to connect the front piece to the main block and two big bolts through it should do the job well.

The bolts will need to be made out of metal. Before I start to fold in the other sides of the box, I also stretched out the front end where I made the two slits.

I kind of wish that the bow limb was made, then I'll know the correct size I need to make. But I know approximately how thick I wanted to make it.

So, I just made it larger so I could fill the caps with the leather to make it secure and to protect the bow limb from rubbing against the metal.

I start to fold in the rest of the box. First came the bottom part, where I also made two holes and then I folded in both the sides.

Constantly checking against the main block, making it just a tiny bit smaller so it will fit extremely tightly. For the quenching, I had to use my other water barrel now, making it basically unusable for drinking if I didn’t wash it out extremely well.

I’ve seen videos of people making barrels, but it’s all a bit hazy. I will have some trouble making more and I think they will be needed at some point.

Setting that thought aside, it was time to start making the other pieces. I took the wooden ones and then looked at the metal scraps that I had.

I tried to find something that was a bit larger and close to the shape, so I could start forging them. It was all pretty standard forging until I made it to the winch.

It was the gear cog parts that I needed that were going to be the problem. But there’s a reason why I didn’t choose to cast them.

One was I didn’t have any crucibles or mould, but the more important reason is I wanted to try the piercing cut ability to cut it into the correct shape.

I had some extra pieces of metal thanks to the goblin armor, so I wasn’t worried about messing up and I could always turn that piece into a bolt head for the ballista.

It was an important thing to learn and to test out because it could help me make more complicated things in the future.

I basically needed to mess up one piece for all the testing and practice. I made two more for both sides of the winch. It was still an extremely difficult and time-consuming process, but I was able to make them.

After that, I just had some smaller pieces to make that will help everything fit together, and I was done with all the ballista pieces.

It was getting quite late now, but there were still hours left of daylight, especially thanks to the sun setting later.

I think summer is going to start soon. I can’t be 100% sure, but I think there’s about a month and a half left until the summer solstice.

As I looked at all the metal that was left, I was a bit disappointed there wasn't much left. I could get 10 bolt heads if I split two of the axes into two pieces.

From the rest of the thin armor pieces, I can make bigger arrow heads for the longbow. First, I made the bolts.

One of the pieces that I was going to use was a bit too rusted and I couldn’t get enough metal out of it to make a bolt head, but I did get 11 longbow arrowheads out of it.

Like the last time I made arrowheads, I finished in the dark. Tomorrow was going to be interesting in many ways. I was going to assemble most of the ballista, leaving me only missing the bow limb.

Skill increases basic smithing level 3

I was going to find out if the goblins returned on the regular schedule. What they will do and, of course, it was also time to start actually making the longbow and the ballista. When that is done, it's actually time to start the mission.

Next day came quickly, and after my chores it was time for another watch. I had to wait a few hours longer than I expected. But eventually I saw them coming out of the forest.

There were a lot of them, and they had a commander that looked like he knew what he was doing. Because they actually marched quite well.

I soon figured out their plan, they had a lot of goblins carrying throwing spears. They will try to use throwing spears to attack me and that would work, if I wasn’t capable of shooting them from farther away.

Of course, I didn’t need to go further away. I had my tower to protect me. The thick wood boards around me means I could hide from any missile fire except for a ballista, but I doubt that they will have one even if they come at me with everything they have.

I watched from my spyhole as they slowly approached there was 12 throwing spear goblins and 8 regular ones. The 8 were paired up and connected with rope.

But only two had hatchets, and I’m guessing they don’t have many of them left. Then there was, of course, the commander he seemed a lot more muscled, and he was carrying an actual battle-axe.

A long 2 handed one and not the one that you see in fantasy, but the real historical one with a skinny profile and one edge.

I didn’t notice anyone left behind for a watch, but I wasn’t going to be able to kill them all, no matter what I did. So, I guess there’s no need for them to leave any.

But maybe the commander didn’t think he can fail. That is also a possibility, but he wouldn’t see if he succeeded or not because he was going to be the first to die.

He wasn’t really armoured well enough to stop my steel arrows. He had good leather armor, while the other goblins mostly had rags and some pieces of leather or metal armor.

They actually used good tactics when they arrived. The regular ones went on to the bridge. The commander stayed behind them on the grass.

The rest fanned out to either side so they could throw spears at me if I moved around the raised bridge to try to fight them.

They were carrying five throwing spears, most of them having stone tips and one big regular spear with an iron tip.

I was starting to wonder where they got all their iron pieces. I would surely like to know so I could get some myself.

The goblin waited and so did I. I wasn’t going to start before they started to mess with the spike traps. It didn’t take long before the commander got impatient and sent goblins to try to cross.

I prepared some of the steel tipped arrows first for the commander, but for the rest I was going to just use the stone ones.

When the first goblin triggered the trap, I quickly got up and shot four arrows into the commander. He was a sturdy bastard and didn’t die, but he was dying.

And he was not able to move because one of the arrows went through its leg; which made him unable to move effectively. Two went into the chest and one into the shoulder.

This basically shocked everyone, but they weren’t as scared as they were the day before. No one even fell into the river.

I had to duck because many spears were thrown at me but thanks to the thick wood boards, I was safe and after the first volley, I quickly got up and shot the next 4 arrows.

This time aiming for their spear throwers. This continued for two more volleys before I had killed most of the spear throwers, and everyone started running.

They tried to pick up their commander, but as he was a sitting target, I shot one into the head and killed him.

Then continued firing now slowly and using better aim and kill the goblins who tried to run away. For some reason, some of them tried to carry their dead with them, but that just gave me the opportunity to kill them.

Looking at everything I had killed, 13, well technically 3 were still alive, but they were going to die soon, with my help or not.

I looked at all armor pieces and dropped weapons and then looked at how they were all running away.

I decided to do the simplest thing. I climbed down, stripped down and then just swam across the river and threw all that metal pieces to the other side and all the goblins into the river.

I think I know why they were trying to bring back that dead because they were going to feed them to the female goblins to get more goblins. It’s a horrifying thought but I think that’s the most likely case, but I hope I’m wrong.

Now the question came, do I want to make more bolt and arrowheads. But I think it will not be necessary because I can also make them out of stone as well.

And that will be good enough for most situations, especially against large portions of the goblins.

Hopefully, I can get enough metal overtime that I could actually make a proper anvil so I can make armor and weapons for my own use.

That also brought out a good point. I didn’t have any armor or a shield to use if I had to fight close up, and that was a problem I was going to fix.