NOVEL SIMPLE [Vol.2] Ch.31 Specializations
When we reach the village, I'm a little surprised. I had done so much setup and work on the village, that I sort of just expected the goblins to stagnantly just live their lives as before. Instead, I'm greeted by multiple changes that have taken place. When I left the goblins nine months ago, they had a fledgling carpenter in Kaga, and some goblins who were making rope by hand, and some hunters.
Now, Kaga seems to have really gotten into his work, as there are various wooden constructions throughout the town. Among those are signs in front of some goblin's houses. It seems like some goblins have started businesses of their own. All of them are pictures, so it seems like literacy is a problem, but not one I care to fix. Plus, it means I can easily understand what shops are what. It looks like one is a basketweaver, another has what looks like a helmet of some kind, and a third one has something that looks a little like a shell. As much as I'd like to look into everything right now, I'll save it for later. First, I should actually check the quality of my various engineering projects, and make sure the roads, buildings, levee and wall are all holding up well.
After doing a once over of the village, most things seemed to be in good maintenance. The walls need a bit more work to finish them, and all the houses are currently full, so building out the extra houses I had planned from before seems like a good idea. Also, if it would help them, I'd like to build workshops for the goblins that seem to be running their own businesses. Of course, this is all second to building the dam to help prevent flash flooding from being a problem in the future.
Once I've checked over everything in the village, I decide to go check out the buildings with signs, starting with the helmet looking one. I knock on the door, and enter, where I see a goblin lounging in a pretty basic wooden chair. That said, it's a wooden chair, which means it was probably built by Kaga! I make a mental note to see what other works he's been building after looking around here. I brought Zeb along to translate for me as always. Along one wall, there are some hats that seem to have been fashioned using sinew and lizard hide, although the hide seems to only have been cleaned and heated, so it's not leather yet.
The goblin seems a little nervous, having me looking around his stuff without saying anything. I give him a nod, and have Zeb tell him to keep up the good work before we leave. I was thinking before about trying to teach a goblin how to make leather, and honestly, if this one is already this far along in their abilities to craft with sinew and hide, then teaching them the leathermaking process will probably be pretty useful.
I decide to make my next stop at Kaga's carpentry workshop, given I've seen his handiwork around town. When I arrive, Kaga isn't anywhere nearby. Behind his workshop, there are a few large wood logs piled up, and then inside, he's got a bunch of planks in a corner, and what looks like a bunch of wooden pegs he's carved. I left him with a bunch of simple hand tools, and it seems like he's figured out some good ways to put them to use. There are chairs and a few signs to one side of the workshop, then on another side it looks like he's made a bunch of straight poles, likely for spears.
We'll have to check back in with Kaga when we see him next. I'm getting the feeling that I'm going to be making a lot of tools and other things in the near future for the goblins. With those two stops out of the way, the next place I'd like to check out is the basketweaving shop. When we enter, in a similar manner to before, it's clear they've traded with Kaga, since they have a chair, along with a few basic tables. On those tables are some baskets that they've woven from what looks like vine and wood. They look like they probably get some young saplings, and form that into the basic form, then weave the vines we were using to make rope through it to make the baskets. Upon picking them up, they're definitely lighter than the stone buckets I've been using. They obviously aren't watertight, but for a lot of things, I'm sure they'd be more useful. I myself am less familiar with basketweaving, so I'll have to ask them what they might want for a workshop if I do that for them.
The last shop has what looks like a shell picture on it. Inside, they also have some basic tables, and on those tables they've laid out a bunch of different shaped shells and rocks. Everything here seems decorative, and there are some basic necklaces as well. I'd feel bad leaving them out if I'm making workshops for goblins, but that doesn't mean they'll get it first. Of the places I've looked at, while I find curiosities like this interesting, it's the one that is least pressing to have its own work area set up. That said, depending on the shells themselves, I might end up having use for them as a flux material. I'd have to have a lot of them, but if I crush them, it might be helpful for processing the mystery metal. Shells on earth are rich in calcium carbonate, so if these are similar, it would be quite the find. Obviously, I'm also interested in the rocks I haven't seen before, but those would require a lot of research, and I'm already booked out on that for a long time.
For the last nine days, Zeb and I have spent the time plotting the rest of the path up the mountain. We decided that finishing that would be a good idea for any future path building that might occur. Of course, that wasn't the only thing we did. In the morning and evening, we'd use our mana on stone shaping in the quarry area of the future reservoir. It didn't add much to the area, but it felt like a waste to not use some of our mana each day.
I'm also going to start offering up workshops to the goblins that have shops already now. For each of them, I of course want to also trade them for something. For the hide armor goblin, I'll offer to teach it a form of leatherworking and give it a workshop to work in, but in exchange I'll want a set of armor for myself and Zeb, and if I need some basic crafts in the future, I'd ask they help me out. For the basketweaver, I want a basket backpack. That would help immensely with harvesting plants, and once they can make those, I'm sure it'll benefit other goblins. As for the shell and rock gatherer, I'll need to assess if the shells provide what I want or not before I decide to trade with them. Which means I'll have to trade for their shells to begin with.
For now then, I'll focus on the other two's workshops while I have the time. I still need to finish the handful of houses I'd planned out, and the city wall here as well. I'm thinking about asking Kaga to actually make the gates for the city wall. Wood is much lighter than stone, so it'd probably be a better idea for that. As always though, there is lots of work to do...
Finishing the city wall and gates with Kaga took a full 11 days to complete. In that time, it rained a few times, and snowed up on the mountain. The wall itself has regularly placed stairs so that it is easy to stand on top of them. The walls themself stand at about 12 feet tall, with arched gates in the four main directions from the town. The gates are just large double doors made from wood, with stone-shaped reinforcements and hinges. They also have a crossbar so that they can be locked from the inside. I don't know that they'd actually stop a lizard from breaking through if it tried hard, but it hopefully would discourage it from bothering to try.
Kaga didn't want to make the gates for free, even though Zaka told him he should do it anyway for everyone's protection, I caved and told him I'd build him a covered area behind his workshop where he stores his logs and tree trunks that he's cut so they won't get wet when it rains. I'm worried I might be spoiling the goblins a little too much by giving them free stuff all the time like this, but I'm sure it'll improve the quality of his work as well, so it's probably fine. That said, it'll probably take me another two days to finish that construction, in addition to the houses I already have to work on.