As night fell under Mannslieb and Morrslieb, Iron Egg finally woke up.
He had been out cold since the Idol blasted him at noon, smoke still faintly coming from his pointy ears.
Marcus crouched next to him, worried.
A Goblin Shaman was too valuable to lose.
“Iron Egg, how you feel?
Different?”
Iron Egg stared at his own hands, which were faintly glowing green.
Marcus quickly made up a proper Orky legend for him.
“Dis morning, I took you to da statues of Gork and Mork.
I told ’em Iron Egg is da most cunnin’ Gobbo in da tribe.
We need a Shaman.
I said Iron Egg should be Shaman.
Gork and Mork said ‘Good point!’ and they made you Shaman!”
Iron Egg’s sleepy brain processed this.
He jumped up, screaming.
“Boss!
Really?!
I am Shaman now?!
Like real Waaagh!
Shaman?!”
Marcus had to physically hold him down before he bit him with excitement.
“Of course!
I am your boss.
If I say you are Shaman, you are Shaman.
But you listen to me, or I tell Gork and Mork you iz rubbish and they take it back,” Marcus threatened, which was exactly how you control a Greenskin.
> **DING!
Acquired: Iron Egg, Goblin Shaman’s Vow of Faith.**
> Vow of Faith: When a Greenskin swears faith to you, they will never betray you.
> **NEW FEATURE UNLOCKED: FACTION FAVORABILITY**
> You can now see loyalty.
Levels: Blood Feud – Dislike – Neutral – Respect – Obedience – Vow of Faith.
Higher loyalty = more stable tribe.
Marcus opened it.
Satisfying.
All his Goblins: Respect to Obedience.
Gaptooth: Obedience – he loved his Squig.
Snotlings: Obedience – they obey anyone bigger.
Even the five Dwarfs: Neutral.
For Dwarfs forced to work for an Orc, Neutral is a miracle.
It meant the oath was holding.
Only one other faction discovered: **Clan Rictus Skaven – Dislike.** Of course they disliked him, he had blocked their tunnel and killed 38 of them.
Marcus didn’t care.
He’d wipe that Dislike off the map with blood.
He was very pleased with Iron Egg’s Vow of Faith.
He urged him, “Show me!
Cast spell!”
Iron Egg strained, face turning purple, veins popping.
After a long time, a small, wobbly patch of green light condensed in his palm, like a sick firefly.
Then it popped.
That was his limit.
A spark.
But for a Goblin who was just a laborer yesterday, it was a miracle.
Marcus didn’t mock him.
This was his first follower who would follow him to death.
He had to cultivate him.
“You will practice!
Practice every day!
Waaagh!
magic!
In future, we build great future!
I take you from dis valley, we conquer south, conquer north, then turn around and conquer again!
You are now speaker of Gork and Mork!
Without doubt, we launch da most awesome Waaagh!
in da world!”
Iron Egg didn’t understand half the words, but the tone – loud, proud, full of WAAAGH!
– made his chest swell.
He secretly vowed to practice until he could make heads explode, so he could serve his Orc boss.
After the pep talk, Marcus promised, “You learn one real spell, even small one, I give you your own Jumpy Squig like Gaptooth!”
Iron Egg’s eyes almost popped out.
He had been jealous of Gaptooth’s Squig for weeks, planning to steal it.
Now he had a chance to get his own.
He ran off into the night, muttering green light words.
Marcus returned to his Boss Hut to sleep.
Dawn.
New day, new building.
The Greenskins first dug a huge pit near the quarry.
Marcus was going to build kilns.
Not one, three.
In Warhammer, Greenskins don’t have kilns.
They eat raw or burnt.
But Marcus had 5000 years of Chinese food culture in his soul.
A month of roast meat on sticks, no pot, no bowl, just stone slabs and wooden buckets.
Enough.
He designed three pit kilns.
Each was about 1.5 meters deep, 1.2 meters wide at the base, with a domed top to hold heat.
Each had three levels: bottom for ash and air vent, middle for firewood, top grate for what you want to fire.
The grate was a large, perforated mud cake.
The Goblins mixed mud with dry hay and water, stomping it with their feet into a thick daub.
This mud-and-straw mix is ancient – it doesn’t crack when fired.
They smeared it on the pit walls and built the dome up with excavated soil, piling it on, shaping it.
He spent an entire afternoon building the first one himself, showing every step.
The Goblins, copying meticulously like parrots, built the other two by evening.
They would be used for three different things.
Kiln One: Charcoal.
To make coal burn hotter, you need charcoal.
Wood stacked inside, sealed, slow-burned.
Kiln Two: Pottery and bricks.
Mud bricks for walls, and pottery bowls, pots, jars.
Finally, a pot to boil meat instead of roasting it every day.
Kiln Three: Iron smelting.
This was the most important.
The Dwarfs said you can’t smelt iron in a campfire.
You need a bloomery furnace that can reach 1200 degrees.
This pit kiln, with coal and bellows, could just about do it.
By the time the third kiln was shaped, Morrslieb was high in the sky.
All the Goblins were covered head to toe in mud.
Whenever Marcus turned his back, they started wrestling in the mud or punching each other.
He had to stand there and watch, or the kilns would have been three mud piles.
He herded them all into the river to wash.
They complained, but went.
Then he brought them back to the kilns.
Wet kilns are useless; they will explode.
They needed to be dried.
He had Snotlings fetch armfuls of thin branches and dry weeds from the lumberyard.
They stuffed them into all three kilns and lit them, and even piled brush around the outside of the kilns to bake the walls.
Three small fires burned in the night, drying three domes.
By morning, if they didn’t crack, the Ironhead tribe would have charcoal, pottery, and iron.
Marcus sat watching the fires, Iron Egg beside him trying to make green sparks, Gaptooth snoring on his Squig, the five Dwarfs muttering in Khazalid about “Grobi trying to be Dawi.”
For the first time, it didn’t look like a Goblin camp.
It looked like the start of a hold.