Making charcoal and smelting iron was not hard for Marcus – he had watched enough primitive tech videos in his past life.
The hard part was the blacksmith after.
Luckily, the tribe had five Dwarfs.
Dwarfs are born blacksmiths.
Their stubbornness is their quality control.
They would rather die than make a bad blade.
With that confidence, Marcus didn’t hesitate.
He led Goblins to fill all three kilns with dry fir wood, stacked tight.
Seal the vents with mud, leave only a few holes top and bottom, light from the top.
Because charcoal making is simple, he only had to explain once.
Clever Goblins got it.
Once flame showed at the bottom holes, seal everything.
He left two smarter Goblins to watch the smoke – white to yellow to blue – and went to get iron.
He led the rest to the adit the Dwarfs had dug halfway up the eastern ridge.
Baskets on backs, they filled them with reddish hematite ore and carried it down to the kilns.
Heavy, slow work, but the vine baskets made it possible.
Next, crucibles.
You can’t melt iron in a pottery jar, it will crack.
You need refractory clay that can take 1200 degrees.
Marcus found it on the same ridge where Dwarfs mined.
Highland clay and giant ant nests.
In Africa, people use termite mound clay for forges because it’s full of fired particles and resists heat.
Same here.
Ant nest soil is pre-baked, gritty, perfect.
He and two Goblins dug a whole basket of highland clay and smashed several ant nests, carrying back the hard, sandy soil, leaving behind a mess and a very angry, unconscious queen ant in a pile of dirt.
Back at the kiln, he had Goblins crush ore.
They hammered with stone axes, then ground between two big flat stones.
Primitive, slow, you get only a handful of powder for an hour of work, but it was the only way.
He swore that once he had iron, he would build a big bloomery and a trip hammer so the tribe would never lack iron again.
He ground the ant nest soil to fine powder, mixed it with highland clay, a little straw, made a thick mud.
He shaped it into crucibles – thick-walled cups – and long spoons to pour molten iron.
Once the charcoal kilns were done, he’d fire the crucibles inside them.
The ground ore powder couldn’t be used directly.
Too much rock.
He had Goblins pan it in the river, like gold panning.
Water carries away light stone dust, heavy iron sand stays.
That iron sand is what you smelt.
He also made a few sand molds from river clay to catch molten iron.
The preparation alone took a whole day.
Meanwhile, the charcoal kilns were working.
By evening, the Goblins had successfully made two batches of charcoal – black, light, clinking like glass.
Before dark, Marcus had them load the new crucibles, spoons, and the leftover unfired pottery and bricks from yesterday into the kilns and fire again.
While he was busy stacking bricks, the system dinged.
> **DING!
NEW TROOP UNLOCKED: [STINK BOMB SNOTLING]**
> A little git idolizes you and has invented a brand new weapon.
He’s waiting at your Boss Hut.
Go see what he made, add him to combat unit.
> Reward: 10 WAAAGH!
Energy.
Stink Bomb Snotling?
Marcus didn’t remember a “Poop Thrower” in Warhammer, but Snotlings throwing stink bombs and Squig poop was very Orky.
And WAAAGH!
energy was real now – he couldn’t skip it.
He told Goblins to keep firing bricks themselves and walked to his Boss Hut.
On the way he was thinking – Snotlings invent things when scared, like real fungus.
Who knows what this one made.
When he arrived, he saw a dirty, stinking little Snotling.
Absolutely reeking, covered in brown muck from head to foot, flies buzzing.
“Holy crap, did you fall in the cesspit?
You stink!”
Seeing Marcus, the little git rushed forward.
For every step he took forward, Marcus took two steps back.
Marcus shouted, “Stop!
Don’t come closer!
Talk from there!”
The little git stopped, stammering, “Boss, it’s me!
Little Veg Head!
You named me, Boss, when I ate Spicy Squig!
I invented something amazing, want to give to you, Boss!”
Little Veg Head!
The Snotling champion who won the Big Mix-Up.
“What you invent?”
Little Veg Head pulled something from his loincloth.
It looked like a ball made of poop, with a faint green fuzz.
Marcus sweated.
“That…
is a poop ball?”
Little Veg Head said, “Boss, you gave me slingshot to hunt birds, but Gobbos keep trying to steal it.
So I hid in toilet you built, and that’s where I invented this.”
He took his slingshot, loaded the poop ball, and *thwip* – shot it.
The ball hit a passing Goblin.
*PUFF!* It exploded in a cloud of yellow-green smoke.
The Goblin coughed, eyes rolled, foamed at the mouth, and passed out cold.
“Holy shit!
Biological weapon?!” Marcus was dumbfounded.
Little Veg Head quickly said, “Boss, he just unconscious, not dead!
Smell makes faint!”
A weapon that could knock out a Goblin with one hit.
Power beyond expectation.
Surprise helped, but still.
Marcus hurried, “Hard to make?
What you use?”
Little Veg Head answered honestly, gesturing wildly.
Turned out two Goblins cornered him in the toilet to steal his slingshot.
To protect the slingshot his boss gave him, he jumped into the cesspit and fought back by throwing shit.
He chased them away.
After climbing out, covered in excrement and afraid of retaliation, he didn’t wash.
And he noticed something.
Mushroom spores from the fungus field, mixed with shit-water in the pit, grew into a completely new mushroom.
This new mushroom grew in shit-water, forming tiny puffball spheres.
When the spheres burst, they released a foul, spore-filled stench that could knock out enemies instantly.
Inhale too much, you suffocate from stench.
This thing was born for Snotlings.
Marcus understood instantly.
This wasn’t just poop.
This was a Warhammer fungus.
In Warhammer lore, Orkoid fungus mutates wildly.
Mixed with waste, it produced a **Stinkspore Puffball**, a cousin to the hallucinogenic Madcap mushrooms Goblins eat.
Snotlings, who tend fungus fields, often discover new strains by accident.
Don’t ask how.
Goblin tech is awe-inspiring because it’s fungal, not logical.
Marcus grinned.
He now had ranged biological weapons.
“Little Veg Head, from today, you are Boss of Stink Bomb Snotlings!
You make many of these!
You get extra mushrooms!”
Little Veg Head squealed with joy, rolling in his own stink.