Under the influence of fungus beer and Dwarf drinking culture, the stone hut got louder and louder.
The more the Dwarfs drank, the more talkative they became.
Dwarfs never stop talking once you ask them about mining and smithing – it’s their sore spot and their pride.
They cursed, boasted about how their clan once mined a seam of gromril half a mile deep in Karaz-a-Karak, how their uncle forged a rune axe that could split a troll skull.
Marcus occasionally asked, “How you make blast furnace hotter?
How you keep mine from collapsing?” And they couldn’t stop.
Dwarfs also have terrible drinking manners.
One Dwarf, Brokk One-Ear, started arguing with Firebeard about who was stronger, and before Marcus could agree to anything, they were arm-wrestling on a rock, beards tangling, shouting in Khazalid.
The Goblins were trying mushroom beer for the first time.
It was divine to them.
Sweet, sour, fizzy, alcoholic.
They’d finish theirs and snatch others’, quickly escalating into another brawl.
The clever ones, after finishing their beer, filled a jar with hot mushroom soup and slipped away early before the fight.
After a good drink, everyone was happy.
They agreed with the Dwarfs to go to the kiln area tomorrow to build a real forge.
Marcus, hiccuping green bubbles, returned to his thatched hut.
“This beer delicious, but makes me hiccup.”
Falling onto his straw bed, dreaming of equipping all Greenskins with iron choppas, he finally passed out.
Nothing happened that night, except a few Snotlings vomiting green beer.
The next day, Marcus unusually slept in, only getting up when the sun was high.
Yawning, humming a tuneless WAAAGH!
song, he arrived at the kiln and was pleased – the Dwarfs and Goblins were already busy.
The Dwarfs had built a small bloomery furnace from firebricks they fired yesterday, with a bellows made from hide and wood.
They heated the 10 kilos of iron ingots from yesterday until red-hot, then began hammering.
First, an anvil.
You can’t forge without an anvil.
They hammered a small pig-iron anvil, crude but usable.
Then, on that anvil, they forged a long, thin saw blade for the treadwheel.
The Goblins watched with mouths open.
They thought after watching, they would know how too.
WAAAGH!
field learning is real – a Goblin watching a Dwarf forge long enough starts to think he knows.
This made Marcus even happier.
This spot, between the quarry and the lumber camp, with kilns, water nearby, was perfect.
He decided to upgrade it into a proper workshop – a place specializing in tools and weapons.
A Greenskin workshop, messy but productive.
Then he realized he didn’t have enough Goblins again.
System showed:
Lumber camp: 80 Goblins and 200 Snotlings
Quarry: 100 Goblins and 500 Snotlings
Mushroom fields: 40 Goblins and 400 Snotlings
Odd jobs: 20 Goblins
Combat troops: 100 Goblin spearmen, 60 Goblin archers, 100 Snotling Stink Mob[incomplete]
Total system: 480 Goblins and 1800 Snotlings.
Too many Snotlings, not enough Goblins.
Snotlings are weak labor.
Goblins are the real workers.
And the system still had the quest to arm 300 Goblins with stone weapons, and he was still short by 140.
Fortunately, they had accumulated a lot of dung and spores these past days.
He decided to open three more Level 2 Mushroom Fields at once.
He had plenty of Snotlings to tend them.
He sent a Goblin to relay the order to the fields.
Meanwhile, the Dwarfs finished the saw blade.
Long, thin, teeth filed by hand.
They quenched it in the bucket of rendered boar lard from last week.
Lard quench is real – for low-carbon iron it won’t make true steel, but it will harden it a bit.
They waited an hour for it to cool.
Marcus led Goblins to the lumberyard to install the blade on the Goblin Treadwheel.
After installation, a dozen Goblins climbed inside the wheel and started running, whipped by a slightly bigger Goblin with a stick.
Their running turned the axle, the saw blade spun.
Other Goblins pushed logs against it, and it cut into planks.
Rough planks, but planks.
> **DING!
[Goblin Treadwheel Sawmill] successfully built.**
> Produces planks for the tribe daily.
> Once enough planks available, can upgrade thatched huts to wooden huts.
These past days, Marcus had been so focused on smelting and bricks he neglected training.
Luckily Gaptooth had kept the Boyz busy hunting, otherwise they’d have slacked off and fought each other to death.
Arriving at the Goblin training ground, he saw Goblins huddled together, seemingly doing nothing.
He assumed they were slacking and was about to beat them, when he saw a Goblin with his arm missing, bleeding heavily, wrapped in dirty hide.
Marcus rushed forward.
“What happened?”
The Goblin howled and explained, voice shaking.
His five-Goblin hunting team had gone into the forest early morning to hunt and check traps.
After crossing the ridge to the north, they were attacked by a colossal beast.
A bear.
Not a normal bear.
A Warhammer **Forest Bear**, twice the size of an Earth grizzly, as tall as Marcus at the shoulder and twice as thick, body size of a small cart, covered in scars.
Goblins’ stone spears and wooden arrows barely scratched it.
In one encounter, the team was wiped out, two killed instantly with a swipe.
The rest fled.
Only this Goblin, arm bitten off, managed to escape by playing dead.
After hearing the story, the system issued a notification:
> **DING!
QUEST: BEAR HUNT**
> My little ones killed by giant bear.
I’m furious!
WAAAGH!
Greenskins don’t wait for revenge!
Take your boyz and kill that bear!
> Reward: All spear and bow Goblins loyalty rises to Obedience.
Only soldiers who obey every command are good soldiers.
Marcus stood up and roared at the Goblins around him, “Go hunt bear!
Avenge our boy!”
**”WAAAGH!”**
Goblins, hearing their Orc boss, shouted “WAAAGH!” in unison, grabbing spears.
Marcus picked up the wounded Goblin, tied his stump tight with rope to stop bleeding, had him carried, and had him lead the way.
A group of Greenskins – 40 spear Goblins, 20 archers, Gaptooth, Iron Egg, and Marcus himself with his choppa – darted into the jungle.
Soon they reached the ambush site.
They smeared themselves with mud to cover smell and crouched low.
Rustling bushes, snapping branches, heavy footsteps.
Soon, they spotted the bear.
Massive, brown-black, as tall as Marcus’s shoulder, twice his thickness.
It was dragging several Goblin corpses together, piling them.
According to the wounded Goblin, this beast had speed disproportionate to its size and an incredibly keen nose.
Marcus lay behind a bush, surrounded by dozens of Goblins.
He waited.
The bear circled the bodies once, sniffed, then crouched to devour.
Marcus seized the moment.
“NOW!”
Some Goblins hurled stone spears.
One spear does nothing.
Twenty spears at once do.
Three volleys, over sixty spears, raining down, surrounding the bear.
The bear, caught off guard while eating, was riddled with holes, roaring in pain and fury, blood matting its fur.
It stood on hind legs, taller than an Ogre, and roared so loud leaves fell.
But it was wounded.
And Marcus was already charging with his choppa, WAAAGH!
energy burning green in his eyes.
The bear hunt had begun.