Rowan saw before him a blank canvas again. The ground of the farmland needed to be tilled again. He cleared the dead withered crops and tossed them outside the farmland. He knew the dead plants could be useful for composting, but now was not the time to focus on that. The squares of land he previously planted needed to be tilled again to prepare them for new crops. Just briefly, but the land needed to be touched up. And he wanted to till even more land. That would take some more time.

Zillia had set up a little station for herself. It was a covered wooden desk, and a few crates sat on the ground by it. She stapled down a few of the invoices, and left the rest in a box, the stack making a thump as she dropped them in.

“Well, have you got everything you need here?” She asked, getting ready to leave.

“Actually, I could use…”

“It was a rhetorical question. You obviously need boatloads of help. But that doesn’t mean I have time to stick around and babysit you. I have other farms to manage.” And with that, Zillia left.

When Rowan looked at the land before him, he felt disheartened. Some of the squares of his plot were covered in dark green weeds. And some of the plot was covered in black and red thorns that seemed to emit a glow of magic aura. How was he going to expand his farm with all this junk in the way? He sighed, and planted what he could before checking in on Scrumble in the shed.

Rowan handed in some wood after trading some for coins and asked for a couple new wooden hoes.

"If you want me to queue up two jobs at once you'll need to upgrade my shed," said the goblin.

What a greedy little guy. Rowan thought about how little his heroic rescue was valued. "What does it cost to upgrade your shed?"

Scrumble shook his head, "Suffice it to say you can't afford it right now. For one thing, the kobolds took my workbench. So you'll have to go into the wilderness to retrieve it. And I'll be needing some gold and a few other requirements."

Rowan groaned at the long lists of requests he had piling up. "Well, one hoe for now then." Scrumble got started.

As Scrumble carved away at the wood, Rowan thought about the kobold situation, “How did you end up in trouble with those kobolds anyway?”

Scrumble paused for a second, then grunted and continued chiseling, “I told you, they’ve after all our good craftsmen.”

“But how’d they find you? How’d they know you were a good craftsman?”

Scrumble sensed his skepticism, “Look, suffice it to say kobolds have been a problem here for a long time. They're one of the reasons the war ended. We can't be fighting humans while we have so many problems of our own.

“They’ve been getting more organized, those kobolds. The targeting of highly skilled goblins is an attempt to disorganize our community. That leads to more infighting as goblins struggle for resources. Then the kobolds can pick us of and turn goblin country into kobold country. Jokes on them of course, because the humans will take over first."

"We weren't trying to take over. We just wanted peace."

Now it was Scrumble was skeptical, "That might be what you peasants and your soldiers thought, but I think your kings and dukes had other plans."

Rowan opened his mouth to interject, but wondered if maybe the goblin was onto something. Instead he asked a question, "So you think a goblin civil war is about to break out?"

"Well we're split into so many factions. There are goblins who can't stand humans, want to be aggressors and wipe you out first. Them's the reason the war started, I'll grant you that. But then there are those who want to ally themselves with you. Unshakable optimists I call them. And then there are those who fall somewhere in the middle. Maybe they still hate humans, but don't want to be going to war with them all the bloody time."

"So where do you fall?"

"I can tolerate ya."

Rowan had a lot to take in. He was living in a land with so much internal fighting. Goblin against kobold, goblin against human, and goblin against goblin. And that's apart from the wild animals and giant bugs they have to live with. No wonder they called for a truce.

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Rowan wanted to prove himself to be one of the good humans. He thought improving his relationship with the goblins could lead to more of them adopting the belief that peace with the humans was possible. That could lead to less infighting and further peace. That would certainly help his farm prosper. And maybe, just maybe, they’d forget that they wanted to kill him.

Rowan thanked Scrumble when the hoe was finished, and paid the goblin to make another one. He set out to work the farm.

Rowan quickly tilled the squares he previously used to set them back to a state ready for planting. He planted a whole row of corn seeds, since that was still his only option.

"Shame I lost all my other seeds," he thought to himself, "Maybe I'll find some new ones. But for now, it's a corn farm."

He looked at the pile of orders, starting with the three laid out on the little wooden desk. The first one was for just 10 ears of corn. Did he dare look ahead at the other orders? The pile was intimidating enough. He just had to focus on one at a time. When he looked at the order, he noticed at the bottom it included a section with completion rewards. For turning in the corn, he would be awarded with tomato seeds. He got excited and looked at the next page. It was an order requesting corn and tomatoes and rewarded celery seeds.

"Now I have some things to look forward to." Rowan said to himself and he started hoeing new squares of farmland. He planted plenty of corn seeds.

Rowan tilled every available square of land in the lot and planted corn. He was ready for a big harvest. There were still parts of the farm covered up with weeds, and some sections with magical thorns. He didn't know how to get rid of the magic thorns, but he supposed he could start pulling weeds by hand. He stamped his feet, adopted a firm stance, bent down and grasped a weed with both hands. He tugged as hard as he could. His feet scraped through the dirt as he pulled. He couldn't move the weed an inch.

Rowan tried using his hoe to pull the weed a different direction, but that wasn't working either.

A new idea occurred to Rowan as he went into Scrumble's shed. "Could you make me a wooden shovel?"

"I could if you had enough gold."

Rowan had run out fast without realizing it. Scrumble wouldn't buy corn, and he needed that for fulfilling orders anyway. Rowan didn't know what to do with his bug parts and other items he picked up from defeating enemies. The only thing he had that Scrumble wanted was wood. And if he sold the wood, he wouldn't have enough to make a shovel.

Rowan said nevermind and looked out at his farm again. His plants were at an early stage of growth. He decided to head to the stream and collect wood on the way.

Rowan breathed. This was all part of the plan. If you want to build a farm, you've got to do some grinding. He chopped wood. Chop, chop, chop. He observed the peaceful environment. He was grateful a hornet didn't pop out to attack him this time. He saw flowers and beautiful plants. The path to the stream was a comfortable walk. He took his mind off combat and goblin politics and focused on the task at hand. He had a nice pile of logs by the time he got to the stream. He filled his watering can and saw little dragonflies darting through reeds on the side of the stream. Normal sized bugs, what a concept. He saw little fish through the clear water, little frogs hopping on lily pads. He even saw a beaver swimming with some sticks. Rowan felt calmed by this moment of appreciating nature.

The peace was soon interrupted when Rowan returned to the farm and once again had to shoo off crows. He needed to do something about this. The obvious answer was to make a scarecrow, but Rowan wasn't sure what materials could be used to make one of those. Then he saw a giant roach. No thank you. No scarecrow was gonna stop one of those from wandering into his farm.

Rowan Attacks 2 damage The Roach Attacks 2 damage; HP 10/12 Rowan Attacks 2 damage The Roach Attacks 2 damage; HP 8/12 Rowan Attacks 2 damage, the Roach is defeated XP +3 XP to Next Level 14 Received 2 coins, Insect parts

Rowan took out his sword and dispatched the creature in a few hits. He needed to do something to stop more pests from coming through.

Rowan watered the crops. Thankfully most of them were not compromised and he'd still have a decent harvest. He just needed to wait a little longer.

Rowan had many concerns about his place in the goblin kingdom of Zyndak. It was still his first day of farming, so it was normal to not have overwhelmingly positive results yet. When he was sent out on this mission leaving his human home, he didn’t expect to be doing these tasks alone. He was fine with the physical work. He could plow land, plant crops and harvest them. But it was different alone. And it was different with so many threats looming over him.

A glance at the empty food crates reminded Rowan of his duty, what he had to do to stay alive. He could almost hear Zillia’s judgment even when she was not present. He knew what he had to do. He looked at the small number of spaces available to plant on. He could cycle crop after crop on a few squares. Or he could work on expanding the farm first. That way the amount of goods he could rake in in a day could increase. He eyed those weeds, took in a deep breathe, and headed for Scrumble’s shed.