Upon arriving back to our cave, the goblins were taken by surprise because of our new acquisition, and many congratulated Zotnik. The morale was high in the camp, and thus we settled down for dinner.

With each passing week, the leaves on the trees turned ever more yellow and orange. And each day the sky would turn a slightly darker shade of grey, and sometimes accompanied by heavy rain. We had survived thus far till late autumn.

I still had lingering worries about going to the swamp, and fear of encountering those frogmen, so I spent the time creating more crafts and training my body, which raised my attributes slightly.

Interface You have raised your Strength by 1, (12 → 13) You have raised your Dexterity by 2, (15 → 17) You have made over 100 Stone Crafts, you have been awarded the title 'Stone Craftsman' Stone Craftsman This title allows the user to more easily produce items made of stone of higher quality.

The title had surprised me. I had crafted well over 300 different stone objects, furniture, arrowheads, tools, containers, weapons and so on. And yet, this title said I only made over 100 stone items? Perhaps making things with [Stone-Shaper] didn't count as real crafting. This explained why I didn't get any crafting related skills. But the sheer quantity of my conjured items must have triggered the Interface. Either way, the title [Stone Craftsman] was a simple boon.

Zotnik had dug a shallow pit for his frog, in which it spent most of its time. He occasionally threw a jug of water onto it, much to the frog’s pleasure. He often fed it various scraps and herbs, and the frog seemed to have grown much larger, still smaller compared to the ones in the swamp, but it now looked healthier.

He often journeyed to the swamp on his own, to study frog behaviour. I was reluctant to allow Zotnik to do so, as the safety of our tribe members was of the utmost importance. I did not want to risk aggravating the frogmen to the point of all-out conflict. But I relented, and luckily, Zotnik made great progress in understanding frogs. He discovered how to tell the sex of the frogs. According to him, the males were larger had deeper croaks, and had a different colouration. The male frogs had dark brown skin, with random patches of pale green. While the females had lighter skin and brighter green spots. Thus his tamed frog was a female.

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I had shared with Zotnik the idea of bringing a male frog over and breeding more. He immediately took to it and began trying to figure out their mating habits and plotting ways to capture a male. The males were incredibly large, there was no way a single goblin could haul one all the way from the swamp to here. The only option would be to tame one, but Zotnik was still a [Beginner], so it was up in the air whether he could do it or not.

But when he returned from the swamp with a giant frog in tow, the entire camp was in an uproar. He divulged that his skill became [Novice]. I spoke to Voglo about this, in the history of the Amber Skin tribe, the amount of Beast Tamers could be counted on one hand. He explained that the ease of taming a beast depends on its intelligence and willingness. So something like a frog should be simple to tame, but it still depended on their temperament.

He had spent weeks trying to tame that specific frog. It was smaller than the others, thus he marked it with some rope and he had been observing its behaviour in detail. Whenever it was alone, he would approach it and feed it. He repeated this until the frog recognised him. Eventually, he managed to lead the frog back to the camp and sat it next to the other one. I ordered Zotnik to train them to be useful, as I would rather not waste food on them. He tried his best to teach them tricks but to no success.

As I was wandering outside, working through my thoughts, I became distracted by a wilted orange leaf falling right in front of me. I looked around and noticed many of the trees had been shedding their leaves. My previous idle musings were blown away by the wind. As I observed the world around me, great melancholy flooded me. The thoughts of my fate drowned my mind. I looked down at my hands, skinny, boney, yellow… I am no longer a human. I am a goblin, a monster, teetering on the verge of death. In such a situation, the only option is to move forward.

I called all the important people of my tribe, Voglo, Rugum, Olma and now Zotnik, to a meeting. Zotnik’s new ability granted him a lot of influence in the tribe, his skill would prove to be an invaluable asset in the future, so I must acknowledge him.

We sat together in the mess hall, around a polished stone table of my make. All of them were concerned as to why I called them, waiting for me to initiate the meeting.

“The leaves are falling.” I simply stated and judged their reactions.

Zotnik and Rugum looked at me with confusion, yet Olma and Voglo comprehend the meaning of my words immediately.

I placed my hand on the table and leaned forward. “Winter will soon be upon us.” I declared simply. Now Rugum’s and Zotnik’s eyes widened in realisation. We had multiple women pregnant, two giant frogs, a whole tribe and only a small supply of meat and a tiny cave. With these conditions, we would not survive the winter.

“We need to start preparing for winter as soon as possible. Any ideas?” I asked.

Olma immediately perked up. “I could perhaps start preparing clothes for the winter. Coats, jackets, gloves.”

Everyone nodded, she was the head artisan, so this was within her complete jurisdiction.

“We won’t be able to hunt much in winter, and if we start hunting for fur now, we might kill too many beasts,” Rugum spoke, he was head warrior and hunter so he knew best about how we should handle the local wildlife.

Voglo raised his voice. “Although we prepared a lot of food, the majority of it is inedible. No goblin here has experience with fermentation, so there are lots of failed products.”

I furrowed my brow. We had enough edible food, but a lot of it was used for fermentation, which didn't result well. Our brook was far away from us, and it would freeze over during winter. The swamp was much further away from us. Most key resources were inaccessible to us due to distance, it would take too much effort to bring them here. And not to mention the soon to be new-borns…

“Our only hope would be that the river doesn’t freeze over, so we must relocate to where it is larger and more powerful. Eating fish would be the only way. Also, this cave would be too small for the new goblins.”