It was impossible to provide each goblin with a house, let alone a private room. However, I wanted to avoid having the goblins sleep in a giant pile like before, for the sake of hygiene. I also desired to construct 1 room for myself, 4 rooms for my retainers, and 4 large rooms for 8 goblins each. Storage, kitchens, mess halls would follow suit.

The shafts of the mines served as good hallways, a tad cramped for a human, but tall enough for us. The mineshaft was composed of a long corridor, with a shorter corridor intersecting horizontally, forming a cross shape. At the end of the main hallway, was a pit that led directly downwards, but there was no way to go down it.

My [Stone-Shaper] was limited, I could not effortlessly erase tons of stone, but it still could be used effectively. I carved out slabs in the mineshaft walls, creating stone door frames to mark out the placements of the rooms. I closed my eyes and pictured a rectangle, length and width of 6 metres and a height of 3 metres. I made my mana flow along the frame of the rectangle, essentially carving out a large slab out of the rock wall. It was a slow process, but I could feel the mana pouring out from my body, slowly boring through the stone. Slowing my magic allowed me to focus more and thus less use mana, carving such a large slab only took around 50 mana.

I repeated this process until I ran out of mana. Mana potions were not easy to make, so to stock up for emergencies, I did not drink any. My efforts resulted in 8 rooms being formed, 4 for the current population, and 4 more for the newborns. According to Voglo, the typical goblin gives birth to a litter of around 5 babies, many of which don’t survive. Amber skins give birth to 2 to 3. Other goblins might call me naive expecting all the newborns to survive, law of the jungle and all that. But I am a civilised man, even if I had a goblin's body. It was my duty to ensure the survival of everyone.

I had insisted on the production of beds, sleeping on cold stone floors would not be safe during winter. Using tools made of my conjured stone, the carpenters cut mostly straight planks of wood, and then they sanded them down with some coarse rock. Planks were fitted in the bed frames and covered with fur and cloth. The dormitory rooms were built on the left wing of the mine facing each other. Only 3 of the rooms were cleared out before nightfall, meaning I had to share my sleeping space with others, yet I tried not to show my disappointment, such things were expected.

The night passed quickly, but I had not slept a wink thanks to the snoring of some impertinent individuals. Normally, I would give them a beating, but everyone was tired from the long travel, so I excused this behaviour. The following day, all the rooms had been cleared out and ready for use. We had mined out a lot of iron ore as well. This provided immediate joy to the goblins but also raised my suspicions. I knew there was ore here, but not to this extent.

I decided to explore the facilities in search of answers as to why this place was abandoned. The ruined buildings outside featured broken down furnaces. I inspected them first but there was nothing of note. There was another furnace that was made specifically for the production of charcoal, as it somewhat resembled our own charcoal burners. Using my magic, I restored the furnace and immediately ordered its operation.

In the decaying houses there was nothing important either, a few sacks, either empty or filled with rotten food, all tools were rusted to the point of worthlessness. After salvaging any remaining wood and cloth, the houses were demolished.

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I had assigned some goblins to start experimenting with mushroom production, and I had constructed a separate room for them. I had a vague idea of what to do, mushrooms grew on dead matter, and like all living things, they required nutrients. Since no one knew anything about fungiculture, recreating natural growing conditions would be the best bet for results. With my limited advice, the goblins zealously nodded and took off to their stations.

The palisade around the mine was severely lacking, so I ordered more trees to be chopped down and added to the defensive perimeter. With the help of the goats, the logs were easily dragged and then pulled up into place. The gaps were slowly being filled, but a wooden wall would still be lacking compared to a castle one. It was another project added to the endless list.

Over the next few days, the things left for me to do were diminishing, I returned to the mine and began to improve our dorms. I decided it would be beneficial to have a fireplace in every room to stave off the oncoming chill. Digging out a safe pit was simple, creating a chimney was challenging, as I didn’t have a complete mental image of where the tubes should go. It took a week to make a fireplace in every room, and a day to put torch holders on the walls. Upon completing that, I smoothed out the floors and created fake tiles upon them, for the ease and comfort of walking.

These weeks of effort and creative thought provided some benefits in the end.

Interface You have raised your Intelligence by 1, (18 → 19) You have raised your Dexterity by 1, (17 → 18) You have raised your Stone-Shaper (Initiate) to Stone-Shaper (Budding)

The passing of the time was accompanied by an occasional light snowfall. But as the days grew into weeks, the snow fell with greater frequency, and it was not even the apex of the winter yet. At this time, we were still occupied by the construction of our base. Normally the construction of a stone wall would require mortar, which we did not have, so I improvised by creating a large number of interlocking bricks, which could be placed on top of each other to connect and lock tightly. I had only made enough to cover one-sixth of our compound, and only up to our waists. This was merely a temporary solution.

Any smaller scraps of stone were used to make an outdoor pen for the goats. It was far from being finished, but it would be completed soon enough. For now, the goats had a small pen in which they could trot around, although due to the season, there was not much to eat for them.

When drained of mana, I went out on hunts with Rugum. I had relied on more traditional hunting methods, such as stabbing with a spear, and this also improved my skills slightly, although I was still largely there just for support.

Interface You have raised your Strength by 1, (13 → 14) You have raised your Agility by 1, (14 → 15) You have raised your Cut (Novice) to Cut (Initiate) You have raised your Stab (Novice) to Stab (Initiate) You have raised your Bash (Novice) to Bash (Initiate)

Exploring the lower levels of the mine revealed nothing, in particular, the mine had 3 more levels, each separated by around 10 metres of stone, but each floor got smaller and smaller. It had eluded me as to why this mine was abandoned, it was still filled with ore, nor were there any monsters or anything fantastical of the sort. Perhaps people were transferring it, a simple lack of manpower or even a lack of interest. But if someone did come back, they would be in for a nasty surprise.