Callum collapsed onto his favorite log as he put some deer meat skewers over the fire. He was hungry after watching his back trail for over an hour, in order to ensure the goblins hadn't followed him home.
Although dungeon creatures would often follow retreating parties out of a cave, they would only do so when they were close in their pursuit and would quickly give up and return to their dungeon once they lost their quarry.
Then, the Dire Wolf had started howling again. It chased another deer up to Callum; what followed was a repeat of the previous interaction, Callum killing the deer and taking the skin before the wolf dragged the carcass away.
Callum decided to ignore the strange beast's behavior as long as it didn't get hostile with him. As he ate his meal, he realized he had bigger issues to consider, like how he was beginning to miss salt or anything else besides meat.
He had some thinking to do as he worked with the finally thawed out clay; in order to continue the thawing out process, he had set a larger fire going before he started exploring. And now, he was finally able to work with the clay.
As he thought, he tried his best in shaping the clay into useful items.
Callum glanced at his quest timer, tomorrow would be day ten, and would mark a third of the way through his survival quest. He was still surviving, but he knew he needed to bring in a lot more XP.
The blizzard and cold spell robbed him of a lot of potential XP by forcing him to stay inside. And he didn't think he had been bringing in the XP as much as he needed to on the other days in order to take advantage of the quest.
This meant he had to figure out how to handle this goblin dungeon, although today had been a decent start. All the traps had likely earned him a lot of skill points and XP, and killing a dozen or so goblins likely netted him even more of both.
However, killing most or all the goblins he had seen would be even better, but he would have to find a way to deal with their numbers. He knew that he couldn't deal with them in a straight up engagement; he would have to cheat.
He now saw how dangerous goblins could be in the wrong circumstances, and any plans he came up with would have to take their threat seriously. Without the chokepoint and their eagerness to get at him, he would have died in that dungeon.
"I really wish I had some stamina potions or a healing spell!" Callum talked to himself, again.
Even with some additional spells and potions, holding that chokepoint indefinitely would not be possible. But either could have enabled him taking down a lot more goblins before having to retreat.
Callum let his mind wander as he worked on more plates; his best thinking often occurred in similar circumstances. His mind would need time to process everything, especially as his intelligence and wisdom scores were so low.
His build had been following a tested Murray family tradition passed down and refined over many generations. The youngest generation would first focus on physical stats as they slowly gained both class XP and life experience.
The initial focus on the physical stats gave the new farmers the ability to handle the physically demanding labor, this allowed them to build up various agricultural skills early on.
By working the same jobs as the regular workers, they would gain both the respect of those workers and would gain an intimate familiarity with the day to day operations of the farm.
Each successive generation would learn from the ground up; this was the Murray family's secret to success. Rich the Murray family might be, but their children would still muck out the livestock stalls alongside the hired help.
The next generation would only start to switch away from the physical stats halfway into their Basic class; allowing them to hit the preconditions for the 'Farm Overseer' class by the time they could level into their Advanced class.
((A/N: See the auxiliary chapter 'World Info' for additional details on classes))
The ultimate result was a very experienced and well rounded overseer who effectively managed the ever growing farming operation. But it now left Callum in a very skewed build that neglected some of his stats.
"Although, I'd probably be dead if I didn't have larger health and stamina pools; the strength to boost the damage from my shitty weapons is also a huge plus."
Callum spoke out loud as he set aside another poor attempt at a mug.
He was looking forward to finally having a pot and mugs, although what he produced were misshapen items. A drunk man with mitts on and working in the middle of an earthquake would have done a better job.
Still, Callum was hopeful that they would be useful; he was really tired of trying to refill his waterskin by shoving little bits of snow in at a time. And he was making plenty of extra items as he wasn't sure how to harden them.
Callum stopped his abysmal attempts at pottery once he had used most of his clay supply; the cave was filled with all his clay creations. He left them at various distances from the fire as he didn't know the ideal drying temperature.
He vaguely knew the steps for pottery creation, however he had zero skill in the area and had never attempted it before. His method was to test all the various approaches he could think of and hope something worked.
Callum banked his fire for the night and turned in. He was eager to get an early start the next morning as he had thought of several things he could try against the goblins.
_________
Callum jogged towards his pantry, his breath frosting in the crisp morning air. He was going to grab enough meat for the day as he planned on spending most of the day in or near the dungeon.
Callum kept a careful eye out for the Dire Wolf as he traveled to and from his food storage. Just because the beast wasn't acting hostile didn't mean that it would always stay peaceful towards him; he still had vengeance to extract before he could die.
He set off for the dungeon as soon as his food was cooked up. He ate his breakfast as he walked, and he soon arrived at the goblin's location because he headed straight to the dungeon.
The first thing Callum did was explore the dungeon's entrance to determine exactly where the dungeon started. Once he had that knowledge, he built himself a fire to keep the cold debuffs from worsening.
Next, he cleared a large patch of snow in front of the cave, and piled up the excess into two parallel walls of snow leading from the cave out 30 ft(9m) where a third shorter wall almost entirely enclosed the entire area.
He took advantage of the natural snow banks where he could, so the two long walls weren't entirely parallel. But the distance between those walls was roughly 10ft(3m) apart. And all three walls were at least 5ft tall.
Inside the enclosure, he started constructing three layers of stakes facing the dungeon; his time was spent cutting up branches, pounding them into the ground with a rock, and then sharpening them to a point.
He left a small path for himself to safely navigate the stakes, however he disguised the route as best he could; a single line of slightly shorter stakes were placed in front of each section of route.
He also varied where the route was for each layer; the first path was on the right, the second path was on the left, and the last was in the middle. Callum practiced running through the entire route multiple times.
At the far corner of the snow enclosure was a small space; a second pine bough 'door' similar to what he used at his cave rested next to that space. It could be quickly placed to block the open space and several loose stakes were nearby to help hold it in place.
By lunchtime, Callum was ready to enter the dungeon for a second time. This construction would stand ready for each dungeon run; ready to slow down, kill, and hide him from sight from any chasing goblins.
"It's go time goblins," Callum whispered to himself.