Callum woke up and glanced at his quest timer. He smiled when he saw it was down to one more day before he finished it. The previous few weeks had been tough for the farmer, but soon that hard work would pay off.
His tanning cave was full of dozens upon dozens of Beast Cores from all the goblins he had killed. He had killed so many that his main stock of the cores was actually located in a third cave, since he still needed space to work in the tanning cave.
He placed a misshapen pot on a flat stone set at the edge of his fire. The fire heated the stone and the stone protected the pot from the harshest part of the flames; allowing him to make soups and stews.
It had taken Callum many tries to figure out how exactly to dry and then firebake the pottery into something usable. The pots, plates, mugs, and other various items might be usable; but they all were hideous examples of pottery.
Several wolf howls echoed through the valley while he was building up the fire. Callum smiled as he picked up his best spear and sauntered outside.
"Looks like today's breakfast is going to be fresh," the heavily bearded Callum commented to himself.
He listened to a couple more howls before he confidently went down one of the trails and hid behind a particular tree. The tree was right next to the trail and had branches that allowed him to peak down the trail while he was still hidden.
Shortly afterwards, the Dire Wolf appeared, chasing a deer up the path. Callum readied himself before lunging out just as the deer was about to run past the tree; the deer's own momentum drove the spear deep into the deer and caused it to stumble.
The wolf instantly took advantage of the stumble with a paw strike to its rear legs that took it down to the ground. Before the deer could even attempt to get up, Callum finished it off with a knife strike to the heart.
Callum kept a watchful eye on the Dire Wolf as he started to skin the dead deer. Some vigilance was called for, even if the two had continued to 'hunt' together in this fashion.
However, some measure of trust had been earned after seven such kills over the weeks; he was much more confident and relaxed in the presence of the Dire Wolf. Callum soon finished taking what he needed and stepped back.
"I'll see you in a couple of days when you get hungry again," Callum told the departing wolf as it dragged the rest of the deer down the trail.
The water in the pot was starting to steam by the time he returned to his cave. He added bits of the fresh deer meat to the pot, before reaching for some of his most precious finds of the past week, fresh winter vegetables.
They had been almost impossible for him to find with all the snow, but careful observation of the local wildlife and a lifetime of experience in agricultural matters had led Callum to find a small amount of vegetables.
Parsley, radishes, and green onions were among the hardy winter vegetables he had located. There were some other plants that he couldn't identify, but careful testing led to their inclusion in his meals.
The small handful of vegetables helped add much needed nutrition and variety to his food. He liked meat, but it was bland without spices, like salt, that he didn't have; eating nothing but meat everyday became boring very quickly.
While he waited for the thin soup to finish, Callum retrieved his needle and makeshift thread and continued to add hide leather pieces to his cloak. His work was very rough and sloppy, but it did add warmth and a small amount of armor to his gear.
He never found a good fishing spot, despite searching multiple times. The creek was too shallow. With fishing off the table, he repurposed the fishing line and used it as thread in order to add the recently finished leather to his clothes.
It was poor quality leather and it only blocked 2-3 points of damage. But it was much better than anything else he had, and it helped keep him warm. He already noticed a big improvement to his ability to stay warm, and he still had yet to finish his cloak.
He even had ugly leather headgear that protected his head from both damage and the cold.
The only negative over the past couple of weeks, was his inability to clear the dungeon. No matter what he tried, he could never clear the first cavern. He had come to accept that he wasn't destined to clear that dungeon without better gear, higher levels, or new abilities.
So he did his best to kill and loot as many goblins as he could before he ran for it. He did try to repeat his trick of luring the goblins into the forest to spread them out.
Unfortunately, that trick was only effective in bad visibility which limited him, until it occurred to him to try it at night. He tried it once and almost lost his life; he learned the hard way that the goblins received bonuses during the night hours.
It was the only way he could account for how much more dangerous they were at night. They moved much faster, coordinated better, and were considerably more vicious; he was lucky to have gotten away.
His large stamina pool was the only thing that enabled him to outrun them, because they were almost as fast of a runner as he was. He would have been dead if he had been hit with even a single slowing bolt from a Witch Doctor.
Despite not clearing the dungeon; he still had a third cave stuffed full of goblin weapons, traps, and Beast Cores. He had killed hundreds of goblins over the past couple of weeks, and they were all in his level range or slightly higher.
His XP for killing a level 15 goblin was the same now as it was several weeks ago when the quest first started. Normally, he would have leveled up several times by now; however, each time he leveled up, he would have seen smaller XP gains from killing that same level 15 goblin.
By staying locked at his current level, that decrease in XP was no longer a factor—regardless of how many goblins he killed. This was an even bigger factor, in his favor, when he took down higher leveled goblins; the bonus for doing so never went away.
Granted, he wouldn't see any of that XP until the quest completed. Everything he collected during the quest would get a bonus added to it upon completion of the quest, so every little increase in XP earned during the quest was even more valuable.
Callum smiled to himself. His breakfast was finally ready, and today was going to be a good day, and tomorrow would be even better.