Chapter Four

When Will woke up again, he was leaned against the cave entrance alone. Chief had probably just dropped him there before dealing with their catch. He got up and started heading for his room, it was still night so his siblings were probably still sleeping. Will sat down on the ground opposite to where the others were sleeping and started thinking about what happened today.

[This can't be how they usually hunt right? It's too inefficient, there has to be something I can do. First of all, they go in large groups. If they went alone or at least in pairs, they could be more stealthy and there would be more hunting groups out there catching more prey. However the reason they go in large groups is probably because their tools are so weak. Those sharpened sticks didn't do anything to the boar's thick hide. Maybe I can do something about that, I don't know how to make bows which would be a lot better, but at least I can make spear tips and knives. Maybe once the group is larger we could even domesticate some of the boars. However that will have to wait.] After Will had made up his mind about helping the Goblins, he slowly slid down completely on the floor and fell asleep again.

The next morning, Will rushed out of his room and headed straight for Chief. He grabbed some of the stored food there, "Going out!" he quickly told Chief as he was already heading out of the room. "STAY CLOSE!" Chief yelled after Will, but he was already gone. Will had heard him, but had no plans on staying too close, he was on a mission. The hunt was apparently some rite of passage, which allowed Will to leave the cave and do as he pleased. When he left the main cave entrance, he didn't head into the forest, instead he started running along the outer cave wall. He had decided to focus on creating tools today, and since he had no way of creating a forge and didn't know much about blacksmithing, he decided on crude stone tools like prehistoric man used. Will could use any kind of rock he wanted, but he wanted to use chert, because it was a lot easier to work with. Other rocks could take days to chip and sharpen into a projectile point, however with chert he could pump out one or even two points per hour.

He kept following the hillside for almost two hours at a fast pace, looking for certain clues in the terrain until he finally saw it. There was no forest in this area, just grassland, there were signs of an old dried up river here. This was exactly what he was looking for, Will started immediately digging with his hands. This was an arduous process, it took longer to dig than it took to get here but it finally paid off. He had found a huge chunk of pale grey rock, it was chert! He couldn't lift it so he just dug around it until he uncovered at least half of it. Will jumped out of the hole and looked around for a regular rock in a size he could lift, once he found one he grabbed it and started pounding the chert rock with it. Huge chunks and flakes from the chert rock flew in separate directions, and when Will thought he had enough, he gathered them all and started heading back to the cave.

Later in the evening Chief left the cave to see if he could find Will, he wouldn't admit it, but he was quite fond of the kid. Goblins didn't really have any sense of family, Chief didn't consider himself a father figure. However he did feel a sense of pride for having taught a skilled young Goblin into being a hunter so early in his life. Goblins usually didn't hunt as early as Will did, but Chief was impressed with his strength and let him join them. After Will had almost single handedly killed the boar, Chief had swelled up with pride and had carried Will on his shoulder all the way back to the cave. As Chief reached the cave exit, he looked at the Goblin who was playing the role of sentry and asked "Will?", the guard just pointed in a direction close to the outer cave wall. Chief looked over and saw Will hunched over on the ground and started walking over, as he got closer he kept hearing a 'clinking' noise and he got more and more curious.

Will had been working ever since he got back, he had taken a short lunch break, but he was eager to begin working. Will was working on his latest projectile point, knocking the edges of a big piece of chert with a regular round rock. The piece he knocked off were like flakes, very thin and sharp, some of them were big enough to be made into spear tips of their own. However the big piece he was working one was going to be a small dagger. He was just finishing it off when Chief arrived next to him. Will looked up at the old Goblin and smiled showing all his sharp teeth, he handed Chief the dagger he had just finished. Chief knew exactly what this was as soon as he held on to it, he was relatively old and had plenty of experience, he took the dagger and plunged it into a close by tree. After struggling a bit to remove the dagger, Chief saw a deep gash in the tree bark and nodded with satisfaction. The dagger had some pieces of tree fiber on it, but other than that it was still sharp and didn't chip.

Chief had been too distracted by the dagger to notice anything else, but when he was about to hand the dagger back to Will, his eyes widened in surprise. "SO MANY!" he exclaimed as he looked between Will's legs. Will had put all his finished products there, and it was piling up. Was he trying to create an army?