"Why would Reenie need her own room?" Trelen asked looking at Ambrose's drawing.

  He looked up from where he was leaning over the parchment, sketching designs for possible buildings. "She won't be little forever?"

  "But can't she share with Gren-Lag when he is grown?"

  Ambrose was about to question their logic but then realised the probable source of the confusion. "Boys and girls don't really share rooms when they get to a certain age Trel."

  Trelen seemed to considered for a moment before nodding. "Ok… why?"

  The sinking feeling in Ambrose's stomach was starting to deepen when thankfully Ros and Reenie walked over to see what they were doing.

  "What you drawing?" The little girl asked, leaning over the parchment.

  Ambrose pulled another diagram over the one he had been working on. While they of course were planning on building the goblin family a home, him starting to design it felt a bit presumptuous. "Just some ideas for the buildings we are going to make."

  "So how many bedrooms have you added to your manor?" Ros said, with a small side smile.

  "Twelve so far." He said with a sarcastic grin. "But I think we probably have other priorities at the moment." He rifled through the drawings and pulled one to the top. "I figured that a workshop for Gro-Lag would be the best place to start. Plus, we could then extend it into a proper home for you two and the kids."

  "And when are we going to start on your castle?"

  "We will get to it, but it's more important that Gro has somewhere to work and the little ones have somewhere dry and warm in the wet season." Ambrose straightened and crossed his arms. "Plus, we can then use your hut as a storage shed, no use cutting all this wood and getting new tools if they rot in the rain."

  Ros hummed as she considered his plan. "It really annoys me when I can't argue with your logic."

  Ambrose smiled at her agreement. "Now we just need to decide where to put it."

  Ros nodded and took Reenie's hand. "Follow me."

  Ambrose and Trelen looked at each other confused, before quickly following.

  She led them east of their camp, through a short distance of trees until they came to an area not far from the boundary of their land. She stopped and looked around and then at them. "I think here."

  Ambrose looked around. It seemed like a good place to build, there wasn't many trees they would need to clear, or too much foliage in general. Plus, since it was to the east it didn't have any obvious caves, so the ground seemed solid. "Ok, if this is where you want to your house to be, then it will be here."

  Ros's face lit up in a way Ambrose hadn't seen before. "Good, well we better leave you two to your work." She put out her hand again to Reenie. "Come on, you can help me pull shrubs up from the path." The little girl gave an exclamation of happiness that he found surprising for being asked to do busy work and walked off with her mother, turning back to wave at the two remining as she did.

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  Ambrose looked around the area one more time and then at his companion. "So… any idea where to begin?"

  Trelen screwed up their face and lightly tugged one of their horns, a gesture he was starting to recognise as one they did when they were thinking. "Get some shovels and start digging out a foundation?"

  Once they had cleared a square of about a sixth of a chain of the top level of any green, they dug down about a forearm’s length deep. The soil in this part of the forest was firm but contained few rocks, making it easy to dig flat.

  As they got the last of it done, Ambrose lent on his shovel to admire their work. "That's was a lot easier than I thought it would be."

  "When was the last time you used a new tool to do… well anything?" Trelen said, leveling out the last of the dirt.

  "Fair point." He replied, with a shrug. "So, what next? Do we just start putting bricks down?"

  "We could, but I think I might have a better idea."

  Ambrose raised his eyebrows and gestured for them to go on. At which they returned it with a gesture for him to follow them. They made the short walk over to where the kiln had been built and from a small trunk, that they had claimed from the things Ambrose had brought back from the city, Trelen produced a sack of powder. They handed it to over and he looked inside. To Ambrose it just looked like a bunch of reddish-brown dirt.

  "What is it?"

  "It's the iron I have managed to separate from the clay I have cleaned."

  Looking back at the amount he was now quite impressed. From the little Trelen had shown him when they had first noticed the minerals in the clay to this amount must have really taken some time.

  "You have really been hard at work?" He said with a grin.

  "Honestly the clay here is so rich in it, it wasn't too hard to get that much. With it being so I was thinking we could use it for the workshop.” Trelen took the bag back from him and reached back into trunk and produced a metal rod about the length of Ambrose's finger. "From some of the metal I gathered I was able to make this." They said, handing it over.

  It was cold as he took it and felt incredibly strong.

  "We used to use longer metal rods similar to this to reinforce building back in my village."

  Ambrose had seen some building done in the city, but he had never seen metal used. "Ok, and you think that will be useful here?"

  Trelen shrugged. "It can't hurt?"

  Thinking about the amount of iron that was in the bag he had seen, an obvious issue came to mind. "How long it will it take you to get enough iron from the clay?"

  "Actually, that was the next thing I wanted to talk about. You said something about caves before; can you show me where they are?"

  Finding the caves was harder than Ambrose thought it would be. The path of crushed foliage that he had made dragging the deer back to camp had completely melded back into the rest of the forest. Once they did, he was suddenly reminded of how steep of a drop down it was. Using the vines that had grown down its side he slowly lowered himself, though he did notice how much easier he found it now he had been healed. He was halfway down when a figure suddenly dropping past him nearly caused him to lose his grip. He turned and saw Trelen standing on the floor of the cave.

  "It's really not that deep?" They said, a slightly mocking grin on their face.

  Once he was down, Ambrose walked over to the wall the deer had hit when it had falling in. Its blood was still a deep brown stain on the wall. He was looking at it, ponding on how much had happened since he had mercy killed the poor animal when Trelen spoke.

  "I can't see a thing."

  Ambrose lifted his hand and produced a small flame which dimly illuminated the cave. Now they had light, the two could see that while the cave went back some, it wasn't very deep. As soon as the walls were visible, Trelen smile and quickly walked towards one placing their hand on it.

  "Do you know what this is?" They asked, slowly feeling the rock.

  In the solid stone he could see a number of red lines crisscrossing along it.

  Trelen turned to him and grinned. "Ambrose, you have been sitting on an iron mine."