Breden was in over his head, and he knew it. The green-skinned goblin had tracked the doe for three miles, doing his best to follow her subtle hoofprints. At long last, he had found her in a narrow clearing in the woods, but to what end? While Breden hid in the nearby bushes, he could see that the female deer was just as alert and skittish as ever, her eyes fixed in his general direction. The young hunter did his best not to do anything which would give away his location, but the doe somehow knew where he was. 

With few other options, Breden leapt out of the bushes, a stone-tipped spear held above his head. The deer bolted from the clearing down the path she had entered, easily escaping from the goblin's weapon. Not for the first time, Breden drove his spear into the soft Earth in anger, beating his fist into the ground as he cursed his luck.

"Damn it! How does [i]anyone[/i] do this?!" It took him a few minutes to calm down. One ruined hunt was no big deal. Not by itself. 

Unhappily, he picked up his spear and began the long march back to his village. 

"Looks like I'm having a squirrel for dinner again..." he muttered to himself, kicking a pebble as he walked. It made a skittering sound as it bounced forward before coming to a halt. Not satisfied with kicking little shards, Breden kicked a larger rock. It moved, but it hurt. Although goblins had tough, leathery soles not entirely unlike those of a halfling, the same couldn't be said for the rest of them, including their toes. 

"Ah, gods! Sonofa-!" he hopped around for a moment, clutching the first and second toes of his right foot. The pain mostly died down after a few minutes, but a lingering soreness remained. It would be hard to run like this, let alone do any more hunting. A tougher male would have been able to suck it up and go through it, but he wasn't a tough male. Not yet. As much as it pained the goblin to admit it, he was still a member of a fragile species, even if goblins were said to be strong for their size. Even hunting a squirrel was out of the question for him today. Not wanting to make things any worse, he slowly made his way out of the woods, eventually reaching the grassy space between the woods and his tribe's village. 

The clearing in which his village lay was natural, although it had been expanded to make room for farmland as well as to prevent enemies from launching an ambush from the cover of the trees directly onto the village itself. The soft grass surrounding the village felt much better on Breden's feet than the pine needles and twigs of the forest, and he soon found himself growing relieved as his home grew visibly closer and closer with every step. The walls of the village were made of wood, and were easily the best-built part of the entire settlement, consisting of tall, conical pieces of wood with sharpened tops reinforced by ramparts which were little more than flat surfaces to walk on which the defenders could reach by ladder. Humans called them 'ramparts' but Breden was unsure of what to call them himself.

The huts inside the village were cylindrical structures made of twigs and straw, and it wasn't uncommon for them to catch fire. Fortunately, they were built far enough from each other that the flames were unlikely to spread in that event, and few goblins ever died in the village itself. Few adults, at least. Most goblin huts had just one or two rooms each, apart from those belonging to the chief, shaman, and a few of the more skilled artisans. Privacy was hard to come by, although it was obtainable by putting a blanket between two halves of a one-room hut and staying on the far end of each half. 

Breden looked around the front entrance to the village, which was kept open in peacetime. It was little more than a pair of big wooden doors which could be closed and blocked with a thick wooden board, but it did its job well. He scanned the area, looking for anyone he recognized. The village was bustling with activity, and there were plenty of other goblins around at this hour in the late afternoon.