Zaka's visit yesterday brought with it the new basket backpacks we requested and one was filled with lizard meat. Acc to Zaka, it was meat from the lizard we killed orip up here st time. His visit itself retty uful, but I noticed something that I missed in the first month of being babsp; I hadn't looked closely at the mystery metal pucks we made since we came back here. I only noticed because I was moving things in my workshop to make a space for the neack.

  At a curshey look very simir to when we left them, but if you look closely, they've darkened. Bringing them out into natural light makes it much easier to tell. Their surface seems to have formed an oxide yer of some kind, and the surface color has darkened from a silver gray metallic color into a dark brown b on bbsp; The ck of natural light made it hard to tell the differen color inside, and si didn't seem to be noticeably fking, there weren't any obvious texture ges.

  There are a few metals that could form an oxide of this color, and I 't even be certain that it isn't some degree of alloy. It rules out quite a few metals however. For insta isn't likely or titanium because it darkened in shade. There are only a handful of metals, like iron, manganese, and hat generally form oxides in this cole. That said, it doesn't have to be a normal oxide, and for all I know, its some form of magical property rather than an oxide.

  It does set in motion some new experiments I do with it however. I'd like to smash a few pucks down into very small pieces if I , and expose them to water both outside and down in the cave, and see if the oxide color remains the same, or ges. It might give me more insight into what metal or metal alloy I have on hand. It'll add a day or so of processing to set that up, but then I just check up on it occasionally.

  After that, I'll start work on the rge vacuum chamber on the surfabsp; What I'm thinking about doing is carving half the chamber into the ground of the mountain just outside, so the whole chamber is underground. Then I'll put a rge n in the ter using stone shaping, so that I hopefully lower the crystal down into the chamber, all while keeping it surrounded by robsp; I'll probably o do some test runs to get it right, but hopefully that will work. Then I just run a cart track right o the pedestal where I'll pce the crystal, and that will provide Zeb and I a way to move the crystal.

  Twelve days of work and I've fihe vacuum chamber on the surfad smashed the metal into small bits and put it in bowls in a few pces to develop a new oxide yer. The surface vacuum chamber took lohan I hoped due to having two failed tests. During the first test, the top of the chamber colpsed as I reduced the pressure ih stone shaping. So I had to out the rubble and then dig it deeper to give it a thicker roof.

  The sed time, I was using a sto to act as a fake crystal to lower into the chamber, and again, the top of the chamber colpsed down into it. So I thied the chamber much more, and this time I finally successfully used stone shaping to lower the test stone down into the chamber without it breaking.

  I wish that was the end of the work I have to do for this, but I still o build the rger crystal groaratus down in the cave b. Given the sheer size of the nearatus, its going to o be much rger, and I'm going to o test it again for issues with being under a vacuum. After building the surface chamber though, I hope I have a better idea of just how thick the chamber walls actually o be.

  The whole process took fifteen days of work to plete. Initially I thought about just building the whole apparatus on the ground, but instead now, I've dug it into the ground like the one on the surfabsp; The major differehough is that I've also carved out an underside to it, since I'll need access down there. The inside of the chamber is six feet tall, so that I grow crystals in the four fe with some extra spaside. The ceiling and floor are over two feet thick, to prevent any acts from . The chamber held up to my normal tests, which was a relief.

  On another side of the b there are the stairs down to the underside of the chamber, and a sed pathway for a cart to run along. That pathway slowly rises up aually out some way ahead along the wall of the cavern. That way I close it off if Zaka o summon imps in the cavern, but I still use it to transport any finished 4 foot crystals out on carts. Quite a lot of the stru time actually was building these paths in the b.

  While I was w on this, Zeb has been w oairs outside and hauling the stone I've been removing to tinue his stru. It's ing along alright, but somewhat slow. I presume it's because his mana pool is quite a bit smaller, and it's outside work, which means he has to go back to the crystal charging room just to recharge his own mana. Sihat room is about halfway between the crystal growth b and the surface, I've been piling the stone I cut out there, and then when he o e ba to charge, he hauls more sto himself.

  As for the actual distance he's gotten, its only about fifty feet in a month. Which might not seem that impressive, but sidering the extra steps he's having to gh, it's pretty good. Where he's been w, the bedrock is about a foot down, under soil and some loose robsp; The loose rock he stone shape to attach to the bedrock, but the soil o be removed manually. Then he has to solidly attach the stoo the bedrock with as fes as possible.

  In addition to this, he's been in charge of running the charcoal kiln. Which has built us up a ockpile of charcoal, which I hope we won't gh too fast.

  I think we've collected enough of our blood mixed with water to attempt a usage of that as an intermediate for the crystal transfer as well. Rather thahe wo foot crystal, I'd like to just use est natural crystal on this test. Mainly because I'd rather not have to deal with as rge of a blood mess wheests are done. Not that they're pletely submerged in blood, the mix is about 10 to 1 water to blood, but it'll still be gross.

  For that, we'll wait until Zaka leaves to do that test. Depending on the results, I'd rather not give Zaka any weird ideas. Since he'll be returning tomorrow, it'll be two days at least before that test is done.

  We got all set up to ruest after Zaka left, loading a small tank up with my blood water. When we submerged the crystal into the tank, it initially didn't seem to be doing anything, so I started to drain my mana. Before I submerged my hand in the blood water though, the tank sprang a leak. Which we initially thought we must have bumped the tank and actally cracked it somewhere.

  After repairing the tank, we noticed the crystal had emptied. After letting it recharge, and got ready to test it again, and the tank again sprung a leak. We got a few more crystals and dumped them all iank on a hunch, and sure enough, the stone of the tank started to shift and move in uable ways being irregur, and f small holes and bumps.

  The w hypothesis is the mana from the crystals is somehow using stone shaping, which must be reted to my blood. We attempted with Zeb's blood, and although it was barely perceivable, the surface of the stone did start to deform. On one hand, this is exg. Somethis us use stone shaping, and that something is at least partially found in our blood. There will be great difficulty in finding a use for something that just randomly shapes stone however. If we find a way to trol it, that is a different story, but as ht now, lenty of other tasks we're w on, so we'll file this one away to work on ter. Of course, if inspiration strikes either of us on a way to utilize this, we may revisit it sooner.