The unfortunate effect of this discovery is that we're back to square one for making a miant crystal. The one is going to o be even rger, so I'll have to build an even rger apparatus frowing it, and the process of growing the crystal itself will easily take more months than are left until winter, so it won't finish until year. That's fine however, since we'll need a cart system to get a crystal that rge down to the vilge anyway, so this winter I'll be quite busy finishing the dam's valves, and then w oh up to the cave.
Zeb and I were awoken early this m, the day after the crystal broke, by horrible hissing sounds and cw scraping noises. Not, one, but two giant lizards were just outside the cave, seemingly digging for something. I recalled the time the lizard made a home in my cave, and I wondered if they were looking for the cave, which is now sealed off. Either way, they were in the way, so Zeb and I had to kill them. He distracted one while I quickly killed the other, then came to help kill the other. With both dispatched, Zeb and I decided to spend the m butchering all the meat we suddenly found ourselves with, a up extra drying racks part way in the cave just for all this meat. All that was a nice ge of pace sidering the work ahead to make an even rger crystal.
Well, I've spent the whole month building the new crystal apparatus down in the b. It goes even deeper, and then a cart rail ects up to the previous one. It was quite a hassle to make this one, since I wao build it going even deeper than the previous one, so that the four foot crystal could easily be moved into the chamber size.
Zeb's been hard at work oh down, and he passed the 300 feet mark a little over a week ago, which means it's probably about 1.5% done. There has been a surplus of stone piling up in the cave from the excavation for the nearatus and tunnel for carts, so I'm hoping that Zaka will be able to help with that while he's here tomorrow. If not, well, that's fioo I suppose. Either way, I still have a bit of lightstone for him to take back down the mountain wheurns to the vilge. I'm hoping that what they've carried back this year is enough to finish all the valves for the dam so that I check it off my list of things to do.
Zaka came a with two oblierday. He didn't bring us a, which was fine, since we ended up sending some back with them instead in Zaka's backpabsp; Him and the other two goblins helped haul stone while they were here for the path. I've also realized that we should really make sure that the first plete stretch of path is done before winter. It's a little over two months until winter now, and the first turning point ih is at about a thousa of length, so I'll probably end up dedig some time to that project as well before we leave.
In the past, it's taken a little less than a month to grow a siwo foot crystal. I'm thinking that instead of going straight for the four foot crystal, and leaving it partially pleted, I'll just grow two crystals to the two foot size, ahem stored down in the crystal growing area over winter. That way I'm leaving the area in what I'd sider a safe dition. The extra time that I have he end of the month I theo help Zeb with the path.
The whole of st month pretty much went as pnned. I finished growing the crystal to two feet just four days before Zaka came back, and I worked with Zeb in those four days oh. As a result, we're now at 700 feet down. One of the big holdups for Zeb is actually his mana capacity. Sure, he recharge it down in the cave, but that walk is now quite far to repeat multiple times a day. My mana by parison, plus my stone shaping allows me to do in a day what takes Zeb well over a week. Which makes me feel bad sidering just how much he's been w on this.
That said, he's also been doing this alongside other projects like using the charcoal kiln, so it's not like he's been pletely wasting his effort on only this. Since we're now w on this proje unison, instead of going all the way back to recharge his mana, I've iold him that he should probably work on any non-magic parts while he waits for his mana to naturally recharge. That way when I'm w, I focus my effort more exclusively on draining my mana, then going back to the cave to recharge my much rger mana pool before returning to tinue shaping the path.
Zaka's visit was also fairly uful. There wasn't much stone for them to haul this time to help with the project because I haven't been cuttira sto of anywhere, so they returo the vilge on the same day they came up to visit.
Another month, another crystal, and another few hundred feet done oh. We're only fifty feet from the first nding now, and the nding is going to take some extra space as well, si'll be an interge for carts going in different dires, and o be ft with winches installed. I'm also thinking about making a basic bus stop kind of bend cover at the ndings. It's not much, and wouldn't take much extra work, but it'd be ni case anyone o rest, or it starts to rain.
Zaka's visit was the st one here before winter. In the past, we've returned with him at this point, but given how close we are to finishing the path se, we're going to stick around for a few days befoing to the goblin vilge. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't snow and trap us here.
Six days, and we've fihe path se, plete with winches and a stone bend cover over it. It's getting noticeably colder, so we're heading down to the goblin vilge tomorrow. Tonight, before we go, we o make sure everything is locked up and closed so no wildlife moves in while we're gone, and I have something to check up on.
I ground up a bunch of the mystery metal a it in various pces and states to check the oxidation color. That color, for all the different bowls, was the same. A dark brown, b on bbsp; I'd like to do some other tests oal, but it'll have to wait until after winter, and I've got a pretty busy docket when I get back if I want to finish a six foot crystal before winter, so we'll have to see if I actually get around to it.
That said, I've actually made quite a det pile of crushed ore for the mystery metal, since I work on that while I grow the crystals. I slowed down on making lightstone because we have quite a lot of it up here on the mountain now, and I'm not using the ish-red stone byproduct of that for anything as ht now.
As for Zeb and I, our stats have been steadily increasing thanks to the tree cutting we've been doing to keep up with our charcoal demands for the crystal projebsp; Holy, if Zeb cuts down a det number of trees over winter while we work oh in the vilge, then he'll probably reach level 100 before we return up the mountain. I, oher hand, will be lucky if I reach 100 by winter.