The first four months back at the cave have beey standard work. I worked on growing the crystal after cheg everything was intact from winter. Zeb worked on building the path out further, while keeping up with my charcoal demands. Zaka visited periodically, a with 7 new goblins. The work has gotten so repetitive that if this crystal 't survive the surface, I'm doh it. I'm already regretting not being doh it at the 4 foot crystal. Even including the crystal bubbles that I've periodically been finding in the exploratory tunnel, I've had to start using a rger size of crystal for melting, because I've exhausted all my smallest sizes. With all the extra bubbles of crystals I've added though, I have so many of the rger sizes, it's less of a than it used to be.

  Zeb's path building has gotten to a zig-zag area st month, so he won't be needing much stone from me for a while, and he really get the path going. At the current rate of stru, I don't think the cart path down the mountain will be done for at least another year, but given how strong Kaga is, I'll have to ask Zaka t him along o visit of the year. I should have the crystal grown by then. If it survive outside on it's own, I'll e in uive stone, and we'll have to have all of us try to assist Kaga in moving it down the hill through the ses that don't have path made.

  It's been three and a half more months, and the crystal is about where I want it, and I want to make sure that I have enough time to properly test it on the surface, so I'm going to call it here. I 't imagine waiting another year to make it just a little bigger. If that ends up being the problem, then history ugh on me for being so close and stopping.

  The first observation I make is that it's, well, heavy. Very heavy. We'll need some kind of sled for it to go off-roading. Even Kaga 't carry something like this. Heck, it took both Zeb and I to get it up the cave on a cart, and we had to use stone shaping to take breaks frequently. That said, I made the executive decision to move it directly into the vacuum chamber right away, rather than attempting aing on it beforehand.

  The crystal has now survived ten days on the surfabsp; I'm fairly fident that this one is stable. Zeb and I were awoken again tonight by a lizard making a fuss outside the cave. sidering winter is just around the er, I'm not that surprised, and we quickly dealt with it. While I'm on the subject, the crystal seems to crackle at night time. It's fairly subtle, but I hear a faint noise ing from the chamber, and I feel the extra mana leaking into the air at that time. During the day, we get more mana than we do at night, which leads me to believe it's ing from the suns. I wonder if the crystal has such high capaana that at night it's literally discharging directly into the air?

  Hopefully a few inches of stone eng it will help prevent any of us from damage from toug such a heavily charged crystal. The alternative is death, I'm almost certain of that. Even at full mana I'm pretty sure toug this thing would instantly kill any living creature.

  During the day, Zeb and I have been w oh down, trying to get it as far as we in the remaining days. The previous zig-zag se is now finished, and there is araightaway that we've had to dig an intermediate quarry to allow us to work effectively. Overall, if the goblins have gotten to the zig-zag se I told them to stop at, then we're probably about halfway doh the path. The remaining half has three more zig-zag ses, which are going to be a when it es to moving the crystal down the mountain, but I hope we ha.

  Tomorrow is when Zaka, Kaga, and the oblins will e to help us move the crystal down to the vilge. I've spent the st few days building carts and the sled we'll use, aing them all to their necessary locations. We had another lizard guest st night, which we quickly dispatched. I'm gd i few years that we haven't had any of them break into the cave, although solid stone is a challenge for a to break through if it isn't determined enough to do so. After nightfall, I started remotely stone shaping a stone shell around the crystal until the crag stopped, and then I doubled the thiess, food measure. Tomorrow, I'll raise it out of the vacuum chamber for transport.

  We decided to wait until the m to take the crystal down to the vilge, to give us as much daylight as possible, whided up being a good idea, because by the time we made it back down to the vilge, the sun was setting. The carts were invaluable, and holy, if the path was pleted, we'd have made it in two hours or so. Unfortunately, moving the crystal on a sled, through a forest, in mountainous terrain, was very slow. Once we finally made it back, we moved the crystal to the pavilion area, and I stayed up until te putting a wall around it, so no one actally damaged it, or worse...

  The past five days, I've been building a facility to properly house the crystal. In short, its a bathhouse. The idea will be a rge tral tank where the crystal will be lowered. That will have stoubes with propellers to mix water through baths, which will be some degree of wood infused water. Then to recharge your mana, you just go and soak ihs for a while. The propellers will all be ected meically, and I'll hook that up to a waterwheel oream. I'll need Kaga's help to build the waterwheel and the initial shafts for transferring power, since wood is lighter than sto should reduce power loss within those segments. Ultimately, the water wheel will have a low power output due to the stream's overall flow rate, but it's better than nothing for automatic mixing of water ihs.

  There will be four baths in the design. Two small baths, which should have higher mana recharge rate due to mixing more quickly, a rger bath, which should be able to have a few people in it. The fourth bath will be for ing off before you get iher baths, and won't actually mix with the crystal at all, to hopefully prevent needing to the crystal chamber often.

  Once I get the meics all set up, and the wood infused water made, the facility should be ready to go.

  Six more days, and we've gottehi up, the only thio do is lower the crystal into the chamber for it, and uhe it. For safety reasons, we're using diluted wood water. Evehere is a about internal arg, but I'll have to deal with that when it es to it. The distao the baths is far enough that I think it'll just arc withier, and not all the way to the bath. I'll be the oo test it first though, just in case.

  With some help, we got the crystal into position and, using stone shaping, I removed the sheath I had pced around it. The first thing that happened was a lot withier. It reminded me a lot of a tes coil, where it arcs out and dissipates after a certain distanbsp; After a short while though, the arg slowed down, although it didn't fully stop.

  The est was to use the bath, which I was a little nervous about, since I was missing mana. I leasantly surprised for two reasons. First, the water was warm, which I'm assuming was thanks to the arg, but sed, it warmed me up. How it warmed me reminded me of when I would sleep on the crystal pile as an imp, and I imagihat it's w on a simir principle. My mana alseed about twenty times faster than it would have in the air, but I did have most of my body submerged. If I was less submerged, I'm sure my mana wouldn't regee quite as fast.

  After I showed it was safe, some of the oblins gave it a shot, and they all seemed to enjoy it. Apparently a few of the oblins in town have started to gain access to magic of their own, so it won't just be a handful of us who find it useful. That said, it'd be rexing even if you didn't ee mana, so I'm sure it'll bee quite the popur location in town; I mean, it's practically an artificial hot spring. It hopefully will help speed up any maed work that needs done iown as well.