The year, or at least the months without snow, passed by pretty ufully, although it did have its moments of surprise. The first surprise was that within the first two months, both of the goblins that Zeb and I had sent to the reservoir to manually cut sto stone shaping. Given that success, it was decided that ohe level in the reservoir returo normal, three moblins would be sent to cut stoo further expand the stru workforce.

  In the hree months, a handful of goblins gained mana affinity while w with me on the mountain. It was decided that ony of the then reservoblins got stone shaping, goblins that had mana affinity should be the oo attempt to gain stone shaping. While all that was happening, I was making pretty goress growing a new rge crystal. With extra goblins w with me, I could spend the downtime during the gradual growth process making new vacuum chambers to fill with crystals, and the goblins would go melt the insides and bring them bae.

  In the month, I got hat Zaka had fully recovered from his injury. Well, he evolved and fully regrew his injured parts would be more apt. He's grown to be not quite twice his previous height, and from his short visit, seems to be some kind of troll plete with rapid regeion. His size is a bit of a problem for himself, as when he came to visit, he had to duck quite a bit to actually fit through any doors, and even standing inside wasn't possible. Part of the reason for his visit was to pass time while Zeb designed a new house for him in the vilge.

  Speaking of the vilge, Zeb had expahe housing to the point where he o add another yer at the tide pool. The total popution had grown to almost four-hu this point, and they were starting to feel mrowing pains. Namely, a ck of job opportunities. As Zaka returned, I advised that some more empty workshops be built, and to keep a for any goblins that might have any iing hobbies.

  Ohe winter deadline was about two months away, I had grown a new crystal to the size of the old one, but I hadn't decided to stop there. In the previous two months, in some of the waiting time, I carved out and designed an even rger apparatus frowing crystals. I the growing the crystal to the point it is at today. This new crystal stands about 8 feet tall at this point. I previously had only wao go up to the smallest limit of crystal size, due to safety s, but now I have a bit more knowledge about these giant crystals, and am not as ed.

  First, from living with the six foot crystal in the vilge, we observed lots of effects. Animals and pnts nearby seem to enjoy some be from having the crystal in the area, it was helpful during the siege, and also produced quite the soothing bath to soak in. Sed, knowledge about ParTor in the dwarven nds seems to indicate that the dwarves have a crystal that could be estimated at teall servatively, but it still is able to funally provide all the bes without causing catastrophic harm. I could ihis fact from the information that the crystal there robably found quite a long time ago, ahey've maintaiheir capitol around it.

  Which means I should be fio grow the crystal rger this time, or at least, I presume that to be the case. Of course, I don't io install it in the old bathhouse until the dwarves have actually removed the previous crystal. I don't know whely they'll return this winter, but I'm hoping it's retively early in the season. I'm pretty tent with just having the one eagle on the isnd, and if they return too te in the season, there is a non-zero ce we'll end up with more eagles here. That is something I'd rather not have to deal with.

  After packaging the new crystal within a rge amount of sto took four hobgoblins and Zaka using the cart system to transport it into the vilge. There we moved it to one of the warehouses to store until we repce the old crystal. Holy, calling it a vilge isn't quite right anymore. A town would be closer to accurate. I get the vibes that in a vilge, everyone knows everyone, here, there are almost too many individuals for everyoo know everyone else.

  Which means its time to formally establish the police ford a judicial system. The police force should be easy, as we've already pnned for it, araining a sele of goblins for the job for a while now. As for a judicial system, for now, that still be rolled into the executive branch, aka Zaka. I doubt there will be so many crimes that it will eat up much of his time. However, we do still o coat that basement cell with metal, in case any of the stone shaping individuals end up in jail.

  In fact, that's what I'll be doing while I wait for the dwarves to return. It shouldn't be too bad, mostly just makial ptes that be slotted and slid into each of the walls, then bars that also slot into pbsp; Since I shape the stoside of the cell to actually hold all the ptes, it shouldn't be too difficult of a projebsp; The time ing part will be shaping the metal.

  I was right when I said it would be time ing. I started with the small jail cell, and that ended up taking 14 days in total. As I was affixing the metal bar door as the st step, it started to rain in the vilge and snow on the mountain. The jail cell will probably take about twice as long, just due to its sheer size. I think I want to take a short break from that and work on something else for a few days, just to break up the monotony of w around a fe, sidering I did something simir for most of the year with the crystal groaratuses.

  What I'd like to do is explore the expaown, see Zaka's new house in full, and do some reaissance around the vilge to plot out where expansion should happen iure. Ultimately, the vilge will need lots of new buildings and expansions, so knowing the best dire to actually expand the vilge to achieve future goals should be useful.

  Zaka's new house is pretty , and reminds me a bit of my house up on the mountain. It has a rge reception hall ara rooms. When Zeb built it, he probably thought about the fact we don't have a good meeting hall for formal situations, and having the chief's house roughly work as that robably a good idea.

  As for the areas around the vilge, the obvious dire for expansion of the fields is upstream, given that has the most readily avaible access to water. If I'm fag upstream, to my right is the dire towards the sed valley, along with the dire with the most easily developed nd. If I head left instead, the slope starts to increase pretty severely after about a half-mile, which would make stru beyond that point difficult.

  Unfortunately, I didn't find any physical features that would be useful to capitalize on at this time. It might be worth looking around again in springtime though, as the heavy rains might reveal areas that have seasonal streams which could be modified and maintaio be more useful. As for me now, it's back t on the jail.

  After four days, I was interrupted by quite the spectacle. The eagle that we've had around was fighting anle in the sky above the isnd. Thankfully, le seems to have won, and drove the le off. Maybe it was something like a territory dispute? Either way, I'm gd they didn't just settle their differences and decide to habit our isnd, taking care of one eagle is already enough of a pain.

  I wouldn't be surprised if the dwarves return soon, as it seems like they arrive a bit after eagles show up in wiime. That being the case, I'm going to take a day or two to get the supplies ready for moving the crystal. I'll basically just be eng it in a det yer of stohen attag poles onto the crystal, so that they carry it.