Later that day, I sat down with the mert to handle our trade requests. First, we traded some excess salt and fish, followed by the amount of ingots necessary to pay for another year of tutege for the goblins learning to write in dwarvish. Then I let Karsh and his family again make certain requests foods from their homend. Now that they're quite settled in, I think I should probably talk with them about what their pns are for their children. Do they io send them back to their homend when they get old enough to work, or would they rather work here? I'd be more than willing to provide a workspace for them if any of them takes i in anything.

  After Karsh's family's requests were made, I added in more roofing materials, an order for whatever material they use for fermentation for making alcohol, and a request for another 6 bargas, one of which is to be a breeding male. Hopefully, with that number, plus what we breed, we should be able to limit ourselves to only requesting one or two male bargas each year moving forward, and that's just to keep geic diversity within the herds.

  Speaking of which, the sed geion of bargas have nearly matured, by this summer it should be time to butcher the males and re-sort the females. Which means we'll get to make our first pass at leather from bargas, and that's also the time when you normally sheer their wool, so we'll get an batch of wool to work with for processing. It'll be o improve the quality of the clothes in the vilge through those methods. After seeing Elora wearing her high quality clothing, I've realized that the fact that we wear ramshackle clothing probably leaves a bad impression on dignitaries, let alone anyone who might want to immigrate.

  I still o talk with Shasta about any immigrant applications for this year, but first, I want to hear from the mert about rumors or attitudes on the ti about us. The same three categories seem to be popur, although the ratio of them and a bit of their nature has ged somewhat.

  There still seem to be quite a few people who sider us to be some hostile force, but the rumors of us building up force to invade seem to have died down. It's just jecture, but my guess is that after a year with us not actually invading, people's s are slowly waning. It's uhey'll immediately ge their overall feelings, but the level of should tinue redug as long as we don't actually do anything violent.

  The rumors about us living on a paradise have shifted somewhat. It's no longer sidered that everything here is great in those rumors, instead, it's just that we're sitting on a huge mineral and crystal deposit. It sounds like rumors have spread that we were the ones who provided the crystal simir to ParTor that now sits within the coastal mountains of the dwarven try. Sihey installed that, we haven't had any new eagles arrive, so sending ohere seems to have been the right choibsp; Of course, I 't dist that the rumors being more realistic might be why Rathnd has taken notice of us. Well, that and the metal we've been shipping out are likely instigating factors.

  The final category, that we're backwards savages, seems to be retively unged, although the number who seem to believe that have diminished somewhat. Likely due to the fact we're trading goods that require some amount of skill to use or make. It's hard to call someone backwards savages when they've been shipping you high quality metal, or when they're clearly roofing materials for stru.

  I thahe mert for the information, and told him I'd have a gift of paper for him tomorrow prepared in the same way as Shasta's paper. sidering how full the day has been, I figured I'd hahe immigration work with Shasta tomorrow, rather than dealing with that today. Instead, I'll get the airtight paper crates prepared from stone for her and the mert.

  sidering these are stone crates, I should probably size them smaller than I initially thought. It will mean more crates, but weight wise, it'll be more manageable given our low quality carts. I know I wao wait and see if that goblin could improve the cart design on his own, but I think it might be worth encing him to improve it a him ask me questions if he has any.

  There are a number of improvements which would make rge sg hauling more effit, which I'm sure the stru group would appreciate. We're on an isnd with a finite amount of nd and food, so we really do o work smarter not harder, even if we aren't anywhere he actual maximum popution we handle.

  In the m, I handled immigratioions with Shasta in the few hours before everyo out. There were a few humans who's backgrounds looked fine, but with how Rathnd is behaving, I'm worried about potential spies or saboteurs sneaking on, so I deed the humans. Plus, they've got a separate nguage, so it would require another whole difficult iion process. At least with new dwarves, I know that Karsh's family unicate with them, so they wouldn't be pletely isoted.

  Speaking of dwarves, we do have a few immigrants that I've decided to accept the immigration requests of. The first is a young man and his wife. His name is Arat Kunkak, and he grew up as a rancher of bargas. He's eloped with his wife, Maka, who prentice baker. Apparently, his father was one of the people our mert acquired bargas from, so he should reize some of them, and the mert did verify he met him before. her of their parents approved of their retionship, so they eloped, and given he had heard of us, thought he might be able to move where their parents wouldn't be able to stop them. If it was just him, I'd probably dee, but I've wao get baking going so them as a package is worth bringing in.

  The sed that I've approved is actually a unique case where I've decided to accept them despite them not immigrating permaly. Kao Ostark vouched for their siy though, so I figured I shouldn't just snub them. His name is Kik, and he's a mineralogy researcher. He intends to move here with his family for between three and ten years to do resear the mineralogy of the isnd. He's apparently already spent a year doing some work on Kao's isnd, but would prefer to work on our isnd due to the minerals he knoresent here. All the information will be avaible to us first, but he would like to share his findings wheurns to the Capitol after his stint here.

  He intends to be fully cooperative, and is bringing his family with him as evidence of that, and he's apparently been w with Shasta and the two goblins I sent to try to learn the demon nguage. His wife, ta, works as his assistant in his research, and he has two young kids. I'd be worried about potential issues with data reted to our try getting out at some point iure, but given we're already trading high quality metal out of the try, his knowledge is probably more useful tharimental. We might have more minerals that I don't actually know about which could be useful.

  Plus, I'd like to have someone who's got a desire for research to start rec data and information so we be making more effective moves. For instance, he might have better methods for seleg mining locations, so I don't o be the one digging random mirying to find new resources.

  A third individual I've decided to accept is a bit of an oddball acc to Shasta. He's a single male dwarf of middle age named Boggs Pakof, and he's apparently both a chef and a fisherdwarf. It seems he's been moving from vilge to vilge looking for the best fishing locations and fvors. I almost rejected his application on the premise that he'd probably move away after a year or two, but seeing how dwarves fish might be beneficial. Plus he's a chef, so we might learn some teiques for preparing fish from him. which could improve things here even after he leaves.

  I'll just have to be a little more strict with him about what we'll be providing him with for housing if he doesn't io stay for a long time. Karsh's family already paid back their debt for their house thanks to his bor, but sidering we already have a surplus of fishergoblins here, it'll be harder for him to pay us babsp; That is, unless he show us a new fishing teique that we could utilize to expand our fishing operations from beyond the artificial tidepool.

  There were still a few other applits that were rejected, but they were surplus bor or of dubious background that I didn't want to io our isnd. With that taken care of, Shasta, the mert, Elora, and the Baron of pfur set off along the road to return to Kao's isnd, where they'll go their separate ways from there. I wish I'd gotten more time to ask Elora questions about the world, but if they eventually do send someoo live among us, then I ask them.