That being the case, she said she doesn't have anyone who could live here to teach written dwarvish, but she could bring two goblins back with her to teach them for a year for the right pribsp; It won't be cheap, because she not only has to take extra time to teach them, but also pay for all their expenses for a year, includira costs like clothing to make them presentable. Given my options, I decided to go for that option. She said she'll return in a month to pick up the two who she'll be teag. In exge I'll pay her in dwarven that I'll acquire from the mert in exge for extra ingots.
Kao's isnd is a pretty bareborade and administrative outpost. It seems that they've got a handful of farms produg food they o sustain the meager popution. It's got a handful of soldiers posted, and a wooden fort that the residents live in. For the most part, it's quiet. An expeditionary mining force did some prospeg st year giveal that was found on our isnd, but outside of some minor deposits of copper, they haven't found anything else yet.
The mainnd has been quiet as well. Acc to Shasta, it usually is pretty peaceful for at least fifteen years after a demon invasion, so she expects it will be a few more years before any drama crops up. As for rumors, she hasn't heard much herself, but reended I ask the mert while I'm getting the moo pay her. He's much more likely to have heard what rumors are cirg about our isnd.
So, following her advice, while I traded for dwarven currency, I asked about any rumors about our isnd. He said that there were a whole bunch of rumors, but they generally fell into a few basic categories. The first category were bad rumors. These rumors said we were a hostile faining power to attempt to invade. They were the least on type of rumor, but iowns where you'd hear them, they seemed to be the sensus opinion. These towns also happeo be those that were heavily damaged during the st invasion.
The sed category were rumors saying that we lived on a veritable paradise isnd with resources aplenty but all of it was uhe watchful eye of Kao Ostark who has mao subjugate the demons, so one should think twice about going there to cim the fortune. I wouldly call us a paradise with plenty of resources, but I suppose if you're seeing high quality metal flow out of the isnd as a trade resource, you might get the wrong idea.
The third category were rumors in the opposite dire saying that this is a backwards isnd of tribal monsters who are cruel and barbaric, but keep to themselves. This is closer to fact than fi in my opinion, minus the cruelty part. In a lot of ways we are backwards, and I'd like to fix that. As we tio develop, I'm hoping we reshape those rumors of our isnd.
Knowing these three different major types of rumors helps me uand why we don't get many immigrants, however. For any of these cases, people would be retit to move here. sidering the only trade goods we have right now are basiecessities aal, it's not a big surprise people would sider us backwards. If we produced fancy clothing s, it might quell some rumors. We could get tourism going from dwarves based on the giant crystals I grow, but not only does it take me a long time to make one, but I'd rather keep that on a o-know basis. I 't imagihe disaster that might occur if some terrorist shattered a giant crystal. So for now, I think we'll focus oing our own ey up to speed and maybe diversifying our cloth industry.
After we handled all the trade I spent ten days finding goblins who would be ied in going to learn the dwarvish nguage and theurning to work as a recordkeeper. Ultimately, I'm hoping that I keep Shasta training one goblin until they're fluent even after a year, while the other one will begin work as the recordkeeper. Of the eight who were ied, I went through multiple tests with them to find who I sidered to be the most capable among them.
One was a goblin, Kaab, who helps with ore processing a lot, and as such, works with Karsh frequently. He seems to have a grasp of the very basics of spoken dwarven already, which should be a be to learning written dwarvish. The sed goblin, Tak, wasn't familiar with dwarvish, but did exceptionally well on the memorization practice test I had them plete. For this, I used ten english words, and showed them with a picture of the item they were paired with, then after ten minutes removed the words, and had them scribble the word from memory. Most of the goblins got at most one word somewhat right, but Tak mao get half of them right, which for a ten minute memorization task of an unknown nguage was quite impressive.
With the two goblied, I offered them both ara reward. When they e back, if they're successful by Shasta's standards, I'll make them a house, within reason, to celebrate their success.
In the meantime, I've put up a new job for hauling stoo the far side of the isnd. I'd like to get around thirty wagonloads of stone moved to the harbor area as preparation for having a barn built over there. I'm sure the stru crew isn't too excited to head back to the far side of the isnd, so I've decided to pay them a little extra for the barn to iivize them. They've still got quite a bit of wall to build before they finish with the basifrastructure of what will bee our city, but the barn should take priority given that the trader should return again this winter.
I also o get a few more fields made for bargas, since we'll be getting more herds of them soon. I've been quite thankful that le hasn't attacked a. I'm hoping that it's beore aced to how we feed it, but I have a feeling if we fet to put food out for it one day it'll take one of our livestock without hesitation.
I spent the twenty days until Shasta returned clearing more trees for fields for bargas, and I had a few goblins who had been breaking rocks in the quarry cut some of the other trees I wanted felled where we'll expand our reka, ko, and boto-boto fields. The goblins were more ameo eating boto-boto, as its a bit of a savory and sweet taste. The ko ftbread has also been something the goblins have enjoyed eating. They buy flour in bulk pots, and then cook a whole bunch of the ftbread in copper pans that Karsh made.
Given the general success of these foods, I want to expand the fields so we have more of it avaible, rather than only an amount that sts a month. Of course, I gave Rishi and Karsh first dibs on how much flour and boto-boto they want, si's a food their family is more familiar with.
Overall, we got awo goblins with stone shaping, which means we have a sizeable number who stone shape now. I think we'll be able to split our stru workforce soon, and potentially give Zeb a break so he work on things he wants. It seems fair, given that I'm going to also be ging my priorities from stru as well.
Shasta arrived while I was cutting some trees down, and after some quitrodus, she was off with Tak and Kaab, and a bunch of dwarven . After seeing her off, I evaluated how much more forest needed cut until I could leave the rest of the work up to goblins. It seemed like it would only be a few more days.
It ended up being five days of work before the field areas I wanted cleared were finished. I the and made a job request for removing tree stumps and tilling the nd in those areas. It's holy muicer that at the end of a day I just go tell someone else what jobs need finished and then just fet about it myself.
As for myself, cutting those trees didn't me many levels, although not much does anymore...