The restru process has been going well, though we aren't rebuilding everything to be exactly the same as it used to be. We started the repairs by rebuilding our artificial tide pools, and moving on from that to other necessary funs. After almost a year, we've gotten a lot of things back to the way they used to be, but we've maintained all our new defeructures, and even expahem to some degree. Elora insists that they aren't necessary, and that we won't be invaded immediately e winter, but we don't want to risk it.
I wish I could say that I had the freedom to work on iing projects, but I was stuck w multiple jobs all year. Ultimately, we lost nearly half of our total popution to the war, and so I had to increase the frequency of csses to keep up with the summoning of new popution. In addition to that, many of our more plicated structures required repairs, and due to our initially reduced work force, I found myself being responsible for repairing a lot of that.
We still had a rge retinue of dwarven soldiers on the isnd, so we at least had some amount of menial bor avaible. We reinstalled our crystal after the elves left, so this winter I suspect the trip to the mainnd will be safe again. Until then, we'll have to tio support the dwarven army.
Since I had the go ahead to put Elora to work, I had her begin w as an archivist for us. Given her fluen a number of nguages, though she initially cked the ability to speak in the demon nguage, we had her begin rec things in dwarvish. There were a lot of records that had been ed over the years, and many of them were now lost to time because the individual who had remembered them died during the war.
As such, Elora's first, and ongoing task, was to begin taking records of all the various historical events, followed by goveral records, and then, if there was any time left, the slow transtion of all my previous recorded works from English on stoablets to paper records in dwarvish. I still kept my inal records in stone, in case anything happeo the paper records, but having a copy of many of my notes in dwarvish seemed prudent.
I also had Elora take a day each month where she'd be at the academy, teag the basics of written and spoken dwarvish to anyone who wao learn it. Ultimately, she's filling the role currently that I had previously hoped that the two goblins we sent with Shasta would fill. Though they'll still be useful for us when they return. After everything that happened, I'd rather not rely too heavily on Elora.
I also took the time to return everyone's money from the vault that we stored it in, though quite a few individuals were no longer around to cim their money oods. Their goods, I decided, would be distributed among the veteran survivors of the war, but their money would simply be collected. sidering all the demons on the isnd trace their 'ary' back to Zaka equally, I didn't see any reason to distribute the money in the same way. The only reason goods were distributed is that the other two options of reselling them or destroying them didn't seem as fair.
During the war, many individuals gained levels, and I was no exception. It wasn't long after the war's clusion that I reached level cap again.
I was torn on what to select when I got the option to either evolve or prestige. On one hand, we just had a war and evolution would have allowed me to be more prepared if we suddenly had another one. Oher hand, I felt like I wouldn't get the opportunity to see the prestige level if I don't take it here, given the ever slowing rate I've been gaining levels at.
As for my options that were prese the time...
Avaible Traits:Improved Endurance: Increases the amount of strenuous activity you do at oime.Heightened Reflexes: Shorteion time and allows for incredibly fast, albeit reflexive, dodging ability.Heighterength: Greatly increases muscle mass and by extension strength.Partial Sleep: User remains semi-scious while asleep, allowing the performance of basic tasks. User requires a few extra hours of overall sleep to pensate.Infuse Mana: Spell. Allows the dired trolled infusion of mana into a surface. Variable Cost.
Avaible Species:OgreLava Demon
After I saw my options, I realized my decision was even harder than I thought it would be. I had another avaible species, and a few raits that I was ied in. Partial Sleep seems incredibly useful, as it would drastically increase my productivity from physical activities, while Infuse Mana would likely open up many new avenues of researto materials that I previously was usionise to utilize. Of course, the other trait options were nice as well, improving my overall physical abilities isn't to be scoffed at.
Given that I've had many times in the past where I've had to de amounts of menial bor, and how often that bor is tied to advang teologies, I felt that partial sleep robably the way to go. Infuse Mana was hard to pass on, but it is an unknown as to whether it is actually more useful thaonise, or if teise will work for all cases where infuse mana would be useful.
Ultimately, I decided oiging and taking Partial Sleep.
After I awoke from my prestige, I was surprised to see I had gained a new magibsp; I recalled that when I first became a lesser earth demon, I gaih spike for free, so I was a little intrigued by what the new magic did.
Pulverize: Spell. verts designated cubie of stoo fine sand instantaneously. Costs 100 mana per cubic foot.
I've manually performed this task many times in the past using stone shape, but that process is somewhat slow due to needing to mentally trol the pulverization. This seems like a quid easy variant. I'm a little intrigued as to why I got this for free at this point, but regardless, it will be quite useful. Unfortunately, it was somewhat redundant with the meical pulverizers that I made previously.
I did end up getting a lot of use from the partial sleep trait though, as I was able to do simple stone shaping work while partially asleep. It was quite the odd sensation, almost like lucid dreaming. I did find it slightly invehat I ended up needing to be in that state for ara three hours, meaning about half my day would be spent in the partially asleep state. Though that was easily made up for by the amount of extra work I got done.
Plus, if it came down to it, I could easily fully awaken from the state if I suddenly needed all my mental capacity, I'd just o resume sleeping after whatever pressing matter required my attention. My new wakefulook some getting used to for others iy though, as I'd often initially get asked questions when I was trying to sleep which would require me fully waking up to actually answer properly.
I took some of my time in my partial sleep state to build a memorial to everyone who lost their lives defending Kembora. I made a rge obelisk where names were eventually carved for all the individuals who died. I also relocated the old, smaller memorial that I made years ago to be located o the obelisk.
Among those we lost, there were a few familiar names. Zata, the personable goblin that worked in city hall, Boggs, the fisherdwarf, and Karta Debroik, one of the dwarven anders. When we were training the army, I was surprised that Boggs had wao participate, but he'd insisted that with his high level, even though he didn't have any bat skills, he'd be useful. Acc to some of the goblins, he decided to participate due to our plete mobilization. It didn't sit right with him that when even oblins who were craftsman were being drafted and trained up, he'd just sit idly by only helping them gain levels through deep sea fishing.
This was a notion that most of the other dwarves didn't share. Most of them have families though, so I uand their reluce to fight. Boggs was always an enigmatidividual, so I suppose I shouldn't have been that surprised that he participated in the fighting. I've decided that we'll he fishiy in his honor o is pleted.