We all waited with baited breath for the first two weeks of winter until the first news from the outside world finally made it's way to us. Initially, we became very apprehensive when we saw fifteen ships approag the isnd, but after we reized the ships as being part of Kao's fleet, we became relieved.

  Kao, Shasta, and a handful of other military personnel arrived to both pick up the dwarven soldiers as well as get first hand ats of what happened in the war here. After we gave the full rundowhe course of a few days, Kao seemed quite keen on w with the dwarves who I had tasked with helping to make the rifled artillery. While they're too difficult to make to be useful on a ship, as singur defensive ons, they be incredibly powerful, so I'm not surprised at his i in them.

  We got a rundown on what had been happening throughout the rest of the world from them as well. A little over a week after the eroops had shipped out to attack us st year, it sounds like the handful of elven ships set off from an area not far from Rathnd. A week ter, a few ships from one of the neighb tries returned aed that the bulk of their fleet was attacked by leviathans. While Kao wasn't able to verify the exaumbers, it sounds like over ten ships were destroyed in the first enter with leviathans alone, and that had vihat try's ahat the whole attack should be called off and re-evaluated.

  The hat the fleet was attacked by leviathans seemed to spread like wildfire through the mainnd. In fact, acc to Kao, it seemed to spread faster than should have been possible. Regardless of that fact, Rathnd itself devolved into civil war within a week, with four different fas vying for trol. Kao said that the uprisings themselves were quite weak, and could have easily been crushed by Rathnd's tral military, or their neighbor's military, had they bee, but rumors had begun to circute already that the King and Baron's ship was eaten by a leviathan, so many people felt the o bae of these new fas instead.

  Wheried to lihe timelines up though, these rumors came a full month before anything had happeo the King or Baron, and in fact, this all began happening almost a week before the invasion of our isnd even started. Things tio devolve over the following weeks until the bulk of the military returned home.

  At that point, though they were currently g their leader, they began to stomp out the rebellious fas who had spread the lies that the King and Baron had died. Though only a little over two more weeks ter, the Elven Matriarch Elloetta would annouhat she had seen both King Besmond III and The Baron of pfur's ships beiroyed by leviathans. Between herself and the elves with her, they had mao keep a leviathan from destroying their own ship, at the cost of a signifit amount of mana.

  Of course, that was just the story they had told everyone. While less than half of the Rathnd military believed that story, with winter ing to an end, and with no evidence of either the King or Barourning, the military itself split into fas, and the civil war began again after only a month.

  A month ter, Elloetta personally asked Kao to temporarily take in a few refugees that she eventually wao take refuge on our isnd instead. Kao agreed for a small fee after hearing we had already agreed to take them in, which we verified today when asked. I'm a little frustrated by the whole ordeal, because it feels like we're a try in name only at this point, but I suppose in some ways that is true. We're still simply too small to not just get trampled over by all the pyers, though we did prove that we at least make it incredibly painful to fight us directly.

  It seems like great lengths were taken on the mainnd to make it seem like we hadn't really defeated Rathnd, but ihat Rathnd had simply falleo bad lud poor pnning. They set out to attack us, only to be badly damaged by leviathans, lose their leadership, and then have their try fall into civil war. Acc to Shasta, very little of what happened in the war actually seemed to make it to the mainnd as news, other than our use of "uactid ons.

  In fact, it sounds like many of the rumors seemed to say our military tactics were quite behind and that we had merely gotten lucky in our war. I'm irely sure if this is being said by those who participated to help save face, or if someone else is purposefully saying these things, but either way, I suppose it is probably good to be uimated when it es to war.

  Another iing series of events were what happened on Kao's isnd while we were being attacked. They had left minimal persohere to stop Rathnd from using it as a base of operations while simultaneously ter using it to drive away any resupply ships. Well, a few resupply ships did show up, and they kept them stalled and preoccupied right up until from high up in a watchtower, with the aid of a telescope we provided, they spotted the majority of the retreating army from after we made our bargain with The Baron.

  With a few hours of extra lead time before all those ships would actually arrive, they shooed all the resupply ships off their isnd within an hour, saying they were wele to do as they pleased. Ohe resupply ships left, the dwarves sunk five of their own vessels off shore, and then moved all their supplies from their fort inte buo hide.

  The retreating forces and resupply ships soon realized that the dwarves had pyed them as fools, but when they returo the isnd a few hours ter, it looked like all the dwarves had packed up ahe isnd. Kao said that judging from the rumors he heard from the returning army, the army had every iion to sink any dwarven vessels they ran int their retreat, so hiding had probably saved quite a few lives as most dwarven ships are generally slower than human ships. This was all at the cost of those ships, which the dwarves on the isnd then had to spend siderable effort rec valuables, such as ons, from.

  We hadn't even thought of that, but holy, we should attempt our own salvage missions. There are a siderable number of shipwrecks around our isnd now, and some are even iively shallow waters. I'll think on how exactly we'll attempt to recover those ter. For now, we have more pressing issues to take care of, like dealing with our new refugees.

  The refugees that we're supposed to take in are currently staying on the mainnd with Kao, but he wants us to take them this winter. There are thirty-two in total. They seem to have been members of one of the fas that started up the civil war shortly after the army left, which makes me think that Elloetta probably had been pnning something like this for a while, and now we're hiding away her political pawns. Well, as long as they don't cause problems and help tribute to the try, it should be fine. I never said I wouldn't lock them in prison indefinitely if they didn't behave, after all.

  sidering our popution has mostly recovered, though there is a bit of a level disparity between the new summons and those who survived the war, I was hoping to transition back to a peacetime ey fully. Then, I'd like to start some more academic pursuits, sidering my level has reset again. Though before that, I'll o collect the two goblins that I sent off with Shasta, and have them start w with Elora on recordkeeping.

  After that, I've got a lot of trade I'd like to duct, if the mert makes it back this year. If not, then we'll have to make do for another year. Some of our bargas survived the war, as we butchered quite a few just before, though a few of the remainder got quite sickly while bei underground for almost a month. We still have a surplus of paper, as that was one of the trade goods I squirrelled away in an underground vault to be used after the war, though the paper mill isn't quite fully repaired yet.

  We used the rest of our deposit of Hadfield steel up before the war, so now we're actively looking for more iron deposits that we use around the isnd. We still have some copper deposits that we're aware of, but ultimately, we might actually o find a good way to recover the metal from all those sunken ships to suppnt our current etal.

  For security purposes, I also want to think about ways we expand our food supply to increase our popution even further. Currently, we have a popution of about 600 demons, a little over a dozen dwarves, and one elf. I think that our current food supply, if fully utilized, could probably support almost three times that. Between our crop fields, underground mushroom farms, the artificial tide pools, and the partially pleted fishiy, we have a det number of sources of food. However, I'd like us to be able to support more thaimes our current popution, rather than just three.

  First, Zeb and Zaka will o actually expand our popution to be closer to our limit. Then we'll be able to utilize the rger bor force to properly expand into the valley over. There we have access to some more fresh water, where more fields be grown, and a sed artificial tide pool could potentially be dug out. That one won't have a natural bay to start from though, so the amount of bor required would be signifit. Though I imagi would be worth it as the food returns from the tide pools are quite signifit for the low bor required to operate them.

  Ultimately, I want us to have a rger popution because I want to have more security in case we're attacked again, and also so that we dedicate a number of individuals to being part of a standing army. During our st war, we spent a siderable amount of effort and energy building all sorts of defeructures oively short notibsp; If instead we had a hundred soldiers who were dedicated to building more defeructures and pnning deferatagems year round, we'd probably have had much better ces overall.