The day, I decided to stop in and talk with Konkur to see if he had any information on the rock samples I delivered to him. I had initially pnned for it to be a short stop, as I didn't expect that muformation before I went to the b to see what sort of tests Tiberius nning on dug. Instead, I ended up having a long discussion. The gist of the situation is that the rock that the tunnel ran into is generally associated with hydrothermal veins of ore. At least, that tends to be the case ba the dwarven try.

  The issue is finding the veins, if they exist at all. For the most part, they form iical spires, where high pressure water forced it's way through the rock carrying dissolved minerals. Occasionally those spires will break rock horizontally, and form deposits in that dire as well, but it's much less frequent. So I basically spent a det amount of time discussing whether it was worth having his team dig the exploratory tunnel further, which would allow either him or myself to use our differeion abilities to try to find any potential ore deposits.

  We both agreed that it would be a good use for his small team, which had been expanding the tunnel I built part of the the mountain, though that hadn't yielded as yet. One of the issues with mining in the cave is its distao the city. Ultimately, our discussioered around how his team would operate up there. The distance is too great for it to be reasonable for them to go there aurn every day. The cave buildings at the entrahat I built include a number of guest rooms, which I volunteered they could use for some time.

  When I'm up there with a few goblins, I usually bring a bit of preserved fish, then go harvest spuds and lion root to supplement the rest of our diet. I'm not sure that this would be viable for a rger group to operate long term, however. So after some discussion, we decided that a six-four schedule would be best. They'd spend six days up the mountain, bringing all the food they'd need with them, then be back for four days. The four days include the few hours of travel both up and down the mountain though, so it's closer to a seven-three when you factor iravel time.

  We've agreed that they sider today day one of their four days iy, so they'll be heading up the mountain after that. I've also agreed to travel up with them for their first cycle on the mountain, where I pn on helping them expand some of the facilities to make things more fortable for them in the long term, while showing them around the area, since I'm most familiar with it. I'm gd I oversized the water colle pool oerrace all those years ago now, si seems like it's going to get some use.

  In the meantime before they go, I'm going to spend a bit of time what Tiberius is up to. Despite everything, I'm still somewhat worried about giving him access to a 3 foot tall crystal. I know first hand that they give quite the burn if you're low on mana and decide to manipute them. A 3 foot crystal is small enough that I don't think I o be ed with a dangerous mana burst if it breaks at least.

  I observed some iis going on from Tiberius over the three days I watched him. The way things were set up in the b, the crystal sat in a chamber, partially submerged in water. The submerged portion was then ected through a few pipes full of water to small baths surrounding the crystal. The water itom half was then sealed to prevent it from mixing with anything poured into the top half of the tainer, which would directly tact the crystal.

  He performed a few differes while I was there. One of the tests involved p blood into the top half of the crystal taio see what affect the excess mana would have. Iingly, about half the samples of blood did something perceivable. One crackled with electricity, causing us to duck as electrical energy arced along its surface for a number of minutes. Another violently spshed itself, hurling bits of blood about. The up from that test was a real pain. Others had subtle results like partial gealing or bubbling. The whole time Tiberius was taking notes in what I assume is the human nguage he speaks.

  Ohird day, before we went to the b, he had me help haul se fish on the way there. On the b, he went about disseg the fish, and then submerging different parts into the water baths which were ected to the crystal. I only saw a few results, but it seems like some specialty ans do exist in some of the fish which reacted when submerged in the mana rich water. Ultimately, I feel safe leaving him to study this for a while. There are plenty more experiments that be run along this mi, and there are plenty of fish that he hasn't caught and rus on which will extend the testing time drastically.

  Over the course of the six days that I was on the mountain with Konkur's team, I ended up building multiple new facilities for them. Ultimately, the rooms that I had made previously were very small, and though goblins in the past have put up with them, I've also been here every time they were used in the past. So I set about digging a new mining barracks. The rooms are a little bigger, and there is a tral kit and ste space, remi of the apartment buildings iy.

  There are also more rooms than there are people here currently. Though it's presumptuous to assume we will hit some kind of ore, if we do, I don't want to have to scramble to making housing for moblins. They also didn't find any ore deposits so far, but I'm not surprised, they haven't actually made that much progress tunneling.

  I fet sometimes just how much faster I tunnel with improved stone shaping pared tur goblins. Though they are going faster than they would otherwise thanks to the crystals in the cavern. I'm holy hoping that the stone shaping goblins oeam get mana affinity thanks to how much they're iing with the mana crystals.

  Ohing that we hadn't anticipated, mostly because I've just been st it in the cave ste area, is the amount of rock that could be shipped down the mountain to be used on other stru projects. After discussing with Konkur, we're going to add shipping rock down the mountain as part of the return trip day. It'll likely end up taking all day, rather than only part of it, but it should be manageable.

  An unfortunate quality of the new kind of rock we've brought back is that is fractures easily. This property is probably why it more easily develops hydrothermal ore veins, but also means it's actually not very useful for us for solid stru. One use that it does have, however, is filling the inner se of the jetty as we build it. I still want to e with a more durable rock, but we fill the bulk of the mass with this rock, and I don't expect much issue.

  The downside for us is that we have to haul all that rock from the uphill part of the city, where the rail ends, to the jetty. It's not that big of a problem, but it's more work than the mine exploration crew do ihree days iy. So I've put a few jobs up in city hall to haul the stoo the artificial tide pool area, and hopefully they'll have hauled all of it by the ime they haul stone down the mountain.

  I've personally spent these three days cheg in on Tiberius. He's tested a few more fishes, but our ck of a shared nguage has been a barrier to sharing information. I could tell, at least, that there didn't seem to be any major breakthroughs. He's done some iis by mixing different fishes' blood, and submerged ans from some of the fishes in their blood while exposed to the crystal. He's seen some iis from that.

  He gave me a demonstration from the fish that had the electric blood. By submerging an an from it's head in the blood with the crystal, he could direct the static discharge forward from a particur se of the an. I had to scold him on safety protocols though, as his hands had minor burns where electric jolts had burhem. I'd expect him to at least wear leather gloves when doing something like that, if not use tongs. I'm really starting to think I o find a goblin with some good on seo work as his b assistant ssh safety reminder.