I was so caught up in all the work I was doing with smelting our lead, that I hadn't realized why it was so easy for me to requisition a stru team to help me for a short while. They had finished building the sea wall in our valley. It's quite the impressive view the first time you see it, but I've heard from more than one goblin that they miss the old view of the o. The goblins that work in both of the mills, the salt evaporation ponds, and a few of the fields no longer have a direct view of the o while they work.

  The popution really has been growing in the past few years, and we passed 2,000 residents quite a while ago. We're probably reag the point where artwork is going to start to bee necessary. Well, necessary is a strong word, but it will help morale. Until retly, you could easily look around and see nature surrounding you wherever you were on the isnd. In the decades since I've been making ges to things, we've pushed the wilderness further and further babsp; On one hand, that's made everything much safer and more stable. Oher hand, it's not very pleasing to look at most of it.

  Most of the stru iy is ft stone g features or details. When you spend your whole day surrounded by that, it probably wears on the psyche. I still spend plenty of time off in the edges of our civilization, slowly verting that wilderness into more of the drab stoructures, which is where art es in. It'd probably be for the best to start expl artwork as a way to spice things up, and make everything less uniform in appearance.

  I'll talk it over with Zeb, but in an ideal sario, we'd recruit directly from the stru teams to start sprug up our building designs and make them less uniform. Some of the dwarven dwellings are like that, with faux brick exteriors. Perhaps sprug up the architecture with Grean style pilr designs would be more appealing to the eyes? Holy, just about anything is probably more appealing than the near-soviet style brutalist architecture we have now. It'd probably help with our image as well. Nothing says terrifying savages quite like brutalism, even if it was a sequence of funality and ease of produ.

  I'd also like to get the other valley's sea wall up. It sort of flicts with what I just said about brutalist architecture, but prote from weather disasters should e first. We alretty it up afterwards. Plus, it shouldn't be long now before Zeb designates a new stru crew. Every year he's been gaining a few stone-shaping goblins, and the current teams are about at the level where he'll probably pull some from each team and form a new one. I'm not going to mianage how he runs things though, however he decides to run things is his choice.

  It'll be another busy year ahead of me as well. Not only would I like to finish the lead produ area, but I also o make the rge crystal for this winter's au. Time permitting, I'd like to get the pyrite refining figured out, ahe zinc furnace built. I now also have the handful of heat produg crystals to start analyzing when I get the bsp; I've also realized that long term, we'll need locations for st the remaining tailings from our metal produ. The tailings from these sulfide ores are probably quite toxid tain lead and arseni rge amounts, so ideally, I'd dig a very deep vault where they be safely stored.

  I talked with Zeb about introdug architectural design to our buildings, and remodeling the older ones. He was surprisingly relut to the idea. His reasoning was quite sound though, we're already pulling some of our avaible stru bor to building the sea wall, and if we pull even more of it to start doing architectural work the produ rate of new dwellings will be signifitly reduced. They currently add about one new living space a day on average, which means that Zaka usually spends about an hour each day summoning imps to keep up.

  Zeb gave a pretty iing analysis beyond that as well. From when a goblin first evolves, it takes a minimum of two years for them to start being productive in any particur field that relies on magibsp; Even then, it usually takes them awo years to really start being profit in their chosen field, and from there they beore productive over time beyond that. So, while unskilled bor bees avaible quickly, the skilled bs behind. If we reduce rowth rate, it'll have pounding effects on produ down the road, based on that lost bor. We don't really need more unskilled bht now, but we always use demons that have more prestiges or evolution uheir belt. Which means we o keep summoning new demons as quickly as possible, so they mature, level, and evolve over time.

  After hearing Zeb's reasoning, I was ined to agree. It be deyed somewhat. However, I did vince him that once he gets more borers, rather than f Zaka to spend even more time each day on summoning, we should sider improving the existing infrastructure to be more aesthetibsp; While he was still relut, I expihat I'd been hearing pints from some of the goblins who work he sea, alongside my own reasoning whicluded what I'd seen on Kao's isnd. He then agreed to hold a meeting with the stru teams when it came time to form a eam, to see who might be ied in that kind of work, but made no promises as to whether he would form a team regardless of i.

  That eam would still be under his jurisdi if it's formed, but they'd focus on remodeling older buildings. That led into a discussion about updating new building designs, but ultimately, that came to a standstill. If it slows down produ, Zeb's against it. Well, I'll take a win where I . Partial implementation is better than no implementation. Over time, we'll get a rger stru force, and then it shouldn't be an issue anymore.

  I debated with myself as to whether I should immediately begin work on growing the crystal for year, or finish the lead refining process. Ultimately, I decided to start growing the crystal. Once spring es, I'll pause growing the crystal to resume w on lead refining. I pn on moving the temporary bathhouse crystal back to the b area again during spring, so it'll make stru in the roasting area easier.

  Though, w on the crystal in winter is a bit of a pain, sihe mining crew has to clear the snow on the roads periodically. As a result, iwo months we've been w, I've only finished about half the work needed on the crystal, which is a bit slower than I'd normally like. It's mostly due to travel deys for the goblins making their the mountain to assist me in work. Ira downtime, I've been mining out more and more of the known crystal deposit, and building up a stockpile.

  Ohe deposits are mined out pletely, I'll have a good estimate of how many years I have to find a new source of the crystals, or to figure out what raw materials are actually going into the crystals to artificially manufacture them instead. As aimate of what's remaining though, I've got at least two aus after this uping one before the current supply runs out, which works out to about nine years.

  For the first two months of spring, I worked to finish the lead smelting, which actually retty easy. Between having the crystal close by the b area, and the fact I'd gotten quite used to building and designing furhe two st stages of the lead refining process were a breeze to make. I even added in an additional furnaelting the finished lead product, so it could be poured into casts easily, and made a cast for the lead shells that will be repts for our current artillery shells.

  The first furnace was very simir to the one iy, except it is powered by a small windmill rather than a waterwheel, and it has a ey to help reduce toxic fumes, si's w with lead. This furnace is for redug the lead oxide from the fish bone ash bato liquid lead and other metals.

  The sed furnace is actually more like a cooking oven, fueled with wood, with a shallow sloped surfad a hopper. You feed crushed up lead metal into the hopper on top, and as a solid, it rests on the sloped surfabsp; The heat is retively low, so the lead easily melts, and leaves behind other metal impurities on the slope. Every so often, you have to remove the buildup of the leftover metals on the slope, but it does a good job of produg quite pure lead.

  From Konkur's notes, it seems that the leftover metal still tains a pretty high amount of lead, alloyed with whatever other impurities didn't melt or burn away. Down the road, it might be possible to extraetals from the leftovers, usiher chemical or electric processes, so I personally want to keep these leftovers separate from other tailings.