We tio wait in the harbor area for ahirty-one days, until the mert returned again. He had some of the goods we requested prepared, but most of it would wait until year. Though we did once again fill his ship with all the agreed upon goods like gypsum, salt, and paper. Iime while we waited, I worked with the goblins I brought along to tinue improving the infrastructure on this side of the isnd. As I would dig out the sed warehouse's basement, the stone would be hauled off to build out the roads further along the bay.
After the mert left again, we waited around for aen days, just in case some other ships arrived. After that point though, we were fairly certain that no one else would arrive, so we packed up what traded goods we had acquired and headed back to the city. Quite a bit of the iron we requested was delivered, and I think we're going to need some more s minted soon, so after I move the crystal for springtime, I'll probably return up the mountain to mint s and start growing the crystal for the au year.
Once we got back to the city, we were only half a month from the first month of spring, so I got a few hobgoblins to help me move the crystal from the temporary bathhouse iher valley all the to the stream, where I took a few days ensuring that even if the stream flooded the crystal wouldn't be damaged. I essentially made a pit with thick stone bars all around the crystal so water could flow through but even moderate debris wouldn't be able to i with the crystal. That whole process took six days to plete.
The sea wall had already grown by awo feet with the help of the bathhouse in the area, and we're probably only a year or two out from having the sed artificial tide pool fi this rate. The city has beehodically clearing more and more forest and verting it to farmnd as well. I did some quick mental math, and decided that it was time to pn out plots with the express purpose of growing trees on them for ter harvest, given how reliant we are on wood for fuel.
We don't kly how long the trees take to grow to maturity, but the pn I have in mind involves setting aside one fairly rge plot of nd each year, in which we'll pnt about ohousand trees in each plot, which will measure five hundred feet by two hundred feet, so each tree gets approximately 100 square feet of spabsp; By repeating this every year until the trees are rge enough to harvest, we hopefully provide ourselves with a sustainable amount of wood each year. Though the goblins in charge of managing the existing forests and making dirt trails through them have been providing us with a det amount of woround clutter, which is teically sustainable as well.
These plots will be further from the city, part of the the mountain where growing other food is difficult due to the terrain. It might seem a bit odd to clear cut existing forest only to prees in the area, but because it's a managed forest, rather than wild, the trees are grown a bit clether. Also, since we're verting a rge amount of the wood into furniture as well as charcoal, it's not like the wood itself is being wasted.
Getting everythi up for the wood plots took a little bit of time, since I o demarcate the actual locations for the plots. Then I had to get a handful of goblins to put in charge of the whole matter. By the time everything was do took een days. That was fihough, because I did want to wait until the snow on the mountain had properly melted before I worked on minting s.
The inting itself doesn't actually take that long, so things were pnned out such that I'd bring the couple of goblins who've worked on inting with me in the past up the mountain the day before the miners returned down the mountain. Ultimately, I'm still trying to keep the inting process retively obscure, so the secrecy is somewhat important. Then, we'll mint s for a few days before bringing the new s down the day before the miners return.
I'll spend the evenings mining more native copper for us to use for more s, while during the day we'll all work to mint the various s. We'll bring up some of the iron I traded for as well to mint the s that previously were made from mangalloy. Holy, given the usefulness of mangalloy, we might sider doing a trade in program for those s, to repce them with pin iron, and buy them back at a small premium, just so we have a small amount of the mangalloy avaible for certain hardened maery. We'd probably only get a few ingots from the whole ordeal though, so it's hard to say if it would be worth it or not.
After anht days, we had mihe s and brought the new supply of them down to Zaka for distribution again. I mentioned before that we could really use a bank of some sort iy, so Zaka wouldn't o mahis process, but sidering we're slowly depleting our metal supplies, I don't know if it'd be feasible to build a bank. Simir to the jail, we need a metal vault for st the valuables, sihere are dozens of individuals iy who treat stone like butter at any point in time. We could make it using copper, but given how soft copper is I don't think that'd be feasible unless we find something with which to alloy the copper.
Though, ohe sea wall is pleted, we could potentially alleviate our metal issue via trade by building a harbor on the far side of the isnd, and utilizing our existing quartz supply to make rge sreenhouses to greatly increase our salt produ. We could drastically increase our trade output of salt, which we could then exge for the metals we need, and as an added be gee some freshwater for us to use. All those pns are a few years out though, so for the springtime season, I'm going to tinue growing rge crystals for us to utilize for both trade and productivity.
Over the four months I spent growing crystals, I produced a six-and-a-half-foot crystal, and built up even more of a stockpile of the intermediate sizes. I ended up modifying the crystal growing b area somewhat to aodate a few things. First, I expanded out the crystal sg material ste area signifitly. If we ever figure out exactly what gas is released by the crystals, and isote it again, then that sg be useful to us once again.
Sed, I dug out a e room where I store all the intermediate crystals that we grow. That room is purposefully resealed in a way that makes it hard to notice, just in case someoo attempt to steal some of our intermediates. That ste room currently houses een one-foot crystals, eight two-foot crystals, and three four-foot crystals.
Due to the speed and volume at which the crystals grow in their chambers, it's much faster to produce the smaller crystal intermediates than the rge ones because of the fixed rate at which the crystals actually grow. If, for some reason, I wao produce signifitly more of the rge crystals at a time, then I'd o build more of the rge crystal vats to do so. Though I don't know if I alone could operate any more of the vacuum chambers than I currently already operate at a time. With that though, we've made the crystal for the au, should it actually occur. I doubt Kao will say no, but even if that's the case, then we just use this ourselves.
I also talked with Konkur about a few things during the times where we both happeo be free while on the mountain. Firstly, we discussed just how much more crystal material I could reasonably expect from the stone yer where I've beerag it. After doing some estimates, Konkur thinks I've probably extracted between 25 and 50 pert of the deposits from this area. Though he also said that it'd be reasoo assume there are multiple other deposits like this buried in the mountain in other locations, so if this deposit runs out, we could probably find more.
Closer to the end of spring though, he had something else to discuss with me. His eldest child has reached the age of maturity for dwarves, which means that Konkur pns ourning to the dwarven tihis winter with his family. He isn't sure if he'll return or her. If he does, it'll be at least a decade before he does, as that is when his you child would also reach the age of maturity. Our isnd doesn't have a lot of opportunities for jobs, let alone much of a dwarven popution.
Ultimately, him leaving is actually going to be quite a loss for us in the knowledge department. I've picked up a few things here and there from him, and the goblins who've worked with him have learned quite a few mining teiques, so it's not like we've gained nothing, but losing his insight into what we find and where will probably slow down things quite a bit.