The trip back to our isnd took just as long as the trip away did. I didn't notiything particurly iing about our other isnds on the way back that I didn't already note before, unfortunately. I did, however, get the opportunity to talk with Shasta about some of the previous questions I had.

  The first question was, 'What was the whole deal with the drink at the end of the opening ba?'. She went into a long winded expnation about dwarven traditions, that I fot most of, but I do remember the gist of it. It's something of a folk tale, though many think it really happened. Some time in the past, a powerful dwarf ihree political equals to a bao discuss matters of gover. The other dwarves, while politically powerful weren't nearly as militarily oriented as the first dwarf. Shortly after the ba ehe first dwarf slew the others, and cimed their territory as his own.

  That dwarf tio hold signifit political sway, despite his misdeeds, due to the vital nature of the territory and military he trolled. So, whenever he would attend any other bas, the other dwarves would force him to drink a draught which also drained his mana, so he would be at a disadvantage if he attempted to fight directly. Over time, that adapted to everyone drinking some of the draught at a ba before a meeting, to show that there wasn't intended hostilities.

  I suppose, in a world with magic, simply leaving a on at the door wouldn't actually prevent you from being incredibly dangerous on your own, so in a way, this is something akin to disarming yourself for a political talk. I thought it was in its ht, but it didn't actually drain that muy mana, so I suppose the a is somewhat symboliow. Though I was weaker after having drank it than not, so maybe it's only meant to weaken you enough that uardsmen could interfere?

  Though it does make me wonder if that implies that when Kao has e to meet with us in the past, and that tradition wasn't followed, if violence was still oable... I suppose it probably was oable, though I 't rule out that it's a tradition that dwarves only follow amongst themselves, and not with outsiders. It could also be that he simply didn't sider our talks to ever be on the level of equals.

  The sed question I had for Shasta was, 'Why did the other warlords seem surprised that Goppok Kanaga won the au?'. She gave me a number of factors that likely all tributed to the surprise of the other warlords. First, the fact I already learned, he's retively young, and has only been managing his region for a little over a year. Sed, the region he manages is fairly isoted, poor, underdeveloped, and sparsely poputed, partially because it's rgely situated deep in a mountain range, but also due to it's mrarian traditions, despite the poor enviro frowing pnts.

  For any of the other warlords, the amount he bid would be reasoo procure on short notice, but it was shog to see that he could accrue enough wealth to afford that on such short notice, let alohat he'd be willing to spend that kind of money on this objebsp; The amount he spent would be enough to fund the stru of a det road through his territory, acc to Shasta. So most of the warlords are left w why he'd spend that kind of money on the crystal when it could easily be spent on other projects that would have better impact.

  Although that answered the question as to why the other warlords were surprised, it left me with even more questions that I 't get the ao. Though his is good either way, so I'm not oo pin. Kao did have someone check all the s that were brought along by the partits before the au began, so I'm not worried about fraud at least. Well, maybe iure I'll learn what Goppok's motivations were.

  After the almost two month trip to Kao's isnd, I had a bit of o catch up on. First, and sadly, I missed Konkur and his family leaving the isnd. They left with the mert to return to the mainnd. Though just before he left, the vein they were mining did hit pyrite. I'll sider that quite the good going away gift. In an ideal world, we wouldn't o use pyrite as an iron source, but we'll make use of what we have.

  He also left notes about a few of the other minerals that we might run into, now that we've found pyrite. Things like sphalerite, galena, and mypsum are to be expected in the area. Although the gypsum would be a bit of a disappoi, I'd gdly take sphalerite and galena, which could give us zind lead respectively. Lead would be valuable for produg sulfuric acid and batteries, and zinc has a handful of uses, including making batteries, making brass, or being used as a sacrificial ao help prevent corrosion.

  Unfortunately, processing pyrite to make det quality iron is a real hassle, and Konkur didn't have any notes reted to it, probably because it's such a poor ore to process that they've had better sources, and don't practice refining it. The main problem with it is removing enough of the sulfur that the resulting iron product isn't incredibly brittle.

  So, we'll have to do some experimenting to even produce a viable output produbsp; We also o be somewhat careful with the produ, as it will release a lot of votile sulfur pounds, which could be poisonous to breathe in. I'm thinking that once we get a process figured out, if we have enough ore, we should build the facility on the craggy part of the isnd that we don't currently go to. It's generally downwind from the city, and should be far enough removed that the pollution drifts out to sea, rather than falling back down on our isnd. In small trations, sulfur is vital to life, so I'm not ed that we'll be killing off sea life as a result of our small operation. If anything, we'll be fertilizing the sea pnts.

  After I finished going through Konkur's notes he left for me, I checked in on Tiberius's researbsp; His on utilizing the blood from electric fish, and the spine shooting an from the other fish has gohrough quite a few revisions, but it seems he's also tabled it for the time being. The current design for the on reminds me a bit of a shotgun, where the barrel be tilted down, though instead of putting the shell into the barrel, you would load a spike into an an in the handpiece, then re-slide the barrel over it.

  The big issues with that ohat you need a sourana to activate it, which means you either o be underground where you use a crystal which is small enough to carry, or the wielder needs a way to infuse mana into the on. The seajor drawback is that the spike shooting an goes bad after a few days, meaning you basically need a fresh an for it to be valuable.

  If it weren't for the sed drawback, I'd actually think that the on could be useful as a defensive on for us. We could dig a deep bunker underground, and as a st resort, we could hide there, and use these ons with embedded smaller crystals to defend the bunker. If the an goes bad that quickly though, there isn't much of a use for it, as the enemy would just o wait a few days for the ons to stop w.

  A thought did y mind that if Zaka's blood didn't boil due to his fireball ability, the treion might actually help preserve biological items from deg. Unfortunately, his blood does boil, so we'd need aroll to evolve if we wao try that, and I 't say I like that I'm even thinking about that. I didn't mention it to Tiberius, for obvious reasons. He's currently doing a new series of tests using fish blood. It seems like he's meticulously rec the behavior of various kinds of blood when exposed to mana, then mixing them, and rec the new behavior. I'm not sure how long that'll go for, but it could potentially produe iis.

  While some of the sea life has obvious magical properties that utilize mana, others aren't quite as obvious, but I doubt that they're just not using it. It's not impossible, but with a source of energy readily avaible, I'd expect life to evolve to use it. The trees use mana defeo help harden themselves here, and using water infused with their bark hardens in kind, which helped us produce our leather armor which could survive a powerful hit from metal. I would imagine many prey fish probably also use mana in some ways, though I doubt many will be very useful to us.

  tent, I left Tiberius more funds to tinue his researbsp; Thanks to the mining crew clearing the road up the mountain in winter, it's possible for me to start making the new crystal right away, rather than waiting for spring time. Though before that, I want to figure out where the temporary bathhouse crystal is going to be moved to. I don't want to leave it he o during springtime, at least not until we've gotten both valleys protected by a sea wall.