As our popution has tio grow, the ey has grown to match it iy. Most of that growth has just been in the form of more people w in the same industries. When I built out additional bcksmithing locations years ago, there were a handful of individuals w at each location. Now it seems that teams share the space, with some getting up early, and others w te, keeping the fes running for a longer period of time, with more apprentices running about handling small tasks.

  I haven't taken a direct at for what everyone has been doing tely, but having a rger ey is ve at times like these where I oblins to take on a new role. So, after a quick discussion with some of the bcksmiths, I took a ferentices from them to start handling the fluorite processing facility. Tiberius hasn't had the time to do researto what quantities of iron impurities are ideal for maki, so I've decided on using the same ratio as we used to make the first samples underground. Even if it's not the most effit amount, its quite a bit more effit than using the natural fluorite, so it's definitely worth it, and it's fairly easy to ge those quantities ter when we know better.

  Ultimately, I took four days getting them trained up and w as a team to make the fluorite gss doped with iron. I also made a small amount of css with the i of growing a 12" crystal of it to increase our hydrogen produ. Unfortunately, I'm our only source of fluorite until I either get a new cryogenics facility going, or spring rolls around, so I'm going to have to spend quite a bit of time mining, or else things are going to stay idle. We have enough fluorite on hand that I think we try to grow a 36-inch crystal, so I'll help that get set up before I go to do more mining.

  Eight days into my mining excursion for more fluorite, and I had to stop. Not because it was too hot or unbearable for me, however. After I hauled a load back, I was informed that there roblem with one of the goblins who was helping Tiberius. The goblin has fallen very ill. Many of the symptoms seem to mimic what I know as the flu, but disease here seems to be practically ent, so everyone is rightly very ed. He's been sick like this for a few days, and after getting a look at him, it definitely would be what I'd expect radiation poisoning to look like. His skin is scabbing over in a feces, and I noticed loose hair scattered around his bed.

  Tiberius had tinued doing more experiments with grown crystals in the b space after I left, and this seems to be the result. I'd known, and be warhat this could happen, but I'd gotten so excited at the potential upsides, and likely discovery of the source of heat and hydrogen fluorite that I'd let myself jump ahead and skip some safety pnning. What we should have done, for both the initial tests, and for a of unknown fluorite effects, would be to put a caged ground bird in the room for a few hours while exposing the crystals to mana, then remove the mana, and watch the health of the bird.

  If we're lucky, this goblin will recover, though it'll be a long journey. If he survives, lets hope that even cer be cured by evolving, otherwise he's in for a short life.

  The test that caused this was again a multi-crystal test, which holy, we should do away with that as well, and stick to oype at a time. There were Zinc doped crystals, Lead doped crystals, and Silver doped crystals. Of those, the Zinc crystals glowed an eerie e color, despite being an off-green color, and the other two crystals didn't have a measurable effe our primitive tests.

  They want to bme the zinc crystal for this. It easily could be the culprit. I know some crystals are fluorest, and likely, given the simirity to the word fluorite, I suspect that most fluorite crystals are fluorest. If the crystal was releasing gamma rays, x-rays, or even ultraviolet light, it could cause radiation damage while also causing the crystal to glow.

  However, that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. One of the other crystals could be the culprit, and they simply aren't fluoresg. I'll have some cages stocked with ground birds, and we'll do some animal testing to begin doing further testing on this matter.

  I took two days getting the ground birds together for the experiments. The two oblins who were hired to work on the process have refused to help, and I don't bme them. Tiberius seems to be the only one who is still willing to throw his life on the lio do further resear this matter. Though, sidering he's been w in the small room growing crystals, which also happens to be where the crystals for testing are kept without any symptoms developing, likely means that he's been receiving some low level dosage of radiation. To help bat that, I also made a small lead et for st the testing crystals in. That should do a det job of shielding some of the potential radiation moving forward.

  In any at, over the course of three days, we carefully proceeded with three tests. For each test, a ground bird in a cage ut iesting chamber along with a few crystals of a single doped type, and one bird was kept separate, but caged, as a trol. Then, as we left each area, the subsequent valves were opeo allow mana into the testing chamber. Mana was left flowing for two hours, then we closed the first valve. Then we waited an hour, and closed the sed valve. After another hour, we closed the st valve. Then, we waited three more hours before finally going into the test chamber to retrieve the ground bird. The crystals remained iest chamber for another six hours before beirieved.

  Each ground bird's cage was beled and the birds were monitored for ah problems. Somewhat surprisingly, it appeared as though the silver doped crystal, the st crystal we tested, was the culprit of the radiation poisoning. After five days of monit, the ground bird that was exposed to the silver doped crystal had died, while the other two were retively fine. The three living birds all showed some signs of stress, but sidering the lead and zinc birds showed the same signs as the trol bird, I suspect that, at the very least, those crystals are fairly mundane in their overall effects.

  I do want to do more testing before that is determined for certain. The goblin who is battling radiation siess had far less exposure than the ground bird, only getting about 15 minutes worth of time around the crystal, but he's still fighting and not really rec, which is very ing.

  That, of course, has made the goblins even more unwilling to work in the b. Well, as long as the health and safety tests are done on ground birds sistently first, Tiberius will probably be able to mahout any help. Seeing the goblin struggling with radiation poisoning definitely expins the ck of fluorite on the market though. We're w with singur impurities in the b. Natural fluorite, even the fluorite that we've been mining, isn't normally particur about the impurities within it.

  Our natural fluorite is mostly hematite, or at least, that's what our experimental evidence seems to show. I wouldn't be surprised if it has small amounts of other elements in it as well, however. Depending on the quantities involved, you could end up finding a natural heat colored fluorite, like we have, but it has enough silver that after a week of exposure, you end up very ill from radiation. Silver is only the first material we've found with a detrimental effect like this, who knows how many others there might be.

  The upshot of all of this, however, is that if further testing shows that pure Zinc is actually harmless, we'll have access to magical lighting teologies, which itself be very helpful in many situations. We have a lot of warehouses and other buildings that have basements that could use with basic lighting. Our main streets could also have lighting installed on them. The mines will be tricky, because deep underground, there isn't muatural mana, but you could devise a rechargeable mp by pairing the fluorite with a mana crystal, which would be much safer than using torches fht.