After Shasta left, we hauled back the rest of the quartz from our st year's order, along with the goods that the humans and dwarves requested. My first priority when I got back was to schedule a meeting with Zaka and Zeb about the turmoil on the dwarven ti. Zaka was much less ed about the situation than Zeb who in turn was less ed than I was. Zeb's mostly stemmed from the fact that I was discussing ging our stru priorities short term to capitalize on the war.

  My s are two-fold. First, there's always the potential that flict spreads to our isnd. Which meant we o start preparing for fliow, to fun as a deterrent. We've still been slowly stockpiling more artillery rounds though not quite at the rate we did before. Our main source of potassium nitrate is through excrement farming, and after the previous war, the majority of the poputio back to using our restrooms the majority of the time. So, we're going to expand the existing saltpeter fields and pay people for their "tributions".

  Just having more ammo won't be enough though, we'll also need more artillery pieces. Without Kao's military engihough, produ will be signifitly slower to make a siillery on. So we agreed to make requests to Karsh to produe to see how it goes. In all likelihood, our existing iron isn't quite high enough quality to produce a good one, and I'll o get the hematite refining pnt going before roduy.

  Which leads to the sed I have. I'm only one person, and we have a lot of produ ges to make to capitalize on the flibsp; I made the first two salt greenhouses, but they take time to mi, and I should focus my efforts on the hydroelectric facility. So, we're going to halt the terrace farming temporarily while the stru teams prepare multiple greenhouse facilities. That'll end up taking some of Karsh's time, and it'll keep the gss making goblins busy for a while. We once again have a signifit excess of quartz, thanks to the shipment and our current ore deposit. I expect we make four mreenhouses with our current supplies.

  We still have our residual military force dedicated to maintaining the existing artillery and one of the watchtower locations, but I asked Zaka if we could expand the military further. I want to maintain all three watchtowers, add in two logistics squads, start training a few more squads for maintaining new artillery pieces if we have them built, and add in thirty soldiers who's purpose is to be in fighting dition at all times. Those thirty will train stantly, and focus entirely on fighting.

  I war, the enemy had a handful of dedicated elites who seemed signifitly more valuable to them than their regur soldiers. Basically, I want our owe force who handle groups ur fighters on their own easily. While Zaka, Zeb and I are teically elite fighters, I want a rger force who, quite frankly, are more disposable. That does mean that we'll have to be somewhat careful though. We don't want them to bee too powerful, and potentially stage their own rebellion.

  To that end, I've suggested that every month, Zaka, Zeb, and myself each spend at least 3 days fishing or cutting down trees, to gain more levels. While it won't be mudividually, by the end of the year, we'll have spent more than a month gaining levels.

  After we had the discussion, I told the dwarves about the developing situation on the dwarven ti. Most of them showed some about the situation, but a few of them only seemed worried that they wouldn't be able to get the same goods they've beeing each year.

  The final stop I had to make before I could work on the hydroelectric facility was the current mine. There were multiple procedural updates that we o make, based on the information Konkur had sent us. First, I showed them a sample fluorite, and showed them how t. Then, I informed them that they aren't t any crystals simir to them to the surface, and they o be somewhat careful about bringing mana crystals into the currera locatioo the potential for dangerous results if fluorite gets charged with mana somehow.

  We only had about two months left of winter where I could begin work on the hydroelectric facility before it'd o be put on hold for the spring rains. That was fihough, sihere was a lot of preparatory work to do before actually building the facility. There o be additions to the dam itself to hahe geor, a building to house it, the geor itself, and then a facility for processing the hematite.

  So, by the time spring came around, I'd gotten a lot of the facilities made, and started work designing the geor and magic separator for the hematite. In the couple months of wihe four new greenhouses had been designed, and one of them is operational, with anetting close to pletion. The big hold up for them is the gss making. Si's taking so long to make the gss, I've givehe go ahead to make an additional greenhouse, as by the time the gss is made, we'll have excavated enough quartz for another one. I expect, if salt is still high value this year, then we'll have quite the ine.

  For the rest of spring, I worked oing the geor and magic separator made. After the stru teams fihe greenhouse, they resumed building the terraces, while occasionally going back to install the gss to finalize each greenhouse.

  Zaka, meanwhile, was in charge anizing the new military groups. The new artillery teams were sent to learn from the existing ones, while the thirty elites were training with Zaka directly just outside the city. Zeb, Zaka, and myself also found time to dreed upon leveling.

  Getting the hydroelectric facility up and running arofitting the dam took quite a few months. It wasn't until the end of fall, just before I would o go prepare for any wirade that I finally got it w. The good news from that was that it meant I could properly utilize the dam once spring es by filling the reservoir for potential energy.

  The magic separator uses a rge drum, made of wood, with aromag sitting inside on one side with an iron pte dividing the inside. The crushed hematite is poured over the drum while the eleag is on and the drum is rotating. The hematite gs to the drum on the side with the eleag, while non-magic materials simply fall off. Then, on the far side of the drum, where the magic field is much weaker, the crushed hematite falls off. By dividing the two colle sides, we easily filter the magi the non-magic materials.

  We've collected a few huons of hematite at this point, so I'm hoping we'll be set on quality iron for a long time, unless I e up with a new project that requires a lot of it.

  I anxiously awaited the mert's arrival this year, hoping to receive good news. We brought one of the crystals over, in case things calmed down and the au would resume. I also prepared our salt trade crates and marked them with our insignia, just in case I o use them as gifts for the au.

  Unfortunately, the news we got wasn't good from either the mert or Shasta. The dwarven ti has devolved into a civil war, with the northern portion of the ti deg that Goppok Kanaga was the rightful king, and that the current King's family had stolen ParTor turies ago.

  So, while the mert could pay us for the salt this year in dwarven , he said it'd be unlikely he'd make arip here until the war was over. So, we traded our salt for dwarven , and got about 6 times the trade value of st year, partially because we nearly doubled our salt produ, but also because the rate for salt had increased.

  Shasta's information was simir. Basically, we should be o, and Kao is going to be somereoccupied, so we'll basically be on our own until the war ends. She also gave us a warning that the current King has taken hat our crystals were likely the instigating factor in the civil war breaking out, but there isn't any word on if he'll take a oter.