The spring season this year was marked by above average rain, though no major storms. The first vilge was pleted at the beginning of summer. This one was built he tuo the other valley along the main road. With where the vilge is located, only around a quarter of the fields that the vilge will be in charge of are actually pleted, so the vilge will initially be in charge of clearing their forests for more farmnd, aually the hill will have terraces built.

  By the end of summer, the sed valley's sea wall was pleted, which freed up another stru team to work on other projects. With the extra bor, the sed vilge was pleted by the end of summer, alongside the expauo the deposit uhe mountain. This vilge has even fewer pleted fields, but it does include the dedicated forest area frowing, so they still have plenty of work to do.

  With those stru projects pleted, I took some time to teae of the stru teams how to tinue digging the tunnel using the tools to make sure everything was sloping at the right rate. With so many other projects finished, Zeb moved stru teams around, expanding the city's growth rate. With our pnned work plete early, I've decided to spend a little while the mine and the deposit.

  Only three days into researg the mine, and we experienced a major catastrophe. In the early m I felt aremely powerful mana shock wave. Almost all of our crystals exploded. Every single one on the surface, the one in the b where Tiberius does research, and the ones in the mine's charging area. Fifteen individuals perished immediately. We performed an autopsy on a few of them, and it seems like they were cooked internally, all of them were in the immediate viity of a rge crystal when it exploded. If this had happened a few hours ter in the day, it's likely we'd be dealing with signifitly more deaths.

  Beyond the death though, nearly fifty individuals suffered severe injuries, likely suffering from internal an damage, and a few hundred suffered minor fever for a day or so. I called an emergency meeting, bringing in some dwarves, humans, and Elora to try to get to the bottom of the situation.

  Elora, and two of the older humans, had some more information. We're experieng something called a "Mana Surge". Normally, they're actually sidered a blessing and a sign of good fortune. They're normally of varying strength, and this one is middle of the pa that regard. They st for a few hours, and frequently occur in groups in short successiohe course of a few days, sometimes recurring throughout the month. They occur irregurly, and the st one was about thirty years ago, though that one was a bit smaller than this one.

  Even without the mana crystals, my mana is regeing at about five times the normal rate. They're sidered blessings because they usually signal good crop yields, healthier livestock, aer individual health. There also has never been a demon invasion ihree years following a mana surge in recorded history. Mana surges are also always recorded across all three of the mainnd tis around the same time, so in all likelihood, all the crystals we shipped to the mainnd have also exploded.

  Unfortunately for us, that excess mana has pletely overloaded all our surface crystals. Given that our crystals exploded, I followed up with Elora about ParTor, the dwarven artifact crystal in their capitol. While her knowledge oter is somewhat limited, she said that there isn't any record of the dwarves doing anything special in regards to ParTor, and it's survived signifitly more powerful mana surges in the past.

  The loss of life was bad, but we've got an even bigger problem looming over us now. Most of our crystal material was on the surface or in the charging rooms in the mine or the mountain. While I haven't checked the mountai, I assume the charging room there is pletely emptied too, the only crystal material we probably have left is what material was left after having grown all these crystals down in the crystal b.

  Which also means that we're probably isoted from the mainnd. Without any surface crystals, the leviathans are likely to bee a threat for ships during winter. We could probably make a single crystal rge enough to be installed on the surface using all our remaining crystal materials, but even if that's the case, if another mana surge occurs, it'll shatter too. Our initial strategy will be to recover from the damage that the mana surge caused to lives and infrastructure. Most of our stru and mining is going to slow siderably, and I doubt we'll experieny boon from the surge, if anything, our crop yields might fall without all the crystals installed in our waterways.

  Four days ter, Elora received multiple messages via the Elven birds. First was hat the dwarven civil war ended. ParTor was unharmed by the mana surge, but our crystals, which had been fueling the rebellion, exploded. Both had been installed in critical forts at the tasses through the rough mountainous terrain of the northern part of the dwarven ti. Without the crystals, the two forts fell quickly uhe onsught of the rger southern fa. After that, the northern rebellion surrendered.

  The seessage was a decree that was to be reyed to us from The Dwarven King. Heh, trade from the dwarves to our isnd is banned. Any agreements or other pacts are also nullified. That was somewhat ued news, given how he'd previously had little say in what the warlords were up to.

  The third message, from Kao, answered some of those questions. After the northern rebellion surrendered, for unification purposes, the bme ut on Goppok Kanaga and us for providing his rebellion with the crystals. Given that our crystals ultimately failed, that was given as proof of The King's right to rule, and that we, like other demons, were just there to cause problems. While not everyone bought in to that reasoning, given the circumstances, most of the remaining warlords agreed to that stanbsp; Kao's crystals have also exploded, and Shasta, and the other dwarves on that isnd are stranded.

  Which leaves us with a whole host of problems. Givehing that happened, it might not be wise to install any new surface crystals. As much as I'd like to keep our produ speeds up, right now the o is a nice defensive barrier between the rest of the world, and ourselves. I'll o discuss further with Zeb and Zaka about our pns moving forward.

  I saw my first leviathan, followed shortly by my sed leviathan. A sed wave of mana surge came the day after Elot all those messages, and during it, I saw what seemed like a giant eel be literally cut in half by an even rger monstrous fish with a beak. It looked like it was miles from the shoreline, but they had to have been hundreds of feet in size.

  Shortly after seeing that, the discussion about our future as a nation began. It began with just Zeb and Zaka. While there were many small details that would need ironed out, we've decided to not install ara surface crystals for a few years at the minimum, though we have decided t down three medium crystals in a few months. One for the mine ssh tunnel, oo be put uhe castle in the middle of the city, and one for the b spabsp; We're hoping that they don't remove our prote by the sea, while still allowing us to perform some of our work at a faster pace.

  The one iunnel will give us more metal resources to build defeructures with, while also allowing us to expand the tuo potentially find more crystals to repce those that broke. Based on what Shasta had said when I first met her, I suspect that if I grow a crystal rge enough to rival ParTor in size, it should be stable even through any mana surges, and that be installed for loerm use.

  The one uhe castle will let Zaka and the stru teams in town tio expand our popution at a reasonably fast pace, while the one in the b will allow Tiberius, and potentially myself, to researagical teology which could prove vital in military situations. Tiberius's research has shown that certain trated powders st lohan others, and the enviroal ditions do matter. He's started w on direct applications for some of the powders now, so it seemed wise to titing him research.

  After that, we brought in Karsh as a representative for the dwarves to discuss matters with them, and fill them in ouation. Basically, they're all stuck here, and we don't have a way to fix that. I meaeically could, but it'd be too costly and risky for us to build a single rge crystal again. While most of the dwarves won't have much issue with it, he was a little worried about his children's future, and voiced that it will be the biggest for the other dwarves as well. Many of them had expected they'd eventually be able to send their children back to the dwarven ti with a mert, and that is no longer an option. While we couldn't promise when, we did say that we expected that in some years we expect that we'll reestablish travel.