This spring brought with it a bad storm that raged for three days. Our valleys experienced some minor flooding, but were retively unharmed thanks to the sea walls. The harbor, oher side of the isnd, experienced some damage and the ships needed some repairs, but nothing as bad as what had been experienced in previous years.

  Not long after the storm had passed, we got a request for aid from Kao's isnd via the Elven bird delivery system. Their harbor and ships were heavily damaged, and with a ck of wood on their isnd, recovery on their own will be impossible. They do most of their fishing from their ships, so this likely severely hampers their ability to feed themselves. However, it's not like we just travel by ship, we've seen the leviathans as well.

  Our response was, "While we uand the situation is rough, as you've probably guessed, all our crystals also broke, meaning the waters between us and your isnd are dangerous to travel in rge boats. As ordered by your king, trade between us is also forbidden. The best we offer is refugee status on our isnd where at least food will not be a . Though making the trip is dangerous, we may be able to send some long rowboats, which may be small enough as to avoid attrag attention of the leviathans lurking in the depths. Even that would o wait until summer. Any refugees will also o work and earn their keep. It is uermined how long it may be before we make a rge enough crystal to restore e to the mainnd, but the minimum time is a few years."

  For the kind of boats we pn to send, which are based off of Zaka's memory of how he got to this isnd in the first pce, there won't be any room for a steam engine, which would be far too bulky. We didn't have to wait very long for a response, "Food expected to st until mid-summer with moderate rationing. Send rescue as soon as possible. 76 individuals in need of rescue."

  We did discuss briefly whether we should even send aid, given the new diplomatic status between our nations, however, we're als to fight the stereotype of demons, and assisting those in need will be good for our image. Plus, despite the current diplomatic status, we aren't actually on bad terms with many individuals from Kao's group, so maintaining those retionships in the positive might at least keep our nations at peace.

  During the rest of spring, we made multiple of the long rowboats for resg the stranded dwarves. Each rowboat hold a total of 20 people, alongside enough food and water for the trip both ways. I call them long rowboats, but they're closer to a viking longship. They're wide enough for two people to sit side by side, with the seats doubling as ste for food, and the front and back es having barrels for water.

  We made eight of these ships, sihey o be half-mao funally operate and maneuver, leaving ten slots per boat for the refugees. I'll have to join irip to help navigate roup to the dwarven isnd. I expect it'll take about twice as long as it did with our powered ship, so reag the dwarven isnd will take betwee and ten days, depending on if we stop oher isnds along the way to rest.

  Once we return, I want to harvest more of the mana poison pnts to install the other two crystals to start growing our popution, and allow Tiberius to resume using mana exposure for his researbsp;

  I uimated how hard the journey would be to reach the dwarven isnd using oars. It was a grueling effort, aopped at each isnd on the way just to rest and recover. When we arrived at Kao's isnd, it was clear why they needed assistanbsp; While they had seemingly repaired some of the damage to the fort, it seems like a ndslide had occurred along one fnk of the fort, and their piers were all pletely missing.

  The ndscape around the lownds of the isnd also looked a little different from my memory of them, but it had been a while, so that might have been my imagination. The dwarves, while not pletely starving, where clearly malnourished, which meant they weren't going to be very useful for the return trip.

  Shasta was among the dwarves, and I reized a few others from the times I had e here for aus. Ultimately, the return trip took just as long, making the full round trip take 23 days. The dwarves brought a handful of items with them, but given the size of our ships, they couldn't bring much, only their most valuable possessions. Thankfully, during the summer months, storms are infrequent, and we only had oorm arrive, which we saw ing, and ed for ara day in the fort on our sed isnd to wait it out.

  Once we were back, we gave the dwarves ten days to rest and recover before we put them to work. Shasta ut in charge of teag multiple goblins how to read and write in dwarvish, starting with the ones who make records who've been w until now with only the most basiderstandings.

  Quite a few of the dwarves have some skill in stru and mining, and while their ability to make buildings the way we prefer them made is g, their ability to cut blocks from stone is muana effective than using stone shaping to aplish the same goal. So a handful were added to each stru team, with more being added to the mining teams than to those building new buildings. Their ability to cut blocks also made them excellent assists for the goblins manually breaking rocks in the reservoir, si was fairly inexpensive for them to make irregur surfaces into smooth surfaces by cutting blocks out of them.

  There were a few administrative dwarves that we o find uses for. Both a quartermaster and foreman were put under Zeb to help with managing the resources beiracted from the mine and the reservoir, and distributing them to their work areas. We initially thought about having the quartermaster assist in our military endeavors, but given he could end up being a military asset for the dwarves in a future war against us, we decided that was unwise, even if we thought it uo happen.

  Lastly, they had two bcksmiths, four cooks, and a tavernkeeper. The bcksmiths were easy enough to ie into our existing smithies, and the tavernkeeper was able to be put to use doing his job as he did before, keeping the mood of the dwarves up by providiertai within our inn. The cooks took the loo determine hoould utilize them, but ultimately, they were set to provide the meals for all the refugees who didn't want to make their own meals, which turned out to be most of them. They operated as a military base for the most part, so having dedicated cooks art of their normal routine.

  As pared to their isnd, they actually have a bit more diverse of a diet here, since we actually grow quite a few dwarven crops, and even have our own baker. I took a month with a few goblins to go get the st two medium crystals, and wheurned, spirits were quite high among the refugees, and I received numerous reports that despite the increase in amount of bor they were doing as pared to their isnd, the better ditions more than made up for it.

  When we prepared the mana poison liquid t the crystals down, we found that a majority of the seeds we pnted for the poison pnts had sprouted, though many hadn't fully matured yet. That was enough evidene, however, that we should probably pn out some terraces along the road higher up the mountain to grow the pnts en masse. Though managing the terraces that far from the city would be quite the arduous task, so it will probably o wait until we actually have a rge demand for the pnts to justify it.

  All the previous messages had been paid for in advance, but we sent a message to Kao at our own expehis time, letting him know that all 76 of the dwarves had been brought to our isnd and were safe. Since we 't actively trade with anyone on the mainnd due to the threat of leviathans, we didn't actually o pay anything immediately to Elora, but what as put in a ledger to be collected uporade was actively avaible again.

  How much we could reasonably oparently left up to Elora to judge. Given how we're slowly building up a stockpile of salt, we currently don't eveo dip into our dwarven stockpile to make payment for this message. Though we might actually want to use the s over the salt. If the elves will accept the dwarven , then it's more useful in that manner, sidering we 't trade with the dwarves directly anymore.