I spent two days digging out a ste room for the crystal ptes to be stored, and the back to tinue stru oirling engine facility. After handling all the ptes, I had a pretty good idea of what size sand casts we'd need for making everything, so I had a good idea of the amount of floor space we'd need for most of the work.

  That said, I still spent another 18 days building the facility, minus any of the maes or smelting furhough I also did build out ste o the facility where the pleted engines be kept until hey'll be stored without the heating elements, for obvious reasons. I decided they should also be stored without hydrogen ihe heat powered engines won't be using hydrogen anyway, so I at least focus on finishing this facility before moving on to that one.

  Unfortunately, I got word as I worked that the goblin who had gotten sick from exposure to the silver fluorite had perished. He had seemed to be rec for a while, but thearted to lose weight, and couldn't keep it on. If I was a betting maher one of his ans was fried, or he developed cer from exposure. In any case, I've installed a small obelisk in the b area, ached his name in as a reminder of those who lost their lives in this pursuit ress.

  As I finished building out the frame of the building, I was informed that the dwarves that pn ourning to the mainnd want to leave right after the eclipse that marks the beginning of winter. Meaning in about a month, they'll be setting out. I checked in with Zaka, and we've already gotten boats prepared for them, along with adequately preserved food and barrels for water. Sihere is a det ce they won't make it to the mainnd, I've talked it over with Zaka, and we're going to throw a feast for them on the day before they leave as an additional thanks for the work they've done.

  I've still beeing our pin grilled salted fish for years, but retly, the food markets have been filled with fried foods, which seem to be one of the many things the influx of dwarves brought to our isnd. After they built their gambling den, it seems they started adding even more things to our society, such as the aforementioned fried food. Intrigued, I did some more digging into the details of what exactly they've tributed, and found that besides a handful of foods and gambling, some of the demons have taken a liking to colleg y s oratis.

  There aren't many different s right now, as there are only a few events that they've orated iime sihey started making them, but some of the demons seemed excited to buy a orating the year. Which brings us to another addition, dar years. I'd been using the dwarven monthly dar, but we hadn't really had a great reason to keep track of the years openly. Internally, we had a year t on dots, but it was kept as "years since we started ting". Now, however, many of the demons are keeping tra terms of the dwarven year. The current dwarven year in their dar is 7,709.

  That number seemed quite high, which led me to take even more time asking questions as to how their dar is at such a high year. I had two guesses going into it. First, they're just on a very old dar, which means their year t is basically the total t sihey ied the dar. Sed, they've calcuted the year out based on some historical event from before recorded history.

  Both guesses were incorrect. This is their third dar, actually. The first dar when appropriately adjusted to the current one, spanned 3,132 years. The first dar was actually only a monthly dar, and on the dwarven ti, most of the seasons are fairly simir to each other. Not identical, but simir enough they didn't find much use in keeping track of the actual year. After they started trading with humans, they came to their sed dar, which ated for years, and was generally a good dar. It ran for 973 years, until the dwarven ti was unified uheir goveral system. At which point, their current dar started ting.

  So, all in all, their dars go back 11,814 years. As I dug in on the subject, it does seem as though there are many questionable exges of what family holds tral power on the dwarven ti. Every so ofteher through assassination, ck of heirs, or war, the tral authority ges hands, though the new authority has always cimed their rightful heritage.

  Almost twelve-thousand years of dar keeping, yet despite magic, they're still in the equivalent of the early renaissance era. I asked around for a little bit of information on the development of eologies, and while there are occasional advances and some iing to me discoveries, I think I'm starting to get a better picture as to why they're gging behind.

  There seem to be a few reasons. First, resource allocation. Thanks to magidividuals be incredibly powerful, but they require more resources to train and keep appeased as a result. This seems to have led almost all nations to developing some form of caste system with a heightened warrior css, g in general disciplihanks to their heightened individual strengths. This leaves less resources for teological discovery and iment, as well as less drive for it. If you ronger ons, there is a tried-and-true method of iing resources into warriors who will overwhelm your enemies.

  Sed, stale repeated bat. Every so often, they have a demon invasion. While eavasion arrives at a new pce, and is somewhat uhey're rarely teologically different. So, ultimately, their resporategies became more and more focused on their ongoing primary threat. Their response was to keep powerful individuals trained and ready to respond wherever they might be needed. Any particur individual on might be found to be iive against a particur type of demon, so iing in any type beyond what already works effectively is overkill.

  Why i in le artillery when your primary oppo is a surprise attack? Why develop firearms when powerful individuals already survive much rger powerful attacks? I've seen first hand how much physical damage Zaka survive as a troll. Basically, there isn't a steady path forward for development.

  Third, disease as I know it is practically ent. They talk about leveling siess, I've seen firsthand what mana overdose does, I've firsthand seen radiation siess, and I've overheard a versation about something called wasting disease, but all three seem to be caused by the magical equivalent of vitamin deficies. Without disease to suddenly upset the stable systems, the only thing that occasionally causes disruption is the demon invasions. Plus, I have firsthand knowledge that the elves are also guiding societies to keep things stable, whether they realize what they are doing, or not.

  As I've said though, some iions are surprising. They've made trifuges, and from what I tell, the dwarven steel seems to indicate some very iing alloying procedures. So, it seems, in areas where there is still reason to grow, there have been advas. Their agricultural and nd ma knowledge is actually far better than mihey were the ones who gave me the idea for rock dams, and they've also shown the farmers how to utilize the fields better, implementing special crop rotations, with hybrid pnting of two crops at the same time.

  Oh, a lot of the teological driving force has been war, famine, aileheir wars are stale, famine is rare, ailence is practically unheard of. So their society seems to have stag the level where they've solved their wars for the most part. This is all specution, though I was surprised by how deep the rabbit hole went after w why the year on their dar was as old as it was.

  I'm really starting to think that my physiology is affeg how curious I am about things, as well as how driven I am. Myself, and holy every other demoo be capable of doing mundaitive tasks endlessly.

  By the time the feast and send-off occurred, I finished building many of the devices iirling engine factory. In fact, the only devices left to make were actually the stirling engine power sources to drive the other devices. I learned a little from the design of the fluorite processing area, and desighe building with heat exhausts in mind for the various stirling engines meant to power the factory.

  Iime since I started building this facility, they've grown two more 36-inch heat crystals, and nine more 12-inch crystals. Tiberius's safety testing of the existing crystals has started showing some more results. I'm a little disappointed in some of his research, but I'm not surprised by it. He's always been very ons focused, so much of his testing has involved narrowing down exposure limits using ground birds of different sizes.

  However, he did do other tests using the existing crystal types. He borrote of the heat crystal, and other than dehydration, the ground bird seemed fine, even after long exposure. In fact, the only other crystal that had any noticeable effe the ground bird was the zinc crystal, which seemed to induce a mild sunburn if exposed te number of the crystals for a very long period of time.

  Which probably means that the zinc is creating ultraviolet light, which is then causing fluores the crystal, creating the visible light that we see from the crystal. I told him to try the test again, but this time put sur gss between the bird and the crystal. If it is ultraviolet light, then the gss should filter it out, and we could start making magical lighting using the zinc crystals.