Over the st few months, we've seen a marked decrease in the number of leviathan parts that have washed ashore, but they haven't pletely stopped. We still periodically see them fighting as well, but it seems like most of the fights that occur between them now result in both parties simply leaving the flict zone. In all likelihood, enough of them have died that they're no longer stantly running into each other and causing new fights. Previously, I expect there were so many of them that even if a leviatha one fight, it'd soon run into another leviathan, and after a while their fight or flight response boiled down to a fight-only response.

  In any case, there are still mahans that are in the upper waters that we'll o take care of, so I'm excited to unch this barge to see what the result is. I've gathered a bunch of demons to not only help me load the barge up, but also observe the result. We've alsht a few telescopes for observation. Ultimately, I want a bunch of eyes ouation si'll happen so fast. I'll likely o make multiple ges, so having many observers that each have their own focal point will be important.

  Despite her skepticism, Elora has also insisted on watg the trial boat. sidering we 't really stop her from just watg from a different vantage point, I figured it'd be beneficial for me to be able to gauge her rea to the situation. It'll take a couple of days for the barge to be safely loaded, and I'll be keeping a close eye ouation from a safe distance away. Sabotage here would be devastating, though I doubt this first ship has that risk. There is a non-zero ce that Elora, or even potentially the dwarves, might see us as su existential threat that we might o be 'dealt with'.

  Thankfully, the weather held out for us for the remainder of st year and the two days of this new year. We were able to safely load the barge up with about 30 tons of dynamite, along with a few of the more shock sensitive crates desigo work as a detonator. On the m of the third day, we floated the barge out to sea with a small sail and a slightly turned rudder to help slowly propel it out with the prevailing winds while also causing it to begin a very wide turn to maximize the time it would spend in the leviathan zone.

  We didn't have any idea how long it would take for a leviathan to take the bait, or if they would take it at all. As a result, quite a few of us were surprised wheal time was less than ten minutes before something happened. I had preemptively told everyohat it could take some time, and we might o move observation locations if the barge floats far enough out to sea that we need a higher viewpoint. As a result, many individuals weren't paying close attentio happened.

  It was over in an instant. If you were paying close attention, you saw a few seds of a rge crab ing out of the water just outside the bay. It snapped shut, and then rge ks of cw were suddenly airborne. A few seds ter, a deafening bst and a noticeable pressure wave raced past us. The initial results were both optimistid terrifying.

  We had mao use enough explosives to rip apart a rge part of a crab leviathan's main bsp; Small ks were airborne, and the top and bottom half of the cw had been rendered asunder, quickly sinking uhe water surfabsp; For the most part, actually, the cws were intact albeit separated from the rest of the crab's body. Most of the airborne parts seemed to be from the part of the cw that was in immediate tact with the barge, or the portions that attached the cw to the limb behind it.

  We quickly realized, however, that this left us with an immediate problem, as suddenly, the rest of the crab surfaced, and began wildly attag the nearby area. It was still quite a distance from us, but we quickly begareating further innd, just in case. The crab tihrashing for a few minutes before it seemed to realize that the threat had passed. It moved into the bay area, where it was only partially submerged, and after an hour or so of observation, its missing cw had already started to visibly regrow. It was still miniscule, much smaller than it's other cw, but there was no doubt that within a few days, it'd be ba a.

  I set up cautious observation parameters to be followed to watch the crab around the clock, in case it decided to move fully on nd. While the initial test wasn't a plete success, it did prove out the cept that we could use high explosives to at least damage the leviathans. The bad news was that the crabs are going to be especially hard to deal with, siheir main attack is their cw, rather than a bite.

  Observatiohe few days revealed something iing about the crab. It would actually move in and out of the bay depending oer depth due to the tides. It seemed like it never wao be less than two-thirds submerged, and would temporarily retreat out to sea during low tide. I suspect, though I have no evidence for this outside of this behavior, that the leviathans are actually too big to be terrestrial, and they require the buoyancy of the water to support their ow. Perhaps they use magiporarily support their ow on nd, but I doubt they could stay for too long.

  Elora returo the city after a day, and it was difficult for me to get a read on what she thought of the situation. We failed to kill the crab, but we also did severely i. There was, however, a very different characteristic to our explosive barge than you'd see in a barge filled with gunpowder. I expect she's going to have to think about the situation more thhly before she makes any decisioed to our nitrogly barge.

  As far as what I think of the situation, I believe that in theory we could set a sedary trap to kill a crab leviathan if we were clever about it. I suspect we could probably kill other leviathans with a barge, though based on the initial damage observations, we might want to upscale the explosives from 30 to 50 tons. The new nitrogly produ lines have e online, so we're basically at double produ now anyway, and failing to kill a leviathan is arguably worse than overkilling them, as they might end up avoiding future barges, or potentially being sed they attack us.

  Given the initial degree of success, I've also put in a request to once again up produ of nitrogly. I also want to do some test detonations in our ste silos, to see if we increase the amount of dynamite safely stored in eabsp; I definitely undershot the amount we could safely store in each of the silos, so figuring out what our actual maximum ste level is will be helpful moving forward. The st thing I want is for us to be waiting for decades before we've actually hahese leviathans.

  With the previous additions to the jetties to help increase our output of fish fats, I'd estimate we could sustain about 20 times our current nitrogly produ without major fishing ges, though that would also probably put strain on the local fish poputions. That does mean, however, that we just focus on the produ line for nitrogly, without needing to mess with the fish supply much more. I'll talk with Zeb about it, but I expect that by te summer, robably double our produ again.

  In the meantime, I'm pretty close to finishing the floatation separation process to allow us to recover more material for increasing our mana crystal produ. If that goes well, I might o also increase our cryogenic separation process. We've perhaps reached the stage where I could attempt a more effit, tinuous separation process to provide us with a much rger supply on, and by extension other atmospheric gases.