Rebuilding Science in a Magic World

Draining the crystal took a bit of time, but once we were done, Zeb and I moved it up to the surface in a cart with a bit of effort.  Thankfully, it didn't break right away, and actually made it to the surface.  The bad news however, was after about two hours in the vacuum chamber on the surface, it broke.  When it broke, I felt what I can only describe as strong magical pressure from the area for a short while.  It reminded me somewhat of a sudden emptying of a pool of water, with a very strong flow initially, and over ten minutes or so, dwindling to nothing.  During that time, I was using tectonic sense to check on the crystal as it disintegrated in the chamber.  For the first while, my mana stayed topped off as the magical pressure flowed over me from the chamber.  I suppose all that mana had to go somewhere.

The unfortunate effect of this discovery is that we're back to square one for making a more giant crystal.  The next one is going to need to be even larger, so I'll have to build an even larger apparatus for growing it, and the process of growing the crystal itself will easily take more months than are left until winter, so it won't finish until next year.  That's fine however, since we'll need a cart system to get a crystal that large down to the village anyway, so this winter I'll be quite busy finishing the dam's valves, and then working on the path up to the cave.

Zeb and I were awoken early this morning, the day after the crystal broke, by horrible hissing sounds and claw scraping noises.  Not, one, but two giant lizards were just outside the cave, seemingly digging for something.  I recalled the time the lizard made a home in my cave, and I wondered if they were looking for the cave, which is now sealed off.  Either way, they were in the way, so Zeb and I had to kill them.  He distracted one while I quickly killed the other, then came to help kill the other.  With both dispatched, Zeb and I decided to spend the morning butchering all the meat we suddenly found ourselves with, and set up extra drying racks part way in the cave just for all this meat.  All that was a nice change of pace considering the work ahead to make an even larger crystal.

Well, I've spent the whole month building the new crystal apparatus down in the lab.  It goes even deeper, and then a cart rail connects up to the previous one.  It was quite a hassle to make this one, since I wanted to build it going even deeper than the previous one, so that the four foot crystal could easily be moved into the next chamber size.

Zeb's been hard at work on the path down, and he passed the 300 feet mark a little over a week ago, which means it's probably about 1.5% done.  There has been a surplus of stone piling up in the cave from the excavation for the new apparatus and tunnel for carts, so I'm hoping that Zaka will be able to help with that while he's here tomorrow.  If not, well, that's fine too I suppose.  Either way, I still have a bit of lightstone for him to take back down the mountain when he returns to the village.  I'm hoping that what they've carried back this year is enough to finish all the valves for the dam so that I can check it off my list of things to do.

Zaka came and went with two other goblins yesterday.  He didn't bring us any meat, which was fine, since we ended up sending some back with them instead in Zaka's backpack.  Him and the other two goblins helped haul stone while they were here for the path.  I've also realized that we should really make sure that the first complete stretch of path is done before winter.  It's a little over two months until winter now, and the first turning point in the path is at about a thousand feet of length, so I'll probably end up dedicating some time to that project as well before we leave.

In the past, it's taken a little less than a month to grow a single two foot crystal.  I'm thinking that instead of going straight for the four foot crystal, and leaving it partially completed, I'll just grow two crystals to the two foot size, and keep them stored down in the crystal growing area over winter.  That way I'm leaving the area in what I'd consider a safe condition.  The extra time that I have near the end of the month I can then use to help Zeb with the path.

The whole of last month pretty much went as planned.  I finished growing the crystal to two feet just four days before Zaka came back, and I worked with Zeb in those four days on the path.  As a result, we're now at 700 feet down.  One of the big holdups for Zeb is actually his mana capacity.  Sure, he can recharge it down in the cave, but that walk is now quite far to repeat multiple times a day.  My mana by comparison, plus my stone shaping allows me to do in a day what takes Zeb well over a week.  Which makes me feel bad considering just how much he's been working on this.

That said, he's also been doing this alongside other projects like using the charcoal kiln, so it's not like he's been completely wasting his effort on only this.  Since we're now working on this project in unison, instead of going all the way back to recharge his mana, I've instead told him that he should probably work on any non-magic parts while he waits for his mana to naturally recharge.  That way when I'm working, I can focus my effort more exclusively on draining my mana, then going back to the cave to recharge my much larger mana pool before returning to continue shaping the path.

Zaka's visit was also fairly uneventful.  There wasn't much stone for them to haul this time to help with the project because I haven't been cutting extra stone out of anywhere, so they returned to the village on the same day they came up to visit.

Another month, another crystal, and another few hundred feet done on the path.  We're only fifty feet from the first landing now, and the landing is going to take some extra space as well, since it'll be an interchange for carts going in different directions, and needs to be flat with winches installed.  I'm also thinking about making a basic bus stop kind of bench and cover at the landings.  It's not much, and wouldn't take much extra work, but it'd be nice in case anyone needs to rest, or it starts to rain.

Zaka's visit was the last one here before winter.  In the past, we've returned with him at this point, but given how close we are to finishing the path section, we're going to stick around for a few days before going to the goblin village.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't snow and trap us here.

Six days, and we've finished the path section, complete with winches and a stone bench and cover over it.  It's getting noticeably colder, so we're heading down to the goblin village tomorrow.  Tonight, before we go, we need to make sure everything is locked up and closed so no wildlife moves in while we're gone, and I have something to check up on.

I ground up a bunch of the mystery metal and left it in various places and states to check the oxidation color.  That color, for all the different bowls, was the same.  A dark brown, bordering on black.  I'd like to do some other tests on the metal, but it'll have to wait until after winter, and I've got a pretty busy docket when I get back if I want to finish a six foot crystal before next winter, so we'll have to see if I actually get around to it.

That said, I've actually made quite a decent pile of crushed ore for the mystery metal, since I can work on that while I grow the crystals.  I slowed down on making lightstone because we have quite a lot of it up here on the mountain now, and I'm not using the orangish-red stone byproduct of that for anything as of right now.

As for Zeb and I, our stats have been steadily increasing thanks to the tree cutting we've been doing to keep up with our charcoal demands for the crystal project.  Honestly, if Zeb cuts down a decent number of trees over winter while we work on the path in the village, then he'll probably reach level 100 before we return up the mountain.  I, on the other hand, will be lucky if I reach 100 by next winter.

<RARE LESSER EARTH DEMON>
Level: 56
HP: 1814/1814
MP: 824/824
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Improved Dexterity
Magic: Improved Stone Shaping, Tectonic Sense, Earth Spike

<EPIC GOBLIN>
Level: 92
HP: 981/981
MP: 190/190
Traits: Mimicry
Magic: Stone Shaping