Rebuilding Science in a Magic World

When we return to the goblin village, there are a few things that have changed, but not quite as drastically as the last time I was here.  It seems the basket backpacks have become quite the popular item, and I see a few goblins out and about with backpacks carrying various items about, and a few are wearing plant fiber clothes.  There are two new shops as well in town.  One looks like there is a picture of a vase above their shop, the other has an offset square from the sign.  I'm guessing the second one has the clothing, and I can imagine what the vase shop has, so I'll want to check both out soon.

A preliminary check of other facilities in the town reveals that most of the infrastructure is holding up fine, although I think we'll need to clear out the water runoff system soon, as there is a bit of debris built up in it, and I still want to check the dam for any clogs as well.

It's only been another day, but I looked over the dam.  It seems to be functioning well, although I had to do some cleaning as sticks and mud had partially clogged the bottom valve.  Mud has started to build up in the bottom of the reservoir as well, which was to be expected.  It'll probably take about a week of work to remove the mud buildup.  Other than that though, the reservoir is pretty much empty, which was to be expected given the very slow flow rate of the stream.

After clearing the clogged valve, I went and checked out the two new shops in the village, starting with the picture of a vase.  What I found had me pretty impressed.   There are varying quality of works, all made from clay.  While I was looking around, I was surprised when Zeb entered.  After a short discussion, he had apparently been helping this goblin while he was in the village last year after they wanted to make buckets like I'd made.  Considering I made mine with magic, it wasn't possible for them to make my stone buckets, but they worked with some different kinds of dirt, and after testing, found clay to be useful after cooking it in a fire.

Apparently this has been quite a successful business, and they've started making bigger pots for storing things in.  My stone buckets, while useful, aren't infinite, and the baskets can't hold all materials, so the clay pots have come to be a solution to the issue.  Zeb had a brief conversation with the shop owner while we were there, and apparently, they've gotten earth manipulation as a trait, similar to myself.

After the pottery shop, I had Zeb join me to visit the other shop with the square on the sign.  Inside there are various goblin sized tunics, all woven from plant fibers.  To a side, they have a simple peg board made of wood, likely made by Kaga, that they have some plant fibers tied to.  I'm impressed by their dedication to this, because making plant fiber materials with just that basic peg board must take forever, and I am a little afraid to think that they were doing this by hand before.

I have Zeb ask them what gave them the idea to make this stuff.  The reason was that they were initially just copying the basket process with blades of grass, since they wanted to also make baskets, but didn't want to practice with the hard to work with wood and vines.  After a bit of practice though, they had made a large square of the stuff, and as they carried it over to show the basket weaver, the wind picked up, so they wrapped it around themselves to carry.  It was a cold day in spring, and it helped keep the wind out, so by the time they got to the basket weaver, they'd had the idea for these.

After explaining that, they'd said that I'd need to place a custom order for myself, since I'm too differently shaped to wear any standard clothes.  That's fine though, I don't really think I need any, my body is way less exposed than a goblin's what with my fur and scales.  However, now that there are more shops, I think a few more likely deserve their own workshops, rather than having them continue operating from their homes.  How is it that every time I return to the village and I have a few goals to work on, I always find other projects in addition?  For the next while though, I need to finish the dam, and get it cleaned out for next year.

Twenty days of work, and the dam and reservoir are complete for now.  All the new valves are in place, and all the mud is cleaned out.  The reason I say that it is done for now, is because I'm going to be expanding it.  If we're building the new path up the mountain, we'll need more stone.  So if we can cut it from the reservoir area, and expand it to hold even more water, that should help with not just flooding, but possibly making the stream have a slightly higher flowrate year round, rather than a few high flow times, and a small trickle the rest of the time.

With all this maintenance done, the plan initially was to start building the new path up the mountain, but I think alongside that, I want to build workshops for all the remaining goblins that have house shops.  The goblin that I want to teach leather actually still has an issue before I can teach them to make leather.  They need a lot of salt.  The ocean is close, but not that close.  I think it's possible to build a salt evaporation pond that the goblins could easily operate, but that will be a whole project in and of itself.   While I work on the workshops though, I'll have time to do manual labor while I wait for my mana to regen, so I can start the process of clearing an area for a salt evaporation pond.

The shops I need to build first are the sea shell collector, the plant fiber clothing maker, and the potter.  Then, I'll build a workshop for the hide worker, and make extra space for them to eventually make leather.  I want to make sure to reward the goblins who are branching out into useful ideas with better working conditions after all.  I'm also going to talk to Kaga about making a loom for the plant fiber weaver.  A stone loom might be a bit too heavy for the amount of use it gets, otherwise I'd make it myself.  I don't know how to make complicated looms, but I can at least make an improvement on how they are currently making clothes.  The potter's workshop will want a firing kiln for the clay, and I personally want to make a space for the shell collector to keep all their broken shells, since I want those myself.

Another twenty days, and I've gotten those workshops and tools made.  In the meantime, while I worked on that, I had Zeb start looking into plants that the goblins could eat.  I wish I could say it had been very successful, but in actuality it's had some hiccups.  Zeb got pretty sick trying out one of the plants after about ten days, and so we put it on hold while he recovered.  He had diarrhea for about four days, and felt quite weak in that time, and only now has he started to feel better.  I feel very lucky that didn't happen to me while I was testing plants to eat.  There are some that could potentially be eaten, but none of them have had good agricultural prospects so far.  If we can find a good plant for the goblins to grow, agriculture is something I'd like them to start, to have a more stable food source.  I'm quite surprised that there aren't any fruits here, or at the least, that I haven't seen any.

As much as I'd prefer to be doing the food testing, my ability to work is a lot more valuable than Zeb's.  It pains me to say it, but between my mana pool and better stone shaping, it's just a matter of fact.  If we were on the mountain, I wouldn't mind doing it, but since we're only in the goblin village for a few months, every second counts.  With that in mind, in my downtime while I waited for mana to regenerate, I cut down a bunch of trees in a direct path to the ocean bay from before, and have almost finished clearing an area near the ocean to dig the salt evaporation pond out.

Ultimately, it just needs to be wide and shallow, with stone walls, a channel to let ocean water in, and the ability to close the channel.  The goblins can then harvest the leftover salt when all the water evaporates.  Given how close I am to finishing it, I think I'll finish it first, then work on the path up the mountain.  It should only take about a week until it's ready to operate now.  The only part that might be a problem is rain.  During certain times of year, it tends to rain more, so the pond won't be operational at that time.