Rebuilding Science in a Magic World

Two more apartment buildings built, and Zeb showed me the building he designed.  It's pretty much just a small shed, designed to be built at each field.  Inside there is a rack for storing basic farming tools, a bin for seeds, and an area to temporarily keep harvested food for hauling.  It's honestly quite thoughtful considering the distance some of these fields are from the village.  Carrying tools to and from some of the new fields would likely waste a lot of time, and these sheds should help cut down on that waste.

Thinking about it that way, I should honestly build a building for the fishergoblins and salt gatherers over by the bay with the same intent.  Spare spears and places to keep salt indoors so you don't need to stop in the middle of a task to return to the village.  Zeb's idea was honestly quite good.

With winter just around the corner, the scout goblins will no longer be able to go up to the peak to keep an eye out for any threats on the island.  That being the case, we've been trying to decide how to best monitor the island now.  Navigating around the outside of the island can take a week or more, so keeping an eye on the whole island is probably not possible.  We can, however, at least try to keep an eye on the previous landing site and fort that we found.  The group will probably need to be comprised mostly of goblins familiar with hunting, so that they can easily sustain themselves while they're watching.  They will basically need to set up an entire camp of their own and live there for a few months.

It took a little less than 24 days to finish all the fields and get them ready for planting in spring.  Three more apartment buildings also means we're really going to need that extra food from both the fields and the fish.  I took a break from expanding the tide pool area to build out the two storage buildings at the end of the road near the bay for both the salt evaporation pond and fishing.  They're now both complete, as are the sheds along the new fields.

Snow fell on the mountain a little over a week ago, and a week before that we sent off a group of ten goblins to keep an eye on the fort and landing area.  I'll consider the fact that we haven't heard anything from them to be a good sign so far.

The village population has grown quite a lot, and many of the goblins no longer eat their meals at the pavilion, opting instead to eat in smaller groups.  Sometimes it's with goblins they work with, and other times with neighbors.  The pavilion was never meant to handle this many goblins anyway, but it makes me wonder if I should build some new eating area and food storage location.  Instead of one big one, maybe multiple smaller ones would be better?  I'll ask around the village and see what the other citizens think.

While I worked on the next apartment building for eight days, I asked around the village about what they'd want for places to eat.  I got mixed responses.  Some of the goblins wished that the apartment buildings had a central area where they could all cook and eat.  Others wanted a larger area nearby where they could enjoy eating in groups of more than twenty.  That being the case, I think first I should design a new moderately sized eating area.

Fish doesn't keep all that well when smoked, which is why we've been using a lot of salt.  Salted fish lasts quite a long time, and considering the change in diet here in town, I think it would be reasonable to have the new eating building just have a room where barrels of salted fish can be stored.

I also asked around to see if goblins would be interested in moving into a new apartment building if it had that central cooking area.  Most of those who were interested in the idea said they would be willing to move.  So I've decided to start planning out a new apartment building that has those facilities.  I could hypothetically just remove one of the first floor rooms and throw on an external fireplace, but I personally would rather the building be fully redesigned.

I started asking the goblins how many people in one building they would consider to be too much, and the general consensus was twelve.  A few individuals said less, some said more, but twelve seemed to be a pretty stable middle ground.  So I'm thinking about trying to design the new building to have about ten individuals with their own kitchen and dining area.  I also want the way into the basement to be through the kitchen, so that salted fish and other preserved foods can be stored in the basement.  In most of the existing apartments, the basements are relatively unused currently.

Before I can work on any of these though, I need to finish the expansion of the tide pool traps, so that there is enough food to go around to begin with.

After Zeb finished the next apartment building, we put a hold on that project.  Instead, he's been working with me to finish the tide pool traps.  He's been helping me for an additional ten days now, and we've just now finished the second layer.  Hopefully this should lead to over double the amount of captured fish.

While this is great, I do wonder about the hypothetical upper limit of this technique.  At some point, we'll surely start getting reduced returns per layer.  Then we also might need to worry about overfishing locally as well.  For the current population though, and for the population for the years to come, I doubt it will be an issue.

I've come up with a design for a new eating area for the village.  It consists of a building, that is much wider than it is long, which then opens to a covered area with a central fire pit, somewhat like the pavilion but a little smaller.  Like most of the buildings in town, I intend to dig a basement underneath it to get the stone necessary for construction.  This time though, the entrance into the basement will be in the side building.  The side building can then store some amount of food, and the basement can keep non-perishable cooking related materials, like charcoal and salt.  As long as it's only one basement level, then I can simply drain it into the sewers as well.

While I work on building one of this new dining building, Zeb is going to go help the goblins in the reservoir finish breaking down any of the large blocks he pre-cut.  Once they're done, I want them to return to the village.  We're about a third of the way through winter, but if there is an uncharacteristic heat wave or some other large water causing event, I don't want anyone near the reservoir at that time.

I was about three days in to construction on the new dining building when we had a disturbance.  Six of the ten goblins returned to the village from the scouting party.  A new eagle arrived on the island.  It flew in from the direction of the landing bay, and grabbed one of the goblins watching the ocean before flying up the mountain.

The scouting party hurriedly packed their things and began the journey back to the village, which took five days of travelling at a fast pace.  By the time they arrived here, three more goblins had been grabbed.  Which means tomorrow is likely when the eagle will be hunting again.  There definitely seems to be a pattern of the eagles only arriving in winter.  

The goblins coming back to the village made such a commotion that Shasta overheard.  She had a complicated expression on her face as she listened to what happened.  The other goblins who overheard started getting all the usual preparations ready.

"You aren't planning on killing it, are you?"  Shasta asks indignantly.

"It's already killed four goblins.  Are you really going to say we should just let it continue killing us?"  I retort.

"Well no... but can't we do something else?  We normally provide them with livestock as sacrifice."  Shasta replies.

"In case you didn't notice, the largest land animals here outside of us are those ground birds, and I don't think the eagle cares much for those."  I reply.

"I just... I don't know that peace will be an option if you go through with killing the eagles more now.  Before you knew about them, I think it's excusable, but to knowingly kill something we see as a protector is going too far."  Shasta says.

I let out an audible groan at that before replying, "Fine, I'll try to think of something, but I want concessions for this.  The shoe is on the other foot right now.  I already know I can kill the eagle easily enough.  So, if I'm going to go through the effort of sparing this eagle, I want some guarantees about how we'll be treated in your negotiations for peace.  I want full independence.  Final offer."

Shasta thinks for a few minutes before replying with, "Alright, but that hinges on the eagle not just living but living well.  If it doesn't attack any more goblins, I might be able to use that in your favor during talks."

I hadn't thought about that, but it's probably true.  If the dwarves see the eagle as a protective beast, and it isn't attacking us, then they might not see us as threats either.  The hard part is going to be figuring out how to get to that point, and also convince the goblins to not provoke the eagle...