Rebuilding Science in a Magic World

After thinking on it for a little while, I have an idea.  An eagle before fell for the bait of a bunch of fish dressed up to be shaped like a goblin.  I don't know how well it will work though if the eagle can't carry the food off to its nest.  So we'll need a decently tough skin for the meat.  Something that won't fall apart while the eagle is carrying it.  Perhaps if we use fish skins, tie them together, and then also use an overall binding, we can make a large enough chunk of food that the eagle will take it.

It's obviously quite the large food sink to have to feed this eagle every two days though.  Plus we'll need to be conscientious of when the eagle comes for food, so no goblins accidentally get taken.  If it works out though, we can make a feeding pedestal, and just leave the food there outside the village, and hopefully train the eagle to come get food at a certain time, then it shouldn't become as big of an issue.

As always though, executing this plan isn't easy.  First, I'll need to convince the goblins of the plan tonight, and then also prepare the food tribute.  Those two things themselves are going to be cutting it close time wise.  Then we'll basically just be waiting around tomorrow, hiding, until the eagle actually comes for food.  Fingers crossed it doesn't kill a goblin in the other village instead.  We can't even send a goblin to go communicate the threat to them, since it'd leave the messenger open to attack.

It took less time than I thought to convince the goblins to give this plan a try.  Mostly because so many of the goblins are new, and didn't live through the previous eagle attacks.  After that, I had a bunch of goblins help me gather fish skins and meat, and make the large food bundle.  So today, I manned the steam cannon in case we needed it.

The eagle flew overhead for quite a while.  It didn't come down from the mountain when we first saw it, but instead came around the island from the direction it had hunted the goblin scout squad.  After looking around for a while, it eventually did come down to the food bundle we made.  It stood over it for a while, seemingly unsure if the food was good or not.  I mean, if it's used to getting live food, I'm sure this is confusing.  Eventually though, it leaned over and bit into the bundle of fish.

The eagle initially tried to carry the bundle, but after having torn into it, the innards spilled out when it grabbed the bundle with its talon.  Thankfully, the eagle just decided to eat the spilled food before leaving.

The good news from all this is that it seemingly worked.  The bad news though is that preparing that much food for the eagle is basically a full time job for a goblin.  The adventuring party seems happy about the outcome, so I figured I'd take advantage of that fact to "encourage" Shasta and Ambella to be in charge of preparing the eagle's tributes.  Both of them have been low on work for a little while anyway, so I don't feel particularly bad about that.

My next plan is to build a raised stone pad just outside the village on the uphill side where we can leave the food for it.  By putting the food uphill, closer to the mountain, I'm hoping that the eagle doesn't even bother going further, since most of our village's constructions are downhill of the village, except for the dam and reservoir which we don't need to go to often.

The eagle has gone through two feeding cycles now at the stone pad without much of a hitch.  Shasta is complaining about everything smelling like fish, but she seems to just be joking, rather than actually being upset.  The goblins still get quite nervous when the eagle comes down, and I don't blame them.  The messenger we sent over to the other village hasn't quite returned yet, but I imagine that village is going to be even more concerned over the whole ordeal, but I really doubt they have anything they can do about it.

I'm thankful we expanded the tide pools before this, but now we'll need to consider expanding them again sooner than I anticipated.  That eagle is eating as much food as nearly 30 goblins.  Since we're currently not expanding the population of the village anyway, I want to focus on getting the new eating location built within the village.

The messenger came back from the other village after an additional two days.  I was right, they are clearly not happy with the idea that we aren't going to kill the eagle.  They've been told to just hide if the eagle is overhead, and it should come and eat the food we've prepared for it.  They're their own people though, so if they want to attempt anything, they're welcome to.  I doubt they will though.  That village is all made up of goblins who have been around since the first eagle was here, and all probably have some memory of their attempts from that time.

Things had been pretty quiet for two weeks, so I should have known we'd have some problem.  Three goblins came running to our village walls in the evening.  They were yelling and asking for help.  We quickly realized they were from the other village, and after they entered they started to frantically explain the situation.

I was worried that perhaps their village had been attacked by the eagle, but what has actually happened is much worse.  Since the eagle incident, we hadn't sent the scouts back out to watch that side of the island, because we were worried for their safety.  Well, that's coming back to bite us now.  A group of hunters from the other village spotted strange new creatures in metal armor.  When they called out to them, expecting them to be some new form of demon, they were attacked.

One made it back to warn the rest of that village, and they formed a fighting group to face off against this new threat.  These three goblins were the first to run when they saw how outmatched they were.  The village was overrun by hundreds of the armored creatures, and everyone was brutally slaughtered.

It didn't take long through the explanation before Shasta had wandered over, and the fearful goblins looked at her, and made the same connection that I worried about.  It seems like the long awaited rescue party arrived while we had a blind spot.  Not only that, but it seems like they've come with the same attitude that the group we captured had.  Slaughter all the demons you find.

Shasta actually seemed quite saddened while listening to the goblins extol the horrors of watching their village be destroyed.  I myself am saddened a little.  Most of the goblins there had some form of disdain for me, but I didn't wish death on them.  The only individual there that I am truly sad to hear perished was Gakus.  He was a pretty straightforward guy, and hearing that he was likely killed while protecting the place he set out to build has me feeling angry.

I calmed myself somewhat before I spoke with Shasha, although I was still quite stern, "Go.  You, Ambella, and Katarko.  Take your weapons and armor and go meet that army.  You can come back with a small group of fifteen people including yourselves to get the human and the crystal that reminds you of 'ParTor'.  If anymore show up, we'll fight back."

Shasta seemed worried about my tone, "Now?  It's almost night.  I'm not happy about what they did either, but if I just explain the situation when they get here..."

"No, if an army arrives here now, I myself am already pretty upset, and I wasn't particularly fond of most of those goblins.  The rest of this village is likely very upset.  So go.  Now.  Either you can convince them we aren't hostile, and maybe we can have further conversations, or we'll give them the fight they want.  If that is the case, it was at least nice to get to know you, Shasta."  I said.

As the three quickly gathered their things to set off into the night, I made sure that they had general information about the location of the other village, as well as torches for traveling at night.

After they left, we began our preparations to fight...