Rebuilding Science in a Magic World

What on earth was that thing!  I rush back inside, and tell Zeb about what I saw.  He seems concerned, and tells me that he's never seen anything like that either.

We explored up on the mountain peak.  Surely if it was there at that time, we'd have seen something that large, right?  So many other questions begin to flood in to my head.  Did we awaken something that had been slumbering?  Surely not, we went up the peak early in the year.  Why is this here now?  What even is it, outside of a giant bird of some kind?  Where did it come from?  Are there more?  What's the situation in the goblin village?

Zeb and I discuss with each other for a bit, and ultimately come to the conclusion that we should return to the village immediately.  If we don't go down there now, then when?  It just caught a goblin, so it's probably preoccupied.  Additionally, it's already early nighttime, so we'll hopefully be harder to spot on our way down.

We made the two and a half hour trek down to the goblin village, but the exchange that occurred shocked me.

When we arrived at the gates, only to have a goblin on watch yell down to us, "Begone, the two of you have brought great misfortune once again!  Begone before I attack!"

Zeb motioned me back, and after Zeb translated for me, I asked, "What do you mean we've brought great misfortune?  Surely you don't blame this monster on us directly?"

The goblin replied, "It cannot be a coincidence that after Zeb became a second of your kind, that we were befallen with another great tragedy!  While you were safe within your cave, for the past two months, we've lost someone every few days to that beast!  Now go, begone before any further tragedy can occur!"

With that, Zeb and I turned and began the climb back up the mountain.

"Are we cursed?" Zeb asked suddenly while we were taking the path back up the mountain.

I paused and thought for a few moments before replying, "While it's not impossible that we're cursed, I don't think that's the case.  The first attack with the lizards was most likely caused by the giant crystal, which is still in the village.  There is a non-zero chance that is what attracted the giant eagle as well.  In a sense, the crystal is a curse, and I made it, but I don't think we're directly cursed.  I'd wanted to get rid of the crystal before, I should have done it anyway."

"What if we snuck into the village and broke the crystal then?"  Zeb says.

"I think that even if we break the crystal now, the eagle will still be a problem, although that'd at least prevent another issue like this from occurring.  Although, then again, it might not.  If we just break the crystal, it'll probably release all that mana at once, like when the four foot crystal broke.  If this crystal is like a campfire on a dark night attracting anything looking for that light, then breaking the crystal would be like a wildfire.  I worry what effects that might have, and what it might attract."  I reply.

"Then what are we supposed to do?  It's clear that the village can't handle the situation on its own."  Zeb says.

"Then I suppose we'll need to come up with a way to deal with that eagle."  I reply.

We both walk silently back up the mountain for the rest of the trip, trying to think of ideas to deal with the eagle.

After thinking on the problem all night, I think I've come up with something to try.  There are multiple problems with dealing with this eagle creature that we'll need to solve.  The first is that both Zeb and I can't easily hit things in the air.  Earth Spike, while powerful, has quite the limited range.  The second issue that we have is that if we get caught ourselves, that's likely the end for us.

We do have some advantages though.  First, based on where the eagle flew before, we know that it flies roughly overhead to reach it's nest.  The second advantage is that we're relatively safe as long as we hide inside.  The goblins, by virtue of their population, are likely unable to just hide indefinitely, so they're forced to go out and hunt or harvest crops for a long enough time that the eagle can attack.  For us, with the spud crop growing so close to the mountain, we at least have until next winter until this becomes a serious problem.

I am also starting to wonder if the goblins are replacing their numbers within the village.  With the crystal spring there, it's not impossible that Zaka is summoning more imps somewhere within the village, just to replenish their numbers.  This is most likely the case, since they've apparently been under attack for a few months now.

While we could attempt to confront the beast up on the mountain itself, that seems very risky.  If it takes to the air, then we're done for.  As such, what I'd like to do is hit it out of the air.  If I could make a ballista, that'd be my preferred way at attempting this.  Unfortunately, the wood's properties here are too weak to be useful for that.  Other medieval siege engines also fall flat when it comes to hitting something flying.

There is something that could do the trick, although it isn't medieval.  A cannon loaded with scatter ammo.  The issue with that is that we don't have gunpowder, and we don't really have the means to make it.  We'd need a good source of saltpeter and sulfur, and right now, we don't have either.  We could, however, attempt to make a steam cannon on a swivel, so that we can aim it.

What we'd need for a steam cannon is a little complex, but with the help of stone shaping, it can be simplified, as long as I'm the main operator.  We need a boiler with an attached barrel, separated by a quick release valve that doesn't let gas escape, and an aiming mechanism.  The issue with that would normally be the valve.  However, if it is just a sealed stone section, I can stone shape it open to fire the cannon quickly.

The barrel can be smooth bore, since we're planning on firing scatter ammo anyway, so as long as we can make good packing material, then I can use the denser leftover darkstone to shape balls to fire out of it.  The boiler and barrel should be made of lightstone, for both weight, and structural reasons.  Then the base of the boiler can be made, crudely, from copper.  The whole thing needs to be built on a double swivel, with the bottom being able to rotate left and right, and the whole thing being able to rotate up and down, so that the cannon can be aimed.

The idea would be to watch and wait for the eagle to leave its nest, and then start heating the boiler with charcoal.  Then, if we can have a lookout tower, Zeb can be inside the tower, and give a signal and location for it flying back up the mountain, so we can roughly pre-aim, and hopefully knock it out of the sky.

Given its size, I fully expect it to survive a hit from this unless we get lucky.  The more likely response however is that we can force the creature to the ground, where Zeb and I can attempt to fight it and kill it without the fear of it taking flight.

I'm thankful now that we have all that stockpiled charcoal, because we'll need it to not only melt all that copper, but also to heat the boiler.  Throughout this process, Zeb can start building the watchtower while I engineer the actual cannon and boiler.  Unfortunately for the goblin village, it'll probably be a few weeks before the project is done.  Then who knows how long afterwards until we get an opportunity to use it.

Well, it's been two days since we started work on the steam cannon, and three days since we saw the eagle last.  This morning, it flew down towards the village, and a little over an hour later returned up the mountain with a goblin in its talons.  This time, unfortunately or possibly fortunately, the goblin appeared to be dead already.

I'm making steady progress on the initial design, and planning out how we'll attach the copper to the boiler base.  I think it'll need to be shaped in roughly a half sphere shape, so that thermal expansion doesn't break the stone part of the boiler.  Another benefit of this is that no matter how the whole system rotates vertically, some amount of the copper boiler will be directly over the charcoal fire.

While I've been working on the cannon design, Zeb has been building the watchtower from all the excess stone we had from winter.  He's beginning by building it against the mountainside, but it'll climb higher than that eventually.  This way it can also have a direct path into the mountain for safety, rather than only having access to it from the outside.  One thing I advised him to consider doing is having a stone pole in the center of the watchtower, going from the bottom to the top of the building.  That way, in an emergency, you could slide down the pole quickly, rather than running down stairs.