Rebuilding Science in a Magic World

As it would happen, neither Karsh nor his family can write in dwarvish.  Karsh can read some basic things and sign his name, and the same goes for his wife, but it's not nearly enough to deal with record keeping.  Which means that if I don't find anyone by the end of this winter, I'm going to either have to choose one of the other options for a written language, or give up on keeping records for a year, and neither of those options sound particularly good.

Outside of that, I've spent two days interviewing goblins who were interested in the two other jobs.  For the overseer job, I narrowed my choices down from an original seven goblins down to the candidate I think I'll pick.  A goblin named Kertus.  He currently already works as one of the city guard, and oversees the collections at the artificial tide pools.  We'll have to hire a new guard after he changes jobs, but I'm glad to have it go to someone who already works a consistent job.  He seems well liked by his peers and has a relaxed attitude, but can be serious when he needs to be.

For the job of managing tasks, I'm still narrowing down my choices.  I started with ten individuals, and I've narrowed it down to two.  Each one has their strengths and weaknesses.  One of the goblins, Zata, is very personable and responsible, but can be forgetful at times.  The other goblin, Kita, has a very good memory and is very methodical, but sometimes comes off as rude due to their bluntness.  This job will require a lot of interactions with other goblins, but also requires them to keep track of all the jobs we currently have going, and remembering where they actually take place, and instructions to give to the workers who are interested in them.

I'm inclined to hire them both, so that I can get the benefits of each.  I'd have Zata run the reception desk, handling most of the interactions, and Kita would set up the pictographs out front, and interject as needed if Zata forgets something about the tasks that need handled.  For now, both will have a pretty light workload as a consequence, but once the population expands, we'll need more people to manage this anyway, so as long as they get along it should be fine.

I spent just about two weeks training the three goblins on their jobs in city hall, along with money handling tasks.  Ultimately, I've given them a simple way of keeping track of how many individuals are needed on each job, and how many worked it in a given day using pegs and rings.  Then we have a second peg system that they use over time to keep track of how many work days worth of work have been done on any given task.

All this is in place so I can check the amount of money I give them against the pegs to make sure that no one is embezzling funds.  Of course, someone could still do so, but it would require them to also fudge the numbers on any given day to make the totals add up.  It's possible, but for now, unlikely.  I've given them a few secret compartments for storing money in a shared archive room, and they can keep a small amount of funds on hand for paying individuals at the end of a work day in the room where they work.

It took a little while for the goblins in town to catch on to where they are supposed to go to find work, but now that some are catching on I've already had requests from some of the craftsgoblins to allow them to post their own job requests on the board.  I've declined them putting the job requests on that board, but I've agreed to make a second board that I'll put a different symbol on top where, for a small fee, they can place their own symbol, and inform Kita of what task they're requesting, what the pay is, and how many positions they have available.  This way, the goblins have a centralized job agency, which already seems to be facilitating work.

As for Kertus and the overseeing job, each day he's supposed to check in with either Kita or Zata and see what jobs are being worked on, and pick at least one to go observe the jobsite for a brief period.  I've started reorganizing the existing long term jobs to check in with Kita and Zata as well, so it's no longer my problem to keep track of their pay.

I've also made two small changes to the way we're paying for jobs, just to make things easier on the goblins handling payment.  Goblins can either be paid daily for their normal pay, or they can be paid one time a week, on the same day for all the goblins, and get a very small bonus added in on their pay.  They get a little extra money, and Kita and Zata only have to handle their pay one day a week instead of every day.

Now, when Zeb, Zaka, or myself have jobs we want done, all we need to do is brief Kita and Zata on the job, and they'll handle the rest of the work for getting goblins working on it, and Kertus will be oversight making sure the jobs are actually getting done.  I've been elated for the past few days as I've helped them handle learning their jobs because it feels like I'll finally be free to work on projects myself again without spending months managing all these side projects.

I didn't have much of an opportunity to take advantage of my new freedom from managerial duties because after only one day, the merchant returned along with Shasta.  He brought with him the five bargas and the extra parchment we requested last year.  He gave his compliments on the road we built, which made their travel across the island both quick and comfortable.  I'll be sure to inform the construction team about the compliment.  I asked if the extra time they saved thanks to the road is enough that they'll be able to return again this winter, rather than having to wait a whole year, and the merchant replied that it just depends on the speed of procurement of goods on the mainland, but it should save them almost two weeks worth of travel time for each trip to the island, so it definitely doesn't hurt.

I then asked what it would cost for us to have two trips worth of goods brought back to us, one of what they could get in time to make the trip this year, and the rest for next year.  The merchant thought on it for a bit, and gave us an estimate.  It wouldn't be cheap, but it is hypothetically doable. 

I then went and got Karsh and Rishi to get their requests for trade goods they needed.  After they each listed quite a few things, but considering most of our money this year will likely be coming from ingots that Karsh made, it seemed fair to give them carte blanche to make trade requests.  None of the things they requested seemed excessive either, so I'm not going to complain.

While they were discussing, I had a member of the construction crew start hauling over ingots of metal to trade with.  I've only brought out a quarter of our supply, but its more than triple what I traded the first time the merchant was here.  I'm very interested in seeing just how much we can get for this.  We also brought out some excess salt and the wool we sheared from the bargas this summer.  I didn't have time to make anything for properly turning the wool into yarn or string, and the goblins who use plants for fibers couldn't figure it out. So I decided we'd just sell it this year, and potentially handle it next year.

I made a request for two more male bargas and twelve females along with a large amount of the materials we would need for waterproofing wood.  Between those items and the costs of having the merchant make an early return trip regardless of trade returns, that ended up exhausting the available trade value of the ingots and other items we were trading.

We offered to load the goods into some wagons and have some goblins help haul the goods to the other side of the island considering the weight of the goods.  I think I'm going to have the construction crew build a barn over by the harbor where a few wagons can be stored year round to further help facilitate trade.

With trade negotiations done, I had a few questions for Shasta this year.  First, did we have any applications for immigrants?  Second, does she know anyone who could help train some goblins in written dwarvish over this year?  Third, how are things going on Kao's island in the chain?  Fourth, has anything interesting been happening on the mainland, and are there any rumors circulating about our island?