Rebuilding Science in a Magic World

I decided to shift my nighttime work from mining the deposit to building a warehouse near the tunnel entrance.  We already have multiple stockpiles outside the tunnel, and as those piles grow, it'd probably be better to have some of the materials stored under a roof in case of rain.  Mostly because of lead and arsenic potentially leeching out of the ores into the groundwater.

I'll probably keep building warehouses here after the first one as well, just because in a decade or so they'll be useful for reasons other than mining.  Ultimately, this is supposed to be a tunnel that lets us cross the island in less than a day, which would mean it'd be ideal to have warehouses directly on either end of the tunnel, along with a potential inn, so that travelers can set out early and have time to unload their goods on the other side of the tunnel on the same day.  That isn't even considering that we might have even more ore deposits in other locations along the tunnel that we may be mining at any point in time.

In addition, to perform magnetic separations on the hematite, it'll need to be crushed fairly small, so setting up some of the containers and crushers, and putting a couple goblins on that task would be good, since it will reduce the amount of space the hematite takes up in the warehouses when I finish them.  Though I don't actually want to spend too much time making warehouses here.  Before winter, I want to go up the mountain and make more of the mana draining liquid, and transport down a few trays worth of crystals from the cave down to this mine, which should improve the miners extraction rate significantly.  Then I want to go back and build the hydroelectric generator on the dam, so we can build a magnetic separator for the hematite ore.

I spent 39 days making two warehouses.  For effective use of space, I ended up digging a basement out for both of them, and adding a second floor to each.  They're both fairly large warehouses, bigger than ones I've made in the past, but I figured it'd be a good idea given the volume of rock that comes out of the mines at any given time.  If something new is extracted, it could take a year or more for a facility to be built to process that ore, so having a large amount of storage space to hold it seemed prudent.  Thankfully, we're utilizing a lot of the materials being mined, so the only thing building up over time is the hematite.

After those were done, I had exactly 29 days until the next eclipse, and only 2 months until winter, so it was time to start extracting the mana draining poison from plants.  I decided to borrow a few of the goblins in charge of forest management to come help me for a week, so I could harvest plenty of the plants.  This time, rather than attempting to haul all the crystals down in one large container, I made a different plan.

I brought down only larger natural crystals, but I put them in a box with many holes in it, and suspended that box in the mana draining fluid.  Then, at periodic locations down the road, I stationed a new container with the mana draining fluid.  When the eclipse finally came, I had a few hobgoblins help me with transport, and at each of the stops, we'd quickly transfer that box to the new container, and haul it down further.  This way, we could haul a larger percentage of crystals down in one trip, while reducing the amount of fluid we had to carry constantly.

The downside to this method was that we ended up consuming a considerable amount of the mana poison plants, but both myself and the forest management goblins collected seeds from quite a few of the plants, and while I was processing the mana poison from the plants, I had the forestry goblins begin planting the seeds periodically throughout the highlands near the cave.  If Tiberius's research bears good fruit, we may eventually even farm these plants to make a dried concentrate that could be incredibly useful.

Long story short though, I managed to bring down 5 trays worth of natural crystals, and a few medium crystals for determining where the charging room should be built into the mining tunnel.  By the next day, we had a small charging room set up that the miners could use just like in the cave mine.  They bring a tray along when it's available and recharge in the mine, allowing them to extract more rock at once before needing to make the nearly mile hike out of the cave to recharge. 

Though with only five trays, it's not quite enough to actually keep up with consumption.  I'd plan on trying to bring more down soon to make up for this problem, but I'm a little worried about potentially driving the mana poison plant to extinction, so we'll show restraint until we know if the seeds we planted will actually sprout or not.

After handling the crystals, I had less than a month until winter, which meant I needed to go and manage our trade goods, and get a list of what trade goods we need.  We have plenty of salt and paper to export, so getting those crated and ready to ship was fairly simple.  Rather than relying on asking people for what trade goods they might need moving forward, I took the time this month to actually set up things more properly.

Previously, we'd just get word of mouth information spread of x person needs y item.  Now, I've added a new worker in the city hall, who's entire job is just gathering those requests over time.  This year, I still needed to go ask people, since they didn't know about the new goblin yet, but after this year, they're to make their requests to that goblin. 

Unfortunately, we don't have any spare goblins who know how to write dwarvish.  The goblin I've picked, however, has shown some aptitude for learning patterns quickly.  When he receives a new request, he's to go find one of our goblins who do write in dwarvish, and ask them to write down the request on paper along with the amount requested.  Many of the requests are the same year over year, so he should learn those words fairly quickly.  Ultimately, I'll probably have to get one of the goblins who can read dwarvish to read the list come trade time, but that's still significantly faster than how we've been doing things.

It also comes with the added benefit that I can eventually dedicate someone else to handling our annual trade permanently, since I myself will be able to put in trade requests, and leave it to them to negotiate.  This will be especially important once we get a harbor set up and have multiple merchants we're dealing with every year.

The merchant came a little later than normal this year, meaning a return trip in the same year would be impossible.  There was a second ship with him, which Shasta was on.  His reasons for being late were the more concerning part of the ordeal though.  Tensions on the dwarven continent have been rising for the past year, and acquiring goods takes longer and more money as all the warlords are beginning to stockpile goods.  There are murmurings going on of a rebellion against the king occurring, which is quite the problem for us.

Given the dwarves are our only trade partner, if they have a sudden civil war, it'll be very inconvenient for us.  Thankfully, the only dwarf that we have a mutual defensive pact with is Kao Ostark.  The other dwarves who have traded crystals with us have traded to guarantee our independence, not for us to aid them.  Beyond that, our defensive pact with Kao really only extends to his island, with no expectations to help him on the mainland, though we may voluntarily do so, given how much help he was when we were threatened.

We also got some communication back from Konkur at last.  The lead from the first deposit is middle of the road in silver concentration, so it's really up to us if we want to refine it, since it does result in some amount of the lead being lost in doing so.  Given we have an excess of fish bones anyway, I don't see any reason we shouldn't collect the silver.  Fish bones are technically renewable for us, where as the ore is not, so extracting as much of the more valuable silver is likely better long term for us.

The merchant did have another fluorite sample for us, and it's very similar to the hydrogen producing sample, and the merchant said it has similar properties.  Konkur also responded to our question about fluorite, and I got a little more info about deep forges from that.  It seems that fluorite is generally kept deep underground where mana can't reach it, and it's used in the steel making process in deep forges.  Given its volatility when exposed to mana, it's rarely brought to the surface, which is why we have difficulty getting any.  The merchant also gave us a small refund, given this was all he could acquire, and given the situation on the continent, he won't be attempting to find any more.

According to Konkur's note, fluorite is actually fairly common, and we're likely to run into some, so it's a good thing we asked about it before we accidentally transported it to the surface.  He'd forgotten to mention it, since it hadn't occurred in our other deposit, but we should take care to keep it deep underground and away from any mana sources.  It's definitely something I'll have to inform our existing miners about, and make sure they keep safe while handling it.

We completed our trade with the merchant, though it was actually quite a bit more expensive than previously to complete, and while our salt went up in value, paper has plummeted in value given its general status as a luxury.  So, we ultimately ended up spending a bit more money for less goods overall for this year.

After the merchant left, Shasta stuck around for an extra day and we discussed a few more details about the tensions on the continent.  While all of the information is hearsay, it seems that an anti-king faction is generally centered around the two dwarves who I've sold a crystal to.  That's the reason Shasta is here.  We aren't being targeted or blamed for the matter, but it has strummed up some controversy, and we should be aware of the situation.

Kao himself is less worried about the overall situation though, since his territory is quite far from both of those factions, and while his obligation is to the king, he won't overexert himself, and if the anti-king faction takes power, the fact he facilitated the crystal sales will probably be enough to maintain his own power.  So, basically, we don't have much we need to be worried about directly for the situation.  The last bit of news was expected, but a disappointment.  Given the turmoil, it's very likely that next year's auction will be cancelled if tensions continue to rise.

We should be prepared in case tensions fall, and an auction does occur, but she wanted us to be aware of the overall situation.  It made me glad we'd struck a new ore vein recently, given we'll have a hard time trading, and an even harder time making money during wartime.  However, I do want to capitalize on the situation a little bit.  If salt is up in value, and paper is down, we should plan on importing less items and saving our paper exports while expanding our salt production to capitalize on the market disruption.  When all the prices stabilize in the future, we can then sell our paper stockpiles.  We'll still likely have a trade deficit for the coming years, but we can at least minimize the problem somewhat.