Rebuilding Science in a Magic World

After Shasta left, we hauled back the rest of the quartz from our last year's order, along with the goods that the humans and dwarves requested.  My first priority when I got back was to schedule a meeting with Zaka and Zeb about the turmoil on the dwarven continent.  Zaka was much less concerned about the situation than Zeb who in turn was less concerned than I was.  Zeb's concern mostly stemmed from the fact that I was discussing changing our construction priorities short term to capitalize on the war.

My concerns are two-fold.  First, there's always the potential that conflict spreads to our island.  Which meant we needed to start preparing for conflict now, to function as a deterrent.  We've still been slowly stockpiling more artillery rounds though not quite at the rate we did before.  Our main source of potassium nitrate is through excrement farming, and after the previous war, the majority of the population went back to using our restrooms the majority of the time.  So, we're going to expand the existing saltpeter fields and pay people for their "contributions".

Just having more ammo won't be enough though, we'll also need more artillery pieces.  Without Kao's military engineers though, production will be significantly slower to make a single artillery cannon.  So we agreed to make requests to Karsh to produce one to see how it goes.  In all likelihood, our existing iron isn't quite high enough quality to produce a good one, and I'll need to get the hematite refining plant going before we can produce any.

Which leads to the second concern I have.  I'm only one person, and we have a lot of production changes to make to capitalize on the conflict.  I made the first two salt greenhouses, but they take time to mine out, and I should focus my efforts on the hydroelectric facility.  So, we're going to halt the terrace farming temporarily while the construction teams prepare multiple greenhouse facilities.  That'll end up taking some of Karsh's time, and it'll keep the glass making goblins busy for a while.  We once again have a significant excess of quartz, thanks to the shipment and our current ore deposit.  I expect we can make four more greenhouses with our current supplies.

We still have our residual military force dedicated to maintaining the existing artillery and one of the watchtower locations, but I asked Zaka if we could expand the military further.  I want to maintain all three watchtowers, add in two logistics squads, start training a few more squads for maintaining new artillery pieces if we have them built, and add in thirty soldiers who's purpose is to be in fighting condition at all times.  Those thirty will train constantly, and focus entirely on fighting.

In the last war, the enemy had a handful of dedicated elites who seemed significantly more valuable to them than their regular soldiers.  Basically, I want our own elite force who can handle groups of regular fighters on their own easily.  While Zaka, Zeb and I are technically elite fighters, I want a larger force who, quite frankly, are more disposable.  That does mean that we'll have to be somewhat careful though.  We don't want them to become too powerful, and potentially stage their own rebellion.

To that end, I've suggested that every month, Zaka, Zeb, and myself each spend at least 3 days fishing or cutting down trees, to gain more levels.  While it won't be much individually, by the end of the year, we'll have spent more than a month gaining levels.

After we had the discussion, I told the dwarves about the developing situation on the dwarven continent.  Most of them showed some concern about the situation, but a few of them only seemed worried that they wouldn't be able to get the same goods they've been getting each year.

The final stop I had to make before I could work on the hydroelectric facility was the current mine.  There were multiple procedural updates that we needed to make, based on the information Konkur had sent us.  First, I showed them a sample fluorite, and showed them how to recognize it.  Then, I informed them that they aren't to bring any crystals similar to them to the surface, and they need to be somewhat careful about bringing mana crystals into the current extraction location due to the potential for dangerous results if fluorite gets charged with mana somehow.

We only had about two months left of winter where I could begin work on the hydroelectric facility before it'd need to be put on hold for the spring rains.  That was fine though, since there was a lot of preparatory work to do before actually building the facility.  There needs to be additions to the dam itself to handle the generator, a building to house it, the generator itself, and then a facility for processing the hematite.  

So, by the time spring came around, I'd gotten a lot of the facilities made, and started work designing the generator and magnetic separator for the hematite.  In the couple months of winter, the four new greenhouses had been designed, and one of them is operational, with another getting close to completion.  The big hold up for them is the glass making.  Since it's taking so long to make the glass, I've given them the go ahead to make an additional greenhouse, as by the time the glass is made, we'll have excavated enough quartz for another one.  I expect, if salt is still high value this next year, then we'll have quite the income.

For the rest of spring, I worked on getting the generator and magnetic separator made.  After the construction teams finished the greenhouse, they resumed building the terraces, while occasionally going back to install the glass to finalize each greenhouse.

Zaka, meanwhile, was in charge of organizing the new military groups.  The new artillery teams were sent to learn from the existing ones, while the thirty elites were training with Zaka directly just outside the city.  Zeb, Zaka, and myself also found time to do our agreed upon leveling.

Getting the hydroelectric facility up and running and retrofitting the dam took quite a few months.  It wasn't until the end of fall, just before I would need to go prepare for any winter trade that I finally got it working.  The good news from that was that it meant I could properly utilize the dam once spring comes by filling the reservoir for potential energy.

The magnetic separator uses a large drum, made of wood, with an electromagnet sitting inside on one side with an iron plate dividing the inside.  The crushed hematite is poured over the drum while the electromagnet is on and the drum is rotating.  The hematite clings to the drum on the side with the electromagnet, while non-magnetic materials simply fall off.  Then, on the far side of the drum, where the magnetic field is much weaker, the crushed hematite falls off.  By dividing the two collection sides, we can easily filter the magnetic from the non-magnetic materials.

We've collected a few hundred tons of hematite at this point, so I'm hoping we'll be set on quality iron for a long time, unless I come up with a new project that requires a lot of it.

I anxiously awaited the merchant's arrival this year, hoping to receive good news.  We brought one of the crystals over, in case things calmed down and the auction would resume.  I also prepared our salt trade crates and marked them with our insignia, just in case I needed to use them as gifts for the auction.

Unfortunately, the news we got wasn't good from either the merchant or Shasta.  The dwarven continent has devolved into a civil war, with the northern portion of the continent declaring that Goppok Kanaga was the rightful king, and that the current King's family had stolen ParTor centuries ago.

So, while the merchant could pay us for the salt this year in dwarven coin, he said it'd be unlikely he'd make another trip here until the war was over.  So, we traded our salt for dwarven coin, and got about 6 times the trade value of last year, partially because we nearly doubled our salt production, but also because the rate for salt had increased.

Shasta's information was similar.  Basically, we should be on alert, and Kao is going to be somewhat preoccupied, so we'll basically be on our own until the war ends.  She also gave us a warning that the current King has taken note that our crystals were likely the instigating factor in the civil war breaking out, but there isn't any word on if he'll take action on the matter.