Zaka's visit yesterday brought with it the new basket backpacks we requested and one was filled with lizard meat. According to Zaka, it was meat from the lizard we killed on the trip up here last time. His visit itself was pretty uneventful, but I noticed something that I missed in the first month of being back. I hadn't looked closely at the mystery metal pucks we made since we came back here. I only noticed because I was moving things in my workshop to make a space for the new backpack.
At a cursory glance, they look very similar to when we left them, but if you look closely, they've darkened. Bringing them out into natural light makes it much easier to tell. Their surface seems to have formed an oxide layer of some kind, and the surface color has darkened from a silver gray metallic color into a dark brown bordering on black. The lack of natural light made it hard to tell the difference in color inside, and since it didn't seem to be noticeably flaking, there weren't any obvious texture changes.
There are a few metals that could form an oxide of this color, and I can't even be certain that it isn't some degree of alloy. It rules out quite a few metals however. For instance, it isn't likely chromium or titanium because it darkened in shade. There are only a handful of metals, like iron, manganese, and nickel that generally form oxides in this color range. That said, it doesn't have to be a normal oxide, and for all I know, its some form of magical property rather than an oxide.
It does set in motion some new experiments I can do with it however. I'd like to smash a few pucks down into very small pieces if I can, and expose them to water both outside and down in the cave, and see if the oxide color remains the same, or changes. It might give me more insight into what metal or metal alloy I have on hand. It'll add a day or so of processing to set that up, but then I can just check up on it occasionally.
After that, I'll start work on the large vacuum chamber on the surface. What I'm thinking about doing is carving half the chamber into the ground of the mountain just outside, so the whole chamber is underground. Then I'll put a large column in the center using stone shaping, so that I can hopefully lower the crystal down into the chamber, all while keeping it surrounded by rock. I'll probably need to do some test runs to get it right, but hopefully that will work. Then I can just run a cart track right next to the pedestal where I'll place the crystal, and that will provide Zeb and I a way to move the crystal.
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Twelve days of work and I've finished the vacuum chamber on the surface and smashed the metal into small bits and put it in bowls in a few places to develop a new oxide layer. The surface vacuum chamber took longer than I hoped due to having two failed tests. During the first test, the top of the chamber collapsed as I reduced the pressure inside with stone shaping. So I had to clean out the rubble and then dig it deeper to give it a thicker roof.
The second time, I was using a stone meant to act as a fake crystal to lower into the chamber, and again, the top of the chamber collapsed down into it. So I thickened the chamber much more, and this time I finally successfully used stone shaping to lower the test stone down into the chamber without it breaking.
I wish that was the end of the work I have to do for this, but I still need to build the larger crystal growth apparatus down in the cave lab. Given the sheer size of the new apparatus, its going to need to be much larger, and I'm going to need to test it again for issues with being under a vacuum. After building the surface chamber though, I hope I have a better idea of just how thick the chamber walls actually need to be.
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The whole process took fifteen days of work to complete. Initially I thought about just building the whole apparatus on the ground, but instead now, I've dug it into the ground like the one on the surface. The major difference though is that I've also carved out an underside to it, since I'll need access down there. The inside of the chamber is six feet tall, so that I can grow crystals in the four foot range with some extra space inside. The ceiling and floor are over two feet thick, to prevent any accidents from occurring. The chamber held up to my normal tests, which was a relief.
On another side of the lab there are the stairs down to the underside of the chamber, and a second pathway for a cart to run along. That pathway slowly rises up and eventually out some way ahead along the wall of the cavern. That way I can close it off if Zaka needs to summon imps in the cavern, but I can still use it to transport any finished 4 foot crystals out on carts. Quite a lot of the construction time actually was building these paths in the lab.
While I was working on this, Zeb has been working on the stairs outside and hauling the stone I've been removing to continue his construction. It's coming along alright, but somewhat slow. I presume it's because his mana pool is quite a bit smaller, and it's outside work, which means he has to go back to the crystal charging room just to recharge his own mana. Since that room is about halfway between the crystal growth lab and the surface, I've been piling the stone I cut out there, and then when he needs to come back in to charge, he hauls more stone out himself.
As for the actual distance he's gotten, its only about fifty feet in a month. Which might not seem that impressive, but considering the extra steps he's having to go through, it's pretty good. Where he's been working, the bedrock is about a foot down, under soil and some loose rock. The loose rock he can stone shape to attach to the bedrock, but the soil needs to be removed manually. Then he has to solidly attach the stone to the bedrock with as few gaps as possible.
In addition to this, he's been in charge of running the charcoal kiln. Which has built us up a nice stockpile of charcoal, which I hope we won't go through too fast.
I think we've collected enough of our blood mixed with water to attempt a usage of that as an intermediate for the crystal transfer as well. Rather than use the new two foot crystal, I'd like to just use our largest natural crystal on this test. Mainly because I'd rather not have to deal with as large of a blood mess when the tests are done. Not that they're completely submerged in blood, the mix is about 10 to 1 water to blood, but it'll still be gross.
For that, we'll wait until Zaka leaves to do that test. Depending on the results, I'd rather not give Zaka any weird ideas. Since he'll be returning tomorrow, it'll be two days at least before that test is done.
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We got all set up to run the test after Zaka left, loading a small tank up with my blood water. When we submerged the crystal into the tank, it initially didn't seem to be doing anything, so I started to drain my mana. Before I submerged my hand in the blood water though, the tank sprang a leak. Which we initially thought we must have bumped the tank and accidentally cracked it somewhere.
After repairing the tank, we noticed the crystal had emptied. After letting it recharge, and got ready to test it again, and the tank again sprung a leak. We got a few more crystals and dumped them all in the tank on a hunch, and sure enough, the stone of the tank started to shift and move in unpredictable ways becoming irregular, and forming small holes and bumps.
The working hypothesis is the mana from the crystals is somehow using stone shaping, which must be related to my blood. We attempted with Zeb's blood, and although it was barely perceivable, the surface of the stone did start to deform. On one hand, this is exciting. Something lets us use stone shaping, and that something is at least partially found in our blood. There will be great difficulty in finding a use for something that just randomly shapes stone however. If we can find a way to control it, that is a different story, but as of right now, we have plenty of other tasks we're working on, so we'll file this one away to work on later. Of course, if inspiration strikes either of us on a way to utilize this, we may revisit it sooner.