A few days after the goblins set out to found the second village, Zeb finally started to show some activity. He started to quietly work alongside me as I worked on the roads and houses that needed fixing. He'd ask short questions as to what I was doing, then assist me when he could. He still seemed a little withdrawn, but I was glad to see he was starting to get active again.
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Another two days passed, and Zeb opened up and asked me, "Was what I did wrong? I didn't even realize what I was doing until I was already done... Kurg thought we were bad, and then I killed him, was he right?"
I think I'm starting to see what exactly is gnawing at Zeb. He's been pretty sheltered ever since he started following me around from way back when he was learning to hunt with the other goblins. So now he's starting to wonder, since he's been so isolated from them, if what we're doing is wrong, and if the other side had a point.
"I can't fully answer that for you. You have to ask yourself, what was your intent at the time, and are you intending to do bad things? Sometimes bad things happen despite good intentions. Just a few months ago, I was struggling with the same questions. I felt responsible for Kaga's death, and for various problems that happened in the village." I replied.
"So what did you decide?" Zeb asks me.
"Well, I decided that I could be more careful in the future, but that I had good intentions. I still feel responsible for what happened, but that just means I have to do more to right the wrongs I made in the past." I say.
Zeb stops working for a few minutes, but I continue leveling the pipe under the road that I'm working on. If he has more to open up with, I'll help him, but if he just wants to think, that's ok too.
After those minutes, Zeb starts working quietly with me again.
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Over the last two weeks, Zeb has started to return to normal, which is good. He's more talkative, and is starting to work on things other than what I'm working on. In that time, we've finished fixing the drainage under the houses and the road, as well as fixed the third basement in the pavilion. It'll still probably be a little while until I can clean out the reservoir, so I've decided we should work on a new project in town here.
That project is building the village its own steam cannon. Now, the goblins won't be able to operate it, sadly, due to the lack of airtight valves, but having one here will allow us to have a second location to shoot from if the need arises. Unfortunately, unlike on the mountain, the village won't have as long to charge the cannon.
Hypothetically, they could just keep it charged for a few days, and wait for the eagle to potentially return, but that sounds like an accident waiting to happen. Instead, I have a little idea, but I'll need Zaka's assistance, and I'll only ask him after I do some preliminary tests.
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Yesterday, I came up with a hypothetical solution to charging the steam cannon, but I needed to do some testing, so today, hidden away in the woods a little ways, I'm running one of said tests, alone.
I've cut myself quite deeply on my hand, and bled into a container about the size of a drinking glass until it was half full. I've since wrapped my hand in some plant cloth that I traded for to stem the bleeding, and filled the container the rest of the way with water, and closed it off. After my mana recharges, I'll move on to the next step.
The next step is quite a jump. When I used tectonic sense in the past on a crystal, it would absorb the mana from the tectonic sense, and weaken the signal from that area considerably. What I'm wondering is, if I use all my mana on tectonic sense on a container with blood, if it would work at least a little like when a crystal was submerged in the blood back on the mountain. For this test, I'm basically looking to see if this container springs any leaks, as if using stone shaping without any particular goal.
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Level: 3
HP: 1104/1202
MP: 740/740
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Improved Dexterity, Heat Resistance
Magic: Improved Stone Shaping, Tectonic Sense, Improved Earth Spike
While it's nowhere near as large of a mana pool as I'd like, it'll have to do. I hold the container and use tectonic sense such that it consumes all my mana.
I get quite the mental echo first and foremost from the magic, as all the signal bounces around the container repeatedly as it returns to me. As it does so, I do notice that the container deforms, if only slightly.
I'd consider the test to be a marginal success. On the positive side, it does seem like it influenced the container. On the negative side, it did so only barely, which means I need to evaluate things I can attempt to improve the situation. Considering that, I'm actually glad the container didn't spring a hole, so I can reuse the blood water again.
I'll take the container back with me to the village, and attempt to make a new container tomorrow after I've had some time to think on it. For today, I'll just enjoy the bathhouse and relax for a little bit.
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I've come up with a second container idea to try. The inside of this container has lots of thin poles pointed inwards towards where the blood mixture will be. The hope is that the increased surface area might increase the amount of mana converted into the mixture. It's just a hypothesis but it's worth a shot.
After everything is ready, I use tectonic sense at max power through the container again. This time, I receive much fewer echoes, and the stone almost seems to bubble, although it stops fairly quickly. All in all, a much better result. The stone has deformed much more heavily, although not to the level of springing a leak. On my way back to the village, I open the container with the small amount of mana I'd regenerated on the walk, and on the inside, pretty much all of the small poles had either fallen loose or been completely deformed within the container.
Given this result, I decided it was possible for the next step to be researched, and brought to Zaka. I had decided before not to inform Zaka about the effect crystals and blood had together, but now, it could be useful.
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Today, I informed Zaka of my experiments with blood, along with my prior experiments in the cave. After a short demonstration, he was intrigued. I then explained to him how the steam cannon worked, and how I wanted to do a test with his blood, to see what effects it had. If it causes the water mixed in to instantly boil, or causes an explosion, then it could be useful for making a cannon that can fire almost instantly using a pre-charged canister of mix.
Although he's likely not yet fully recovered from the amount of blood he lost, we decided that a small amount should be enough for testing, and that we'd wait at least a month before we draw any more blood for use in a cannon if it is possible.
The new container for this test isn't completely closed like the previous one was. Instead, I've made it closer to what I would use in the steam cannon. A container with a small tube opening on one end. Unlike with my blood, I shouldn't need to worry about the stone deforming, although it may randomly explode.
I took it behind Zaka's house to run the test, after making sure no one else was in the area. I angled the opening towards the wall of his house, and used tectonic sense on it. Immediately after, there was a satisfying little pop sound, as steam evacuated the chamber. Followed shortly by the sound of tiny sticks hitting the wall of his house.
When I looked in the chamber, most of the blood and water mixture was now gone, along with a bunch of the small poles inside the chamber. My guess is that the sound I heard of sticks hitting the wall were those poles breaking off with the sudden evaporation of the water.
It's quite the success. With this, as long as my mana pool is big enough, we can build a new version of the steam cannon, one that needs a lot less time to get ready to use. Obviously though, it brings into question the morality of using blood to do this. If Zaka is fine with it though, then I'll choose to look at it like blood donations. You never know who it might benefit, but it's being done for the betterment of the rest of society.