It's been over a week since I performed the test using Zaka's blood. With its success, I've started the construction of two steam cannons in the village. The first steam cannon will work just like the first one on the mountain. The second cannon is being designed to use a mix of water and Zaka's blood to power the cannon. Both of these are being built on an elevated platform behind one of the village walls. The reason being that I want them to have a relatively unobstructed view of the sky. Sitting between them is the beginnings of a watchtower like on the mountain.
Overall, the construction is going well, and a lot of the spare stone in the village is getting used up on the watchtower, and I took two days bringing a bunch of lightstone down the mountain for the steam cannons. Once some goblins return from helping get the new village started, I'd like to have some use the path to bring a bunch of the other spare stone from the mountain down to use for various constructions.
Zaka's recovery is coming along well, so I sat down with him and Zeb to get some more info so that we can make some longer term goals. Long story short, Zaka's a little more than half-way to his next prestige, and he's really hopeful that when it comes, he'll regain the lower part of his leg that he lost.
I'm hopeful for that outcome as well, but I'm not certain it'll all come back at once. However, with getting him recovered as soon as possible in mind, I've decided on two things that should help speed him along.
First, the area outside the walls of the village could be expanded out further in places. Right now, there is about fifty feet of distance from the village walls to the tree line. Given how large that eagle was, and with the addition of the two steam cannons, I think that getting some extra open field will be beneficial tactically.
Second, of the goblins that are remaining in this village, quite a few seem to enjoy eating the plant that Zeb found. I've decided to call it swamp beets, although the stems and root are much larger than a beet would normally have. With the increased demand for this food, the need to make more fields for it to grow in has arisen, so I figured we could clear even more space near the village in the direction of the salt ponds.
Both of those projects together encompass hundreds, if not thousands of trees, which should give Zaka an ample supply of levels to hopefully boost him up to the next prestige. The downside will be all the excess wood. Thankfully, the charcoal kilns I made before are still functional, although we'll probably need to make a new storage area just to store all the charcoal. Rather than just adding a fourth layer to the existing pavilion storage, I think I'd prefer to build a second storage area where the charcoal could be kept, although that comes with its own problems.
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I've spent the last two weeks finishing the steam cannons, and as of today, they are done. The watchtower still has a bit of work before it is finished, and that's what I'll be working on next. I've also decided on a location to build the next storage facility for the village, so there will be a place for all the inevitable charcoal to be stored.
Because of the sheer amount of charcoal that will be available, I'm thinking about building a furnace down here for melting metal. If I do so, then I intend to build a waterwheel that can operate a fan to bring the temperature of the fire up, so that Zeb and I won't have to operate it manually, which would be a huge improvement over our furnace on the mountain. If I complete that, then I could actually utilize the reservoir and dam to provide extra power on days when I need it, rather than it simply being useful for preventing flooding.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
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It's been nine more days, and I've completed the construction of the watchtower, and excavated the majority of the basement for what will become the storage warehouse. The pavilion was nice, but it's sort of outgrown its initial design. It was meant to be both a general basic storage and meeting place for a goblin village that had a little over twenty goblins. Since that time, the population has more than doubled, and as a consequence, it's begun to store way more than it ever was intended to, it's even gone down three basement levels, which is a little excessive.
The new warehouse is closer to the shops in the village, and I intend for it to be used for bulk long term storage, rather than daily usage. Ultimately, I'd like to move most of the charcoal out of the pavilion basement and into this warehouse, along with various other bulk items, like rope, that have found their way into the pavilion basement.
The new warehouse is going to be 30 feet by 40 feet, and I'm going to design it with the intent of building a second story on it. Hopefully, with that much storage space, the storage outside the village will only need to be used as an intermediary for wood or stone. Secondarily, being built near all the shops should give the goblins who work there easy access to it, although I'm starting to worry about theft being an issue.
That said, it seems that they're pretty generous among themselves, all things considered. They don't seem to care about byproducts, and are willing to just give them away. In the future, I'll keep in mind that I should trade either a small storage area or a basement for things I want made by the goblins. I'm sure they'd like to have their own private area for storing things, and now that we have the bathhouse in town, mana is much less of a limiting factor as compared to before.
Speaking of the goblins, a large portion of them returned today from helping the other village get set up. Although the whole place isn't nearly as complete as here, they've got temporary housing, and a layout established, and now it's all up to Gakus to actually stone shape everything. With an area cleared, and most of the physical labor for construction completed, they decided it was time to return here.
Many of the goblins were quite surprised by the two large cannons and towering watchtower, and asked about it. When they found out that it was what we'd used to help kill the eagle, they started looking closer at it, and seemed to be impressed, although most of them probably had no idea how it worked.
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It's been eleven more days, and I've finished building the first floor of the warehouse, alongside getting its basement set up. It houses multiple aisles of bins on each floor that can be filled with whatever. Right now, they're being filled with charcoal, as we've started to have many dozens of trees being felled each day.
Alongside cutting trees down, Zaka has also started to increase the number of goblins again. It's a bit of a slow trickle, but he averages about one new goblin every other day. Although it has been a while since there has been any dangerous activities around the village, these new goblins are still quite weak, and as such are kept in the village, working on mundane tasks until they gain some levels. Which means for these new goblins, they've been helping process all the wood from the trees that Zaka has been cutting.
It's not a matter of just cutting the trees down after all, it's also cutting those trees into smaller pieces to make charcoal, and removing the bark. It's quite labor intensive, so it's nice to have some extra hands helping with the ordeal. Since the new goblins are working on the wood that I'm then using in the charcoal kilns, they get to see me quite frequently, whether it's at the kilns, or in the warehouse. Hopefully, that gives them a more favorable attitude toward me as well, since they're seeing me hard at work as some of their first memories.
That being the case, I'm working harder than I normally would, just to try to leave a good impression on them. In the morning, I start up the charcoal kilns, then start working on the second floor of the warehouse, going back and forth between the two frequently enough to make sure that the kilns are running properly. Given just how much wood we're going to be processing, I'm probably going to dig out a second layer in the basement of the warehouse, to further increase its storage.