It took four days to design a few metal rock crushers using metal, and then I went up and mined out metal ore for two whole days. The amount of ore should last us through the winter, at least I hope it will. Katarko seemed pleased to have more of the metal to work with, and I gave him the okay to make his own weapon alongside the new goblin ones. Katarko has been processing so much metal that multiple goblins are on shell collecting duty, and bring back entire backpacks worth each day.
The goblins collecting shells have started to have to harvest from the water traps I made for fishes, where fresh shells settle out each day with the tides, which means we'll probably have fewer shells coming in soon, since the beach is getting close to being picked clean. I need to expand the artificial tidepool area soon to keep up with population growth anyway, so I hope that helps with seashell collection as well.
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I've been working on the city wall for another ten days, when I had a bit of a surprise this morning. Zeb prestiged. Actually, he had prestiged a little while ago without me knowing, and he didn't really want to tell me about it. I had thought he seemed a little bigger than I recalled, but I had been quite focused on some of the other tasks at hand, and we weren't working together as much that I missed it.
As for why he didn't want to tell me about it, it seems he's still not fully over the fight he had with Kurg. What he gained from that prestige was Improved Earth Spike, which had I known about, I probably would have had him help me capture the prisoners, given its improved range. I suppose that's also the general reason he didn't tell me about it in the first place though, because he has an aversion to combat. He gained that shortly after the pair of eagles attacked, but kept that to himself as we were busy repairing everything.
Today, or rather yesterday, he prestiged again though, and this time he finally got Improved Stone Shaping. I'm very excited for that. He'd been helping with the tree cutting while I had been on the mountain, and did a little when I came back, enough to prestige. Given how much more useful he'll be with construction now, I intend to have him gain more levels, much like how I am, so that he'll have a much larger mana pool, so he can work for longer.
Level: 0
HP: 1229/1229
MP: 470/470
Traits: Mimicry, Mana Affinity
Magic: Improved Stone Shaping, Improved Earth Spike
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In only six short days both the warehouse and the city wall are now complete. With Zeb's massively improved stone shaping speed with his prestige, he was able to make quick work of the warehouse, then helped me finish the city wall in the remaining time. Counting both Zeb's new speed, and the small amount of help that Shasta gives, I'd say the overall level of stonework speed in the village has about doubled from where it was six months ago, and is well over eight times the rate it was back when I first came to the goblin village.
I'm going to leave Zeb to work on the gates and guardhouses in the village while I go work on expanding some of the necessary facilities outside the village. First, I want to mark those trees that I want to keep along the path to the ocean. Next, I plan on drafting some extra goblins to start all the necessary hand digging of dirt for the road. Once they've gotten the road dug, then we'll also be expanding out the salt evaporation ponds, and eventually also be digging out the areas to make the flooded fields that the swamp beets need.
My hope is that, by using a new set of five goblins and having all their work be shoveling dirt, they'll all get earth manipulation as a trait, which seems to be a precursor to stone shaping. It may not be completely necessary, but I think it helps. Once they're set on a task, it'll probably take them some time to complete each, due to each task's scope. While they work on that, I plan to have other goblins help haul stone blocks alongside where the road will go, so that my job of building the actual road shouldn't fall behind the rate they dig dirt.
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After twenty days of work, I'm about halfway done with the road to the ocean. It generally follows the path of the stream, and it doesn't have a cart system. It's just meant to speed up the trip between the village and the ocean work areas. When it is done, individuals won't have to worry about tripping over tree roots or underbrush while they travel. Zeb is still a little ways from finishing his work as well.
I had three interesting interactions today. First, the five goblins I've been having dig the road have all prestiged as of yesterday evening, and of those five, three got earth manipulation. The other two gained improved endurance. The second interaction was that none of the four goblins helping Zeb have gotten stone shaping, and they all finished prestiging for a second time yesterday. One of them picked up earth manipulation that didn't have it from before.
If I recall correctly, when Gakus got stone shaping, Zaka had said he was trying to manually cut stone himself. Since the reservoir is pretty much empty this time of year, I might pull one goblin from my group and one from Zeb's group, who each have earth manipulation, and have them go manually break stone in the reservoir for a while. Before I do that though, I'll need to have Katarko make them proper tools for the job. It seems like a waste of the labor right now, but if they can get their hands on stone shaping, their labor will be far more valuable than it is now.
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The third interaction was with Shasta. She asked me, "Do you not experience leveling sickness?"
"Leveling sickness? What's that?" I asked, a little confused.
"Well, it's a sort of disease you get from powering up too quickly. Weak leveling sickness just causes mild pain and fatigue, but at extreme leveling sickness can be lethal." She says.
"I've never seen or heard of anything like that." I reply honestly, "What makes you ask?"
"I noticed that new batch of goblins has been cutting down a lot of trees and have been getting bigger. Normally, leveling sickness is a problem during adolescence, but occasionally happens in adults as well. There are a few professions that tend to be susceptible to it, and lumberjacks are one of them. If people work with lots of livestock, that can also be a problem. Once you're high enough level, its much less likely to happen, although a few people have had it occur later in life." She explains.
"I think if that was something us demons were susceptible to, I'd have died multiple times by now." I say with a laugh. After I moment, I regain my composure and ask, "I am a little curious though, us demons prestige and evolve into new forms, what exactly happens with you dwarves? Do you get bigger, or change form in some way?"
"No no, nothing weird. We just gain levels and periodically get access to new class features." Shasta says dismissively.
"Wait. What do you mean class features?" I ask. I feel a little left out. I'm over here getting all these open ended traits and magics without any sort of guide, and dwarves get a guided path? I take it back, I don't feel left out, I feel jealous.
"Take me for instance, my class is 'Mason', as I gain levels, I get features and magic that make me better at that task." She says.
"How is mason a class? What other classes are there?" I ask.
"Well, there are lots of classes for lots of things. Farmer, Warrior, Lord, Fisherdwarf." Shasta says, seemingly confused at my confusion.
"So just about any profession has a class to it? How do you get your class?" I ask, even more confused than before.
"You generally get it from one parent, although sometimes you might get it from a grandparent or a distant relative. Depends on the class I suppose. Although there are some differences between individuals, even more so if you look between races." She says.
That definitely sounds like it's genetic. I follow up with, "What exactly do you mean differences between races?"
"For instance, humans don't have a 'Mason' class, but they do have a 'Builder' class, which functions pretty similarly. There are some hybrid 'Builder/Mason' classes that exist in the few people who are half-human half-dwarf. There are a lot of similar classes between the races, but they usually function a little differently. Enough about us though, I want to know more about you demons. We've known for a while that you grow bigger and change between forms, but when does that happen exactly?" She asks me.
"When we cap out our levels. It's always at level 100, then we either evolve or prestige, our choice. Sometimes though, one of the options might not be available. If we prestige, we usually get some kind of new trait or magic to use, seemingly based on what we've been working on recently, and if we evolve we generally get a lot stronger, and sometimes get some free traits." I say.
"Wow, that's a lot of levels. I'm only level 27. Wait. That doesn't make much sense, you said you've only been here like seven or eight years." She says.
"Well, there seems to be a variance in how quickly we gain levels based on how many times we've prestiged or evolved, I haven't worked the math out yet, but it takes me a really long time to gain levels now. Back when I was first spawned, I gained 100 levels in a matter of hours. From the sounds of it, this might be why we don't experience leveling sickness, although it's hard to say. If we have hard caps where we then morph our bodies, it might prevent whatever sort of illness is caused in your kind." I speculate.
"...that might be. Although it could be that you just haven't gained enough of your high powered levels at once to experience it." She says back.
"I doubt that. I know its a sore spot, but I did kill an eagle by myself in the woods. It power leveled me up, and then that evening I fell asleep and prestiged... Wait, maybe the exhaustion that we feel when we cap out our levels is something similar to that? We usually get really tired at that point, and fall asleep within a few hours, and then sleep for a while, sometimes days if we're evolving." I say.
"... I do expect killing an eagle by yourself would probably cause pretty bad leveling sickness in even a decently strong warrior. The symptoms don't match perfectly, but it might be something similar to when you hit your level cap." Shasta eventually agrees.
"... Do you have a level cap?" I eventually ask after things go quiet for a little bit.
"I don't know of anyone who's ever reached one, but they really do seem to slow down at some point, and the perks and magics we get slow down significantly after level 100, and those perks are heavily dependent on ancestry. That's when you start getting perks outside your normal class. If your mom was a fisherdwarf, and your father and you are both warriors, then your perks past level 100 aren't likely to be that useful to you as a warrior, although some of them might be, like improved swimming abilities." She explains.
"We'll have to continue this conversation at a later time. I've enjoyed it thoroughly, but I'm afraid that I've got to get back to road work, or else I'll fall too far behind the goblins I've tasked with digging, and I don't like to show myself as lazy to them." I say. Shasta nods, seemingly content with having some more of her questions answered as well.