After ten more days of work on the road, I decided to pull the two goblins to go break stone in the quarry. Katarko finished making the pickaxes and shovels that I requested for that purpose, so it seemed like a good time to send the goblins off to work on that. Today, each of them filled a single cart with stone and brought it back to the village. It's not much, but it's something. They then had to have Katarko sharpen their pickaxes, as they had become dull from use.
Most of the goblins in the village have prestiged at least once now, due to the amount of trees we've been cutting down, and there is still a large amount more to cut to make way for new fields of swamp beets. The primary focus thus far has been on the goblins that we expect to become the guards and soldiers in the village, but letting everyone get some occasionally as well. From here on out though, I think we'll be focusing it down to people who can really use the boost.
The soldiers and guards who I would like to evolve are first on this list. Next is Zaka. He's actually recovered quite a lot over time thanks to his Improved Regeneration. He's actually gotten to the point where the stub of his leg is about where his foot should start. In an emergency, I think he could hobble without his crutches now. However, if he prestiges again, or evolves, I'm pretty sure he'll be completely recovered, which is somewhat remarkable. Next is myself. Every level equates to a longer period of time that I can work without needing to recharge at the bathhouse, which means I can get more work done in a day. For the same reason, Zeb, the two goblins breaking stone, and the carpenter are also on the list.
Everyone else, who has been getting a tree or two a day until now, are going to no longer be included in the task. The fishergoblins and handful of hunters haven't been cutting trees this whole time anyway, as they actually do gain some levels from their respective prey. Speaking of those groups, the hunters have recently been gaining Improved Dexterity and Improved Perception when they prestige, which I think is likely thanks to using bows over spears.
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After eleven more days, the road to the ocean is finally complete. Zeb should be finishing up his work in the village soon too. There won't be any rest for the goblins working for either of us though, as the next thing on the agenda are the new swamp beet fields and the new salt evaporation ponds.
Both of those tasks require less stone shaping than building a road does though, so in the meantime, I'm going to make another apartment style building while my group of goblins dig the salt evaporation ponds to the level where I need to do a small amount of stone shaping to finish the design.
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It still takes the usual eight days to finish the apartment building, and by the time the building is done, Zeb has also finished with all the new guardhouses and entrance gates to the wall. Moving forward, Zeb and I are going to trade off building new housing buildings while working on the external projects like the new fields and salt evaporation ponds. The carpenter and his assistants are also only a few ballistae from being finished with that portion of work as well.
Shasta asked me a few days ago about the ballistae and trebuchets, "Why do you need all these large weapons, there doesn't seem to be much of a threat on the island?"
I didn't have the heart to say that their most likely use would be fighting her brethren if she can't convince them to let us peacefully live, so instead I told her "We've had multiple unexpected attacks in the past that cost us many lives, so it's best to be prepared." Which is also true.
At this point, the two dwarves and the elf seem resigned to the fact that it'll likely be a long time before they can return home. As such, they've sort of settled into the village. Aside from Shasta, who's demon language skills have improved to near fluency, the other two have started to pick up basic phrases for communicating with goblins that they work with on occasion. Seeing that makes me a little embarrassed that I waited so many years before even trying to learn the language.
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It took seven days for me to finish up the new salt evaporation ponds, and the two goblin construction help crews are busy clearing tree stumps and digging out areas to flood to grow the swamp beets. Since the beets require swampy terrain, we actually have to cut some stone out from the bottom of the field so we can cut channels from the stream to flood them during the drier months. The previous fields were built that way as well, but never on this scale.
There is a lot of extra dirt being produced that I'm currently unsure what to use it for. For now it is being piled carefully behind the fields, creating a dividing hill between the forest and the fields. Perhaps it will discourage the larger ground birds from running amok. If we need it in the future, we know where we can get it.
Zeb should be done with the next apartment building either tomorrow or the next day, so while I wait, I'm going to work on expanding the artificial tide pools that we use to gather sea life to eat. Each layer gets more time consuming to build because each one is a progressively larger ring around the bay, but that also means it provides more food. For now, my intent is to actually cut a few new staircases down to the bottom. If there are going to be more goblins traveling up and down, it'd be best if they aren't all trying to move past each other all the time.
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After two days, Zeb finished up his apartment building, so I began my turn, completing the task in the usual eight days. In the time where I worked on the new housing, Zeb got one of the new fields built, and then took a few days to see how the goblins in the reservoir were doing. While they've been making decent progress, they've also disrupted the cleanliness of the design. He spent a few days cleaning up and leveling areas in the reservoir as needed.
With the remaining time, he ended up cutting out massive blocks from the reservoir so that the goblins working there could simply break the blocks down and haul them out, keeping the area more neat than it would be otherwise. I'm a little worried what might happen when water floods back in if those blocks aren't fully broken down and removed though. I told Zeb that moving forward, he probably shouldn't do that unless he's certain that the stone will be removed. It probably would be fine, but if something like a landslide occurred due to a bad rain storm, that large stone block could cause a lot of damage.
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In sixteen days, we each completed another apartment building, and around a third of the new fields are completed now. I've also been steadily working on expanding the artificial tidepool areas. It's taking a bit of time, but between the new road, the excess stone in the village, and the extra helping hands about, I've made pretty decent progress on the second layer. It'll probably still take another few weeks to complete at the current pace, but that's still much faster than when I worked alone.
I've decided on a V-Shape for the overall filter on the bay. Basically, each tiered area will have about five feet of separation from the previous level, and a minimum six feet of filter above it at the bay exit. That way the whole filter stays connected, and fish are encouraged to remain trapped as the water slowly recedes in the artificial pools I've made.
I've also decided on putting filter material around each tier at a railing. First, so goblins don't accidentally tumble the five feet down to the next layer, but also so that fish don't hop out of the pool they're stuck in once the water recedes to the ocean. They can flop out for a little while, but ultimately they'll have nowhere to go, preventing them from overfilling the lowest level over time.
In Zeb's off time, he's been trying his hand at designing his own building. Since he's been replicating mine for a long time now, I figure he should be fine to experiment. It's his free time after all, plus I think it'd be way more useful if he could work on designing his own projects, rather than it always having to be me who builds them. As for what exactly he's designing, he said it's a secret.
We've had two goblins evolve into hobgoblins recently, and quite a few of the guards have prestiged to varying degrees. Considering we're almost done felling all the planned trees, that seems like that'll probably be all the new hobgoblins we get. Zaka is getting close to his prestige point, and Zeb is about a third of the way to his.
As for myself:
Level: 57
HP: 2336/2336
MP: 1216/1216
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Improved Dexterity, Heat Resistance
Magic: Improved Stone Shaping, Tectonic Sense, Improved Earth Spike