After two weeks, Shasta returned with the filled out paperwork. In that time, I've been teaching a goblin how to take care of our new livestock. For now, we'll be paying him to take care of them, but eventually, he shouldn't need to be paid. I've been told that you can sheer their wool off once each summer, so that is one potential use for them. Once we get a bit of a larger herd, we can also harvest them for meat. They only breed once a year though, so that'll be a slow process.
Shasta and I sat down and started going through the applications. There were five in total. The first three seemed to be shady individuals without much of a background or skills, so we declined them. The fourth application was interesting to say the least. The application was for a whole group of dwarves, and seemed to be something like a company. The application was definitely not designed to handle what was being applied for, but I gave it a fair shot anyway.
They seemed to be applying to set up a mine on the island, to export whatever they dig up. Honestly, after reading through their details, they're getting declined. They sound like a bit of a predatory bunch who would leave as soon as our resources dry up, and wouldn't even contribute to our own growth in the mean time. I wouldn't be opposed to having a group come in to set up business, but when its goal seems to be depleting our natural resources without much in return, that's a problem. Since we don't have a strict tax structure, and don't have tariffs, we'd get nothing out of the deal.
The last application was one that I was intrigued by. A dwarf wanted to immigrate along with his family of 6. His stated reason was to work with the high quality metal we had produced. He was a blacksmith by trade, and had a little over ten years of experience in his field. He had worked with one of the ingots we had sold, and traced it back to here. He's stated that as long as his family and him are fed and housed, and he gets to work with more of the metal, then his conditions are met.
One of the potential downsides of having him is that he has a family with him, a wife and four children aged 2 to 8, and none of them speak the demon language. I'll also have to design and build a house for them to comfortably live in. All of those can be worked around though. To get our hands on a blacksmith, something I've been missing since Katarko left, is worth much more than the costs being presented, so I gave my approval for them, and then got Zaka's approval as well.
After we handled the immigration paperwork, it seemed like Shasta wanted to say something else, but kept it to herself.
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The next day, Shasta and her guards set out to return to the other island to inform the prospective migrants of their fate, and escort the successful ones here. Considering her group didn't have much to carry this trip, I encouraged them to take the road back, as it should speed their travel drastically, even if the last leg isn't complete yet.
After they left, I started doing some planning. Until the new dwarf and his family arrive, I won't know exactly what kind of house he wants, but I can at least try to plan where his house will go. We haven't built any houses outside of the central area yet, but I might end up doing so for him. I'm actually a little bit torn on the matter. On one hand, it might seem a bit discriminatory to have his family live outside the central wall area, on the other hand however, many of the houses inside the central wall are going to end up getting flattened and replaced in the future.
Ultimately, I'll just plan on two different locations available to ask the dwarf about. Hopefully I can have Shasta translate that for me before she leaves again. Until that time comes though, I'm going to start attempting to fix the drainage on that field for growing Reka.
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I worked for twelve days getting the Reka field set up with drainage tile. Working alone, I only finished about a third of the field before the new dwarves arrived.
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It was quite the sight to see as they approached the village. I could tell who was who from sight as they approached along the road headed towards the ocean. I recognized Shasta, her guards, and a handful of the dwarves who were carrying various crates and items. However, there were exactly six individuals that I didn't recognize.
Two adults and four kids. Dwarves are a little hard to tell the males from the females, but judging from muscle tone I think I can tell which one is the blacksmith. As they got closer, I could tell that the children and wife seemed to be getting a bit scared. Thinking about it, that's not surprising. Historically demons were an existential threat to these people, so I wouldn't be surprised if they tell quite the dark tales among themselves about us. It just means we'll have to be more cautious about how we interact with them.
I made my way out of the field I was working in to introduce myself to them. I greeted Shasta when I reached their caravan and began my introduction.
"Hello, my name is Zakarus, but you can call me Zack. I'll probably be the individual you're interacting with the most initially while you're here in our village."
I extended my hand out to shake hands, but then had to hold it there for a short while during Shasta's translation. The family looked on in concern at my outstretched hand, and in retrospect considering how my hands look now, shaking hands might appear to be more of a threat than a cooperative gesture.
Either way, once Shasta translated, the one I suspected of being the blacksmith stepped forward and shook my hand before speaking in the dwarven tongue back to me while gesturing to members of his family. I then waited for Shasta to translate again.
"My name is Karsh Rembro, this is my wife, Rishi, and these are our children, Tambiri, Pilina, Dashaka, and Saba."
I nod to each of them as I let go of Karsh's hand. "You'll probably find that you're lacking in many of your normal comforts here, but I hope we can work to restore some of them together."
After Shasta translates for him, Karsh nods, but his wife looks concerned.
As we enter into the village proper, through the set of walls, I continue speaking, "For now, you'll stay in our inn while I get your input on what kind of house you want, and where. I've got two plots I'd like to show you, and from there, we can hopefully work out the design for your home. Shasta, if you wouldn't mind being our translator for the day, I think we'll probably have a lot to discuss."
"Sure, it's not like I'm doing much else today anyway," she replies.
"Speaking of, you're the only translator we've had, what happened to your old job as a researcher?"
"As you can probably guess, I've been hired on as the official liaison for Kao Ostark's territory between you and him. It's not exactly research work, and I hope I can get back to that at some point, but for ten months, the work is pretty light and I get paid well."
I nod along as I listen to Shasta tell me a bit more about some of the details about her job as we arrive at the inn. After about thirty minutes, all of Karsh and his family's belongings have been unpacked and moved to the inn. Afterwards, I guide the family to the first of the two potential locations for their house. It's located in the first rung of the city walls nearby some of the goblin apartment buildings.
"So, this location is your first choice, it's inside the current city walls. In the future, however, there are plans to build a new set of city walls, and relocating most of the residents from here to the outer wall area. So your home if built here will probably need to be rebuilt in the future. Since it's inside this set of walls, it's also a slightly smaller plot of land, which means a smaller house. Before you make up your mind, let me show you the second plot."
I paused throughout my explanation so that Shasta could translate. After she finished, I guided them out of the gate that headed towards both the sea and the open air market. Not far from the gate, just off the side of the road, I showed them the second plot of land.
"This is your second choice. It's closer to the market, and has decently more space. The downsides are that you'd be the first residents outside the inner city wall, and that the nearby road is fairly busy at certain times of day. Now that you've seen both options, I'll give you some time to discuss which you'd prefer."
Karsh and his wife start discussing, but his wife seems to be the one more animate in the discussion. She's not quite yelling, but seems fairly angry about something during their discussion. After nearly five minutes, Karsh eventually seems to give in, and says something to Shasta.