For immigrant applications, there were a few, but none were appealing, even with the lowered standards for Karsh's sake. It seemed like this time it was mostly individuals with questionable pasts whom I would rather not allow into our fledgling nation. As for training goblins in written dwarvish, she said it's not that common of an ability to write in their language. Many can read the basics and maybe even write their own name, but outside of that, it's uncommon unless you're a researcher, record keeper, or have need for correspondence like a general or bureaucrat.
That being the case, she said she doesn't have anyone who could live here to teach written dwarvish, but she could bring two goblins back with her to teach them for a year for the right price. It won't be cheap, because she not only has to take extra time to teach them, but also pay for all their expenses for a year, including extra costs like clothing to make them presentable. Given my options, I decided to go for that option. She said she'll return in a month to pick up the two who she'll be teaching. In exchange I'll pay her in dwarven coin that I'll acquire from the merchant in exchange for extra ingots.
Kao's island is a pretty barebones trade and administrative outpost. It seems that they've got a handful of farms producing food they need to sustain the meager population. It's got a handful of soldiers posted, and a wooden fort that the residents live in. For the most part, it's quiet. An expeditionary mining force did some prospecting last year given the metal that was found on our island, but outside of some minor deposits of copper, they haven't found anything else yet.
The mainland has been quiet as well. According to Shasta, it usually is pretty peaceful for at least fifteen years after a demon invasion, so she expects it will be a few more years before any drama crops up. As for rumors, she hasn't heard much herself, but recommended I ask the merchant while I'm getting the money to pay her. He's much more likely to have heard what rumors are circulating about our island.
So, following her advice, while I traded for dwarven currency, I asked about any rumors about our island. He said that there were a whole bunch of rumors, but they generally fell into a few basic categories. The first category were bad rumors. These rumors said we were a hostile force gaining power to attempt to invade. They were the least common type of rumor, but in the towns where you'd hear them, they seemed to be the consensus opinion. These towns also happened to be those that were heavily damaged during the last invasion.
The second category were rumors saying that we lived on a veritable paradise island with resources aplenty but all of it was under the watchful eye of Kao Ostark who has managed to subjugate the demons, so one should think twice about going there to claim the fortune. I wouldn't exactly call us a paradise with plenty of resources, but I suppose if you're seeing high quality metal flow out of the island as a trade resource, you might get the wrong idea.
The third category were rumors in the opposite direction saying that this is a backwards island of tribal monsters who are cruel and barbaric, but keep to themselves. This is closer to fact than fiction in my opinion, minus the cruelty part. In a lot of ways we are backwards, and I'd like to fix that. As we continue to develop, I'm hoping we can reshape those rumors of our island.
Knowing these three different major types of rumors helps me understand why we don't get many immigrants, however. For any of these cases, people would be reticent to move here. Considering the only trade goods we have right now are basic necessities and metal, it's not a big surprise people would consider us backwards. If we produced fancy clothing or rugs, it might quell some rumors. We could get tourism going from dwarves based on the giant crystals I can grow, but not only does it take me a long time to make one, but I'd rather keep that on a need-to-know basis. I can't imagine the disaster that might occur if some terrorist shattered a giant crystal. So for now, I think we'll focus on getting our own economy up to speed and maybe diversifying our cloth industry.
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After we handled all the trade I spent ten days finding goblins who would be interested in going to learn the dwarvish language and then returning to work as a recordkeeper. Ultimately, I'm hoping that I can keep Shasta training one goblin until they're fluent even after a year, while the other one will begin work as the recordkeeper. Of the eight who were interested, I went through multiple tests with them to find who I considered to be the most capable among them.
One was a goblin, Kaab, who helps with ore processing a lot, and as such, works with Karsh frequently. He seems to have a grasp of the very basics of spoken dwarven already, which should be a benefit to learning written dwarvish. The second goblin, Tak, wasn't familiar with dwarvish, but did exceptionally well on the memorization practice test I had them complete. For this, I used ten english words, and showed them with a picture of the item they were paired with, then after ten minutes removed the words, and had them scribble the word from memory. Most of the goblins got at most one word somewhat right, but Tak managed to get half of them right, which for a ten minute memorization task of an unknown language was quite impressive.
With the two goblins selected, I offered them both an extra reward. When they come back, if they're successful by Shasta's standards, I'll make them a custom house, within reason, to celebrate their success.
In the meantime, I've put up a new job for hauling stone to the far side of the island. I'd like to get around thirty wagonloads of stone moved to the harbor area as preparation for having a barn built over there. I'm sure the construction crew isn't too excited to head back to the far side of the island, so I've decided to pay them a little extra for the barn to incentivize them. They've still got quite a bit of wall to build before they finish with the basic infrastructure of what will become our city, but the barn should take priority given that the trader should return again this winter.
I also need to get a few more fields made for bargas, since we'll be getting more herds of them soon. I've been quite thankful that our eagle hasn't attacked any yet. I'm hoping that it's become more accustomed to how we feed it, but I have a feeling if we forget to put food out for it one day it'll take one of our livestock without hesitation.
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I spent the twenty days until Shasta returned clearing more trees for fields for bargas, and I had a few goblins who had been breaking rocks in the quarry cut some of the other trees I wanted felled where we'll expand our reka, korogo, and boto-boto fields. The goblins were more amenable to eating boto-boto, as its a bit of a savory and sweet taste. The korogo flatbread has also been something the goblins have enjoyed eating. They buy flour in bulk pots, and then cook a whole bunch of the flatbread in copper pans that Karsh made.
Given the general success of these foods, I want to expand the fields so we have more of it available, rather than only an amount that lasts a month. Of course, I gave Rishi and Karsh first dibs on how much flour and boto-boto they want, since it's a food their family is more familiar with.
Overall, we got another two goblins with stone shaping, which means we have a sizeable number who can stone shape now. I think we'll be able to split our construction workforce soon, and potentially give Zeb a break so he can work on things he wants. It seems fair, given that I'm going to also be changing my priorities from construction as well.
Shasta arrived while I was cutting some trees down, and after some quick introductions, she was off with Tak and Kaab, and a bunch of dwarven coin. After seeing her off, I evaluated how much more forest needed cut until I could leave the rest of the work up to goblins. It seemed like it would only be a few more days.
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It ended up being five days of work before the field areas I wanted cleared were finished. I then went and made a job request for removing tree stumps and tilling the land in those areas. It's honestly much nicer that at the end of a day I can just go tell someone else what jobs need finished and then just forget about it myself.
As for myself, cutting those trees didn't net me many levels, although not much does anymore...
Level: 26
HP: 1894/1894
MP: 1140/1140
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Improved Dexterity, Heat Resistance
Magic: Improved Stone Shaping, Tectonic Sense, Improved Earth Spike, Thermal Hands