With all my priority tasks taken care of, it was finally time for me to do some forward planning. I spent three days working in the city hall in a yet unused room that I had planned for use for construction oversight. I planned out what construction needs done, along with what order it should be done in. I made a large diagram of the existing village layout with all the roads, and then marked planned construction sites for all the different apartment style buildings and houses, along with occasional open air eating areas like the second pavilion I made.
I've also marked a small area for two of a new style of building. These will be temporary housing for new goblins to live in for up to a month until they decide where they'd prefer to live moving forward. These buildings are going to have a lot of rooms in a small space. They aren't meant to be an enjoyable space to live, but rather a space-efficient boarding area to tide them over until they make their mind up about where they'll move to.
I then made a second diagram of the tidal pool area, complete with the salt evaporation ponds and the windmill. There, I added a location for the planned production of a second windmill. For the second windmill, I have a few minor adjustments I'd like to personally make to the internals, based on what we learned operating the first one for a season, but a large part of the construction can be done at any time. For now I haven't marked the remaining two layers of the tide pool area, but in the future I'm sure I will.
For now, these two diagrams sit attached to one of the walls in the room. The construction crew should be returning to town any day now from building the barn on the other side of the island. When they do, I'll give them the rundown on this room, and make some changes to our organizational structure. Until that time, I'm going to tinker with some ideas for a mechanical thresher for processing korogo.
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After four days of tinkering, the construction crew returned. First, I talked with Zeb. It had been a while since I'd really gotten a long conversation in with him, so I was interested in finding out what he wanted to work on moving forward. After getting through pleasantries, we got to the meat of what I wanted to discuss.
"I'm sure you've noticed, but I'm trying to restructure how things operate here in the village. It's too much work for one person, or three, to really manage everyone alone. For a while now, Zeb, I've left you in charge of handling the large construction projects, and you've done a good job of it. Honestly, without your hard work and problem solving, the village wouldn't be nearly as far along as it is. We already have enough goblins with stone shaping that I was hoping to split them into two teams. What I want to know is what you want to do from here on out. If you said you don't want to do any more construction, that's fine by me, although I'd ask you at least train your replacements before you stop. So, what do you want to do?"
"For almost as long as I can remember, I, and most of the village, have just been copying your work and designs. Building duplicates of things you've made. I think, what I want to do is come up with my own projects to work on." Zeb pauses for a moment seemingly thinking about something, "I'm not leaving or anything. What I mean to say is that I've had some ideas for buildings and similar projects that I'd like to design myself. I've gotten pretty close with the construction crew, so I think I'd like to continue working with them, but I'd like to have more control over construction and building."
I thought about what he said for a while. On one hand, if he makes mistakes with large projects, it could have devastating consequences on the village. On the other hand he's worked under me for years now doing various construction projects, so he probably has a pretty good sense of how things are done.
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"Alright, I can accept that, on one condition. If you plan on doing any largescale infrastructure, like a large tunnel or a dam, double check with me first. We've worked together for a long time, and I trust your judgement when it comes to buildings, but when it comes to mega-projects, those can be especially dangerous. Even our dam could have been a catastrophe if the dwarves had used it as a weapon against us in the war. Other than that, I have one other statement of information to leave you with. In the city design, I've purposefully set aside an area for future dwarves to live in if they move here, because of cultural differences and how they reproduce. Other than that, feel free to re-arrange the plans for the city."
It seems like a bit of a waste of the work I've already done planning construction in the city, but if that's what Zeb wants to do, he's welcome to. I honestly wasn't sure what he'd say, but if he wants to take over more of the construction and design duties, that's fine by me.
After our conversation came to an end, I let the construction goblins know Zeb was in charge from here on out, and left him to decide how he wanted to organize them.
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Given my newfound freedom, I was initially at a loss as to what I should be doing with myself. For years now, it's been one project after the next to improve the city. Sure, I have more projects I could work on, but they aren't that pressing. I've decided, however, to return to an idea that I had tabled a while ago. I want to try my hand at paper making. We keep trading for parchment, which is something I'd rather not have to do. Paper is drastically more space efficient than the stone tablets I've been using, although I'm going to have to do a lot of testing to get a working product.
The first thing I want to try my hand at is mechanically pulping wood. If I can get that down, the next step will be attempting to press and dry sheets. Then I'll experiment with some different things to try to produce better quality paper if I can at least get the beginning of the process figured out.
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I was tinkering for a week when the merchant returned with some of our goods. He had a little over half the goods that Karsh's family asked for, only the two males of the bargas we ordered, and about a third of the waterproofing materials. Thankfully, that is enough waterproofing material to coat four windmills of our current size, so we should have plenty to get us through the year. I'm not a big fan of paying the extra fees to get a second shipment in winter, but it's nice that it's at least doable.
As for how my tinkering has been going, I've crafted a few different mechanical pulverizers to crush wood into fibers. They're all still relatively small and just for experimental purposes. The next step will be coming up with a way to screen the fibers and dry them. Historically, a mesh filter was made to drag through a slurry of fibers, and after the water drained from that, the sheet would be transferred into an alternating stack of felt and other drying paper where it would dry even further. Eventually, they'd be individually hung to finish drying.
I've got two problems with that process. Our natural plant fibers aren't going to cut it for making a screen, and I've traded away this year's bargas wool so I can't make felt. Both of which need solutions. The making of felt shouldn't be too difficult, but it will require it's own mill for production. Ultimately, the bargas wool will need to be agitated and compressed repeatedly in hot water until a sheet is finally produced. That is, as long as their wool can actually produce a felt in this way, as not all hair can.
As for making a mesh, I think that while other options exist, I could try to knock out two birds with one stone, and make copper wire. With copper wire, fine meshes could be made which are very durable, and I'd have a ready source of copper wire for future endeavors. Thankfully, we should be able to make a wire extruder since we have some form of steel available. Then it's a matter of wire drawing after that to make more fine wires from the initial product.