Tyranomaster

[Vol.5] Ch.21 Expansion

After the next six day stint, the mine had to switch to horizontal shafts, because the vein had deviated too far from the vertical shaft that was being dug.  I agreed to stop directly helping with extraction for the sake of morale as well.  Though I can still help with peripheral matters if I think it will improve the miners overall speed and effectiveness, but I don't currently have any projects like that in mind.

One of Zeb's teams finished building the new warehouse just ou...

[Vol.5] Ch12 Recycling

I accompanied the goblins for two days on test salvages, which went off without any problems.  We only recovered cannonballs, and it was a relatively slow process, but I was pleased to see the process working.  The hobgoblin divers had a close call with a relatively large fish approaching, and they had to hide for a minute in the downed ship to avoid it.  For good measure, we waited half of an hour before resuming with salvage.

After I was confident that the goblins could...

[Vol.5] Ch.20 Teamwork

I talked with Zeb about the idea of building larger buildings in the city in order to increase population density.  He seemed amenable to the idea, but also wasn't too sure about the stability of taller structures like that.  We talked through best practices for structures of that height made of stone, including discussion of adding central pillars in the lower floor rooms to increase the general stability of the whole building.

He had his own worries of things to discuss with...

[Vol.5] Ch.11 Maiden Voyage

After having spent six days mining copper on the mountain, I spent an additional six days transporting it back to the city.  When I returned I talked with Zeb about the idea of building a harbor on the far side of the island.  As I suspected, they're busy right now with what we both agree is a more pressing matter of expanding the population, which will eventually lead to a larger work force, allowing projects like this to be more easily completed.

It has been nice that I've n...

[Vol.5] Ch.19 Crystal Clear

I realized after I looked at the quartz, that I hadn't asked him about the particulars of the quartz.  On Earth, quartz crystal goes by many names depending on the color of the crystal.  I had assumed, incorrectly, that it'd be the same here.  That doesn't seem to be the case, as I'm looking at varying degrees of colored quartz, ranging from an off-yellow to clear to milky to violet.  I'm not sure about what exact minerals cause the yellowish or milky colors, but violet qu...

[Vol.5] Ch.10 Salvage

Work proceeded steadily on making the barge and its components.  A basic steam engine is actually fairly easy to make, though we had to use more of our dwindling iron to make a large portion of it.  While I worked with Karsh on that during the days, I spent the evenings making copper wires to make into cable.  After thirteen days of work, the steam engine was pretty much complete, including our testing and adjustments to make sure it worked.  I also had made enough copper ...

[Vol.5] Ch.18 Electricity Part 3

I spent four days making my two test dynamos, then one day testing them.  Both use a hand crank to operate their rotor, but one uses magnets to generate power, while the other is a bit more complicated, using cumulative wiring for the field windings, meaning it's a self-powering generator that doesn't need magnets.  The downside to that generator, as I've previously mentioned is that it needs an initial voltage to excite the field windings.  Once it's operational though, as lon...

[Vol.5] Ch.9 Gypsum

After another six days on the mountain, we found something, that in some ways was a disappointment, but in other ways was a good find.  We struck a vein of material, though I wouldn't call it ore.  It seems to be gypsum, at least from what I can tell from Konkur's description.  We have little use for gypsum here on the island thanks to stone shaping, but it can be useful for some agricultural practices, or perhaps allowing non-stone shaping goblins the ability to make castings ...

[Vol.5] Ch.17 Electricity Part 2

I got things set up again to test for electricity, and initially checked for a spark every minute or so.  After ten minutes, I started checking every five minutes, then every fifteen, and after a few hours, it seems like it had probably reduced in output by some amount, but the exact amount I couldn't tell.  After half a day, it became apparent that a decent amount of the electrical capacity was gone.  The decay seemed to be logarithmic in nature, so I imagine it would continue...

[Vol.5] Ch.8 Fishy Research

The next day, I decided to stop in and talk with Konkur to see if he had any information on the rock samples I delivered to him.  I had initially planned for it to be a short stop, as I didn't expect that much information before I went to the lab to see what sort of tests Tiberius was planning on conducting.  Instead, I ended up having a long discussion.  The gist of the situation is that the tunnel ran into is generally associated with hydrothermal veins of ore.  At least...

[Vol.5] Ch.16 Electricity Part 1

After a few days, Tiberius had me come help him in the lab with his project.  He'd gathered two of the electric fish, and had a new design that he wanted to try using them.  I brought along some decently thick copper wire to use as well, given copper's conductivity.  With stone shaping, it was very easy to make the shapes and designs that Tiberius had in mind for his device, and I gave him some input as well as we made it.

The concept is pretty straight forward, he was ba...

[Vol.5] Ch.7 Procurement

For the first half of the month, I spent time growing a larger crystal to test how crystal size affects the effectiveness of the mana draining liquid.  I ran a few tests with smaller crystals, and had interesting results, which warranted growing a larger crystal for further extrapolation.  With smaller crystals, the length of time it took for them to break generally increased, until you reached about the medium size of the natural crystals.  Beyond that point, I had to increase...

[Vol.5] Ch.15 The Fate of Rathland

The first ten days or so, I had to fetch Tiberius to make sure he arrived at the tide pools in time to properly work.  After that though, I was surprised to see that he began going to the tide pools of his own accord, and seemed to be getting along well with the fishergoblins while he worked.  In the meantime, I was hauling stone to build the jetty, and using pulverize on some of the fields.  Some of the float vine had begun regrowing in the area around the jetty, so I spent so...

[Vol.5] Ch.6 Mana Drain

After eight more days of work, I finished building the prototype windmill for the well, and had Karsh help shape a straight steel rod of the necessary size for the pump.  The snow started melting on the mountain half-way through my work, which then resulted in nagging from Tiberius that I should go brave the remaining snow to get him crystals.  I retorted that if he had simply hauled enough water to the lab in the first place, I wouldn't have felt the need to build this well first, ...

[Vol.5] Ch.14 Troublemaker(s)

"I need you to come up with a fitting punishment for what Tiberius has done."  I plainly state to Zaka.  I had to position myself between Tiberius as the door, as he kept trying to sneak out.

Zaka watches the situation and chuckles, "Well, he's certainly acting like he's guilty of something.  What did he do?"

"He lied to some fishergoblins and said that I was going to pay them a significant sum of money to help him acquire certain fish."

Tiberius winces like a...

[Vol.5] Ch.5 Well Water

I continued working on the lab space for another twenty-six days until I finally completed the shell of the space.  The facility is built into the hills bordering the side of the valley with no roads currently.  While I worked, I spent some time cutting trees down along a trail that led here, so we have the beginnings of a road at least, though I imagine it will be some time before a proper road is built.

The facility itself is quite large with the first floor forming a large ...

[Vol.5] Ch.13 Troublemaker

After returning to the city, I set up a handful of jobs to start moving both the gypsum and paper we have made for trade to the new warehouse on the other side of the island.  I spent three days producing sealed shipping crates for both the paper and gypsum.  This is required before either is able to actually be moved to the other side of the island.  I made a significant number of spare crates which only need to be sealed in the future.  Gypsum, like paper, has problems w...

[Vol.5] Ch.4 Lab Space

Negotiating with Elora to get our debt reduced was only partially successful, and it was very stressful.  She made it clear that what I was doing was treading a very fine line between negotiating and threatening.  I responded that what they had done was treading a fine line between helping and extortion.  The back and forth continued behind closed doors until it was agreed that we'd only have to pay half of the cost previously agreed upon, meaning a quarter of the total cost. 2024-04-12 16:58:00 +0000 UTC View Post

[Vol.5] Ch12 Recycling

I accompanied the goblins for two days on test salvages, which went off without any problems.  We only recovered cannonballs, and it was a relatively slow process, but I was pleased to see the process working.  The hobgoblin divers had a close call with a relatively large fish approaching, and they had to hide for a minute in the downed ship to avoid it.  For good measure, we waited half of an hour before resuming with salvage.

After I was confident that the goblins could...

[Vol.5] Ch.3 Rathland’s Refugees

After fifteen days, Shasta returned with the refugees and the two goblins who had been taught the dwarven language.  I spent three days interviewing all the refugees with the help of Shasta as a translator.  Of the thirty-two refugees, six have decent reasons for being here as refugees under Elloetta's guidance, and the remainder are direct family members of those six.

One was a political leader named Lucian Armand who started spreading the rumors of The King and Baron's death...

[Vol.5] Ch.11 Maiden Voyage

After having spent six days mining copper on the mountain, I spent an additional six days transporting it back to the city.  When I returned I talked with Zeb about the idea of building a harbor on the far side of the island.  As I suspected, they're busy right now with what we both agree is a more pressing matter of expanding the population, which will eventually lead to a larger work force, allowing projects like this to be more easily completed.

It has been nice that I've n...

[Vol.5] Ch.2 Safety in Numbers

We all waited with baited breath for the first two weeks of winter until the first news from the outside world finally made it's way to us.  Initially, we became very apprehensive when we saw fifteen ships approaching the island, but after we recognized the ships as being part of Kao's fleet, we became relieved.

Kao, Shasta, and a handful of other military personnel arrived to both pick up the dwarven soldiers as well as get first hand accounts of what happened in the war here.&nbs...

[Vol.5] Ch.10 Salvage

Work proceeded steadily on making the barge and its components.  A basic steam engine is actually fairly easy to make, though we had to use more of our dwindling iron to make a large portion of it.  While I worked with Karsh on that during the days, I spent the evenings making copper wires to make into cable.  After thirteen days of work, the steam engine was pretty much complete, including our testing and adjustments to make sure it worked.  I also had made enough copper ...

[Vol.5] Ch.1 Reconstruction

The reconstruction process has been going well, though we aren't rebuilding everything to be exactly the same as it used to be.  We started the repairs by rebuilding our artificial tide pools, and moving on from that to other necessary functions.  After almost a year, we've gotten a lot of things back to the way they used to be, but we've maintained all our new defensive structures, and even expanded them to some degree.  Elora insists that they aren't necessary, and that we wo...

[Vol.5] Ch.9 Gypsum

After another six days on the mountain, we found something, that in some ways was a disappointment, but in other ways was a good find.  We struck a vein of material, though I wouldn't call it ore.  It seems to be gypsum, at least from what I can tell from Konkur's description.  We have little use for gypsum here on the island thanks to stone shaping, but it can be useful for some agricultural practices, or perhaps allowing non-stone shaping goblins the ability to make castings ...

[Vol.4] Ch.59 Demands

Heeding the warning, I sent a handful of messengers to return to the rest of our army.  If all goes well, then we'll return in one piece and the original messengers will have been pointless, but if things go south I want to make sure the rest of the army has adequate time to hide.  After the messengers had their message and had left our location, I stepped out with the remainder of our forces that were over here.

As we approached, the scene was clearly very gruesome and contra...

[Vol.5] Ch.8 Fishy Research

The next day, I decided to stop in and talk with Konkur to see if he had any information on the rock samples I delivered to him.  I had initially planned for it to be a short stop, as I didn't expect that much information before I went to the lab to see what sort of tests Tiberius was planning on conducting.  Instead, I ended up having a long discussion.  The gist of the situation is that the tunnel ran into is generally associated with hydrothermal veins of ore.  At least...

[Vol.4] Ch.58 Power Struggle

Although we didn't have much time to execute on the plan, I managed to make it work out.  I informed Zeb and Zaka of the full details, including the Baron's secret.  Then, in the early morning hours, we moved the commanders down to scouting base for the handoff.  Honestly, if the Baron had planned to use this as an opportunity for an extra ambush, it wouldn't have been a bad idea.

We had safety concerns given we were transporting prisoners who knew where we were keeping t...

[Vol.5] Ch.7 Procurement

For the first half of the month, I spent time growing a larger crystal to test how crystal size affects the effectiveness of the mana draining liquid.  I ran a few tests with smaller crystals, and had interesting results, which warranted growing a larger crystal for further extrapolation.  With smaller crystals, the length of time it took for them to break generally increased, until you reached about the medium size of the natural crystals.  Beyond that point, I had to increase...

[Vol.4] Ch.57 Castelet Marionnettes

By the morning a few information reports came in related to the troops that we had sent out as a distraction.  While they successfully drew away enemy troops also resulted in pretty bad losses due the sheer size of the enemy armies and due to lacking a significant amount of already prepared traps.  A little over one hundred troops were killed on our side.  After that, a few dark elves were sent out to deliver a letter to the enemy to schedule a meetup to discuss prisoner exchan...