Tyranomaster

[Vol.4] Ch.50 The Battle for Kembora Part 6

I'm pleasantly surprised to see our fort actually hold out longer than I expected it to.  I expected it to fall fairly quickly to the overwhelming size of the enemy force, but as things ended up working out, the enemy force took some time to properly land.  It took a little over ten minutes for each round trip of the row boats, which meant that it ended up taking almost three hours for all the enemy troops to make landfall.

It seems the enemy had made a second miscalculation b...

[Vol.4] Ch.42 Framed!

The classes at the academy went off without a hitch given the lower number of goblins I was teaching.  I did gather some very useful information about the nature of prestige and evolution that I wasn't expecting.  I hadn't really been thinking about the fact that the goblins wouldn't really know what they should consider useful or non-useful information, so it ended up taking this long to gain a key insight that I honestly should have been asking them about.

The open secret wa...

[Vol.4] Ch.49 The Battle for Kembora Part 5

After a few minutes, all the remaining ballistae on the first line of defense had been fired, and then destroyed.  Shortly after we retreated back about 100 yards to the next defensive line.  The second defensive line consists of five steam cannons armed with grapeshot, one armed with a large shell for a particularly tough target, and another fifteen ballistae.  Between the first line and the second line were more barricades and hidden pitfalls.  Given that many of the hid...

[Vol.4] Ch.41 Mangalloy

For the remaining eleven days until I start classes tomorrow, I decided to check in on all the various dwarves who have moved to the village and see how things are going with them, save for Boggs who I've been working with recently.  It had been a while since I'd interacted with a few of them, so I figured it would be good to check how they've been settling in.

Karsh's family is doing well, and it seems like they've been getting along well with Konkur's family.  Since they bot...

[Vol.4] Ch.48 The Battle for Kembora Part 4

If there is one upside to the fact that the attempted landing is going to happen imminently, it's that the invading fleet has halted their cannon fire.  Smooth bore cannons aren't really accurate enough to avoid friendly fire at these ranges, so at least we won't be dealing with getting shelled while we're fighting their troops.

That said, their four smallest ships are now at the point where they're running aground.  These ships have a slightly wider shape, and seem to be spec...

[Vol.4] Ch.40 Float Vine Harvesting

The first construction crew worked on extending the jetty for another twenty-eight days before they nearly caught up to where the float vines were cut to.  Their progress continued to slow due to both the distance that the rocks needed to be hauled now, and the added depth of the water requiring them to use more rocks for every foot of distance the jetty went out to the ocean.

The second construction crew also finished getting the road and second tunnel built, and has resumed build...

[Vol.4] Ch.47 The Battle for Kembora Part 3

Our artillery fire off another pair of shots at the flagship, landing one decent hit, and missing the second completely.  The flagship fires another blast back at our beach.  The shrapnel from the explosion pierces one of our pre-boiled steam cannons causing it to also rupture, sending even more shrapnel flying.  Thankfully, the rupture propels the majority of that boiler upward and outward towards the ocean and avoids causing any extra damage.

Our artillery fire off a sa...

[Vol.4] Ch.39 Fishing Jetty

I decided to bring up the idea of the fishing jetty to Zeb as a large construction project for them to consider making.  It should also be able to coincide with the need for access to the float vine that grows out from the island.  This project on its own will require significant amounts of stone, as the underwater slope moving out to sea is by no means shallow.  That's probably good though, as the population has started growing, we've actually been having issues keeping all of...

[Vol.4] Ch.46 The Battle for Kembora Part 2

As the morning dragged into mid-afternoon, all the boilers for cannons had been started, and I finished up all my checks in the fort on the beach.  Any moment we should start spotting the ships on the horizon.  In fact, I'd bet that the artillery embedded in the cliff can already see them.  I started pacing along the beach double checking our defenses.  I was anxious, as were most of the goblin troops.  The dwarven troops were more battle experienced, and even if they...

[Vol.4] Ch.38 Gone Fishing

The season is finally upon us.  The bargas' wool is ready for sheering, and the young male bargas have reached enough maturity for slaughter.  Thankfully, I'm not completely flying blind on the slaughter portion of this, since we now have Arat living here and working as a rancher.  I expect he'll also be a lot better at sheering them than I was, which hopefully will result in better yields.

Ultimately, I expect we'll have a significantly larger amount of wool this year as...

[Vol.4] Ch.45 The Battle for Kembora Part 1

The air raid sirens were the signal everyone had been anticipating for the past few weeks.  We had an entire year to practice and prepare our defenses, and the earie sound of the sirens coming from the mountain now are indicating that soon the battle will be upon us.  At three evenly spaced locations on the mountain, a few hundred feet below the cloud layer, we had built watch posts, each equipped with a simple telescope.  Every fifteen minutes for the past few weeks, someone h...

[Vol.4] Ch.37 Traits and Spells

Of the interesting information that I gleaned, there were a few abilities that I hadn't recorded before.  One I've dubbed 'Manavore' and seems to allow a supplement of the user's diet with mana.  There were two different individuals who showed up who had this perk, and both of them had similar stories that likely lead to gaining it.  They were both individuals who had been purposefully skipping meals occasionally to save money so that they could enjoy using the bathhouse more f...

[Vol.4] Ch.44 Final Plans

The detailed meeting took about half of the day to complete.  Many of the finer details were left to be planned later, but to prevent any extra suspicion among his soldiers Kao called the meeting to an end so that his group could return in a timely manner.  Kao said that we should expect his troops to return in a little over three weeks, and that he'll also give the go ahead for the Elven emissary, who has been waiting on their island, to travel to our island.  He had apparentl...

[Vol.4] Ch.36 Calendar

When I returned to the city with the coins, I realized it was only another ten days until I had to start running the academy again for two weeks.  There was already quite a bit of stockpiled stone down in the cavern that needed hauled out, but I figured that adding some more into the mix wouldn't be a bad idea.  We've finally reached the point of the year where we can get a handful of goblins working in the reservoir quarrying out new stone so we can start expanding our reservoir ag...

Sorry for the delay in bonus chapters

Hey everyone, sorry for the delay in bonus chapters.  I've been quite sick since December with a chronic cough.  Two separate antibiotic treatments and after both I've relapsed after recovering for a short time.  By now, I've already had my doctor's appointment today.  I had two chapters ready of the three bonus, but as I've repeatedly gotten sicker, I've had to dive back into that reserve just to keep chapters coming out on time.  I'm hoping that after my appointment...

[Vol.4] Ch.43 Battle Plans

"Then we should begin a strategy meeting now, as long as that is ok with you."  I say.

The dwarves briefly discuss the idea and then give consent to begin.

"I'm thinking that despite the numerical disadvantage, we do have other advantages that we should play into.  First, we have the advantage of secrecy and information.  The other side's plan is at least partially understood, whereas our plans should be easy to keep hidden.  Second, we're a mountainous volcani...

[Vol.4] Ch.35 A New Coin

All in all, I had about forty new goblins to teach at the academy.  As it turned out, I had to modify my curriculum after the first week was finished.  I've decided to merge the sixth day with the third day, so that all the evolution and prestige info is on one day.  I then moved day five to day six as it's the last day before we have the different trade jobs come in to demonstrate, and it was covering those trades as an overview.

Then, day four will be extended to also g...

[Vol.4] Ch.42 Framed!

The classes at the academy went off without a hitch given the lower number of goblins I was teaching.  I did gather some very useful information about the nature of prestige and evolution that I wasn't expecting.  I hadn't really been thinking about the fact that the goblins wouldn't really know what they should consider useful or non-useful information, so it ended up taking this long to gain a key insight that I honestly should have been asking them about.

The open secret wa...

[Vol.4] Ch.34 Class Schedule

I ended up spending 2 days inspecting the rock dams before I actually went up to the mountain.  While a few needed repairs or changes, it was significantly fewer than last year.  Given that the goblins working on the project had built even more dams, I considered it a success.  The few that did need repairs or changes were in peculiar locations where the normal behavior of the stream had changed so much from it's initial state that the need for changes was only apparent because...

[Vol.4] Ch.41 Mangalloy

For the remaining eleven days until I start classes tomorrow, I decided to check in on all the various dwarves who have moved to the village and see how things are going with them, save for Boggs who I've been working with recently.  It had been a while since I'd interacted with a few of them, so I figured it would be good to check how they've been settling in.

Karsh's family is doing well, and it seems like they've been getting along well with Konkur's family.  Since they bot...

[Vol.4] Ch.33 Glassmaking

Although we said we were going to hurry back to look at artificial minerals, we still did our due diligence and finished collecting samples from all the areas along the way back down the mountain from the cave.  By the time we got back, it was late enough that we agreed to wait until the next day for me to unveil the artificial minerals.

So, that night, I made a sample of the three artificial minerals I'd made in the past.  Lightstone, darkstone, and the redish-brown stone tha...

[Vol.4] Ch.40 Float Vine Harvesting

The first construction crew worked on extending the jetty for another twenty-eight days before they nearly caught up to where the float vines were cut to.  Their progress continued to slow due to both the distance that the rocks needed to be hauled now, and the added depth of the water requiring them to use more rocks for every foot of distance the jetty went out to the ocean.

The second construction crew also finished getting the road and second tunnel built, and has resumed build...

[Vol.4] Ch.32 Basic Mineralogy

I've decided to spend a bit of time working with Konkur to gain some insight into the mineralogy of the world, and how he's studying it.  For the first month or so of his time here, he was collecting samples from various locations.  I only recently took the time to enter his lab, and I was surprised to see many shelves all of which were stocked with various rocks with paper labels.  All of it appeared to be written in dwarvish, which means I can't read it.

I took the oppo...

[Vol.4] Ch.39 Fishing Jetty

I decided to bring up the idea of the fishing jetty to Zeb as a large construction project for them to consider making.  It should also be able to coincide with the need for access to the float vine that grows out from the island.  This project on its own will require significant amounts of stone, as the underwater slope moving out to sea is by no means shallow.  That's probably good though, as the population has started growing, we've actually been having issues keeping all of...

[Vol.4] Ch.31 Winter Work

While Shasta made the eight day round trip to Kao's island to pick up the immigrants, Karsh and I worked on getting all the metal smithed into the various metal items to send to Elora in exchange for their fungal crops.  Unfortunately, we hadn't quite filled the order by the time Shasta returned.  With the road on our island, her trip is much shorter than it was when Karsh first moved here, which overall is nice, but means we had less time than we needed to fill the order.  I'l...

[Vol.4] Ch.38 Gone Fishing

The season is finally upon us.  The bargas' wool is ready for sheering, and the young male bargas have reached enough maturity for slaughter.  Thankfully, I'm not completely flying blind on the slaughter portion of this, since we now have Arat living here and working as a rancher.  I expect he'll also be a lot better at sheering them than I was, which hopefully will result in better yields.

Ultimately, I expect we'll have a significantly larger amount of wool this year as...

[Vol.4] Ch.30 Shifting Attitudes

Later that day, I sat down with the merchant to handle our trade requests.  First, we traded some excess salt and fish, followed by the amount of ingots necessary to pay for another year of tutelage for the goblins learning to write in dwarvish.  Then I let Karsh and his family again make certain requests for goods from their homeland.  Now that they're quite settled in, I think I should probably talk with them about what their plans are for their children.  Do they intend...

[Vol.4] Ch.37 Traits and Spells

Of the interesting information that I gleaned, there were a few abilities that I hadn't recorded before.  One I've dubbed 'Manavore' and seems to allow a supplement of the user's diet with mana.  There were two different individuals who showed up who had this perk, and both of them had similar stories that likely lead to gaining it.  They were both individuals who had been purposefully skipping meals occasionally to save money so that they could enjoy using the bathhouse more f...

[Vol.4] Ch.29 The Elven Emissary Part 2

"I'm thankful you've shared all this info with us.  We don't get much news from the outside, and given our relative youth as a country, our knowledge of the world is quite lacking.  However, as you've been so open with us, I feel it fair to be open with you.  Feel free to ask any questions you might have.  I've been the only one asking questions so far after all."  I say, while lowering my shoulders to try to relax myself somewhat.

"I do have a few questions, so...

[Vol.4] Ch.36 Calendar

When I returned to the city with the coins, I realized it was only another ten days until I had to start running the academy again for two weeks.  There was already quite a bit of stockpiled stone down in the cavern that needed hauled out, but I figured that adding some more into the mix wouldn't be a bad idea.  We've finally reached the point of the year where we can get a handful of goblins working in the reservoir quarrying out new stone so we can start expanding our reservoir ag...