The st three days have bee digging out the other major points of i from the survey. he two yer ges that I identified before. The rge ohe entrance revealed a less deone which seemed to be posed of a rger pertage of lightstohat I was w with before. Initially I wasn't sure if it was lightstone or just a simir color, but after doing some manual separation, and doing some basic tests like density and hardness, it seems to just be lightstone. Of course there are other minerals mixed in as well that I did some basic tests on.

  The other minerals that aren't lightstone in the mix sadly didn't seem to have aer properties than the lightstoself for any of the purposes I currently have. The only bit that was of i of the minerals mixed in that stone was some reddish-brown toone, although it was softer than lightstone, but the color could at least be used to expand the color of things I make with stone. There is a det ce of that happening as well, since I'll probably be using this stoo make lightstone from now on.

  The sed yer ge that I ied was less immediately useful, but I suspect it might be valuable. The yer seems posed of a very dark, fine-grained robsp; The bit that I picked up in the survey actually seems to tinue for a while, and I just barely picked up a bulge in the yer with teise before. The rock itself is softer than lightstone, but what makes it unique is its density. It's very dense. So dehat I suspect it might be very metal ribsp; Now what metal it's ri, I 't tell. I'd need aire smeltery to figure that out. While it could be useful, it could also be a dud. I've put it on a list of things to look into iure, but for now I won't work on it.

  As fht now, I'm actually getting close to breag the rgest bubble I detected from the survey. The ohat overpped three of the survey points that has crystals in it. I'm only a foot or so from breag the bubble itself now, and I'm being careful as I work to give myself plenty of room in case of any emergenbsp; The small bubbles I've run into before haven't been an issue, but you never know.

  As I get even closer to breaking into the bubble, suddenly, a bit of the rock between the bubble and me cracks, and starts hissing. My initial fear is that there is gas leaking from it. Before I leave I want to at least see how much pressure there is, so I move my hand in front of the crabsp; I'm surprised by the fact that I don't feel any gasses moving. I move my hand on top of the crack, and feel a slight su forbsp; I guess there isn't esg gas then, but ihere is a vacuum in the bubble. I open the hole more to help the bubble be filled with air.

  After a bit, the air stops filling into the rge bubble. I open the he enough to fit into the bubble. The bubble itself is quite massive. I picked it up on three different survey points, so I k would be big, but it's nearly 30 feet in diameter, and all along the edges, crystals are embedded in the walls. While most of them are small, some closer to the bottom are actually detly sized, including ohat is probably 2er than the rgest I've seen so far. All things sidered, it was a somewhat fruitful endeavor excavating this bubble. I grab the extra rge crystal, and leave the bubble and head bay house, dropping the crystal off in the charging room. Given the crystal that I found in that bubble, I think I'll look through the other crystal bubbles from the survey as well.

  Well, the other 28 bubbles with crystals took ten days to dig into, and while many had vacuums of varying degrees, it seems like the smaller the bubble, the less the vacuum. The size of the bubble also seemed to limit the crystal sizes as well, as none of the other bubbles had any giant crystals in them, which made it a bit of a disappoi. I did get some medium sized ones, and there are tons of small and tiny crystals in them, but I left them in pbsp; Tomorrow, Zaka is going to return, so I've been busy ing up the cavern for most of today in preparation. I'll also o finish making some lightstone bricks to send back with Zaka and the goblins.

  Zaka's visit went by fairly fast, and he left with three new goblins. It seems like the vilge is doing fine, although apparently one of the new goblins was killed by a lizard again, so Zaka is a little frustrated by that. He's apparently debating going out with the huo try to deal with any nearby lizards he find. I 't really bme him when the lizards keep killing goblins like they have been since I've known them. I wish him the best of luck as he leaves, ahem off, each carrying a lightstone brick t back to the vilge.

  As for projects to work on, I've decided that I will build a furnace up here. Since I have copper anyway, it'll help with shaping that, and I also try to find out if that rock is actually a viable metal ore or not. Of course, first Zeb and I will be dealing with the dead imps. I also o expand the e area to hold more wood, extra stone, and ores.

  I'll also o make a charcoal kiln to vert the wood into charcoal, which will be necessary to actually heat a fe to high enough temperatures to melt metals down. All these strus will actually take quite a while, and while I'm at it, I'll need more wood, so I'll start the process of cutting down some trees. I'll probably let Zeb cut some of them down as well so he gain some levels.

  The charcoal kiln didn't take long to make. If my memory serves me, it should work, otherwise I'll o make some adjustments. A charcoal kiln is basically made by burning wood in an oxygen poor enviro, so you just start the wood burning, then close off all the oxygen, and wait for the process to end. Thanks to stone shaping, the stru didn't actually take all that long for it, only two days. It's fairly rge, with the inside being slightly taller than me, so I easily pile the wood up i. It has a hole at the top, and a few holes along the side. I've made plugs that be used to close the side holes, as well as a rger plug for the top hole, and a set of stairs up to the top hole. Unfortunately, I don't have quite enough wood yet without pletely depleting my stores of wood, so it'll be a little while before I start a bat it. Plus, it has still been raining a lot, so I'll o let the wood dry out in the cave for a little while before I use it anyway.

  It's been another six days, and I've fashioned a crude fe to use for basic metal heating aing in an area just beside my house built into the mountainside. The fe isn't actually that rge, si's manpower operated. The feature I'm most proud of for it is a k and gear operated impeller to drive extra air into the fe to drive the fire temperature up. Some basic testing without any fire though led to some modifications of the design, and the inclusion of a flywheel as part of the design. In practice, keeping a stant stream of air with just a k was quite hard, so the flywheel helps to make the airflow more steady, albeit making it harder to initially get up to speed.

  I'm still a ways from getting the ste area expao the level I want it at however. I've been ing w on it in favor of these more iing projects, but now I really do o get it finished, so I'll be fog on that . A big part of the problem with expanding the ste area is getting rid of the extra stone produced. I'm thinking that I might actually start building that stairway down the mountain back to the goblin vilge as a way to get rid of the excess stone. It won't make it very far, but it's better than adding to the rubble pile that I already have.