Today, Zaka should arrive. Other soaked liquid tests weren't as successful as the initial one. Non-bark wood behaved simirly to the bark wood, if a little less viscous. Other pnts didn't seem to produy meaningful results or iing effects. So, for today, we've got some of the boiled bark water set up so that Zaka experiehat as well.

  A little ter iernoon, Zaka and oher goblin arrive. This time they didn't bring ara meat with them. Acc to Zaka, they didn't have excess meat this time, so they didn't bring any. Not a big deal, but we've gotten a little used to having free meat up here, so its going to be a little weird going back to a pletely vegetable diet for a little while. Not long after he arrives, we show him and the oblin down to the crystal tank, and show him briefly how to use it. I myself am ied in just how much mana this crystal stores. I haven't tried fully draining it, having spent my time testing other aspects of the intermediary liquids instead.

  So, today will be a bit of an introductory test of the full ste capacity. I have Zaka submerge his whole arm iank, and warn him not to actually touch the crystal inside. Afterwards, he start casting. I also have si a small propeller iank with some axles and gears to let us just turn a k to keep the inside of the tank somewhat turbulent. Zeb will be in charge of turning that while I keep t of the fireballs.

  Zaka gets through his first 15 fireballs ihan ten seds. Then the pace slows down to a fireball every few seds. Which is to be expected, sihe regen rate isn't nearly as fast as actually toug a crystal, but it's still faster than surface passive regen. We keep going though, and the seds turn to minutes. As the minutes drag on, it has gotten noticeably warm in the cave. We've long since passed 300 fireballs so far, and the resulti has spread throughout the area.

  After what feels like forever, the crystal has finally depleted. 419 Fireballs. That is signifitly more fireballs than st time. Its so warm in the area now that we all quickly agree to head back up to the surface right away. Zaka is impressed by our ability to find a way around the previous issue of injuring ourselves with the crystal, although he's slightly disappointed by the non-instantaneous recharging he enjoyed with previous crystals.

  I suppose, in theory, if you submerged yourself in a well circuted bath with the crystal submerged nearby, you could probably get some pretty fast regen. Of course, you'd still have to return to the location of the bath, but it would probably beat waiting a long time to recharge a rge amount of mana.

  After a short rest, Zaka and the oblin head back down the mountain, carrying more lightstone again. ime we see each other, Zeb and I will be returning to the vilge for the winter.

  We let the crystal recharge ht, and today, we're giving it a repeat test of yesterday's full draining. This time, I'll be calg the actual mana value of the crystal based on my own mana usage. Given the slower rate, there isn't a reason for me to just use earth spike, so instead, I'll be using mana to do various stone-shaping tasks. We've brought dowy of buckets of material for making lightstone, as well as the metal ore to break down. If I happen to finish all of it before we run the crystal out, then I'll use earth spike to drain the rest out.

  Yesterday's test resulted in lots of lightstone and crushed ore. I did end up usih spike to drain quite a bit of mana as well. The total mana the crystal held was 20,215. Which puts it at more than 16 times the capacity of a crystal half the height. Which seems to indicate that the crystal's mana ste increases with the fourth power of its height. Sine increases with the third power retive to height, there must be ara factor involved in just how much mana a crystal store. This crystal is a little over two feet tall. The crystal size I wao check is three feet, after seeing if this one survive making it's way to the surfabsp; Of course, I'd still o put it into a tainer, so if it breaks down, we don't lose all the material, and moving it while in a tainer means I'll o finish the rail and cart system in the cave. Given all of that, I o get finished with the projects I have that are waiting.

  It's been just over two weeks of work, and the cart system is now finished up, plete with carts that use wooden block brakes. They aren't perfect, but it gives the whole system extra resistao at least not runaway on the way down into the cave. The hard part is pushing the cart up from the cave. I'm not certain this will be useful for ahout stone shaping, since when I get tired while pushing, I use stone shape to pletely stop the cart. At the very least, they should be useful for me.

  For the mountain, there is a better solution that isn't possible in the cave. The cave has too many twists and turns, so we're limited to actually pushing. On the mountain though, we make long straightaways such that winch systems could be set up with thick rope. Then even heavy carts could be winched up by anyone, and likewise lowered. I'm gd I'm thinking about this now, rather than after we build more of the stairway down the mountain. This way, we keep it in mind, and ph more deliberately to keep the slope shallow.

  While I'd like to see if the crystal survives the surfaow, I still o wait until the end of the month to check the efficacy of the aged boiled bark water. So, instead, I'll be finishing the terrace area outside for colleg water, along with the drainage from the nearby area. With ara time, I'd also like to start to pn out the path down the mountain, so any future stair work is productive. We'll start with a ndihe cave entrance so that carts easily be loaded and unloaded there. Which means our existing stair work is probably wasted, si was following the old path that the goblins took up and down the mountain, which from my own experience is already too steep to run carts alongside.

  Another 10 days, and I've got the outside finished up to collect water for future use as needed. All that excess stone has been piled up for now, since we have yet to start pnning out the new path down the mountain. However, we're at the point right now where I'm ready to test the aged bark water.

  As luck would have it, if there is a differen its performaer a month, it's too small for me to notice without a precise clobsp; Which is a nice boon. It'd be unfortunate if it required new batches all the time.

  After we this up, we'll start putting things away for winter. Then with the remaining time, we start trying to plot a new path down the mountain, although I doubt we'll make it that far in the remaining four days before we head back down to the goblin vilge ourselves.

  Well, we've done quite a bit of pathfinding. We try to keep roughly to the existing path, since we know that leads back down, but we've had to e up with a lot of alternative routes. Thankfully, if you want to reduce the slope along a mountainside, if you just travel more terally, that will reduce the vertical distaravelled. Since we're already pnning on building stairs, what this is actually going to entail is cutting some of the mountai to make a ft path. Then, by zig-zagging along the mountaiually keep to the inal path to some degree. Then we actually cut sedary stairs that have a higher slope up a more direct path between the zig-zagging cart path in pces where it is possible to do so.

  This whole thing is a huge endeavor though. We've started putting stoakes into the ground at ends of zig-zags, so we mark the future path, even if we 't see one from the other due to pnts in the way. We've only marked the path down to about a third of the way down now. The hope is that this is below the snow line, so that we keep w on this over the winter. I myself will be quite busy with building the dam, but while I'm waiting for my mana tee, I'm hoping to keep the project going.

  While I drive a stake into the mountainside, I hear some rustling from a little ways away. I cautiously approach, and run into Zaka and oher goblin. He's a little surprised to run into me this far down, and since Zeb is up at the top of the mountain, we're not able to easily unicate, but I draw a crude picture on a stoablet to approximately show him we're trying to mark a new path down the mountain.

  After we meet back up with Zeb, Zeb expins what we're w on in more detail before we gather our things, close our doors and windows up, and pack ourselves with as much lightstone as we before starting the return path down to the vilge.