Another eleven days of hard work, and I've got the remaining houses finished, as well as Kaga's ste shed behind his workshop. Now that I've finished up all the outstanding works that needed finished in the vilge, I o tinker with making a stone plug valve. Until I get plug valves figured out, I don't want to start w on the dam for the reservoir.

  To test plug valve designs, I'm going to build a mini-dam iream and embed the test valves in it. I won't be able to fully test the pressure capacity of these though, so I'm going to have to build them extra thibsp; Right now, as much as I'd like to say I have enough lightstoo make plenty of valves, I actually probably only have enough here to build the two lowest valves for the dam. As preparation for designing these valves, I've done some napkin math on the flow rate through the valves at various heights.

  Based oh, I actually should be able to build the whole dam with just the bottom valve initially. When that valve is open, even if the entire reservoir is filled, it won't be releasing too much water and flood the vilge. So we build the dam with just the bottom two valves for now, and the whole system will help smooth out any heavy rains or snow melt, and hopefully prevent any fsh floods. Now, for the reservoir to also provide a more useful fun of steady, regur flow, it'll he various heights of valves, so the height inside be easily reguted. Either way, the first step to this is to design the rgest plug valve first.

  Six days of experimenting and I think I've e up with a design that I'm fortable with for the rgest valve. Getting the valve to be retively watertight was the hardest part, followed by the gears necessary to actually opehing, si's se. The issue is actually going to be hauling it up to the dam site. I know Kaga is pretty strong, so I might trade him some new lightstoools in exge for helping me haul this up to the dam, after I dismahe small test dam in the levee. Then, the step of work is going to be actually building the dam, which is going to take quite a while.

  Well, after taking a half day to make the tools to trade to Kaga in exge for him helping us haul this valve up to the dam, I spent the hree weeks just w on the dam most of the day. Mana really is the limiting factor in the work so far. Both Zeb and I run out, then haul the blocks we cut over to the area for the dam, then re-fuse them into the dam shape once we're re-charged. This leaves us with multiple break times each day, which I've taken to using the time to start cutting trees down along the path we've decided to mark for stru of the future path up the mountain. I've felled quite a few of the trees, which I've since handed off to Kaga "In exge for a future favor."

  Ahing I've instructed the goblins to do is store all their wood ash from their cooking fires. I don't know yet if the wood is exactly the same as ba earth, but if it is at least simir, then it makes a caustic solution in water, which is a necessary step to makiher. I used a bit of mana one evening to make a shovel for them, and then a few bins down in their ste area to store the ash.

  As for Zeb, he's been spending his break times in the vilge talking with various goblins and w with them. Acc to him, the goblins that have the hide and basket shops showed some aptitude, and then Zaka approached them with things he described that he remembered from his home try. They basically had to rediscover the methods for them though, since he didn't know how they were made, only that they existed. In the evenings he's been helping some of the goblins by making things from stone for them. He doesn't have nearly as rge of a mana pool as I do, but he's been making some small things eaight for them.

  As for the dam itself, we're almost at 5' tall across the length of it, so it's time for me to start designing the valve. This time, it should be a much faster process since I have a w idea of what I o do. The bottom of the dam is by far the thickest part as well, so stru should actually speed up a little as we get higher on the dam. The first valve is already installed, ao open. The reservoir doesn't yet have the stream redirected into it, but water that rains on part of its side of the valley collects into it, and then runs out through the valve, so I've at least gotten to see that the valve seems to be funing in the open state without clogging. After the dam is plete, I'll have to also redirect the stream into the reservoir, which will take a little work, but I don't want to do that until I've got the sed valve installed at least, so I won't have to worry about topping of the dam happening while I'm w on it.

  Another 18 days of w on the dam, and we're now up to 12 feet high in total. The sed valve is installed, and I've put a temporary blo where the valve will go, and I'll keep putting blocks in the rest of the to the top of the dam. I've started digging the dirt out of the way for the new path of the stream to eventually flow into the reservoir so we redirect it wheime es. Soon I'll have cut all the stone I want to from the bottom of the reservoir, so I'll redirect the stream at that point.

  I've cut quite a few more trees now, and its actually being too many for the goblins to handle all of them. Its well beyond what Kaga himself use for anything. So he's getting his pick of the best wood, and the rest is just being piled up outside of the vilge. If I get the time, I'll make a charcoal kiln down here, but if I don't get the ce, well, then I guess at some point it all just be burned. Before that happens though, I'd like to strip the bark off and store it separate. There are a few more uses for the bark than the wood itself, so havira would be nibsp; Betweeer for crystal energy transfer, aual leather produ, bark is pretty useful.

  I doubt I'm going to build all the stairs this year anyway, so I suppose I focus my dowivities on processing all this wood from this point on.

  Three more weeks, and we're now up to 20 feet on the dam. I've redirected the stream to now flow down into the dam. It took a little bit more effort than I thought it would, because I ended up needing to use stoo reinforce the embahat redirects the stream. A somewhat heavy rainstorm revealed that the dirt I'd packed down to funally redirect it wasn't enough. Now the whole thing is redirected the couple hundred yards through a reinforced emba into the reservoir. For now, the bottom of the reservoir barely has any water in it, si runs out through the bottom valve, which makes ing it out easy when any debris washes down into the dam.

  I've also stripped the bark from most of the hundred or so trees that we had cut down that Kaga didn't want. That itself was a lot of work, and I've stored as much of it as I iorehouse. The storehouse is actually starting to get kind of full, so I 't store much of the bark down there. As much as I'd like to just build more ste space for things like this, right now it's terproductive. Maybe at some point I'll dig out an ste building, but right now, it just isn't worth it. The best thing I could do is just build a covered area outside the walls to pile up things like the trees and bark under. That'll eat a few more days off dam work, but it's better than the month or more aire building and underground ste area would take, and will extend the life of the wood and bark piled up out there signifitly.

  Its also only a few weeks until the snow melts again, and Zeb and I return back up to our workshop up on the mountain. While we could return after the snow melts, I think we'll wait a little bit just like st year, and give the pnts that on the mountain some time to grow before we start pig them to eat. Thankfully, we haven't had any goblins die i few months, so Zaka doesn't feel the o return immediately to summon more imps either. After we talked to him about it, he said he might summon some at some point this year, sihe vilge has the space for them, although he probably won't summon many more, because they only hunt so much food at once.

  I hadn't thought much about it, but they really don't do any farming, or fishing. Maybe when the dam is done, I might look iher of those processes. I'm not pleased with the idea of Zaka summoning imps all the time, but if the goblins keep expanding out their industries, I'm sure they'll be even more useful. Hypothetically, I already get wood crafts from them, hide clothing, and baskets. I also get food while I'm here from Zaka for w ohings I'm doing, plus he brings excess up while we're w on the mountain, which has been a big help.