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>>2815813
There is something intrinsically calming in the village life when everything is nominal. Children are now playing instead of slaving away at the farm, villagers are happy and wear actual clothes instead of tattered rags and the food is tasty and varied. You've finally managed to even use the bed you've made and you almost forgot what luxury it is to have running water. During the recent thunderstorm the storm drain and roads performed spectacularly. It was nice to walk on paved road instead of ankle deep mud.

The village had a visit from a curious merchant who has sold several rolls of fabric for some rest, food and a few high quality bronze tools. Blacksmith Conrad has started spending more time with his daughter. It was nice to see him teaching his daughter how to forge. Pelagia is also improving pretty fast. Her skill now allows her to consistently forge good quality bronze and copper tools.

Rheia turned to be a natural learner. She quickly understood mathematics and she already knew quite a lot from her mother and the village chief. You managed to bring her to an equivalent of a sixth grade within just a couple of weeks. At that rate she should catch up with the standard school program by the end of the year. She has also expressed her wishes to learn more about combat. You decided to provide her with a hunting bow and a knife and give her a few lessons on self defense. You were quite surprised when she received a bronze breastplate from Pelagia. She was experimenting with armor crafting and decided to make one for Rheia. It doesn't cover her below ribs but it is not like she could get into much trouble with you around, right?

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>>2815816
To your limitless gratitude your lost teeth seem to be regenerating. It will take a couple more weeks but at least you don't have to invent dental cement or teeth prothesis for yourself. Out of all the villagers only one has a time sensitive serious condition. The man who has a broken arm. You have finally managed to gave a good look at it. It seems to be broken in several locations and the shards are slightly misaligned with the bone. This means that his arm won't heal without surgery and the most low tech you can do it is through Ilizarov apparatus. Aka steel spikes going through the arm to fixate the individual bones in place for easier healing. The man seems to be in pretty serious pain on the regular as there are no painkillers in the village. You bought yourself some time by realigning shards with telekinesis but you need to fix it this month or it would be much harder to do in the future.

In any case, it is not like it is the first thing you should do. Let's choose what we shall do next?

>Taxes. We need to pay with copper and there is not enough stockpiled to do so. There is also a cave which you've sealed that stretched too far to see. It could be dangerous but you are curious and want some adventure.
>Medicine. Ok this broken bone can't wait. You have the scalpel and wire but you need alcohol, antibiotics, painkillers, anesthetic and the metal harness. There are many options where you could get those...
>Projects. That giant bow gave you an idea, it is about time to get into other power sources and you could also try to learn how to fly
>Industry. Let's build a glass kiln, or maybe a blast furnace? New materials open possibilities for more sophisticated solutions and projects
>Social. Let's hang out with the villagers a bit longer. They surely have some problems or requests
>Adventure. You have explored only the immediate area around the village. Who knows what you can find beyond?
>Other ideas?

>>2815822
>Medicine. Ok this broken bone can't wait. You have the scalpel and wire but you need alcohol, antibiotics, painkillers, anesthetic and the metal harness. There are many options where you could get those...

>>2815822
>>Medicine. Ok this broken bone can't wait. You have the scalpel and wire but you need alcohol, antibiotics, painkillers, anesthetic and the metal harness. There are many options where you could get those...

>>2815822
>>Medicine. Ok this broken bone can't wait. You have the scalpel and wire but you need alcohol, antibiotics, painkillers, anesthetic and the metal harness. There are many options where you could get those...

it's the only time sensitive thing.

I'd like to explore later though

>>2815844
>>2815843
>>2815833
Writing

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>>2815893
The broken arm problem is highly time sensitive. The more you wait the more the bones heal and the harder it would be to reassemble them into correct places. However the solution requires a surgery. There is a reason why surgery in middle ages killed more often that bullet wounds. You need a lot of components: A sterile environment, tools, metal Ilizarov apparatus harness, antibiotics, alcohol, anesthetic, painkillers and so on. Luckily your survival knife has a miniature scalpel inside and you can use telekinesis instead of pincers. Others are much bigger problem.

Let's start with the easiest part. Alcohol. If we fail to find anesthesia we can just booze the person up for the operation and they would partially prevent the infection. Alcohol can be made out of almost any kind of plant through distillation. A crafty person can find a way to get alcohol literally anywhere where it is possible to live unassisted on Earth. You've heard stories of people extracting alcohol out of vegetables, pure sugar, cosmetics and even industrial solvents. The process is simple. Introduce certain bacteria such as yeast into the material, let it rot for a bit and then distill it. In certain cases it takes less than a week for the entire process.

The problem is how and where you'd like to do it. You could build a dedicated brewery in the village but it has consequences. Both good and bad. You could put a distillery inside your lab or cellar but you would be limited with output. It would however limit the spread of alcohol among the villagers. The nation has no limit on alcoholic beverages but it seems that the most potent thing they have is watered down vine or ale and public intoxication is... not endorsed. However what you are about to unleash is quite a lot more potent.

Let's see what options we have for this...
>Construct the brewery with distillation apparatus. It would be a good potential source of income in the long run
>Construct small distillery and brewery in the labs. This should limit the supply
>Construct only a distillery. Purchase some alcohol from the town. Potentially faster but not sustainable.
>Other ideas?

>>2815937
>Construct only a distillery. Purchase some alcohol from the town. Potentially faster but not sustainable.
speed is of essence!

>>2815937
>Construct only a distillery. Purchase some alcohol from the town. Potentially faster but not sustainable.

>>2815937
>>2815937
>>Construct the brewery with distillation apparatus. It would be a good potential source of income in the long run

make both but purchase the alcohool for the first batch since time is important

>>2815958
This

>>2815958
That option is pretty much building a whole building for the distillation tho.

>>2815964
I actually changed my mind

>Construct small distillery and brewery in the labs. This should limit the supply


I don't want to be the one to introduce hard liquor to the villagers

>>2815987
this way we can give some ale around but they won't have access to vodka and the likes

I'm confused.

Will the destilary only produce alcohool or booze too?

>>2816002
Distillery converts booze into hard liquor. Brewery makes booze. The industrial process for vodka would be potatoes=>brewery=>distillery=>product

>>2815937
I'm sorry for making this confusiong. It seems that the consensus is to make both a brewery and a distillery in the labs and then purchase some local alcohol to speed up the first batch. Writing.

>>2816030
As much as I would like it to be this way I think my option lost dear qm

>>2815945
>>2815949

both this anons voted for only the destilary, but I still would like it to be made in our lab to limit suply

>>2816032
Oh right, my bad. I try to incorporate all votes that don't interfere in one solution. People seem to want to build it in the lab. We have two votes for distillery, one vote on both in separate building and one vote to build both in the lab. I will make us plan a cellar brewery but build a distillery first and boost the process through buying a keg of local booze. Basically option three with plans for option two

>>2816039
Distillation is a pretty simple process. Basically boil the liquid in a sealed container with a pipe going into a separate container. There are some fancy things like cooled condensers but it doesn't get too far beyond that. You'd like a way to process everything on hand, but the faster you get the alcohol the better. Thus you shelf the plan for a miniature cellar brewery until after the problem is solved and construct only the distillation apparatus.
To accelerate the process you can't just wait for potatoes to rot. The easiest solution is to sprint to the nearby town and purchase a keg filled with average quality wine. After pushing it through distillery you get probably the first brandy in the last thousand years or so. It tastes pretty okay but you are not finished. By distilling it repeatedly you have managed to achieve alcohol concentration comparable to medical spirit. This should suffice for sterilization purposes. By making this trip you shaved off almost a week of time.

Now the next biggest problem is antibiotics. There are a few ways to make them. There is an option to mess with chemical synthesis and get sulfur antibiotics. It is a complicated process but all you technically need is to get some hydrochloric acid. All other ingredients are on hand.

You could alternatively create a microscope and find penicillin. After that it is just a process of growing and processing it. It should be one of the molds and there was some gone off food in the copper mining camp.

The last but not least option is... your "blood". When damaged your organism produces a hot gel which among many things contains antibiotics and specialized bacteriophages. Most potent option but it will require quite some animal testing to determine a dose that won't kill a person.

>Sulfur antibiotic
>Penicillin
>Transhuman blood
>Skip(increases risk of infection)
>Other?

>>2816078
>>Sulfur antibiotic
but if we can't find the acid I settle for
>Penicillin

>>2816078
>Penicillin
Spoider cave, spoider cave, does whatever spider cave does.

>>2816107
We can do all of those. They justrequire different things and have different byproducts and events. Like for example sulfur antibiotics need basic electrolysis while penicillin has an option to go and see the cave whle you're at it while also having to make lenses.

>>2816108
This,
I want to go back to that cave alone and fuck up those spiders anyway

>>2816132
Also, going there to search for penicilin might solve our tax problem with dealing with the spiders and securing that copper

>>2816132
>>2816108
>>2816107
Penicilin time. Let's roll

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>>2816179
Penicillin. This medication saved hundreds of thousands of people. A drug made by a form of common fungus that can be cultivated and extracted to produce a highly effective antibiotic. In two thousand years of fuckall bacteria should have lost any resistance to it due to bacteriophage resistance being incompatible with antibiotic resistance.

To find it you would still have to get a microscope unfortunately. Your eyes are capable of limited "zoom" but they are not yet powerful enough to observe individual cells. It took you almost two days to extract two fitting pieces of clear quartz and polish them into the lenses. It was a daunting task and you should probably invest into glassmaking within near future if you want some actual chemical and medical tools.

With the mobile lab assembled, armor equipped and cart ready you are prepared to set off. However before you've left Rheia proposes to join you for the trip. Uhh...

>This is too dangerous for her. You have some plans for exploring that sealed cave and she could get in trouble
>Okay she can join. You'll have to visit the cave later
>Okay she can join. You'll have to keep an eye on her at all times though
>Other?

>>2816257
>>Okay she can join. You'll have to keep an eye on her at all times though

I know it's a bad idea but, I want her to learn

>>2816257
>Okay she can join. You'll have to keep an eye on her at all times though

>>2816257
>Okay she can join. You'll have to keep an eye on her at all times though
Let's teach her some combat like she asked.


How old are we qm? I mean, how old were we when we got into the pod?

>>2816311
We were 25 or so. We passed the university with master's degree and worked for a couple years. Rheia is 16. She is going to get 17 in a month. She looks younger than she is due to malnourishment but she will catch up in roughly two years.

>>2816311
>>2816297
>>2816295
Writing

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>>2816387
Very well, she can join you. However she will have to be close and you will need to watch her carefully. Rheia looks really happy and jumps on the cart. An hour of telekinetic pulling later the two of you end up at the entrance to the mine. On the way back you are going to collect a lot of ore so that you can pay the tax. Killing two birds with one stone.

The mine is sealed from the miner's room and you have to float down into the spider cave. After a careful investigation it seems that all spiders have died and rotten away. The cave has no other entrances and it seems that spiders were sealed inside of it until someone broke through. This is weird as they would have to hibernate for centuries for such thing to work. Fascinating creatures, shame they are no longer salvageable below all that rubble.

In any case, you gain access to the moldy food and pull it to the surface for analysis. It takes you about an hour to find it.. and then another and another. They are all the same type but different strains of penicillin mold. Goddamnit. You now remember, there are different strains of it and each has different production rates of the penicillin. You would have to test them all and cultivate the most successful version. Oh well, into the storage the samples go.

A simple spirit powered lantern allows for quite a lot of light so that Rheia can actually see in there. It has enough fuel for a couple hours. You don't need it. As you've discovered you can see not only in low light conditions but somehow in complete darkness too. It is hard to see small objects and everything is of the same color but still it is super useful. You wonder what the hell is it. Maybe a biological millimeter range radar?

In any case you excavate the tunnel and the two of you enter the cavern. The path stretches down and wide. The rock here is made mainly out of basalts meaning that the walls are pitch black. You wonder how the hell did it form...

>Roll me a 1d20

Rolled 4 (1d20)

>>2816459

Rolled 2 (1d20)

>>2816459

Rolled 1 (1d20)

>>2816459

>>2816475
>>2816476
>>2816484

welp, let's see what ancient danger we woke up with these rolls

>>2816484
>>2816476
>>2816475
Writing

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>>2816533
You didn't expect that... After an hour of walking it turned out that the entire cave system is not just huge. It is mind boggling. It leads in every direction through hundreds of tunnels. Some are no larger than pores while others are wide enough for two of your carts to move through simultaneously. The walls are made out of various magmatic materials but they lack any interesting minerals.

In one of the tunnels you barely notice something... It is a cave lit up by a strange blue light. The cave is at an angle down and as you approach it your senses ring an alarm. Sulfur. This is a pool of natural sulfuric acid! anyone stupid enough to come closer would die from harmful gasses in the area. You manage to stop Rheia just in time. The area has some interesting mushrooms which glow pretty light blue light but it is kind of way too far into the danger zone so you note the location and get the hell out of there. After this close call you make Rheia wear your gas mask. It has a light in it and it would have her from gas related risks.

After some more walking you have found something curious. A huge crack leading into abyss. The other side has massively weathered out stone columns and there are remains of a stone bridge. Upon further inspection it became apparent that the bridge was purposefully blown up. With actual explosives. The path deeper seems to have been collapsed and on the other side there is a skeleton of a person covered in thick rusty armor. Was he closing the bridge from what is here... or there...

You start walking back as you are almost out of spirit to run the lamp. However in one of the small tunnels you discover a camp of sorts. The fire was active recently but it was stomped out in a hurry and the camp is empty. Whoever made it had to run away as the backpack and tools are still inside...

>investigate. You have your senses and Rheia has a gasmask lamp
>leave it be, you have had enough of adventures for today

>>2816490
Luckily for you it was not an active encounter. Yet.

>>2816632
>>investigate. You have your senses and Rheia has a gasmask lamp

>>2816665
Looks like only one vote. Ok then. Writing

>>2816780
Sorry m8, was making dinner.

My vote would be the same though

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>>2816780
You carefully approach the camp. The fire is only smoldering and is obviously destroyed by being repeatedly hit with the boot. There are several steps leading into one of the tunnels. You peek into the tunnel and it seems to be a long U shaped dead end. A silhouette can be seen at its deep end frantically trying to find an exit. They look human and the shape is vaguely female, or at least that's what it looks like from the distance in extreme low light conditions.

A thought comes to you. She is probably not running away from you since your footsteps are pretty quiet and you've been carrying Rheia for a while. That means she is probably being followed by something or someone. Thus you investigate the area. There are several dead end tunnels and a couple leading into the darkness... until you detect a shape in one of the tunnels and a similar but weaker telepathic sensation coming from there.

Rheia also feels it and glances her light into that direction and WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU. You are met face to face with several humanoids. Each of them is charcoal black and is emitting weird black mist around them. Their eyes and some regions of skin reflect red light making them look really ominously. They have noticed you and you really don't like inhumanly wide smiles on their faces...

You feel intense fear coming from Rheia. You seem to be immune to the effect though but she won't be helpful in a fight.

Roll a 1d20 for the encounter!

>BOOK IT
>Forcefully grab that scared person with telekinesis and book it
>"Hey, friendly?"
>"Stay back! If you come any closer I will have to defend myself!"
>Telekinetically fling a stone in their direction
>Force push into the corridor
>Arm telekinetic crush

>>2816851
>>Forcefully grab that scared person with telekinesis and book it
and Rheia too

>>2816851
>"Hey, friendly?"
If they don't respond or act agressively we do
>>2816884
I would like to fight, but it's too dangerous with these two around

>>2816896
>>2816884
Writing

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>>2817042
"Halt. Who are you and what do you want?" you tell to the creatures to which they start cackling louder and louder. It is incredibly creepy and psi waves are increasing in power. Rheia is no longer capable of doing anything else but gripping tightly with her eyes closed. As the creature mouths open you manage to focus in the weak light well enough to see them better. They appear somewhat like zombies. They look like pitch black skeletal frames with dark grey skin stretched on them. Many holes can be seen through which whatever that red reflective substance is can be seen. Their teeth, however, are obviously not human. It is as if all of them are canines. Sharp and distinct.

You decide that this situation validates a nope response. The way their jaws unhinge and snap back in place during cackling just makes it not worth the trouble. Thus you focus your powers and pick up the scared woman in the dead end with powerful telekinesis and book it as fast as you can. The creatures give chase!

Luckily they are not ethereal or anything. You calculate the path with the most twists and turns while carrying both of your companions and you lose these monsters in the tunnels. Smart telekinesis application helps quite a bit on the sharp turns preventing momentum loss. You decide that it is not a time to stop and run all the way to the surface where you pile into the miner's room and cram a bunch of large rocks into the path blocking it completely.

Now that you can clearly see the person you've saved you are quite surprised. It is an elf girl but her skin is ashen gray. Is she a drow? What the shit is going on here? The woman is in shock and has no idea what is going on. She is equipped with a red costume out of a fabric you don't quite recognize with some sections of leather and she has a strange ceramic shortsword and a bag with her. Her eyes are completely red as in the whole eyeball is colored in red pigment and her hair is dark grey and curly.

It seems you are safe for now. What hext?

>Offer her some food maybe?
>Pretend to be out of breath from the running. That should make you more relatable, right?
>Attempt to speak Cenophilan with her
>Attempt to speak English with her
>Other ideas?

>>2817293
>>Pretend to be out of breath from the running. That should make you more relatable, right?
>Attempt to speak Cenophilan with her

>>2817293
>Offer her some food maybe?
>Attempt to speak Cenophilan with her

>>2817293
she's....cute.
>Pretend to be out of breath from the running. That should make you more relatable, right?
>Attempt to speak Cenophilan with her

>>2817382
>>2817393
>>2817406
Writing

>>2817551
You plop on the floor breathing hard. There was no delay after you blocked the door so it should not be noticeable that you were not exhausted. You take a few seconds to get some breath and make sure the Rheia is alright before attempting to speak with the drow girl.

She is at first confused but eventually she manages to reply in Cenophilan. She has a pretty thick accent and she is thankful for the rescue. She knows nothing of these creatures. They just started following her one day killing her companions one by one. She is worried about them coming out of the walls or floors but you have definitely lost them in the maze and shut the door.

They were physical enough to get hit by some falling debris on the way and they didn't try to phase through the cavern walls or anything. Even if they show up you should be able to easily dispatch them with telekinesis. From her description her group could not resist them and died one by one by being picked off into the darkness or stunned with fear and hallucinations. Maybe telepathic fear projection is their main weapon?

In any case the drow girl's name is Claudina. She claims to be a herbalist from a town deep in the cave system. It was discovered and destroyed by some powerful monster and she had to run along with everyone who was far enough away not to get killed outright. She says that she is probably the only survivor. The town had sporadic contact with the surface and while it has its own language they used to learn Cenophilan for trade reasons.

You offer her some food and she gladly accepts. It seems that she hasn't eaten well during her journey. She says she has been travelling for over two months with her group until they bumped into these creatures.

>Offer her a place to stay in the village
>Offer her some supplies and directions towards the larger country
>Ask her about the monster
>Ask her about the cave system
>Ask her about her people
>Other?

>>2817682
>Ask her about the monster
>Ask her about the cave system
>Ask her about her people

>>2817682
>>Ask her about the monster
>>Ask her about the cave system
>>Ask her about her people
>Offer her a place to stay in the village

like, we have to help right?

>>2817789
This

>>2817700
>>2817789
>>2817828
Writing

>>2817842
She tells you that her people were made and placed in their home region by their "goddess" at time immemorial. She provided them with specific plants and animals that didn't need light and grew in harshest conditions. By her descriptions it seems to be mushrooms and mold biosculpted to both produce foodstuffs and synthesize medical and industrial goods. In particular it seems that some of these mushrooms manufactured primitive plastics that could be easily melted. This seemingly replaced some of their early ceramics. Her blade is shaped out of some organic material which hardened permanently when heated beyond a certain point.

Her people are well known for their ability to see in the dark and unique medical and textile products. The town core was said to be personally built by the goddess from the rock but the rest of the town was constructed mainly out of materials produced by industrial shrooms. They had large shrooms which were cut down like lumber and mold which when boiled produced glue which outclassed anything brought from the surface. The shrine of the Goddess was supposed to repel the monsters nearby and hide the settlement even after she moved on and left them in what they claim to be a test.

She hasn't seen what attacked the town. Just that the only survivors were outside the limits of the external protective wall and that everyone inside had their blood crystallizing into red crystals that ripped them apart in gruesome fashion and that the inner town's organic materials were reduced into dusty substance with incredibly foul smell. Survivors decided to grab what they can from outskirts and flee in small groups so that whatever that was would not chase them.

She claims that the goddess taught that cave system was created in a major conflict from the remains of an enormous volcano by last groups of surviving geomancers to seal it. She claims that it consists out of three enormous layers. Upper layer is porous and basically what you've experienced. Connections with other levels are positioned closer to the throat of the former volcano but the closer you are to that area the more dangerous it is.

>>2817997
The labyrinth crisscrosses the entire continent and is a home to a huge variety of subhuman civilizations. Some are almost indistinguishable from humans on the surface while others have few remaining human features. It is also the last habitat for some monsters extinct on the surface which makes travel far from explored path dangerous. It is told that no civilizations lived below the first labyrinth level and the lower you went the more powerful and horrifying things you could meet and the less real reality feels, whatever that means.

You suggest her to settle down in Farsalos village as you are confident that villagers could accept her after a little while. Elves were accepted across Cenophila and how is she different? Also if she was a herbalist she could be retaught to be a farmer or a village doctor. She accepts and you lift the girls out of the pit. After a couple hours of ore lifting you gathered enough to pay the tax and then some. After that you head back home.

After you arrive and explain the situation to the villagers you set off to find the best strain of the mold and cultivate it. It took almost half a day to make the Petri dishes and to test everything until you have the winner which instantly goes into the incubator to grow and reproduce. Now you just need to separate the chemical out of it. What could be easier?

>roll a 1d20, may the dice god have mercy on our souls

Rolled 3 (1d20)

>>2818003

Rolled 18 (1d20)

>>2818003

Rolled 10 (1d20)

>>2818003
Going to sleep, see you tomorrow guys

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>>2818031
So... the thing is... all those books where random programmers get sent into the past and get themselves some easy antibiotics are horseshit. Finding the mold is not even half of the job. Second half is extracting penicillin out of all the toxic and waste products. You can't just boil it as it denaturizes from heat.

Historically during the first investigations penicillin could be isolated by dissolving the evaporated mass in ether and then again evaporating it. Then it was necessary to use alkali to stabilize the substance. The slightest mistake or change in technology led to failure. Chemists who tried to isolate pure penicillin, said that this substance disappears, "while you look at it!" Vacuum evaporation and extraction with ether produced small amounts of material, but the process was too capricious for practical use.

Success was achieved by lyophilization. The lyophilization method is based on a very simple principle: in a vacuum, frozen aqueous solutions pass directly from the solid state to the gaseous state. When an aqueous solution containing various substances is frozen these substances in a solid state cease to interact. If then the water is removed by sublimation the solids forming the dry sediment retain their activity for a very long time. This way it was possible to protect penicillin from destruction.

In other words industrial process for penicillin looks like this: lyophilization, products washed with methanol and then follow up with another round of lyophilization. This produced a thousandth concentrate of antibiotic which was sufficient for injections.

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>>2818196
So to successfully make it we need a microscope, medium vacuum pump, refrigerator, ether and methanol production. ...Fuck. Ok so we have a microscope luckily. Methanol is just dry distillation of wood. Ether is made out of ethylene spirit with various acids heated at high temperatures. After a trip to the sulfuric acid lake and some tinkering the prototype ultra small scale ether production was done. Now the hard part...

To produce sufficient vacuum you need an actual vacuum pump and you don't have access to mercury. It means you have to deal with shit like multistage vacuum ejectors paired with water ring pumps. Former was pretty complicated to make while latter requires 2000 rpm to operate and process takes hours. To produce sufficient cold you had to utilize a modern yet simple device: vortex pump. It forces exchange of energy between the two air flows making one end a heater and another a cooler as long as an air pump is working. Finally, FINALLY the first goddamn primitive syringes with antibiotics are done.

Now we have the last chemical needed for operation. Anesthesia. Apparently pain death is a myth. A person usually dies from a heart attack only if their heart is weak or from massive blood loss accompanying the pain. This mainly relates to how well the patient thinks of the doctor after the surgery and reduces stress. You have a few options...

>Booze. Just get the guy shitfaced. Pretty low potency
>Aether. Flammable and tedious to make
>Chloroform. It will take some setting up to do but it will be cheaper to mass produce
>Other ideas?

>>2818200
I think this will have the better effect
>Chloroform. It will take some setting up to do but it will be cheaper to mass produce


but as we are pressed for time let's do
>Booze. Just get the guy shitfaced. Pretty low potency

and then set up the chloroform for later use

>>2818210
I'm turning in too, thanks for running qm

>>2818200
>Chloroform. It will take some setting up to do but it will be cheaper to mass produce

>>2818254
>>2818210
Writing

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>>2818343
Let's make some chloroform. We can't easily make ether and booze won't work well enough. Luckily for us chloroform synthesis is relatively simple but multistep process. Bleaching powder is mixed with spirit and distilled. It is very easy to lethally overdose so in 16 liter leather bag people added 1-2 ml of the stuff. After that it was necessary to check on the patient so that their tongue won't block the airway. By the way, the myth about chloroform criminals is just a myth. They use different and more potent compound as you need almost 5 minutes to get knocked out from normal chloroform.

Now the issue is how to get the bleaching powder. You need to get slacked lime and chlorine. Chlorine is received through electrolyzing common salt and slacked lime is made by processing lime in a kiln and then pushing water through it. The problem is that we don't have lime. Not a problem, we have gypsum. Electrolyzed gypsum produces calcium which can then be oxidized and the process works as intended.

Now all we need is a source of electricity. The most common way to do it is through a primitive battery but we need a bit more juice here. Thus we have to make a primitive generator. You sacrifice a few of the bandit iron weapons and create a bank of Baghdad batteries. You then proceed to utilize them to create permanent magnets out of the iron and now you have everything for a generator. And with the generator you have electrolysis. After that it is a matter of time until you finally receive some chloroform.

>>2818551
You decide to make the actual Ilizarov apparatus out of aluminum bronze for its counter bacterial properties and the surgery passes relatively well. You ask Claudina to be your nurse and after just two hours the surgery is complete and the man wakes up with a new aluminum bronze bracing around his arm with bronze wires coming all the way through the bones. The device should be surgically removed in about a month and it is a constant threat of infection. Thus you prescribe regular weekly doses of antibiotic until the device is removed.

What is curious, Claudina was familiar with basic hygiene requirements for surgery even though most of the stuff you've used was unfamiliar to her. You have managed to heat up the scalpel and surgical needle until they glowed red before packing them back up for maximum sterility.

And on this note this insane project is complete. You know, if you've known from the start, sulfur medication would be easier to synthesize but it would require electrolysis halfway during the process which would be roughly as complex as penicillin refining due to the lack of sulfuric acid for batteries. However, now you have a bunch of instruments and tools for chemical synthesis as well as primitive electric generators so you consider it a successful adventure.
______________________________
And here we have to wrap up for today. We shall continue as soon as I wake up. Thank you all for participation and I hope you've enjoyed it. As per usual you can ask questions or discuss plans during the break.

>>2818560
>sulfuric acid for batteries.

So we have a use for that murder pool we found on the cave, if we clean up those creatures that is

>>2818958
>>2818958
It is far from the only use of sulfuric acid and it is relatively far away from the monsters. At least you haven't encountered them in the tunnel when you were collecting them for batteries.

Sulfuric acid has a ton of uses in chemical industries. Unfortunately it has problems with safety and storage. Thus we have to get some glass manufacturing and potentially get and refine lead somewhere to use it on a large scale.

This entire project was super extreme assembled on the knee with the most basic materials and held together through telekinesis and prayers. Thus all the new stuff we made along the way is available only in small quantities. It did give us some valuable experience in chemical industry though.

Sorry for the wait. I’m getting a takeaway pizza at the moment. We will continue as soon as I’m home.

>>2819440
Well, all things considered this odyssey went pretty well. You can really slowly and tediously produce antibiotics and anesthesia while also having an ability to make all the in- betweens. Unfortunately it is nowhere efficient or self sustainable. It is not just a question of power. You have to use your telekinesis to brace your machinery so it won't disintegrate at high rpm from centrifugal effects and vibrations. You even had to brace the vacuum chamber so it wouldn't just implode upon itself. Basically it was one huge prototyping spree. A shot for the moon with beyond cutting edge technology.

In other words the project has revealed the main problem with your industrial base. You simply don't have the materials for what you are doing. To make glass you have to find rare chunks of quartz of the right proportions and purity while your machines can't keep themselves together. You also can't sustainably transport, produce or store chemicals. In addition you don't have strong enough structural materials for all your machinery.

The problem with all of this is that they are not separate projects. You now have to deal with production chains. For example you don't have access to good enough sand for glass and quartz requires high temperature furnaces. It means that you need high temperature bricks. Those require coal coke, graphite and large amounts of quartz depending on the furnace element, temperature, available oxygen and so on. Blast furnaces also need coal coke and all of that also needs a whole bunch of various chemicals a lot of which are manufactured from subproducts of the other industries. Industrial base has to be grown in layers and not propelled with kicks into space. You will have to re- plan your progression.

In any case, everything is mostly back to normal. The wounded soldier is healing, Claudina is settling in and villagers are mostly getting along. The extent to which you went through to ensure the safety and comfort of one man seems to have increased villagers' opinion on you. You are still a horrifyingly powerful being but now you are definitely on their side.

Now that this is out of the way you finally have some time for...
>Social stuff. You want to take regular breaks from your insane projects and you have just started retelling the second quarter of the Journey to the West
>Projects. You have several ideas for some personal things
>Industry. Let's plan out the near term roadmap
>Adventures. You have just peeked below the veil of how different the world is now and you desire to know more!
>Other?

>>2819756
>>Industry. Let's plan out the near term roadmap

did we plant those flax? we can start doing the necessary industry to process that

>>2819756
>Social stuff. You want to take regular breaks from your insane projects and you have just started retelling the second quarter of the Journey to the West

The drow girl can talk more about her folklore too, she mentioned a godess

>>2819756
>Projects. You have several ideas for some personal things

Might not be a bad idea to see if we can't get the village to pay us a "tax" for all the shit we've done for them. Not anything huge but even something as small as 1% of what they might pay to rent buildings like these would be nice.

I'd suppose we should leave it until after we've made the blacksmith's prosthetic and such.

>>2819788
Oh shit yeah, she's presumably staying with us in our mansion. Here's hoping we didn't forget anything important when building it...

>>2819778
We did plant flax but it will need months until it can be harvested. We don't yet have a specialized textile building either. Villagers have primitive manual way to process sackcloth from local fibers.

>>2819756
>Social stuff. You want to take regular breaks from your insane projects and you have just started retelling the second quarter of the Journey to the West

>>2819795
>We don't yet have a specialised textile building either.
Rather annoyingly, if we want it to be wind powered we'll need a lot of fabric which kinda defeats the point of constructing it.

>>2819793
You already have absolute access to most of the industrial goods village produces. Tax would be reasonable only when village starts trading and making goods without you having to come over and manually process a mountain worth of ore yourself.

>>2819813
I suppose but it's easier to establish that sort of system before they experience the potential for massive profit. If we get a promise from them now, when the promise carries little weight in terms of loss, we can avoid some conflict.

>>2819823
they already pay taxes, we are not some sort of government, if we tax them the large tow may be mad. but we can charge for some services in the future

>>2819823
The whole tax thing is complicated and comflict- tastic. It might be easier to just establish taxation to the town's treasury out of which you would be paid to assemble infrastructure and provide services. Also we must not forget all the super profit we can do with chemical industry and metals in general since no one will know how this shit really works for about a generation in the best case.

>>2819778
>>2819788
>>2819793
>>2819798
Writing

>>2819846
That was why I specified it being linked to the buildings, given we did every stage of the construction process from materials to assembly, and the fact they are now resident or working in them. It is logical we get compensated with money, labour or goods.

>>2819854
>The whole tax thing is complicated and conflict- tastic. It might be easier to just establish taxation to the town's treasury out of which you would be paid to assemble infrastructure and provide services.
True but the problem is that when they start building new structures (industrial and housing) for themselves and living in them, the basis for payment (ignoring the ongoing service we provide of fucking up monsters) falls apart given we'd not be involved in their construction and yet they'd still be taxed.

>Also we must not forget all the super profit we can do with chemical industry and metals in general since no one will know how this shit really works for about a generation in the best case.
True but I was kinda hoping we'd be able to get enough passive income from this that we'd never need to worry about actual work ever again. Meaning we could go about dealing with monsters and performing science without too much worry about things like taxes and living expenses.


Still this is all something to consider whenever we figure out our expenses and thereby learn if we can reasonably afford to only do monster hunting for fun / occasional payment or if we'd need to be consistently putting ourselves at risk.

>>2819889
Time for some planned break. After that incident with overworking you have planned periods of low effort tasks and social interactions. Apart of making you look more relatable you also simply enjoy it. There is something intrinsically satisfying in just living in the village.

You were curious to see the smith attempting to make himself a crude prosthesis on his own. He is still struggling with how the mechanism should work but he has managed to replicate a simple articulated wooden puppet palm and is now trying to see how to use the tension in the remaining part of his hand to draw the strings. Considering he did it solely from memory from a prototype you literally threw together in a couple minutes for demonstration purposes it is pretty impressive. Unfortunately wood and bronze are not sufficiently durable to replicate a hand for hard manual labor but it should be sufficient for everyday use. You give him some tips on the exact tension reading mechanism but it is too fiddly to replicate at the moment. It would be much easier once you have access to steel and metal wires.

Claudina seems to be settling in pretty well. Villagers gave her one of the unused houses and she peeks more curiosity than anything else. After a couple days she has started a small herb garden with strange quickly growing mushrooms. They completely grow up in three weeks and she claims that they have mild medical uses such as low potency painkillers. It seems to rapidly deplete dirt though so she has to heavily use homemade fertilizers based on composted plant matter. She has also requested several ceramic containers where she has started cultivating a variety of darkness loving fungus. Weird kombucha- like things that consume specially processed plant matter and produce a variety of different liquids. Unfortunately she doesn't have any of the industrial grade plants as she is the equivalent of a herbalist. Growing spices and medicines for common ailments.

You chat a little about her home. It is just called Town, not the local word for it but the English one. She says that it is somewhere below the Cenophila with an entrance within a week of a polis named Teryia. It is a place far to the south- east from here deep in the mainland. The area is one of the bread buckets of the nation and also has several strategically important mineral resources such as iron ore and silver. Their people understood mathematics, advanced agriculture and selection allowing them to slowly improve upon things they grew. People on average lived up to 170 years dying mostly from illnesses or trauma with nobility and priestesses rumored to have been created by their goddess directly over a thousand years ago. In other words these people have negligible senescence. They are young until killed.

>>2820203
She claims that the goddess Aino has left almost 200 years ago. Aino is Finnish for "the only one" so you think she is also a pod person. The stories portray her real appearance as a slightly glowing transparent silhouette of a woman. She was said to be capable of temporarily possessing one of the priestesses to communicate with her people. Town council gained their legal power from her and she had direct authority over the people she has created, but she is told to be kind and caring of her subjects. She taught them mathematics and provided them with ways to build, live and prosper through their own effort. Eventually she had to leave into the depths of the Labyrinth for unknown reasons. Goddess Aino informed her subjects that she was needed badly in another place and gave them the goal of keeping the town alive and prospering for as long as possible.

She claims that her goddess was mostly isolationist. Allowing for her subjects to leave and for visitors to stay but she didn't provide for or protect any expansions beyond the core town. There are no stories of her creating any horrible creatures but there are stories of her granting powers to her subjects to destroy troubling creatures in the near vicinity to the town. They never changed too much visually limited to cosmetic differences like buffness, pigment patterns on skin or unusual color of eyes and hair. She also claims that the goddess has left before Cenophilan pantheon became prominent never getting into contact with them. It seems that she is a dead end, she probably didn't create that tentacle psi parasite monster.

While you were wrapping up the puppet play of the journey to the vest village has received a new visitor. Haven has arrived alone and on foot. After a short greeting she said that she would like your help in untangling a small... cult problem. In one of the villages to the south east people have started suddenly joining this strange cult which is told to be deep in the forest. She says that she could have investigated it herself but cults might sometimes spring up around powerful monsters or even awakened deities so it might be a good idea to take someone of comparable caliber. Aka you.

>Sure, let's do it. What's the worst that can happen?
>Sure, but I'd like to perform some preparations. You haven't updated your arsenal for a while
>Maybe later? You wanted to start some industries and it would be much easier if you had steel armor or gunpowder.
>No, sorry, you don't want to poke a hornet's nest of that caliber just yet.
>Other?

>>2820209
>>Sure, let's do it. What's the worst that can happen?


It's probably that infected animal business, we shouldn't delay it

>>2820209
>Sure, but I'd like to perform some preparations. You haven't updated your arsenal for a while
Long range incase of another oh shit tentacle monster?

>>2820209
>>Sure, but I'd like to perform some preparations. You haven't updated your arsenal for a while

>>2820209
>Sure, but I'd like to perform some preparations. You haven't updated your arsenal for a while

It seems unwise to get involved in a fight against a group which we know so little about. Especially when they don't seem like they've done anything wrong yet. However there's no reason we can't go investigate them and their region, after all we wish to learn more about the world.


Also, we should probably look those mushrooms the drow has for any properties of use to us.

>>2820209
>Sure, but I'd like to perform some preparations. You haven't updated your arsenal for a while

If we need a new bow, otherwise

>Sure, let's do it. What's the worst that can happen?

>>2820294
>>2820289
>>2820270
>>2820260
>>2820244
Preparing it is, writing

>>2820396
Haven agrees to wait for a couple of days while you make yourself some gear. She was curious about where you live anyway and she wanted an excuse to have a look around. Now what gear would you like to make. You've had quite a few ideas.

The bow one of the giants was using gave you an idea about super high draw weight bows. You have upper body strength much higher than a human and thus you could make a longbow with insane draw weight. Maybe even reaching power of cranked crossbows or even early firearms. Your experience with wood composites gives you an advantage with this.

You have also toyed around with an idea to equip the village with field siege weapons for self defense purposes such as ancient Roman or Greek machines. As you can carry impressive mass you could use one of those devices as a handheld weapon. Such a weapon could be cranked rapidly with telekinesis and have enough power to fight heavily armored opponents.

Alternatively you could try to make a repeating crossbow. The design is pretty simple but it has a much lower range, power and accuracy then arbalesters or potentially composite bows. However nothing beats rapid fire potential which a normal human can use. You could also supersize it and get a polybolos, ancient Greek take on repeating weapons. However it would be complex and prone to mechanical failures.

One of the weirder options would be a creation of a blindingly powerful flashlight. With the creation of chlorine you can produce potassium chlorate and through a combination with a spirit primus and a lens you could create a limelight. These sources of light outperformed early electric arc powered light sources in brightness.

There is also a problem of a shield. Your last shield was destroyed through a fireball. Now you have access to composite wood bases and thus you can create a better version. Or maybe a more advanced design?

Note that you can pick two. It is possible to get a shield along with a ranged weapon or make something for Haven
>Super draw weight bow
>Scorpio ballista
>Repeating crossbow
>Polybolos repeating ballista
>Limelight projector
>Shield replacement. Just a hoplon or maybe a kite shield?

>>2820573
>Super draw weight bow

>Polybolos repeating ballistato
leave here as defense

Show Heaven our crib, offer our private stash of booze, show her the sauna and as about Sigri....I mean, the others

>>2820573
>Polybolos repeating ballista

Sweet jesus I need one of these in real life. Also does anyone here speak / read french? As I've found a recreation of a Polybolos and it's testing done by a french group.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POnaByZskU8

>Scorpio ballista

>>2820606
I want to change my polibolos for a scorpio balista, if the polibolos breaks when we are not here they won't be able to fix.

And I want the bow because it's easier to use it without showing our powers off, it will be difficult to cone with an excuse if we start carting a balista around

>>2820635
To be fair, with the sorts of high draw bows we're talking about people wouldn't believe we'd be able to use them without super strength.

>>2820573
>Super draw weight bow
>Shield replacement. Just a hoplon

>>2820641
I know, but it's easier to explain, and quite common to have, some degree of super strenght and an outsider(our cover) not so easy to explain we carrying around a siege weapon with our mind and using it with it too.
I'm not against using it around the village since everyone here knows our capabilities but when we travel I would like to keep a low profile at least until we learn more about the pantheon and judge that they won't see us as a threat

>>2820606
>>2820624
>>2820635
>>2820641
>>2820646
>>2820657
Ok let's count. We have 2 for bows, one for polybolos, one for scorpio and one for shield. Bow option locked. Second vote wave:

>Polybolos. Rapid fire, chance to break
>Scorpio. Powerful anti armor
>Shield replacement

>>2820704
Ah wait i miscalculated. We have two scorpios
>>2820624
>>2820635

>>2820704
>>2820708
Writing. Bow and scorpio it is

File: Scorpio.jpg (59 KB, 332x500)

59 KB JPG

>>2820714
Super high draw strength composite bows are nothing new. They were used in some forms of medieval siege weapons and thus you know a little about required properties. Unfortunately as you are dealing with your strength and not baseline human strength you have to modify the equation a bit.

You manage to get the bow with 600 pounds or 270 kg. Three times world record for man operated longbows. The arrow has reached an impressive 1700 km/h. 1,3 Mach. It exploded into a shower of wooden debris when fired as it was ripped apart due to supersonic stresses along with the prototype bow. This is obviously not meant for wooden projectiles.

After a little bit of more experimentation you had to create full bronze arrows weighting almost twice as much which lowered the speed of the arrow below mach 0.8 while still being really impressive. You can basically ignore most of humans in primitive iron age armors and anything bigger will still probably get damaged by the sheer mass of the projectile.

What is interesting you can see some room for improvements. You could potentially make a bow with insane draw weight of several tons if you were using spring steel and then you would be cooking with gas! Unfortunately right now you are not equipped well enough to produce it but it has a lot of potential.

The second weapon you make is an ancient Roman version of ballista called scorpio. It was a battlefield weapon which could lob small stones or special spears at enemy infantry piercing shields and killing multiple soldiers. You have no need for several of ranged weapons so after perfecting the design you demonstrate how to operate it to the villagers and store it in the armory. Hopefully now they would have a chance against things bigger than wild animals if they get attacked while you are not home.

All this took a day and a half of work but you feel proud that it was so successful. You visit Haven who was drinking some kind of mushroom tea with Claudina. The two got together pretty well. Apparently both of their people were created by deities in the past. You ask Haven where is the rest of the gang but she states that they are not stealthy or tough enough so they would be endangered if we take them along. Looks like it is only the two of you for now.

Haven is already prepared to set off and you don't lose any time.

>Just walk there like normal people
>Carry her. This will allow you to travel faster but it is awkward
>Take a cart and drive it with telekinesis as usual. This will allow you to take more supplies or more stuff back.
>Other ideas?

>>2820816
>Carry her. This will allow you to travel faster but it is awkward

She knows what we are, just try not to furiously blush

>>2820831
+1

did the character ever have intimate contact? I remember she was pretty sickly

>>2820862
And basically lacked the sex drive, yes. We weren't really socialble.

>>2820862
No she was sickly to the point of not having a sex drive.

>>2820876
>And basically lacked the sex drive, yes. We weren't really sociable.
Being a orphan with a dead end (highly inconsistently paying) job, depression, high living expenses and fucked lungs kinda does that to ya.

>>2820908
>>2820891
>>2820876
Good thing we got better than....its going to be awkward, I'll love it

>>2820922
>>2820908
>>2820891
>>2820876
>>2820862
>>2820831
Writing

>>2820960
After getting away from the visual range of the village you stop Haven and suggest to carry her to the destination. She is confused but you explain that you are tireless and thus you can run the entire distance without rest. After a small argument she sighs and agrees. There is no real way to do it decently so you just place carry her on your back. She pouts but doesn't resist mumbling something about it being embarrassing.

Even with her entire loadout she feels pretty light. Her delicate frame almost demands you to be careful but eventually you pick up pace making Haven grab you tighter just to feel safe. You are still keeping an eye on her and helping to compensate the bumpy road with telekinesis. She smells nice...

Y...you mean expected a glorified mercenary hunter during iron age to be much... less clean, so to say. However she has a nice flowery smell to her. Maybe elves make their own soap or something?

Both of you are wearing armor so you barely feel her body but as you glance to check up on her you notice that she is strongly clinging to your back. Her head is on your shoulder with her eyes closed while her cheeks are tomato red.

W...What?! You get startled and almost trip on a tree forcing you to suddenly stop. You end up looking directly into each others' eyes extremely close as your face starts feeling warm. Oh my god this is so embarrassing!

>Awkwardly stay silent. Let her talk
>"Uhh..."
>Apologize and continue the trip
>"W...why are you blushing?!"
>Other?

>>2821065
>>Awkwardly stay silent. Let her talk
if she stays silent we
>"Uhh..."
>"W...why are you blushing?!"


spilling all the spaghetti

we may be a god but we are still a dork at heart

>>2821065
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr89xoZyE1g

>>2821082
I like it

>>2821082
I'll back this.

>>2821090
>>2821088
>>2821082
Writing

>>2821145
You awkwardly look at each other for almost a minute. Neither of you can find the words while you awkwardly stare at each other until you finally ask her why is she blushing. Elf girl fumbles several times as she tries to explain herself getting more and more blushed. She claims that it was just too embarrassing to piggy back ride someone. What if someone saw the two of you? ...in the middle of the forest?

And what about closed eyes? She can't reply at first but after a few seconds she states that it is so that she won't catch flies in her eyes. You explain that you were actually using telekinesis to protect her somewhat to which she pouts and replies that she didn't know that.

After a whole lot of nonsense and strangely specific explanations you finally figure out what's the problem. She has to grab on to you by your chest. You have barely noticed since you wear armor but apparently she considers it embarrassing. Come on, she has to hold on something and it is not like she is groping you. You can't grope someone through half an inch thick chestplate and it is not even anatomically shaped.

It is pretty obvious that she is making things up as you question her so...

>Just pick her up and continue the ride. It is kind of funny... and cute
>"...jealous?"
>"Come on, just tell me what's the matter. I don't bite"
>"If you don't want to tell it's ok. Let's just continue on"
>"We can walk instead if you want"
>Other?

>>2821225
>"Come on, just tell me what's the matter. I don't bite"
>"If you don't want to tell it's ok. Let's just continue on"

>>2821225
>"...jealous?"
>Other?
Puff chest out

We must.

>>2821225
>"Come on, just tell me what's the matter.
>"We can walk instead if you want"

>>2821239
this

>>2821264
>>2821248
>>2821246
>>2821239
Writing

>>2821335
It is quite obvious the girl is trying to hide something, so you tell her "Come on, just tell me what's the matter. I don't bite. If you don't want to tell it is ok though". Haven awkwardly scratches the back of her head and sighs saying "Well... I am not great at lying about these things so I guess there is no much point in hiding."

"I just have this strange sensation... I know it is wrong but... you feel incredibly strong and reliable. Easily carrying me on your back. I am almost unnoticeable to you but you still care enough to gently help me. It makes me feel safe but at the same time small and weak. Don't misunderstand me though, I am just... accustomed to relying only on myself. It is really embarrassing."

She makes a small pause before continuing: "I... I am just really conflicted in how I should feel. I know you don't like to be called that way but you are practically a goddess. Incredibly strong, ingenious, amazingly skilled, nigh invulnerable and unnaturally beautiful. You really shouldn't be lowering yourself to my level...”

The elf girl stands awkwardly and mumbles something about her feeling immature for that. So... basically she has a weird crush of sorts, right? You are not sure you read her correctly.

>"...do you want to continue riding or should we continue on foot?"
>Tell her not to worry. She has plenty of time to make up her mind about this
>Tell her that you enjoy spending your time with average people and she shouldn't feel bad
>Tell her how you also have pretty jumbled feelings recently that you are not sure of.
>Other?

>>2821449
>Tell her that you enjoy spending your time with average people and she shouldn't feel bad
>"...do you want to continue riding or should we continue on foot?"

>>2821449
>Tell her that you enjoy spending your time with average people and she shouldn't feel bad
>"...do you want to continue riding or should we continue on foot?"


So question, what's our specific in-character logic for not wanting to be called a goddess? I feel we should probably figure that out so we can more effectively talk with her and for future conversations like this.

>>2821486
Well, we specifically instructed Oisin not to worship you and claimed to be the Outsider. To Haven we explained that we are of the same kind of being as the gods from the pantheon but we told her that we are not interested in worship and don't consider ourselves anything more than a human with superpowers.

I assume we have a few reasons for not being worshiped. From drawing in less attention to not wanting to get special treatment or not wanting to get corrupted from the power it can provide and so on. Basically if you have a special view on the subject Ag has it too.

>>2821486
>>2821460
Ok then, writing

>>2821531
You tell her not to worry. You identify yourself as a human and you enjoy being around normal people. You are not going to leave her or anything, you are partners after all. You treat her as equal and she should do so too. She nods to that quietly as she probably needs more time to accept that.

To your suggestion to whether you should continue carrying her or if you should just switch to walking she replies that she is fine with piggy backing again... as long as no one sees the two of you. As you continue riding she seems to be enjoying it better than at the beginning but she still blushes and feels embarrassed which is somewhat cute. You leave it up to her to enjoy the trip as you speed up a little and get to the destination.

Istrio is a larger village than Farsalos but it is still much smaller than Mirangi. You eyeball enough housing for about 400 people or so living in wooden buildings with some stone elements. It is more of a transitional state from a village to a town meaning it lacks the infrastructure of a town at the moment. So no large central temple or fully stone buildings or pavement and it looks pretty spontaneous. The external wall is a palisade that looks like it is just a quarter as thick as the one around Farsalos. You guess that if Farsalos somehow grew up without you it would look roughly like this.

It is also situated in a cleared forest region but instead of being on the very edge of the nation it is situated to the south east of Mirangi. Village seems to be in a nominal state. It has some farm animals, the fields are planted, the buildings are well maintained and the people are well fed. Almost direct opposite of how Farsalos was when you've just arrived.

Notably about 60 kilometers to the south from this villager is the closest major polis called Platania. This polis is placed on the closest major river in the region. This place is one of the many villages which provides miners to strategic importance iron mine to the south-west. The village itself does not process it and the ore is sent directly to Platania for smelting.

Unfortunately it is getting late and even though you were careful Haven still got exhausted after 14 hours of riding you nonstop. You decide to pop into a local inn and rent a room so that she can rest for a bit. Tomorrow will be the big investigation day.
_____________________
And on that note we have to pause unfortunately. I would like to continue but it is getting harder to form words. As usual you can discuss and ask questions after this post. Thank you all for playing.

>>2821640
A blushing elfs long hard ride.
Thanks for the session.

>>2821640
Do elves in this setting have ears that move based on their emotional state?

>>2821974
we are touching those ears man, we are definitely touching those ears

>>2821640
we haven't modified Aghata with upgrades that would affect her personality much tight? so she feeling confused by these new sensations in something that could happen?

could we get a map? if you can give me some rought directions I can try one on Hexa, but I'm not very good at it

When are you running again? next Saturday or sometime before that?

>>2821974
>>2822046
Ok I am mostly awake so I will answer the questions:

1) Both Haven's and Claudina's ears are articulated, display certain emotions and track sounds. However they are about as well controlled as facial features. They can hide and fake their emotions just like baseline humans. And also predicting the next question, the ears are not much more sensitive than normal human ears to the touch. They do hear much better than humans though.

2) It is a pretty difficult question. From one hand mind augment was specifically crammed into subconsciousness to prevent massive identity shifts and everything else is altered only so that Agatha has manual overrides on her feelings as well as a few things like future shock dampeners. She was expecting to wake up 100 years after transhumanism takes on after all so it would help not to freak out about people being brains in jars piloting spider mechas or something.

On the other hand literally everything changes human personality in some way. The whole "getting superpowers" would change some things about you since even going to the gym can make someone much more self- assured for example.

Here we also have a thing about her illness. Agatha had a rare metabolic condition which affected her mind and body in many ways similarly to hypothyroidism but without insanely fast weight gain. She was less energetic than normal, her thoughts were somewhat clouded and she had slower reactions meaning it was mildly infuriating to talk to her face to face. All the skin conditions stemming from that didn't help with self image either. Her hormonal imbalances also made certain emotions numbed or dysfunctional such as sex drive. And also lack of some of these hormones just outright causes depression. You get the idea. Just taking all that out of equation would change person's behavior in many ways.

>>2822095
3)I do have a map, yes. It is drawn in Inkscape over procedurally generated terrain with overlays for general biomes, national borders, major population centers and strategically important areas such as rich mineral clusters, military positions, bread buckets and more and more and more. The map lacks minor bodies of water, only polises(cities) and visited areas are named with no direct village and town locations. Areas with villages and towns are just signified with an icon "where people live" and I generate them when needed according to what is around that area and makes sense. Unfortunately the whole map is just... huge in many ways and it contains way more information than Agatha knows. I will try to make a copy of it and cut out all the currently unknown stuff squeezing it into the size 4chan can process but it will take some time since I have no idea what I'm doing.

4) Next time we run on next Saturday. I am currently in Cologne and I start somewhere between 6 pm and 8 pm local time depending on when I'm home and ready. In about a month and a half however I will have to make some drastic changes to the schedule as I move back to Moscow and university courses start. I don't yet know the specifics but I definitely won't be capable of running two all nighters in a row like the insanity I do now. Most probably it will still happen Saturdays- Sundays with minor time shift.

>>2822095
>And also predicting the next question, the ears are not much more sensitive than normal human ears to the touch
That wasn't actually my next question I just think emotive ears are super cute.

File: SGQ map cleaned.png (1016 KB, 3193x3899)

1016 KB PNG

>>2822046
Ok let's try this. Hopefully it won't get compressed. Scale is 1,5 degree slice of Earth per sector. Non- major bodies of water are ignored.

Here is the map of the general area of interest. There is stuff beyond it but we know nothing about it. Cenophila is highlighted in blue(we are somewhere near to the northern border of it), Valistrat Empire is red, Holies(Holy Nation) are coral and the orange is Ethea. Etheans are a mainly trading nation like phoenicians with close defensive ties to Holies.

As you can see, the nearby nations lack many icons. I've left only main cities and city states with strategic resources and assets currently unknown to us.

While looking at Cenophila you might see a lot of different icons. While some are easy to understand, some might be confusing so here is a short list of what means what:

>Palisade icons are minor fortifications. They are usually border fortifications for quick response against invasions or monster attacks.

>Stone wall icon is for major fortresses. They are just bigger, better and more important than minor fortresses. They usually house regional land army detachments

>Ship icons are major naval bases. Cenophila has the strongest navy across the four nations similar to ancient Athens. Valistrat instead relies on strong land army. Holies have much smaller but more advanced warships.

>Settlement icons with square buildings and names below them are cities and polises. Unique icon with a name is the capital. In the case of Cenophila it is the great polis of Elspen on southern coast.

>Settlements with round buildings and without names are population concentrations. They don't signify particular settlements but instead town or several towns with multiple villages around the area. Thus areas with no icons are not uninhabited, I just didn't want to clutter the map.

>Granary icons are for bread baskets. It means that settlements in the nearby area manufacture and export large quantities of food. These places are obviously of national importance.

>Mine icons signify areas with large amounts of strategically important minerals. They include financially relevant precious metals like silver, industrial ores like iron, tin and copper and nonmetal important deposits like salt or sulfur. As with granaries, it is not a specific mine complex or quarry. It means that the entire nearby area extracts something of national importance

>Temple icons signify areas of major religious importance to Cenophilan cult. They are pantheon relevant locations which are definitely off limits to mortals. Somewhat like Greek Mount Olympus where you get zapped if you get too close. They are not the only areas like that on Cenophilan territory but they are the best known, largest and most important. You think they are pantheon bases, projects or containment efforts for beasties they could not neutralize.

Phew, I think that's it. If you have any questions please go ahead.

>>2822485
Holy shit my last name is the name of a city....

but anyway.

nice map man. I see the countries still have room to expand, since the wilderness must be very hard to tame and growth slow. we are near the border, does that explain the giant incursions, or are they present in the normal territory?

thank you for taking the time to do something like this, it helps a lot to immerse ourselves in the world you created

>>2822517
Giants are an actual primitive civilization and not random monsters from the wilderness. The particular giants we met are just a small independent settlement that doesn't produce enouh trouble to varrant an actual response. If they were a threat the army would come from the numerous forts around the border region and kick their crap in. They live between those two forts and unnamed population clusters just above Ligoriana to the south-west of us.

Most other giants fled into the wild neutral regions, into the Labyrinth or assimilated into Cenophila and died out naturally due to low concentration of giants in towns as they speciated from humans and can no longer reproduce with anyone else but other giants. There are several actual giant settlements to the north western region of the nation in the bread baskets for obvious reasons.

The pleasure is all mine, friend. Luckily I needed the map for worldbuilding so I had it in the notes and managed to clean it up a little. The quality is pretty bad as I didn't expect you to see it. If I was better prepared I'd use a different projection where you can make actual navigation and read it without bleeding eyes. Sorry about that. Is there anything else you'd like to know?

>>2822562
well, if you can cover this as a conversation with Haven, I would like to know about the origin of those elves, they are probably humans with gene mods done by another pod person, but what is their history, and are they part of the country in any official capacity or are just scattered without a home city or country?

>>2822573
Ok, I will list what Agatha can get from the two elves she knows. Buckle up, it is a big one.

Elves appear to have strongly varied subspecies. They are a bit too different to be comparable to modern human races as they have different physiological adaptations. The two elves you've met know of at least three types of elf.

There are "baseline elves" which are the most common kind of elf and the ones Cenophilans think of when asked about elves in general. They used to be a separate city state in the south eastern region of Cenophila and currently they are fully integrated with the human population. Their former capital is current city of Teryia. Their myths claim that they were saved through "the long night" by several deities who left them once they were no longer in danger. Their pantheon dispersed after an internal conflict with most dying or leaving the continent entirely. This happened over a hundred years before first records of Elspeth and her pantheon. The nation was ruled by a dualistic monarchy with the king or queen having veto power on a council which had veto power on the royal family. This system is still around but Cenophilan authority now has emergency power over the royal family even though they almost never use it.

Elves maintain some independence but they have to at least acknowledge Cenophilan pantheon and pay tithes. Elves have a proud culture of longbow archers like in medieval England where every adult trained to shoot well as well as quick light and skilled medium infantry. They considered themselves the only civilized people before integration as neighboring humans just learned to make bronze while elves already refined iron ore for their entire written history, had sustainable agriculture, practiced advanced hygiene and medicine and were undergoing a golden age of philosophy and mathematics.

>>2822835
This earned them a stereotype of being uptight isolationist snobs who think that they are better than everyone else. You think that their deities gave them the technology and then they had no fundamental breakthroughs beyond those principles. Their isolationism is curious as they expanded only until they reached strong local resistance after which they dug in and ceased expansion outright. Elves themselves have a stereotype of most humans being barbaric savages with poor hygiene propelled forward by their heavily patronizing gods.

On average a baseline elf is skinnier, taller, more agile, has better sight, smell and hearing than a normal human. However they have limits on muscle mass they can gain. There are some ripped elves but no Schwarzenegger grade ripped. What is curious is that they are omnivores but unlike normal humans they are capable of maintaining a fully vegan diet as their bodies produce their own protein and several other vitamins allowing them to flourish on diets that would slowly kill a normal human like pure potato or pure grain diet.

They also have relatively rapid metabolism and it is hard to find an obese elf as those usually are signs of a major metabolic deficiency such as ones caused by thyroid cancer. Elves are capable of natural lifespan in several hundreds of years but few adults live beyond 120 due to dangers such as illnesses, cancers and traumas. Elves also are pregnant for almost a year and reproduce slower than humans. You can identify elves by the long pointed ears, unnaturally smooth skin and vibrant eye colors that reflect light in the dark like cats. They naturally have a wide variety of eye colors that are rare or are never present among humans.

>>2822848
The underground elves are different. They call themselves "Ihmiset" which means "people". Their myths say that they were made by their goddess which for you is a clear indicator of a biomancer. Unlike baseline elves they had only one deity and not a whole pantheon. Their goddess is symbolically called "the only one" in Finnish: Aino. She is the patron goddess of their entire kind. Unfortunately she has left hundreds of years ago for unknown reasons leaving her people a goal of surviving as long as possible. Aino was incorporeal and possessed her priestess to convey messages and participate in ceremonies. She was known for bestowing powers upon some of her followers so they can go and deal with some problem becoming national heroes in the process.

The shrine of Aino was the largest building in the core of Town and had a psychically repelling effect on nearby monsters creating a "pocket" where their civilization existed which placed a strict limit on expansion. Every village beyond this limit was eventually obliterated by various horrors living in the Labyrinth. This bubble was substantial in size and contained the Town itself, nearby villages, enormous fields and even underground forests of various tree- like fungi. They were theocratic country with the ruling organ being a council of most important priests and priestesses and heavily regulated and bureaucratic economy. Official arrived to a farm and provided the seeds to be planted and then arrived to collect everything for redistribution similarly to bronze age civilizations.

The core of the Town is said to be constructed directly by the goddess purely out of granite and basalt by the raw will of Aino. Maybe it was geomancy but it could also be telekinesis. It is highly centralized with amenities considered luxurious by the standards of Ihmisetian people beyond the core such as enormous personal living spaces, beautiful parks, tidy roads, running water and efficient "manufactoriums" which shaped materials brought from industrial plants into useable high quality items. It was lit by colored lamps based on controlled mixing of organic chemicals extracted from glowing mold.

Peripheral areas of the Town were mainly made out of organic plastics and polymers extracted from the nearby mushroom forests and it was not as well designed, beautiful and efficient as the Core. It had fungal chitin paved roads and lit up by actual glowing fungus plants with rare chemical lamps. It was surrounded by a wall made out of basalt brick kept together with some kind of strong glue. The people well knew about hygiene, practiced surgery with anesthesia and were at least comparable in technological development to surface civilizations in everything else.

>>2822865
The entirety of Ihmisetian industry was based on industrial fungus. They made food, created medicine, building materials and even some luxury goods. Some fungus created caps filled with metallic dust which was then refined in forges powered by violent reactions of solutions extracted from some other underground plants. They had access to a wide variety of materials from plastics to polymers to metalloceramics which were created by rare lithovorious mining shrooms and then forged in high temperature chemical forges.

Ihmisetian people are seemingly not much different from baseline elves from outside and they share a lot of traits like long pointy ears, excellent health and extra sharp sight, smell and hearing. However they have ashen grey skin, dark hair and their entire eyes are colored, not just their irises. They also are not as thin and tall as normal elves having more humanlike proportions. Unlike elves they need diverse diets but they lack the need for sunlight. People and baseline elves rapidly develop depression and vitamin deficiency without sunlight. They also have negligible senescence meaning they can live for as long as they want unless they are killed by trauma or illness.

Ihmisetians are known to Cenophilans but their home is deep in the Labyrinth and thus it was not worth invade and not possible to control meaning the only contact they have is minor and risky trade route. Underground elves had strong armored defensive army specialized in killing medium and large monsters who sometimes wandered too close with specialization in powerful tension based siege weapons, fortifications and potent traps with explosive, flammable or caustic chemical payloads.

Whatever killed everyone in the Town didn't touch nearby farm areas. Unfortunately as farms are by design not self sufficient survivors had to pack up, salvage what they could and flee. Most left through treacherous tunnel network towards Cenophila while others feared that monster tracks large groups of people and scattered in random directions into the Labyrinth.

The last group of elves is called "wooden" or "nature" elves. They inhabit an island comparable to Great Britain off the shore to the south east of Cenophila. Not much is known about them apart of greenish white skin color, immediate hostility towards people who land on their island and strange immunity to the huge amount of plant based horrors which usually slaughter any exploration parties. The island projects a powerful psychic wave toward any approaching ships telling them a really clear "GO AWAY" message. Cenophilan authorities have the island labeled as a no go zone and crash landed survivors are not recovered.

Phew, I think that's it. There are possibilities for other kinds of elves in the world but the elf girls don't know about them. Maybe the elven body is easier to biosculpt? It is just a guess as you can't just ask their creators. If you have any questions about what I just wrote go ahead.

>>2822878
This is awesome, thanks

I bet the dark elves where created based on the baseline elves, you mentined a divide with many gods being killed and other going away, I think their goddess is one of those that went away, specially because she called herself "the only one" when clearly there are other gods around.

maybe this started as a collaborative experience and due to different design vision some of them scattered to create their on versions

I want to get to know Haven better when we start the quest again, see what she has to say and what she thinks about different things.

thanks for the info dump. if I think about something else I'll be sure to ask

>>2823112
A viable theory, however Haven doesn't think it is the case as there was no goddess in elven records that fits all the features of Aino. Aka ethereal biomancers that posessed their priests. There is also a possibility of creators having similar thinking or borrowing ideas without borrowing whole designs. After all modern fantasy has a lot of different archetypes for an elf and it would be trivial for a biomancer to add some pointy ears to their human+ project.

If this is important, all types of humans and near human subhumans can cross reproduce. Unfortunately it has higher risk of child mortality(especially looking at the state of local medicine) and the resulting "mules" would most probably be sterile. So dark elf to normal elf are as different as a human is from an elf. More accurate comparison would be like a neanderthal and a homo sapiens. There is a reason we share some of their dna after all.

>>2815813
Inventory has been updated. Please note the last two sections. I have added the list of prototype manufacturing projects we made during Penicillin odyssey and why we can't currently scale them up. Starting preparation for the 8th thread.

>>2834442

New thread is up: >>2834672 …

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