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

I also asked around to see if anyone had seen Boggs, the fisherdwarf.  He had apparently stopped back into the city a few times, and I just happened to miss him as he only stayed for a day or two while here.  This summer, when I'm working in the village getting our felt industry up and running, I'll have to keep a close eye out for him.  He's supposedly been fishing for almost five months now, but I haven't heard a word about any of his findings.

It's not like he's being a drain on our society, but we also built him a hut, and invited him to our island.  I'd really like to at least gain a little bit of info from him, otherwise it would have been better not to let him in at all.  I mean he isn't even interacting with the other dwarves.

I thought about this issue repeatedly while back up on the mountain for seven days expanding the exploratory tunnel and harvesting the four new crystal bubbles that I found in the rocks while I mined.  If Boggs is keeping himself this busy, surely the fishing must be good, right?

I went to set up the notice at city hall related to collecting evolution and prestige information, and I realized that I have a bit of a problem.  When I talk to others, I usually just say how many days until whatever event we need.  I've internally been keeping a calendar, but I just realized that the goblins aren't keeping calendars themselves.  I'm not actually sure that my internal calendar is the best for here either.

I decided to consult with the dwarves related to how their calendar works, and they use a 5-6-13 calendar.  By that I mean they have five days to a week, six weeks in a month, and thirteen months in a year.  This is fairly reasonable.  I've noticed myself that there is nearly exactly 30 days between the solar eclipses with the great moon, and 13 months in the year, where the solar eclipse occurs at a slightly different time of day each month, until after thirteen months, it's back at it's starting point.  The seasons also cycle on that thirteen month system.

From here on, I'll be switching to the dwarvish calendar, as it's more functional here than my internal calendar.  The best way for me to start implementing it is to install a large version of the calendar nearby the job posting board at city hall.  I'll have two months listed side by side, then a 5x6 grid with dates underneath each month name placard.  There will also be an indicator to show which day it is, and the month placard will be interchangeable.

This way the goblins can see the current month, and the next month.  I'll also put small holes into the calendar dates where pre-shaped pins can be inserted.  I'll make different shaped pin heads, which can be used to indicate a particular event.  Then that same symbol can be put on the job contracts related to it, so individuals can track what day in the future certain jobs might occur.

I still can't believe that we haven't been using a calendar as a society.  It's quite useful for a lot of different reasons, so I'm glad that I'm at least getting to it now.  Of course, I'm going to have to have Konkur write their month's names in dwarvish to use as the plate up above it.  Since no one else speaks dwarvish, I'll also put a symbol and a marking on the plate to indicate season and month.  For example, three water drops for the rainy season, then a single star to indicate the first month.  I'll use a sun for summer, which is also our dry season, three wavy lines for fall, which is when we get more overcast days and wind, and then a snowy mountaintop for winter, when our mountain gets snow.  By the last month of the year, we'll have 13 stars, indicating the 13th month.

I finished up with the new calendar and pins the day before I started running classes at the academy.  I can only hope that it makes sense to the goblins after a few days of seeing how things work.  Of course, I explained how the calendar works to Zata and Kita, the goblins in charge of handling the job board and handing out jobs to goblins.  Not only are they in charge of updating the calendar, but they're also the most likely to face the brunt of the questions related to it.

I've noticed that there are even more new goblins this cycle as compared to last cycle, and I'm guessing it has to do with the fact that the new summoning facility was completed underground within the central wall.  Zeb seems to have a good understanding of the necessity to not waste space, as the above ground portion is designed to function as a new city guard facility.  The previous central guard facility functioned as the jail as well.  While it will still function as such, this new facility is designed with more administration in mind, along with some new storage areas.  These are obvious many barricades away from the underground portion where the imps are to be summoned.

The underground portion is divided into mini summoning pits, complete with their own bars so that Zaka can summon directly inside the pit without actually having any risk to the imps escaping.  All the pit's designed to have very thick walls, and no hiding spots.  Zeb seems a little concerned about what might happen if another imp like me were to be summoned, and figured out how to sneak out of here.  I'm a little less worried about that, and am more worried about the idea of an imp like me being torn limb from limb, but I've left the design to him, so I suppose I'll try not to think about that.

Ultimately, there are four pits that can hold about fifteen imps each with reasonable space.  The only way in and out of those pits is also oriented towards the only stairwell in and out of this subterranean area, sort of like the prison was, so that you can't actually get out without someone seeing something.  Before, I had found the act of making goblins before a little violent, but this is really pathological.  Again, I don't know that I should speak out though.  Our biology is significantly different than humans or dwarves, so the biological drive for protection of young is just different I suppose.

This new schedule of classes ended up running a bit more smoothly than the previous one, despite having a little over fifty goblins in it this time.  I've decided to ask the construction teams to please slow down how many new houses they build such that we get to at most thirty goblins a cycle for a while.  I'm a little worried about the percentage of the population that is new, and how that tends to lead to deviancy in beliefs.  The academy is supposed to help with that issue, but we've basically introduced 15% of our entire population in the last four months.

Plus, I'm sure they have other construction projects they could work on to help improve our island.  With more goblins likely to pick up stone shaping this year as we still have goblins breaking rock in the reservoir, it's also not a bad idea to come up with some new large scale projects that could be worked on.  I'll think on that issue while I work on some of my projects between now and the next cycle of academy classes.

As for how the reporting on evolution and prestiges went, it was a bit of a mixed bag.  I promised pay for information about circumstances that had led to evolution and prestige, but I hadn't been very clear about what I was looking for, so I ended up basically wasting most of my day listening to the repeated tales of goblins as to how they had prestiged once, and gotten nothing out of it after having lived in the village for a few months after they first became a goblin.  Not exactly useful information.  I still payed them all the same, but I'll need to be more precise about what exact info I'm looking for, and that I'll be paying differently based on if it's new information, or old information.

Basically, if the information doesn't give me any new insights, I'll pay them the smallest coin moving forward, and if they have new information, I'll pay them more depending on how valuable the insight they provide is.  This might lead to some missed information, but at least it won't lead to an absurd amount of wasted time.  It wasn't all for naught though.  There were a few interesting things that I learned that I'll be detailing out.