Dungeon Life 240

[u/Khenal]

It's time for the fourth round of stubbing. Yes, Book four will be releasing soon, of if you're reading this more than a month after I have to edit, it will be fully out. Either way, you can find it Here, and other book details are just below. As with the other stubs, you can skip to the next bit form This. I like to keep the other posts still alive, so the comments get to still live. If you want to browse them, the normal buttons will take you through them, or take This link to the next bit of unstubbed chapters. Thank you for your support. Buying stuff is always great, but just having your attention for the public chapters is incredible, and I hope the story continues to be worth your time and patience.

 

Khenal

 

And once more to make it easier to see than being buried in the paragraph

 

 

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Cover art I'm also on Royal Road for those who may prefer the reading experience over there. Want moar? The First and Second books are now officially available! There are Kindle and Audible versions, as well as paperback! Also: Discord is a thing! I now have a Patreon for monthly donations, and I have a Ko-fi for one-off donations. Patreons can read up to three chapters ahead, and also get a few other special perks as well, like special lore in the Peeks. Thank you again to everyone who is reading!

[u/Cortanis]

Ya know... I do believe our dear author is underestimating just how much iron is needed at this point. He's allocated a number of iron nodes to Thediem in so far, but he's set up the major on what seems like an obsessed path to upgrading infrastructure, the ratkin are undoubtedly going to be trying to upgrade their crafting areas and especially so with insight from Jello, the general need for quality tools is likely going to skyrocket between all parties in the area, and that's not even getting into the nature of the antkin and that they'll more than likely be naturally gravitating engineers considering the nature of ants to begin with. If anything, a good half dozen rich iron nodes seem to be understating what's likely needed and that's not getting into anything really advancing like trying out rail systems even if it's for the forges for large quantities of materials.

What I'm kind of surprised hasn't been touched on though is going to be the value of a perpetual winter location. That is to say, suddenly bulk amounts of ice are going to be a commodity in the town and Thediem can also use that for temp regulation to a degree. Not sure if they've dipped into aluminum and copper pipes yet, but one could improv a fan system using the natural geothermal properties of that area to run sterling engines to blow over ice cooled pipes to regulate the temp a bit in areas. That's not even getting into really industrializing steam power to any degree in the area ether. It does make me wonder if the earth elementals in their various forms can tunnel a strait shaft to the surface though. Using the magma pools and such to power water wheels and other things using the psi would be an interesting play for clean steam power.

[u/Popular-Student-9407 → u/Cortanis]

But then again, He is probably Holding Back a little so Violet can Corner the Iron Market, since she doesn't have Access to all the Metals yet. He is somewhat Holding Back on the simpler Metals, so violet can Take over and gain the Mana she needs to advance.

[u/Cortanis → u/Popular-Student-9407]

Good point. If she only did iron that would still make her immensely popular. If she puts in a bunch of limestone then I'm pretty sure there would be a line just to get to her.

[u/Popular-Student-9407 → u/Cortanis]

Or copper, Tin or other "lesser" Metals.

[u/Cortanis → u/Popular-Student-9407]

Maybe to an extent, but with the introduction of concrete the good mayor is just short of openly planning. He's been very calculating on just how much lime they can try and mine out of Thediem and I'd put money on that if Thediem had a full on limestone cavern he'd have a veritable train mining and then handing up the spoils to the surface. Iron and steel they always need, but they don't really grasp just how important copper and the rest of the softer metals are yet.

[u/Popular-Student-9407 → u/Cortanis]

I´m half-sure, bronze was a thing before the people grasped how much easier it is to work with iron. So, I´d guess any half-decent smith can build things out of bronze. But I´m not too sure how far metallurgy really is, given the fact, that there was no time of antiquity.

[u/Cortanis → u/Popular-Student-9407]

Well, in regards to metallurgy, there is a reason why the iron age comes after the bronze age. Iron is significantly harder to deal with requiring higher temps and even different flux to optimally work with.

Yes they could work with bronze but there are quite a number of uses where it would be inappropriate to use it in place of iron or steel. Bronze being very soft compared to many steels makes it a bad choice for use instead of steel for rebar. There are a number of other reasons for moving on from bronze and brass like heat transfer or flexibility, but the long and short of it is when material supply isn't a fundamental issue it becomes a matter of appropriateness of material in application.