Over the last few months, we've seen a marked decrease in the number of leviathan parts that have washed ashore, but they haven't completely stopped. We still periodically see them fighting as well, but it seems like most of the fights that occur between them now result in both parties simply leaving the conflict zone. In all likelihood, enough of them have died that they're no longer constantly running into each other and causing new fights. Previously, I expect there were so many of them that even if a leviathan left one fight, it'd soon run into another leviathan, and after a while their fight or flight response boiled down to a fight-only response.

In any case, there are still many leviathans that are in the upper waters that we'll need to take care of, so I'm excited to launch this barge to see what the result is. I've gathered a bunch of demons to not only help me load the barge up, but also observe the result. We've also brought a few telescopes for observation. Ultimately, I want a bunch of eyes on the situation since it'll happen so fast. I'll likely need to make multiple changes, so having many observers that each have their own focal point will be important.

Despite her skepticism, Elora has also insisted on watching the trial boat. Considering we can't really stop her from just watching from a different vantage point, I figured it'd be beneficial for me to be able to gauge her reaction to the situation. It'll take a couple of days for the barge to be safely loaded, and I'll be keeping a close eye on the situation from a safe distance away. Sabotage here would be devastating, though I doubt this first ship has that risk. There is a non-zero chance that Elora, or even potentially the dwarves, might see us as such an existential threat that we might need to be 'dealt with'.

Thankfully, the weather held out for us for the remainder of last year and the two days of this new year. We were able to safely load the barge up with about 30 tons of dynamite, along with a few of the more shock sensitive crates designed to work as a detonator. On the morning of the third day, we floated the barge out to sea with a small sail and a slightly turned rudder to help slowly propel it out with the prevailing winds while also causing it to begin a very wide turn to maximize the time it would spend in the leviathan zone.

We didn't have any idea how long it would take for a leviathan to take the bait, or if they would take it at all. As a result, quite a few of us were surprised when the total time was less than ten minutes before something happened. I had preemptively told everyone that it could take some time, and we might need to move observation locations if the barge floats far enough out to sea that we need a higher viewpoint. As a result, many individuals weren't paying close attention when it happened.

It was over in an instant. If you were paying close attention, you saw a few seconds of a large crab claw coming out of the water just outside the bay. It snapped shut, and then large chunks of claw were suddenly airborne. A few seconds later, a deafening blast and a noticeable pressure wave raced past us. The initial results were both optimistic and terrifying.

We had managed to use enough explosives to rip apart a large part of a crab leviathan's main claw. Small chunks were airborne, and the top and bottom half of the claw had been rendered asunder, quickly sinking under the water surface. For the most part, actually, the claws were intact albeit separated from the rest of the crab's body. Most of the airborne parts seemed to be from the part of the claw that was in immediate contact with the barge, or the portions that attached the claw to the limb behind it.

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We quickly realized, however, that this left us with an immediate problem, as suddenly, the rest of the crab surfaced, and began wildly attacking the nearby area. It was still quite a distance from us, but we quickly began retreating further inland, just in case. The crab continued thrashing for a few minutes before it seemed to realize that the threat had passed. It moved into the bay area, where it was only partially submerged, and after an hour or so of observation, its missing claw had already started to visibly regrow. It was still miniscule, much smaller than it's other claw, but there was no doubt that within a few days, it'd be back in action.

I set up cautious observation parameters to be followed to watch the crab around the clock, in case it decided to move fully on land. While the initial test wasn't a complete success, it did prove out the concept that we could use high explosives to at least damage the leviathans. The bad news was that the crabs are going to be especially hard to deal with, since their main attack is their claw, rather than a bite.

Observation over the next few days revealed something interesting about the crab. It would actually move in and out of the bay depending on the water depth due to the tides. It seemed like it never wanted to be less than two-thirds submerged, and would temporarily retreat out to sea during low tide. I suspect, though I have no evidence for this outside of this behavior, that the leviathans are actually too big to be terrestrial, and they require the buoyancy of the water to support their own weight. Perhaps they can use magic to temporarily support their own weight on land, but I doubt they could stay for too long.

Elora returned to the city after a day, and it was difficult for me to get a read on what she thought of the situation. We failed to kill the crab, but we also did severely injure it. There was, however, a very different characteristic to our explosive barge than you'd see in a barge filled with gunpowder. I expect she's going to have to think about the situation more thoroughly before she makes any decisions related to our nitroglycerin barge.

As far as what I think of the situation, I believe that in theory we could set a secondary trap to kill a crab leviathan if we were clever about it. I suspect we could probably kill other leviathans with a barge, though based on the initial damage observations, we might want to upscale the explosives from 30 to 50 tons. The new nitroglycerin production lines have come online, so we're basically at double production now anyway, and failing to kill a leviathan is arguably worse than overkilling them, as they might end up avoiding future barges, or potentially becoming so enraged they attack us.

Given the initial degree of success, I've also put in a request to once again up production of nitroglycerin. I also want to do some test detonations in our storage silos, to see if we can increase the amount of dynamite safely stored in each. I definitely undershot the amount we could safely store in each of the silos, so figuring out what our actual maximum storage level is will be helpful moving forward. The last thing I want is for us to be waiting for decades before we've actually handled these leviathans.

With the previous additions to the jetties to help increase our output of fish fats, I'd estimate we could sustain about 20 times our current nitroglycerin production without major fishing changes, though that would also probably put strain on the local fish populations. That does mean, however, that we can just focus on the production line for nitroglycerin, without needing to mess with the fish supply much more. I'll talk with Zeb about it, but I expect that by late summer, we can probably double our production again.

In the meantime, I'm pretty close to finishing the floatation separation process to allow us to recover more material for increasing our mana crystal production. If that goes well, I might need to also increase our cryogenic separation process. We've perhaps reached the stage where I could attempt a more efficient, continuous separation process to provide us with a much larger supply of argon, and by extension other atmospheric gases.

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