As we've gotten closer to when Elora will be gone, we've started discussing a few other potential societal changes that are just around the horizon. For example, we're already partially operating a second town on the island at the harbor. It doesn't have people doing everything yet, but there are about a hundred individuals there at a time. We also have the handful of small villages we established previously for the purposes of having farmers closer to their fields.

In essence, we need a more rigorous division of powers beyond just having this upper level of government. So, after another 15 days of discussion, we've laid out a plan for how we'll define governance for smaller bodies. Basically, for the very small villages, they'll just have a representative who is in charge of speaking on their behalf. It'd be an infrequent duty that they'd have, so it's not a full time job. In essence, once a year they'd likely need to go to a regional meeting, and they'd be in charge of meeting with anyone who comes to them. Outside of that though, there isn't that much for them to do.

Beyond the small villages though, we've laid out a plan for future expansion that will only take place when actually applicable. We have 3 unpopulated islands that we'll likely expand into. The government system we defined prior with Zaka as our king and the rest of us as ministers will operate as a federal government. As the population on other islands expands, it'll go through various growth stages before we eventually establish something resembling an island level government.

After a village grows large enough, having a single representative isn't really enough to manage all it's needs. At a transition point that we'll need to establish through observation, they'll switch to having an elected mayor who's full time job is managing the growth of the town. As it continues to grow, they can add their own advisors that oversee their respective industries. Beyond a certain size, the major can also appoint a representative who would represent their city's interests to other levels of government.

If there is only one city on an island, then the island only has that city's representation. Once a second city is established on an island, the first city becomes the de facto seat of regional governance, with the creation of a few new jobs in the form of a governor and representative. Some of the city level advisor jobs would also resolve upwards into the regional government as appropriate.

Determinations on what jobs go where, and what jobs are needed will fall on the federal level minister of administration. Further, due to the fact we currently only have our main city, and we don't want to create jobs that don't need to exist yet, our capital city will only take on whatever positions get established in at least two other cities. So, for now, we don't have a mayor, because no two other cities have a mayor. Once two other cities have mayors, we'd establish a mayor there as well. That should help facilitate the transition of power from being city level to federal level on an as needed basis.

Until now, we've only had the one city, so giving it a formal name when our country's name of Kembora applied to everything that mattered was kind of redundant. However, as we've started to plan out the existence of more cities and towns, I'd realized that just calling it 'the city' wasn't going to cut it. So, Zeb agreed that we should call the capital city Kembora City. Considering it was already used somewhat interchangeably previously, this should keep most of the original understanding while drawing a delineation between what is the city and what is the country.

With the remaining 15 days before we headed back, we started to work on plans for expanding to other islands. Expanding to the other islands is going to take some time, and a decent amount of resources. If we can design some devices that would speed the process up, or alleviate some of the early needs of a town that is being established, that can make things a lot simpler. Before that though, there are some hurdles that need to be cleared.

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One major problem that needs solved is the mana issue. The next closest island in our island chain sits in the low mana zone caused by the mana crystal on our main island. As such, stone shaping new buildings there would be exceedingly difficult. While some temporary housing would be easy to establish, productivity of mana engines on the island would be very low.

However, based on the data I've gathered over time on the behavior of ambient mana related to mana crystals, I think that if we establish a second exceptionally large mana crystal on that island, it would solve the problem. There would be some challenges expected as a result, however. Based on my hypothesis of how mana crystals act as an attraction well for mana, if a second crystal was put on that island, the zone between the two islands would end up being quite mana rich.

There is an expectation that we'd probably end up attracting a few more leviathans into the high-mana zone, but I'd estimate that it'd be quite a bit less than the first time. This is because we'd be establishing a high-mana zone within what is already a low mana zone. As the new mana crystal moves from our island to the next, I'd expect that the zone of low-mana would slowly push outward, driving most leviathans away, rather than towards the island.

When we quickly established the other large mana crystal, we essentially just suddenly introduced the low mana zone, and leviathans within that space probably fled both inward and outward. Those that fled inward ended up trapped in the seas around our island, while those than went outward now had a huge zone of low mana that seemed to repel them from coming closer.

That's just a hypothesis, but it does seem to be supported by the data I've gathered. If we work from that hypothesis, the first step to establishing ourselves on a new island is actually installing a large mana crystal. Before the mana crystal is actually installed, we'd need to build some infrastructure to support it, despite the low ambient mana on the island. We'd also want to take that time to haul over any of the other heavier items that would make establishing a city easier.

After a new mana crystal is installed there would be a period where we utilize the old canoes to travel between the islands while we watch for any new predatory leviathans. With the heightened mana on the second island, construction should be much faster, and any mana engine powered devices that we brought over previously should work at full power. We'd want to bring over some artillery, telescopes, and mana ovens before the mana crystal is installed, so that the island is at least partially prepared for being cut off from our island in the event that I'm wrong about how the leviathans will behave.

We took some of the time devising more rugged versions of some of the conveniences that we have in Kembora City, like the aforementioned mana ovens. We've basically come full circle, all the way back to the old days with the pavilion I built with the large cooking area in the center, but instead of having that cooking area be fueled by charcoal, it's now a large heat fluorite powered device. Since the island will need to have a dock capable of unloading the large mana crystal anyway, concerns over the size of this device were minimal.

Another important thing to bring over in advance are spare tools like axes, and a mana engine powered forge for blacksmithing. We had some discussion over what other industries might be necessary for early establishment, but many were deemed unnecessary, as it'd be easier to just bring over a years worth of spare components, rather than bring over the machines to make the items. One set of things that we determined would be good to bring over was a set of rock crushers for breaking stone down into sand.

Depending on what stones are available, that sand is useful for enriching the soils where fields will be grown, which is one of the first things that will need to be established alongside housing. If building an artificial tide pool is even possible on that island, it will take a long time, so they'll have to establish a proper food supply before they can even consider it.

The hope, long term, is that by establishing ourselves on other islands, we'll start getting more demons who can summon imps, allowing our population to grow faster. If that doesn't end up working out, then we'll have to re-evaluate things and potentially take more drastic measures to acquire that magic.

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