Eleven days later, and we got another update. Since the dwarves had deployed most of the tanks in the fight, save for the prototype models we'd given them, their offensive capabilities had ground to a halt. If they hadn't defeated the Demon Lord Malagord, the results would have likely been catastrophic. According to what reports we have, he was a hulking demon with two sets of backwards curving horns, and looked somewhat similar to the gorilla demons, though much larger.

Most of the components of the tanks were still intact, but the engines and boilers were totaled. The mana crystals and fluorite were completely shattered, and metal containers were ruptured. We should be able to produce new engines faster than entire new tanks, but not by much. I've requested that the fluorite growth area be expanded again to increase production. We also lost three ships thanks to the destruction of ParTor angering the leviathans in the area. We'll be redirecting some of the steel production to replacing ships and away from making new tanks to recoup our losses. The ships need a lot less fluorite compared to steel, and the tanks need more fluorite for repair, so it sort of balances out, though we also lost over one hundred trained naval demons that we'll need to replace.

If I was looking for silver linings, I'd say that we can at least say we also lost lives in the war, if people tried to claim we just sat back and watched. We also now have a good idea of what would happen if our large crystal were destroyed. I held an emergency meeting with the ministers to discuss the matter, and we've agreed to heavily fortify and lock down our crystal. It was already under some security, but it honestly needs to be heavily defended. If it broke, it wouldn't just stop existing, it'd likely break every fluorite crystal and plate on the island. That'd essentially destroy all of our industry in a single hit.

I knew that the mana explosion could be a little dangerous based on the other crystals we've had break, but ParTor's destruction showed us that the distance goes up considerably as the size of the crystal gets larger. Our current crystal is comparable in size, so I don't want to take any chances.

The dwarves have also reported that, while they didn't find their bodies, they've found enough evidence to conclude that the previous dwarven king is dead. Given most demon's propensity for eating the dead, they have assumed that they were eaten. They'll continue searching, but as of right now, the remaining dwarf lords are treating Kao as the new king and have started the process for his coronation.

As part of the discussion with the other ministers about securing our crystal, I also discussed the prospect of sending our next large crystal as a coronation gift to Kao. A few were heavily against it, noting that we should use it for our own ends, as we have multiple locations that could utilize it. While their point was true, it was somewhat near sighted, in my opinion.

ParTor represented something culturally important to the dwarves. If we grow a crystal larger than ParTor, and present it as a gift to the dwarves as part of Kao's rise to power, we can insert ourselves in a good light within the dwarven culture. The previous symbol of their king was destroyed by demons, but other demons replaced it with a new one. If we don't do this, then the story just becomes that demons destroyed the symbol of their kingdom, which continues the cultural stigma against us. Yes, we assisted in their war and contributed a lot already, but we have a forced choice in front of us now.

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There were still some detractors, but there were more who agreed than not, and Zaka approved it. We've already been growing mana crystals for other projects, and have some waiting at intermediate sizes already. Unfortunately, I do have to build out the larger growth chambers again, as recovering a large crystal out of them has required that I break the chamber. That said, it should only take a few days to get the larger chambers fully ready, and then it will take between six months and a year for the large crystal to be ready to ship. We'll also need to create a quartz carrying container along with using forms of fluorite to use up most of the mana so we can actually ship the thing without attracting leviathans. We've agreed to keep this a secret for the time being, as promising something then not providing it should something happen would look quite bad.

It's been just shy of a month, 27 days, since the last update and the mood among the dwarves on our island is still quite depressed. They're working hard, but all the bad news obviously had a hard hit on morale. The contrast is even more stark due to the difference in how it was going before. Their work was largely creating what they probably viewed as superweapons that allowed the dwarves to win fight after fight while taking minimal losses. Now, they're working on replacing all the parts that were destroyed in the fight for the capitol, which resulted in the symbol of their king being destroyed, along with the royal family being dead and the eagles fleeing.

We've had to put down another dozen eagles in that time as well, which has probably hurt morale even more. Our island is pretty much at capacity now, with there being 97 eagles nested here. They eat an inordinate amount of food, and we've had to adjust many things to accommodate them. I really do hope that many will leave when we gift Kao that new crystal.

There was at least some good news though in the most recent update. Some of the scattered demon forces attempted to retake the capitol, but were easily repelled by the dwarves armed with multiple machine guns. Since we're still shipping machine guns and ammo to the mainland, I expect that will continue to be true. We're shipping out two replacement engines in the time it would take us to send out a single tank, so I'd expect in another 4 months or so all the tanks should be repaired.

As for what I've personally been doing, it didn't take long for me to set up everything necessary for large crystal growth again, and I've resumed work on getting all the air liquefaction systems going. New demon summoning has also been happening at a very fast pace. Replacing demons is much easier than expanding our population capacity. Existing demons are drafted to join the navy, and their housing gets freed up, allowing new demons to be summoned to fill those spots. The main downside is that new demons are much lower level, so we can only do that so much before it becomes a bit of a problem, but a bit over one hundred wasn't enough to be a concern yet, especially with the average level being quite high after most of the clams were wiped out and their levels collected.

22 days have passed, and the air liquefaction facility is up and running. It ended up taking a lot longer than I'd initially wanted, due to the war, but it's functional now. We don't need as much liquid air for mining fluorite anymore, and we have new sources of mana crystals, but it's still a good source of argon for repairing broken mana crystals. As I've said before as well, having pure oxygen and nitrogen also will be useful for certain chemistry and metallurgy.

With a few of the tanks up and running again on the mainland, the dwarves have resumed some offensives, starting with the valleys connected to their capitol. Based on how things are going, I expect that our coronation gift will probably coincide fairly closely with the end of the war. If it seems like that is the case, we might try to time it that way as well.

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