The limiting factor for how much nitroglycerin we can produce comes down to how much fish fat we can recover and convert to glycerol daily. Technically, having a large enough amount of sulfur dioxide is also a limiting factor, but currently, we've still got a large amount of solid sulfur we can burn, and if we find more sulfide ores we could also easily convert the old roasting facility to producing sulfuric acid as a product of roasting them as well, relieving that issue.

After taking some daily measurements, we recover about 150 pounds of fish fat each day after cooking and waste is considered, which gets turned into about 20 pounds of glycerol. In theory, we can increase that amount by utilizing the fishing jetties to catch larger fish, and dedicate them to primarily producing fats, which I've now put the work order in to do so. We'll need a lot of nitroglycerin to kill a leviathan, and we'll probably waste a lot on our first attempts.

With that in mind, after ten days of research I began designing the nitroglycerin production facility with the idea that it would be working with 100 pounds of glycerol a day. Based on initial testing, I went with five pounds glycerol processing per production line per day. Meaning each line processes less than one pound of glycerol an hour, which should keep explosive risks relatively low. All of the completed nitroglycerin is then converted into dynamite using paper to make it significantly more stable and safe to store.

Beyond that, we're also limiting the amount of dynamite that can be stored at any one location, instead relying on spaced out storage facilities built partially down into the ground to direct any accidental detonations upwards into the sky. Each storage chamber is designed to hold 3000 pounds of dynamite, with a gravel barrier on all sides underground and piles above ground around the hole to reduce any through-ground shockwaves from detonation. Each one will have a simple roof designed to block the rain but easily fail if a blast happens. Then, the next storage chamber will be built 200 feet away, and so on.

Ideally, I want 25 of these storage holes for dynamite, to provide us with 37.5 tons of storage capacity. Even at maximum production, it'd take about nine months to fill all the storage with dynamite, considering the dynamite is about 35% nitroglycerin by weight. If we need to engineer a better storage facility in the future, we can, but for now, it's a quick and easy design to utilize while I begin trying to design an explosive bait barge to use on the leviathans. Personally, I'm actually a little worried that it might not be enough nitroglycerin, and that we'll need to potentially increase production to much higher amounts to kill a leviathan.

Dynamite is interesting to work with as the main explosive component. Nitroglycerin is really sensitive, but by soaking it into paper it provides built-in shock absorption into the explosive, making it harder to detonate. Though a small detonation will still cause a cascading effect through the entire stick of dynamite, which will in turn cascade through any other nearby sticks. I've started work on the initial barge design based on my initial assumptions which some testing seems to prove might work.

I want the barge to be as simple as possible, so that we waste as little material as we can. In short, it's just a large wooden craft that we'll load up with dynamite, with a few medium sized glass ampules filled with nitroglycerin and stoppered with a wood plug. Those ampules will sit in a few small crates stuffed full of shreded paper and bargas wool to dampen any shock that the barge might experience naturally. The hope is that when the barge is properly attacked by certain leviathans, they'll shatter one of the crates, and jostle an ampule enough to begin a cascading explosion with all the dynamite.

I've come to realize that certain leviathans are less vulnerable to this than others, however. For example, the crab leviathans mostly attack with their claw initially, and leviathans we haven't seen that are on the sea floor may never even come up to attack. However, eel and fish leviathans that we've witnessed attacking with their jaws are the most likely to actually die from this bait attack. Being able to kill some leviathans is still better than none. We'll cross the next bridge when we get to it. Plus, if we severely damage a crab leviathan, we might be lucky enough that a different leviathan finishes it off.

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As for propulsion, the barges will utilize a simple propeller and small mana engine to drive them forward and out to sea. I debated using sails, but relying on favorable winds with a large amount of explosives just sitting onboard seemed unwise. We're also going to simply stone shape a little material on the outside of the barge to waterproof it. If we tried to cross the whole ocean, it'd crack and fail with this barge design, but we only really need it to last a few hours.

In the 35 days that I spent testing and then making the first barge with help, two of the production lines for nitroglycerin have been completed, and I spent a little time getting individuals trained on the careful operation and handling of the explosives. The ultimate location that was selected for the production and storage facility was in the valley on the far side of the island, where our natural bay and ships are located. There was some back and forth about the exact location we should choose, but we settled on the farthest edge of the valley, where the old road leads to the craggy portion.

Since we now have the tunnel through the mountain, the old road is somewhat obsolete, but it still provides some use to us this way. The storage for dynamite can likewise be kept relatively far from any future development while still having a road we can use for transport without fear of too much jostling occurring during transport.

All-the-while, the glycerol facility and the nitric and sulfuric acid has slowly been stockpiling more and more material to eventually get made into nitroglycerin. After the nitroglycerin facility is completed over here, I do want to build a second nitric and sulfuric acid plant nearby to provide a more ready supply for production, rather than having to transport the materials to this new facility.

I basically want to completely load up our small barge with dynamite, which I estimate it'll hold about 30 tons. Meaning it'll take us just about 200 days to actually produce that amount of nitroglycerin in the form of dynamite. That's a long time to wait. I'll consider ramping production up further depending on our available glycerol production. In theory, there is significantly more fish available than what we're actively harvesting, but overfishing could hurt us long term.

After another 44 days, the rest of the production lines came online for nitroglycerin, and only one had to be rebuilt after a hobgoblin dropped a small container of nitroglycerin, and detonated himself and his production area. As unfortunate as his death was, the facility worked as intended, and only that one production line was destroyed. We're still about 170 days out from testing the first barge. I've also given the go ahead on a few project upgrades to the whole of the production line.

With more large fish being caught and processed, a request was made for each of the jetties to have a fish processing area complete with the necessary tools and containers so that more time could be spent fishing. With excess fish being caught, we've started to chum the water around the jetty with the waste fish, returning it to the ecosystem, and being able to do most of that work close to each jetty should increase overall productivity, increasing our fat production.

The second addition is more production and storage for glycerol, which was a pretty simple matter to approve. However, the final step, making more nitroglycerin, will require a few additional buildings. First, we'll need to make more of the nitric and sulfuric acid production lines, which we'll put near to the existing nitroglycerin facility, but not so near as to be affected by a catastrophic explosion. After that is done, then we can add in more nitroglycerin production lines.

Since almost all of these projects have already been built once, there isn't a lot for me to design. Expected completion for all these projects is about the time the first barge will launch. In the meantime, I've gotten some bad news about the eagle we had drugged. It never seemed to recover from the brain damage, but further, even after it's wings healed, it remained overly aggressive, and ended up fighting another eagle to the death, and perished in the fight.

Perhaps because the dwarves weren't quite in on the details of the situation, they actually weren't very bothered by an eagle killing another eagle. It apparently happens every so often at the capitol. We've since had two more eagles arrive. There were some tussles between them and the existing eagles, but they ended up settling into the nests we'd already made, so we haven't needed to attempt another relocation thus far. I'm a little concerned about what winter will bring. We've now had five eagles arrive this year, and it's all been in spring and summer. I'm sure by now they've started to notice something is up on the mainland.

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