We have more or less confirmed that it is definitely something in the city that powers the barrier preventing my expansion. And, luckily, we have people inside the nearest city. I ordered them to, without arousing suspicioun, figure out whatever it is that is causing the barrier and take control of it. Hopefully that won't be too difficult as they have been gathering information and expanding constantly since they first got started in the city. In another piece of good news, the student that specializes in this type of stuff believes that he would be able to figure out the exact location of the source with a day or so of work. Apparently it has something to do with the way the barrier curves. Hopefully that will help the people inside find it. Unfortunately there isn't much I can do there myself, so I spent my day teaching my apprentices. The eagerly and quickly absorbed everything I was teaching them, because of course they did, I've come to expect nothing less. It won't be long now before they are beyond my abilities to teach. I look forward to seeing how they use this knowledge. I spent my downtime with Tiddol. We ended up playing that civilization builder game one on one. It ended up going for quite a while, though I won in the end after taking her capital with my vast armies of mages, just barely defeating her armies of mercenaries. It was fun. Anyway, Good Night Diary