"I wish I could go with you," Tess groaned as her arms hung around Arthur's neck while in their apartment.

"This isn't a leisure trip. This is the first run of the train, Gideon just wants me there to help him oversee that everything goes smoothly," Arthur replied, his arms holding her around her waist.

"Yes, the train you designed. This was your brilliant idea, I just want to be there to support you," Tess said, pouting at the end.

"I know, but you have work to do too. Aren't you supposed to be meeting with someone to paint our wedding portrait?"

Weddings between the two races, although different, held many parallels with one another, as well as similarities to weddings from his previous life. There was a formal ceremony, where the bride wore a beautiful dress and the man wore some kind of suit, and the officiant said some nice words and led the ceremony until the bride and groom were officially considered married.

In elven culture the man wore formal robes, that for mages held precious stones that depicted their affinity. Arthur chose the robes for the simple reason that they were far more comfortable than a suit or his Lance uniform, although he was curious how people would react to seeing purple stones to represent his affinity to aether. In Sapin the officiant would be a royal official or governor from the town where the wedding would take place. In Elenoir however the officiant is the eldest member of one of the families, so in Arthur and Tess' case, it would be Virion. And unlike human weddings which could be held either inside or out, elven weddings were always held outdoors.

Yesterday Arthur, Tess, Alice and Virion left the sanctuary to visit the royal palace in Zestier, and the royal garden. The garden held a special significance for Tess' family, as they had been getting married there for generations. Even if that wasn't the case no one would have argued with the location. Not only was it beautiful enough for a wedding that day, but the wedding would time out perfectly for when the flowers would be in full bloom.

As for the portrait, the quality of photographic artifacts was still very poor, so unless you could afford an artist to paint your portrait, there were no wedding photos. So seeing as Tess was from royalty, they were getting a wedding portrait done that would be hung in the palace alongside the portraits of every king and queen since the founding of the kingdom of Elenoir.

"Yeah, but I really wish you could be there to help me make decisions," Tess said, sounding like a needy child.

Arthur chuckled.

"Tess," Arthur said, causing her to look up. He then leaned in and kissed her deeply. "This is the only thing I don't plan on being here for. Next is the chef, the day after tomorrow right? I definitely will be there for that, and remember I told you I would take the lead on it."

True to most men, regardless of race or world, Arthur only cared about two main things in regards to the actual wedding, that he was marrying the love of his life, and the food at the reception.

In elven culture they didn't have a reception after the ceremony, but they did have a banquet where friends and family of the bride and groom would give them well wishes and have a toast to them. Alice however wanted to have an actual reception with a band and dancing. Tess loves the idea of dancing with Arthur, and of course made it clear that a wedding cake would also be a must. Seeing the two of them in agreement on this, Arthur decided to add to it, and suggested that after he and Tess had the first dance, that he would dance with his mother and Tess with her father. Both Alice and Alduin fully supported this idea.

The only thing left afterwards that worried Arthur was the honeymoon. Because of the war he had considered postponing it till after for their safety, however there was no honeymoon in Elven culture. Instead they generally spent at least a week together in what would be their home, the purpose being to try and conceive a child. Virion seemed very vague when he described this tradition. Arthur suspected though that this was just him being a bit uncomfortable talking about his granddaughter and her husband doing little more than have sex for an entire week.

Tess gave Arthur's foot a light stomp.

"Of course you want to take the lead on the food. The chef is supposed to have dozens of food samples for us to try. It's literally the easiest and most fun thing to plan."

Arthur winced a little from the stomp. Then without warning Arthur lifted her up and spun her.

"You know, we should also plan the song for our first dance, and practice dancing to it. I'm sure the last thing either of us want is to just wing it on the dance floor," Arthur said as he placed her back down on the ground.

"Good point. I'll talk to my grandfather to arrange for the band to play a few songs for us to choose from," Tess replied, her mood shifting to much more pleasant.

—————————————————————-

Arthur exited the teleportation gate in Kalberk alone, and began walking towards the loading area for the train. Normally Regis would have come along, but Arthur was putting a priority on Tess reaching the white core stage, so he needed to stay and filter mana. As for Sylvie, Arthur hadn't seen her since the day she left to train her Indrath clan mana arts. He hadn't even spoken to her, his only contact was the frustration she was feeling leaking through their bond.

Arthur ended up having to fly to the loading area. Not due to a need to save time, but the amount of attention he was getting. It had been a little over a week since Arthur and Tess agreed to allow the council to use their wedding as a morale boost, and in that time they had done interviews with several newspapers, which also included pictures. Despite the poor quality of the pictures, they were good enough that people were able to identify him walking down the street. The amount of attention he received was astonishing, much more than he had expected. It kind of made him feel like a celebrity from his old world, which also made him question if this was really a good idea.

After only a few minutes Arthur had located the building and was coming in for a landing behind the stone wall. The building itself was just an ordinary warehouse before, and for the most part still was. Seeing as the train was to run underground, most of the original warehouse was left untouched, except for the ramp that led underground. The idea of using the warehouse was dual purpose, one for the ease of storing supplies before bringing them down to the train, the other was to avoid drawing much attention constructing a completely new building.

Arthur landed gracefully, and attention was immediately brought to his presence.

"General Leywin, we salute you!" An older human guard announced, and everyone took a knee.

The man wore black and silver armor, and looked well past his prime. Considering everyone else was wearing brown leather armor, it was clear he was in charge. And based on the fact he looked well past his prime, he was most likely given his position so younger more physically capable men could serve on the front lines.

"As you were," Arthur replied, and began walking to the old man. "I'm here to see master Gideon."

"We were told to expect your arrival General," the man replied, and gestured to a younger guard beside him, who appeared to be the same age as Arthur. "This guard will escort you down to the train."

"R-right this way General," the young guard stuttered nervously as he gestured the direction they needed to go.

Arthur followed the guard around the building to the entrance, the guard looking back every minute or so, as if he wanted to say something.

"Just spit it out," Arthur said, getting a little annoyed at him.

"Sir?"

"Clearly you've been wanting to say something, so just say it."

"I-I'm sorry sir. I just wanted to say that it's in honor to meet you sir. You're a true inspiration."

"Inspiration?" Arthur repeated as they entered the building.

"Yes sir, to all commoners. Back when the Lances were first announced, even though the council said otherwise, a lot of us didn't believe that they would ever allow a commoner to hold such an important title. And now you're marrying a princess, you've shown us all that we can change our fate."

"I see. Well, I didn't exactly move through life with this as my plan. Getting to the level that the council offered me the position of Lance took a lot of hard work. As for marrying princess Tessia, that was just luck. But I never once thought about raising my status, all I ever wanted was the power to protect those I held dear."

"Truly inspiring words," the guard praised as the ramp down to the train came into view.

Arthur would have groaned at the guard for what he saw as him sucking up, but was caught off guard by seeing everyone working. Of course it made sense that everyone was working hard to get the needed supplies on the train, but the artifacts they were using really caught Arthur off guard. The carts were all heavily stacked and pushed by only one person, and didn't have wheels. The carts that levitated about a foot above the ground were artifacts created with the help of gravity magic, giving the carts a futuristic look that didn't even exist in Arthur's past life.

They proceeded to walk down the ramp and saw everyone moving in a hurry. Over a dozen boxcars were lined up, mixed with tank cars full of water, and several passenger cars which were just a series of small rooms with beds for the guards. Lastly on either end of the chain of cars was a black steam engine, that looked between a cross with modern trains, and those Arthur had seen in western movies in his past life.

"ARTHUR!"

Arthur turned just in time as Angela tackled him into one of unusually strong hugs.

"You're still so much more handsome than the pictures!" Angela squealed as she held him in place and shook him from side to side.

The guard was meanwhile dumbfounded, as he saw the older and beautiful Angela acting so familiar with Arthur.

"Why don't you let him go Angela," Durden said as he placed a large hand on her shoulder. "You don't want to get him in trouble with Tess now do you?"

"Oh yeah," she said calmly as she suddenly released him. "I guess I did go a little overboard."

"Nice see you too Angela, hey Durden," Arthur greeted with a smile.

Durden gave his usual big smile back as he tousled Arthur's hair, much more gently than one might expect from someone so large. "Good to see you again Arthur."

Arthur finally remembered the guard, and looked back to see him looking so confused as to how some common adventures could be so familiar with a Lance.

"I think I'll be able to find Gideon on my own, you can return to your post," Arthur told him.

"And if he can't we'll give him a hand," Helen said as she walked up.

"Yes ma'am," the guard replied then walked off.

"Hey there Helen," Arthur greeted as he walked towards her.

"It's good to see you again," she replied, and the two shared a firm hug before separating.

"So where's Lilia and Jasmine?" Arthur asked as they broke the hug.

"We're going to be meeting up with Jasmine at the wall," Helen replied, her expression then turning dark. "After the attack where your father died she left to train with General Bloom again. She took losing to that Scythe pretty hard."

"She shouldn't blame herself, she couldn't have changed things. Even the rest of the lances would have struggled against him," Arthur replied.

"Well as for Lilia, she should be back soon," Durden said. "She's just meeting with her parents since we'll apparently be gone for a while after this run."

"That's right. You'll be leaving with me when I head back," Arthur replied.

"I don't suppose you can tell us where we're going or what this mission is?" Hellen asked.

"Unfortunately no. That's how top secret all of this is. You won't even learn anything about the mission until after everyone else arrives in a few more days."

"ARTHUR!"

"Ah, my adoring fans," Arthur joked before turning around. "Hello Gideon, I was just about to come looking for you."

"And now I've saved you the trouble, now come on, I want you in the engine with me so we can see how it runs," Gideon said as he walked up then started pushing him forward towards the engine.

—————————————————————-

"I must admit Gideon, I am impressed," Arthur casually praised as he examined the engine.

"Well thank you," Gideon replied pridefully. "Honestly after building the Dicatheous this was easy. Just make everything smaller and closer together."

"Yeah well, I wish we actually could have run this thing without a full load. If anything goes wrong we might not get a second chance at this," Arthur replied.

"Don't worry, I made sure to give the engine several tests at maximum and normal running pressures, and we both did the math multiple times, it can handle the weight," Gideon replied confidently.

"Not everything can be tested properly like that. Some things you can't really test until it's under a load."

"I know I know. That's why I wanted you here, with the two of us if anything goes wrong we can handle and fix it."

"As long as we don't derail," Arthur commented as he turned around to see the large pile of combustium. "So this is combustium," he commented as he had never actually seen it before. "How long will this amount last?"

"Hmm, it should be enough for three round trips, but we'll never get low enough so that wouldn't be a problem. You saw those two empty tinder cars you designed? Well they'll be full when we get back. The mine is close to the Wall, so we'll be stopping by on our way back with everything they've mined so far and store it here."

—————————————————————-

After an hour everything and everyone was loaded up and they were rolling on towards the Wall. Slowly they gained speed, taking a little longer than normal as Arthur noticed several issues that needed to be addressed, some of which could be fixed right away, as others would have to be fixed either at the Wall or when they returned.

Despite the delay they arrived at the underground station at the wall right on schedule. The underground station at the Wall, as well as Kalberk, was raised at an incline on both sides of the train to act as ramps to make loading and unloading easier. Once the train stopped the train car doors slid open and short wooden platforms were dropped to fill the gaps between the ramps

and train cars, and immediately the crews both on the train as well as at the wall lept into action and quickly began off loading the supplies.

Gideon hopped off the train and immediately began directing several personnel on several of the issues that could be dealt with there, as well as ensuring the boiler was topped off with water. The twin horns as well as the other guards also exited the train and proceeded up the ramp to get some food from one of the restaurants or bars. As they were exiting, another group was entering.

"So this is the train I've been hearing so much about," Captain Flamesworth commented as he approached.

He wasn't alone. Beside him was Pasta Bloom, Lunaris and his team, Tess's team, Feyrith, and Senyir Flamesworth accompanied by several other blacksmiths.

"Hello Captain," Arthur greeted with a forced civility, as he knew he was the reason Jasmine wasn't there yet.

"Good afternoon General. So how was the trip? No issues I hope," Captain Flamesworth replied respectfully.

"Only minor ones. The kind of things you find when giving an invention its first proper run," Arthur replied.

"Is it alright if I take a closer look? I've heard this may be the future of Dicathen and have become a bit curious," Captain Flamesworth asked, his eyes not on Arthur but the train.

"That's up to Gideon," Arthur replied as he gestured to the scientist barking orders behind him.

With that he nodded to Arthur and walked towards Gideon.

"General," Senyir said as she walked up and bowed. "Can you tell me why we're being transferred to the floating castle?" She asked as the dwarf and human blacksmith looked at him with curious expressions.

"I can't tell you much yet, but I can tell you that the castle isn't your final destination, it's just a junction in between. As for why you're being transferred, you'll be establishing a new forge at your final destination." Arthur looked back to see Gideon releasing the full might of his ego as he was giving Trodius a full explanation of the train. "Don't tell the Captain this, his ego is already too big," Senyir and the blacksmiths chuckled at the comment. "I can't tell you what you'll be making, but I can tell you we need the very best blacksmiths in Dicathen. What you'll be doing will be in history books for future generations to learn about."

The blacksmiths stood a little taller with pride. Even though they doubted their names would be going down in history, the fact that they were going to be creating something that was was enough for them.

BOOOOMMM

Everyone froze as the underground platform shook. The combat mages looked towards one another, unsure what was going on.

BOOOOOMMM

The combat mages all scrambled outside, as Arthur and Pasta took flight and rocketed out. That confirmed that they were under attack.