Len reached the bottom of the slope the tunnel was being carved into and kept going for several meters as he bled off the momentum of his run.

  He spotted a soldier running back.

  "Get this to the workshop car," Len said and passed the pipe to the man.

  "Yes sir."

  Len reversed his direction and ran alongside the wooden platforms in front of the engine where soldiers were securing more trees by virtue of fusing them with the platforms themselves or other trees they'd loaded.

  He jumped up on the lead platform and began checking the enchantments laid out, each of them just as he'd left them.

  He looked ahead.

  Inside the tunnel mouth, dust filled the air as engineers maintained their steady rhythm. Rick's hammer strikes echoed deeper within as perfectly formed stone blocks emerged.

  There were four human chains moving stone blocks as fast as they could twist.

  Len reached out with a water spell, forcing it into the tunnel, clearing the dust.

  The grading team had done their work well. The railroad had just a gentle slope leading into the mountain. It looked almost machine-perfect, the ground compressed and stable.

  Without the dust Len could see the light crystals illuminating the tunnel.

  Dust had turned hair and clothes a uniform gray. Yet they maintained their pace, the human chain moving in fluid coordination as more blocks emerged from the darkness where Rick worked.

  The engine started building up pressure, everything started moving forward up the slope.

  The progress was slow but steady.

  The rails started to roll forward and press into the ground.

  Captain Sam yelled orders, the two human chains in the middle of the tunnel ran out and started climbing up onto the platforms ahead of the train.

  Those on the sides of the tunnel kept working, standing on raised sections.

  The sound changed as they entered the tunnel, becoming hollow and confined. The natural light all behind him.

  Len could hear the rythmic hammering up ahead as Rick worked.

  Some smart bastard had put a light crystal and charging enchantment on the front of the train, revealing the dust and the engineers covered in it as they threw up stone to those on the platform, then climbed up themselves, never stopping their work.

  The train engine chuffed into the tunnel, becoming a dozen times louder as everything was amplified in stone.

  Len reached out to the air and drew water from outside in, clearing the dust from his vision and from swirling everywhere.

  Rick emerged from the darkness, his clothes covered in stone dust. He jumped onto the front platform as they approached, giving Edward a thumbs up through the window.

  The train slowed to a halt as they reached the end of Rick's excavation.

  Len cut the last lines needed to activate the enchantments into them. He moved to the next, and the next, each one coming alive as his mana flowed through the carefully etched patterns.

  Along both sides of the train and on the platforms engineers and soldiers stood ready on the narrow maintenance walkways. Just enough space for a person to stand, the walkways ran the length of the tunnel.

  The enchantments activated and the wall shifted as it became a partial circle, some of it to the side and below the rails hidden.

  Len joined Rick at the tunnel face. They grabbed the blocks from the top and tossed them backwards as quickly as possible, working to get level with those on either side, speeding the process up as they revealed the rail bed ahead and the maintenance walk ways on either side of the the nearly triple wide tunnel.

  Len didn't have time to admire it as the train advanced into the enchantment formed tunnel and they kept tossing blocks back as fast as they could grab them. The block sailed down the platform, caught and passed along by waiting hands. Another block followed, then another.

  With the two people on the maintenance walkways, they had four people up front tossing blocks as fast as they could.

  They'd chosen smaller blocks than they'd planned initially, easier to maneuver, grab and lighter.

  Captain Sam and another stepped forward to make it six, speeding up the process even more.

  The train inched forward as they cleared each section. Len's enhanced strength made the work quick, but he could feel tension building in his shoulders.

  He realized on a glance back he couldn't see daylight anymore, just the harsh lights of the crystal lights.

  He tossed another block back, trying to shake off the feeling of goosebumps rising on his back and up his neck.

  A distant roar filtered in from the tunnel entrance.

  "Cover!" Joe called as a dull thud went off. A hissing noise filled the tunnel then a waft of dust and boulders crashing down.

  The explosive enchantment that Len had made creating a landslide.

  "Lets keep going, they might start trying to dig," Rick said.

  "That is a lovely thought," Len muttered and tossed the block in his hand back to the next person in line.

  Len tried to hear over the sound of the engine, people breathing and coughing and the noise of the train on the wooden rails.

  He just kept throwing blocks.

  ***

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  Time became monotony, reach a fresh wall, start pulling blocks from the top and throwing them back till the wall was gone, then signal to his father to move forward and repeat the process again at the next section of blocks.

  He'd seen a few of the ventilation tunnels he'd cut as they'd kept going, a shaft of light and air shining in the darkness. It lifted his spirit.

  Len circulated his mana relieving the tension in his muscles as he tossed another block back. They'd been at it for hours since sealing themselves in. The air had grown thick and stale despite his efforts to draw fresh air through.

  Going to have to fit some pipes with enchantments to draw air in and others to push it out.

  The rhythmic chuffing of the train's engine echoed off the walls, creating an endless percussion that mixed with the sounds of boots on wood and stone blocks being passed down the line.

  The newly cut blocks were compressed in a way that they didn't throw up dust everywhere.

  A soldier tapped Len on the back, showing he was there.

  "Switch out!" Captain Sam called from behind.

  Len stepped back, letting the fresh soldier take his position.

  Rick drew his hammer and moved to the side, tapping the wall and listening. Starting to map out what was ahead of them.

  Len left him to it and made his way carefully between the human chains along the platform to not be in the way.

  He spotted Gretchen putting up enchantments to augment the light crystals illuminating the cave.

  Len made his way over to where Gretchen worked on a shroud with a light crystal mounted in the center, the bent metal had an enchantment carved into it to supply mana.

  "How's it going?" he asked.

  Gretchen looked up from her work, "We've been putting up lighting, pointing it at the ceiling to give more light. Peter and Harold are working on heating enchantments. The temperature dropped fast once we got deeper in."

  Now that she mentioned it, Len noticed soldiers and engineers who weren't actively throwing blocks had pulled on jackets or wearing extra. His own tempered body and the physical labor had kept him from feeling the chill.

  "The heating enchantments are helping. We mounted them to the train so that we bring the light and heat with us."

  Len nodded. "I'm heading to the workshop car. Need to sort out proper ventilation before the air gets any worse in here. I think we need to think of a way to move the blocks from the front of the train to the rear faster."

  Gretchen nodded slowly, chewing on the idea already.

  Len left Gretchen to her work and made his way along the new catwalks. That ran alongside the engine, giving them a way to move around the engine while the train was moving, or to stay out of the way of the human chain tossing blocks back.

  Through the window, he spotted Christina at the controls, her face illuminated by enchanted light crystals. She gave him a quick nod, gesturing toward the back of the train.

  "Your father's checking the growing boxes," she said, her voice barely audible over the engine's rhythmic sounds.

  "Thanks, how's the mana consumption?" Len asked.

  "Stored up a lot while we were waiting, just using passive mana right now, though we'll start dipping into it."

  "How long?" Len asked.

  "Couple of hours at this pace?" Christina guesstimated.

  "Alright well hopefully we'll make a better way to move this stone by then and we can pause the train, let everything charge back up."

  "More things to build," Christina grinned. There was a fatigue there, but also an energy that came from being in the middle of things.

  Len chuckled. "Feels like that's all we've been doing the last couple of days!" He continued back down the train. and up the stairs through the tender, a new addition as he climbed up to the first flatbed.

  Len kept moving back, his father, Peter and Harold working on the growing boxes and the lights that shined down on them.

  Len left them to it, meeting Joe between the second flatbed and the workshop.

  "Len," Joe nodded his head in greeting.

  "How are things back there?" Len asked.

  "Can't hear those bears anymore," Joe said, wiping sweat from his brow. "We managed to get a good amount of stone out before pushing the train in. Got about two cars worth of space behind us now."

  "That's some good oh shit room," Len nodded.

  Joe quirked a grin. "Quite."

  "Been talking to others as I cam back, need to speed up how fast we're moving stone. Got a couple of hours till we stop everything to let it charge. Can use that time to put a solution in place." Len rolled his shoulders, trying to work out some of the tension. "I'm heading to sort out ventilation first."

  "Sounds good, its getting thick," Joe lowered his voice.

  Len stepped into the workshop car, the familiar scent of metal and wood shavings greeting him. The pipe he'd used earlier sat was leaned against the wall. He picked it up, studying the air pressure enchantment he'd carved into its surface.

  Reaching out with his mana, he created a blueprint of the enchantment pattern. The complex array of lines and symbols hung there, ready to be reproduced.

  He grabbed another pipe of matching diameter from the rack. One by one, he transferred the blueprint onto each pipe, engraving it into the metal instead of carving it.

  The workshop's crystal lights cast sharp shadows as he cut away the completed section of enchanted pipe with his mana blade enchanted blade.

  He applied the engraving blueprint to the untouched section of pipe, enchanting it. Then cut it off and repeated the process a third times before he had to get another length of pipe, creating another two enchanted sections.

  Len grabbed a chain and threaded it through all the pipes. The pipes clinked together as he lifted them, slinging them over his shoulder.

  Looking out into the dimly lit tunnel beyond the workshop car, Len grabbed one of the spare light crystals mounted in its metal housing.

  He pressed it against his helmet, channeling his mana to fuse the metal pieces together. The crystal's glow now tracked with his head movements, illuminating whatever he looked at.

  Len moved down the tunnel, his helmet-mounted light crystal casting sharp shadows ahead. The ventilation holes they'd cut earlier were easy to spot - perfect circles of daylight piercing down through the rock ceiling, creating bright spots on the ground below.

  The sound of stone blocks being passed back echoed off the walls, men and women grunting as they worked.

  Conversation had died down already, turning to the monotony of work. Engineers carefully positioning new blocks as they arrived, stacking them to fill the space behind the train.

  "Leave a gap at the top," Len called up to them. "We need airflow through here."

  The soldiers paused their work, looking down at him.

  "Yes sir. How much space?"

  "About half a meter should do it," Len replied, setting down his bundle of pipes. He grabbed one and began climbing up the stack of blocks.

  At the top, he wedged the enchanted pipe between the ceiling and the highest row of blocks. The metal was cool against his palms as he positioned it carefully. He reached out with his mana, activating the air pressure enchantment.

  A whoosh of moving air filled the pipe almost immediately. The breeze picked up, flowing back along the tunnel in the direction they'd come from. The stale air began to clear, going out of the ventilation shafts over the block stacks and replaced by fresher air drawn down through the ventilation shafts still clear of blocks.

  "Every two hundred meters or so, put one of these between the blocks and the ceiling," Len held up a pipe.

  "Yes sir," Someone took it and put it to the side.

  Walked back towards the train with his pipe and chain bundle and stopped where the ventilation shafts clear of stone. He grabbed a pipe, activated it and jumped up, pushing the pipe into the ventilation shaft, a spell making the stone around the pipe clamp it in place.

  Fresh air blowed into the tunnel as Len breathed in. Damn bit light headed there.

  He breathed out, he hadn't realized how bad the air had gotten.

  Len worked his way back toward the train. Every second ventilation shaft, he'd leap up, and put a pipe drawing fresh air down into the shaft.

  The fresh air flowing down made an immediate difference. Color returned to people's faces as they worked. The fog that had started settling into his own mind cleared with each breath of fresh mountain air.

  He put the pipe in the last ventilation shaft the train edging forward slowly while stone blocks continued to be thrown back as fast as people could move.

  With their tempered bodies they didn't show the fatigue.

  "Only six more kilometers to go."