It took a moment for them to process my words and calm down. I opened my magical storage and retrieved a snacking platter. It held cheese, sausages, cured meat and some crackers. I also pulled out some ale.

I placed it all on a table, I was well prepared. Or maybe I just had way too many things in my storage.

Lucy changed to her foxkin form again and started snacking. I joined her. Hans was the first to grab some ale, followed by Adva.

"Should… should we really be drinking now?" Herbert asked.

"Of course! Dwarves do their best work with ale!" Hans replied.

"While we discuss what went wrong we can enjoy some snacks. It lightens the mood." I added.

"But we are in the undermountain! There could be beasts around! The train almost exploded!" Arianne complained.

Kira snorted. "Nothing here is a threat to us." Then she grabbed a piece of sausage.

"Those bugs live in the undermountain." Adva commented. "But it could not have entered while we were in the cabin."

"Can they teleport?" I wondered.

"Not that I know of." Adva replied. "They are pests though. More common in the northern mountains."

"Maybe someone put it there?" Lucy suggested.

I nodded. I had been thinking the same thing. "Sabotage."

"Not necessarily." Kira added. "Those bugs are curious things. They can shrink and go into stasis if they are mana starved. In that state it could have been easily overlooked. Maybe it was attached to some components. It can happen. Sabotage is possible but so is an accident."

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"You know those bugs?" I asked Kira.

She smiled. "They are rather tasty, especially if you are a creature with lightning affinity."

"Uh, can we get more?" I asked, regretting that I missed out on it.

Kira shrugged. "I am not aware of anyone truly farming them. They are sometimes sold in special restaurants. I have never bothered to investigate."

"We got to check our suppliers. Make sure the other parts are clean. We can't risk that again." Adva commented.

I nodded but my thoughts were elsewhere. Could we farm those bugs? I had an electrical root network with a lot of mana in my town. It could feed some bugs, potentially. Maybe we could open a farm and breed them? Of course, only if they did not harm the dryads. I had no idea if their way of eating mana would be painful.

After our snacking break Adva and Hans checked the train again. Arianne and Herbert were… they needed some time to process everything. Kira and myself took their role and checked the runes. After a short field repair Adva declared the train functional.

We boarded it again and Adva stared at the controls. "You know, we have no way of turning the train around."

Hans scratched his head. "We can't even go backwards, come to think of it."

I could see the problem. An engine could be put in reverse, a jet turbine? Not so much.

"We could mount the engine in a way that we can rotate it." I mused.

"Could work but we would have to make sure it's secured when activated. You can't have it turning when in use." Adva added.

"We could do two turbines, one in each direction. The current one might be too big anyway, considering how fast we were going." Hans suggested.

"Well, once we have more passenger wagons we want to attach a locomotive on both sides. So the entire train does not have to turn and can go the other direction. Would be nice if we had an easier way for a simple reverse though." I mused.

For now we simply exited the train and I stored it, then I placed it on the tracks again, facing the other way. We boarded once more. Our return journey was less eventful. The train moved as intended and we could even regulate the speed now. It was still a rough system and would need some tweaking though. More fine control was needed, especially for stations. Accelerating abruptly would not be comfortable for the passengers.

The brakes were another issue. They were not strong enough when the train was going really fast. Something we tested on the way back. If there had been an obstacle it would have ended badly.

Overall the test was a success though. We had the basics, now it just needed tweaking and refinement. I told Arianne and Herbert to take a week off, they looked like they needed a break. Meanwhile Adva and Hans were a lot more enthusiastic. I helped carry the prototype back to their workspace, then we left.

"So, are we going to investigate those bugs?" Lucy asked.

"I think we leave it to the team. They have enough funds to hire an investigator. It's not like we have a lead." I replied.

"Do you intend to stay in Iron Rock?" Kira asked.

"I think we achieved what we came here for. The prototype is working. Let's go back home. We have got hell to explore!" I suggested.

Lucy licked her lips. There were likely a lot of tasty things there. It was time to find them.

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