Fred unsteadily climbed to his feet, he could smell the rancid smell of vomit around him, his mind felt like it had turned to liquid and back again, the last thing he remembered was a blinding light, before waking up here,

Fred was one of the more stable ones, many had emptied their lunch, although it didn’t stop the world from spinning, “Jackson, Ronald!” he called out, trying to get their attention,

“I’m over here,” Jackson called out he was to the left of Fred,

“How are you?” Fred asked as he came over,

“I feel like shit,” Jackson was still sitting on the floor, too dizzy to stand up yet, “How are you still standing?”

“You seen Ronald?” Fred ignored Jackson’s question, Jackson already knew the answer,

“I’m over here,” Ronald called out to the right, the place was crowded, and most people were facing the floor.

“Move aside! Move aside!” a deafening boom resounded,

The people were slowly pushed to the side, “Do you know what’s going on?” Fred asked.

*Thump, thump, thump, thump, * the sound of metallic footsteps was sounding out across the hall they were in, when Fred looked over, he saw an army of 3-meter-tall humanoids clad in iron marching in formation towards the portal.

“They are summoning the army stationed here for the war with burgundy/savoy, including the Iron golems,” Ronald explained,

“Wait, if we are going to war with Burgundy, why are we coming here?” Fred was so preoccupied with getting ready, and the fact that the war kept getting delayed with Normandy that it wasn’t really in his mind,

“We are taking over garrison duty here, while the army is being deployed, although this place isn’t risk-free, it’s a way of hiding the future generation from the conflicts,” Jackson informed him,

Looking down the columns, Fred saw knights and heavy soldiers behind the Golems, Fred estimated a good 30,000 strong army was marching through the gates,

“Man, and here I was thinking my war was a huge battle,” Fred commented to no one in particular,

“Well, technically, it was the biggest war we had in the last two decades, the last time they were summoned was 27 years ago, with the war against the empire,” Ronald explained, “This will probably take all day to move these over to our planar,”

The newcomers were soon ushered out with their luggage down past the side of the army, they reached outside, the sight took Fred’s breath away, it was a giant stone and metal fort, surrounding the forts were tall grey mountains, Fred turned around, and saw that the outside of the portal room was in the style of a keep.

“So, this is the metal plane?” Fred asked,

“Yeah, it looks so,” Jackson commented,

“Come on! I will be showing you where you are staying,” a man at the front of the group called out, he looked to be in his forties,

They marched down to a row of houses on the west side of the keep, there were houses and buildings all around the keep, with the north side being open grounds, probably for unit training or something,

Fred also noticed a lot of chimneys on the other side, presumably smithies.

They were brought to a large building at the centre of the west side, “Here is the administration building for the west district, if you have any issues or requests you come here to lodge them, as well, missions will be found here, as well as other useful information,” the guide stated.

He lifted up a coin, Fred thought it looked like a poker chip, as it wasn’t the standard money they used on the home plane, “This is the only currency accepted here, if you are found trading with other currencies you will be penalised,”

‘Was this to force a work ethic on people,’ Fred thought to himself.

“You will have to work for your lodging, allowance, and to use any amenities on-site, lodging and food are supplied on credit, but for anything else, you will need to have the money available, now, due to war taxes, as the portal transfer was quite expensive, a 30% increase has been applied to the cost of goods and services here,”

Fred heard quite a few moans in the crowd, “Shut it, the lot of you, we are currently entering war mode, so each of us will have to chip in, do you understand,” the guide shouted at them.

Once the talk was over, they were handed keys each to their rooms, Fred noticed a magic circle on his key, “These keys are coded to your doors, each magic circle has a unique design that once connected with your doors, will open them, do not lose your keys,” the guide shouted out, they were then escorted over to the buildings,

Fred, Jackson, and Ronald were sharing their building, including a friend of Jackson and Ronald’s, Peter, they were staying at a housing complex, there was the main house and a detached building next to it, all walled off from the outside world.

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The main house had 4 large bedrooms, a dining room, a lounge, a kitchen, and staff quarters as well, the house Fred was staying at, had 2 staff members, a cook, and a butler, whereas the detached building was a workshop/shed, for their storage or to practice their skills.

The butler was the first to greet them, “Come in, come in, settle down,” he had brought them to the lounge area, “for now, it is just us two to take care of you, but in the next few days, your maids and attendants will be coming over, I’ll go and take your luggage upstairs.”

After he left, it was just the four of them, “I’m Peter by the way,” the new guy introduced himself, and offered a handshake.

“Fred” Fred greeted back and shook his hand,

“I heard you commanded the battle in Albion.” Peter said, “I wish I knew about it in advance, I was already stuck in Castile, which wasn’t that eventful, I was even left on garrison duty on the west side during the engagement on the boarders with Aragon,”

“I see, well, compared to what I just witnessed, it wasn’t all that great,” Fred commented, rubbing the back of his neck,

“Ha, you can’t compare yourself to that, do you think you would even be allowed to participate, never mind command it,” Peter laughed.

“Well, no” Fred shrugged, “I would probably be side-lined, as you say”

“Do you know how long we will be here?” Ronald asked,

“It would probably be close to two years,” Peter commented, “or at least until the end of the war,”

‘Shit, 2 years, I have stuff I wanted to do,’ Fred thought,

____

Once Fred was in his room, he took out his armour and set it up on a rack, he then took out his incomplete elemental armour pieces on the desk.

He reckoned another month before he completed the layering process, then he could start adding enchantments, he had set up a rig to fuse them together, using jumpstart cables attached to lightning crystals, meaning he could work on other stuff while waiting.

So right now, he took some spare lightning iron out with some high-grade steel and tungsten, he heard that the monsters here all wielded tough armour, being in the metal planar, so, he planned to make two weapons, a Halberd, and a hammer.

Fred was making the cutting edge of the halberd out of Lightning iron, to allow him to turn the edge into plasma, similar to what he used against the commander back in Albion, only the Halberd would be purpose-built for such a task.

He spent a good few days working on the blade and designing the enchantments on it, the main arm and most of the blade was made out of tungsten, while the edge was made out of the lightning iron, Fred then added channels down the handle pole, connecting to the edge, and filled them in with the lightning metal as well, this would allow his lightning mana to flow freely throughout the weapon,

With this, his first crafted weapon was complete, this was just in time for Jessica, and the rest of the group’s maids to come along,

“Hello young master,” Jessica greeted, “Its so good to see you,” Jessica had not long turned 16, she had a studding fiery body, partly attributed to her fire affinity, she had a tinge of red in her hair and eyes, both attributed from the fire affinity,

“Good evening, Jess, it’s good to see you too, how were things over there?” Fred asked.

“It was pretty hectic, your mother has informed me that they will be contributing artillery units to the war front, they have commissioned for an artillery regiment, and will be converting over units into them as well,”

“A regiment, 1000 artillerymen,” Fred knew his men would be called up, but it was better to have them go as artillery units,”

“Once they have prepared an artillery regiment, they will then start training 2 musketeer regiments, and a reservist regiment of artillery,” Jessica explained.

“Did we have that many men, I could barely get 2000 men myself,”

“Well, that was because your manpower was drawn entirely from Bristol, you now have two duchies to draw from,” Jessica reminded him of,

“What about Derek?” Fred asked.

“I heard that he is amassing troops from the towns east of Ludnus, he will be spearheading the invasion north, while the rest of the duchy will be supping the mainlands,” Jessica explained. “Also, Admiral George will be tasked with the fleet commander, as he has experience with both your ships and the mainlands ships,”

Admiral George was the admiral Fred had put in charge of the fleet during the war in Albion, “That’s great, he should have, what, 20 ships by now, 14 light and 6 heavies?”

“Yes, with another batch in production, however, the shipwrights have said that this batch would have to be the last for a while, due to heavy usage of the tools, they will have to perform maintenance for a while,” Jessica said,

“I see,” This wasn’t a concern for now, with a fleet of 30 ships, all state of the art for the time, he would be able to set in motion time to develop newer models, and shipbuilding techniques.

The two chatted for a bit, before going down for dinner, all four of them brought their maids down for dinner, and Fred could tell there was more than just a professional relationship between them,

“Hey Fred, you keeping bees?” Jackson asked,

“Huh, what?” Fred was confused, “No.”

“We keep hearing buzzing noises from your room,” Ronald said,

Fred tilted his head to the side in confusion as he looked at the two,

“It’s that contraption you have with your armour plates, Young master Fred,” Jessica said while trying to hide her laughter.

“Oh, no, sorry, it was for my new armour pieces,” Fred said, “is it distracting you?”

“No, I only hear it as I walked through your door, I’ve never heard of buzzing armour pieces,” Jackson said,

Fred had heard Jackson mention that he was majoring in metal enchantments, “No, it won’t buzz, it’s a fusion technique, there are three layers of metal overlapping each other, I am applying an electric current through then to bond on top of each other,”

“Electric current? why don’t you just smelt it into one ingot and work from there?” Ronald said he was majoring in Alchemy, specifically metallurgy, and chemical mana reactions,

“Electric current, Erm, think of it as passing lightning through the metals, also the three layers are different types of elemental iron, the inner layer being tungsten, or metal attuned iron, the middle layer being high-grade steel, and the outer layer being Lightning Iron,” Fred explained.

“Oh, cool, wait, I didn’t see you wear elemental armour on your way here,” Jackson said,

“No, I was wearing standard Steel armour, for now, the elemental armour isn’t completed yet,” Fred iterated,

“I see, would you be able to show me your technique in the future,” Ronald asked, he seemed to be curious about the layering process.

“Sure,” he didn’t mind, if he lost a piece, he didn’t believe someone wouldn’t be able to find out its principles,

___

Later that night, the group retired to their bedrooms, with Fred being the last to go up, he went up to the top floor, and just like they could hear the buzzing from his room, he too could hear the activities going on in their rooms from the hallway, only the sounds were more of the adult variety