[Day 1 - The Cleanup]

The Scrapyard wasn't just a pile of junk; it was a puzzle.

"Move it! Put your backs into it!"

General Thorgar's voice boomed across the yard. Under his command, the thirty rescued loyalists weren't acting like recovering prisoners; they were working like a machine.

They stripped the armor off broken golems. They pulled mana cables from the dirt. They sorted bolts, gears, and pistons into massive piles.

In the center of it all, Master Orin had built a makeshift blast furnace out of a hollowed-out engine block.

"More heat!" Orin roared, shirtless and sweating, shoveling coal and mana crystals into the fire. "This scrap metal is low-grade iron! If we want Mithril quality, we need to cook the impurities out!"

Isabelle stepped up. "I can help."

She pointed her hands at the furnace.

"Fire… Intensify."

WHOOSH.

The orange flames inside the furnace turned a blinding, chemical blue. The temperature spiked instantly.

"Hah! Now that's a fire!" Orin laughed, tossing a jagged piece of scrap into the crucible. It melted in seconds.

[Day 7 - The Prototype]

Inside the Clocktower, the air was thick with the smell of ozone and soldering.

Hephaestus and Brokk were arguing over a blueprint.

"The hydraulic pressure is too high," Brokk grumbled, tapping the schematic of the Ironclad Exo-Suit. "If the pilot flexes too hard, the joints will explode. Dwarves are strong, boy, but they aren't dragons."

"We need the pressure," Hephaestus countered, his goggles flashing. "We are fighting the Iron Legion. They have steam-armor. If we want to punch through them, we need torque."

"Then we need a better power source," Brokk said. "Standard mana batteries won't cut it."

"Use this."

Damien walked in. He placed a glowing, pulsating object on the table.

It was the Void Core from Warden Krog's chest.

The room went silent.

"You want us to put that in a suit?" Brokk eyed the black crystal warily. "That's a bomb, kid."

"It's a battery," Damien corrected. "Hephaestus, can you reverse the polarity? Turn the Void suction into an output?"

Hephaestus picked up the core. He looked at it with the eyes of a mad scientist.

"If I route it through a Mithril filter… and use the Pantheon Sword's energy signature as a blueprint for the stabilizer…"

Hephaestus grinned.

"We can build a Juggernaut."

[Day 15 - The Test]

Leona stood in the center of the yard. She wasn't wearing her usual gear.

She was strapped into the frame of the Ironclad Mark I.

It was a bulky, industrial exoskeleton made of unpainted grey steel. Piston-driven arms extended over her own, and heavy hydraulic legs hissed as she moved.

"Systems check," Hephaestus called out from the observation deck. "Sync rate?"

"It feels… tight," Leona grunted.

She took a step. CLANK. The ground shook.

"Punch the target," Damien ordered.

Leona looked at the stack of three reinforced steel plates set up ten meters away.

She didn't just punch. She charged.

The thrusters on the back of the suit flared blue. She closed the distance in a second.

"SMASH!"

CRASH!

She didn't just break the plates. She obliterated them. The shockwave knocked over a stack of tires nearby.

But then—

HISSS-POP!

The right arm of the suit exploded. Steam vented everywhere. Leona stumbled, wrestling the dead weight of the machine.

"Failure," Brokk noted, marking his clipboard. "The elbow joint couldn't handle the Beast Aura."

"Not a failure," Damien said, looking at the destroyed steel plates. "We just need better joints. Rebuild it. Stronger."

[Day 22 - The Shadow Network]

While the Scrapyard forged weapons, the city forged rumors.

In the lower districts of Ironforge, the mood was shifting.

The "Golden Coin" merchants (Barnaby's men) were everywhere. In the back alleys, in the taverns, in the food lines.

They weren't selling. They were giving.

"Here," a hooded merchant handed a loaf of fresh bread to a starving family. "Courtesy of the True King."

"The True King?" the father asked, eyeing the bread suspiciously. "King Durin is sick."

"Is he?" the merchant whispered. "Or is he being kept asleep by the Regent?"

"They say Prince Hephaestus didn't run away. They say he's building an army of iron ghosts in the deep mines. They say on the day of the Coronation… the ground will shake."

The rumor spread like wildfire. Hope, dangerous and contagious, began to infect the populace.

From a high rooftop, Cipher watched a patrol of Twilight Cultists pass by. They looked nervous. They could feel the eyes of the city on them.

"The powder keg is full," Cipher whispered into his communication stone. "We are just waiting for the match."

[Day 28 - The Night Before]

The Scrapyard was silent. The hammering had stopped.

In the courtyard, thirty Ironclad Exo-Suits stood in formation.

They were no longer scrap grey. They had been painted matte black, with gold trim. The crest of the Voss Family (a Black Sun) and the Ironclan (Twin Hammers) were painted on the shoulders.

They looked terrifying. Like knights of the apocalypse.

The thirty loyalists stood before their machines. They were fed, rested, and armed with Magitech Rifles that hummed with power.

General Thorgar stood at the front, holding his massive shield. Master Orin hefted a new, improved cannon. Mistress Kida's staff glowed with fully calibrated runes.

Damien stood on a platform overlooking his small army.

He wore a new set of clothes woven by Lyra, a black combat coat reinforced with spider-silk and shadow mana. The Pantheon Sword was strapped to his back.

He looked at them.

"Tomorrow," Damien said, his voice amplified by the silence. "Regent Thrain puts a crown on his head."

"He thinks he has won. He thinks the city is broken. He thinks the world belongs to the strong."

Damien's eyes flashed Gold and Black.

"He is right. The world does belong to the strong."

He drew the Pantheon Sword. It hummed, hungry for the war to come.

"And tomorrow… we show him who the strong really are."

"IRONCLAN!" Hephaestus shouted, raising his wrench.

"HOO-AH!" The thirty dwarves roared, slamming their fists against their breastplates.

"Get some sleep," Damien ordered. "We march at dawn."

As the dwarves dispersed to their barracks, Damien remained on the platform, looking up at the smog-covered sky where the lights of the Upper City mocked them.

"Nervous?" Lyra asked, stepping up beside him. She was polishing her bow.

"No," Damien said. "I'm counting."

"Counting what?"

"The bounty," Damien smirked. "Thrain's head is going to be worth a lot of DP."

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