Floor 9 was a foundry built for a mechanical god.
Rivers of actual molten metal flowed through open trenches in the floor, casting the massive chamber in oppressive, suffocating shades of crimson and gold. Endless plumes of steam rose toward a ceiling lost in the dark. The walls were lined with massive, dormant assembly belts.
At the center of the foundry, resting upon a throne of shattered gears and black iron, sat the Iron Legionnaire.
It was a twenty-foot-tall monstrosity of pistons, heavy armor plating, and localized industrial fury. It had no hands. Its right arm terminated in a hydraulic hammer the size of a small car. Its left was a massive rotary saw, the teeth gleaming with freshly sharpened malice. In the center of its chest burned an enclosed furnace, pulsing with orange heat, and its optical sensors flickered with an ancient, mechanical hatred.
