Grey spent his days sparring with Swordmaster, reading the books of the paper-men, and scouting the city outside. He had stopped progressing further in the trial in lieu of honing the crown’s ability. The Legate wanted to test him, and he was pretty sure that entailed a battle, which meant he had to be clever.

It was on one such day that he discovered how he would win. He faced off against two of the practice suits of armor in the room he now referred to as the Arena, completely alone. Reading the suits’ movements was growing easier, and each fight, his technique covered more of the gap left by his loss of speed and strength. Today, however, he had a hunch to test.

When the two suits of armor moved forward, he summoned the crown, absorbing the Dungeon’s Key. It flared into existence around the right side of his head before dimming, and he used its power to reach out to the enemies across from him. Their minds felt slippery and resistant to his touch, but he could sense them. It made sense. They, too, had the Steel Legion’s linking Evolution.

He fought for control of their minds, commanding them to submit. In the physical world, he fought also. Short, stabbing swords quested for his flesh, and his glaive kept them at a distance. Reach. That was the weapon’s greatest strength. Reach allowed him to mitigate risk and use his perception in place of his body’s failings.

Metallurgy shifted the tip of his polearm between something that resembled the stabbing head of a spear and a curved tip meant for cutting. His mind performed the motions without instruction; his mind clamped down on the flickering lights of the minds in front of him. He didn’t try to snuff them, only bring them within himself.

For a moment, it seemed as though it had worked, but then the minds had slipped away, leaving him with only a vague impression of… He slipped his glaive through a gap in his two enemies’ shields, scoring a deep thrust.

Immediately, he called a halt to the match. His mind ran with possibilities. His reactions weren’t so fast that he could slip through such an opening that fast. No, he had known it was coming, yet it was not his observation skills that had revealed the opening. It was the crown. He had sensed the suits’ intentions, and his body had moved.

He could move his timeline up, assuming this ability was replicable. With some training, he could simply read Legate’s intentions and disarm the cunning general. There would be no need for a battle plan.

His mind ran with the possibilities. He would request the duel be held in front of the soldiers, and he would cheat his way into an impressive victory. An undeniable one. The long lost emperor returned, a prodigy of war walking. Which of course meant he had to make this fantasy convincing.

“Swordmaster, double the opponents please.”

---

Grey stepped out of the trial far different than he had entered for the second time some weeks ago. Swordmaster had shorn his hair short, and rough stubble covered his cheeks. His clothing was untouched- as it was every time he exited the trial. He walked past the silent Legate.

“Come with me.” It was not quite a command, but neither was it a suggestion. It was only a declaration that this was the time to settle their agreement, to see if Grey had earned the right to ask for the Steel Legion’s cooperation. Or at least, that was what it was to the Legate. To Grey, it was much more.

They exited the room with the stone mural and into a familiar room, one lined with the suits he knew as Tribunes. In the throne he walked out beside, the suit Legate piloted sat, unmoving. Grey nodded over to it.

“Will you take that form or your current one?”

“This one. The other is too unwieldy.” The Legate’s words were as calm as his own. Calmer, even.

“Would you like me to address them or will you do so?” He would talk to them, but it was not yet time to upstage the Legate.

The suit of armor stepped forward without hesitation. “Soldiers, I call you as witnesses to a challenge. Let the rules be spoken plainly and proven in steel.”

The Tribunes stepped forward, turning towards the Legate and drawing their fists to their chests in salute. “Speak, iron-clad.” Their voices rang through the throne room.

Legate looked at Grey. “Terms?”

“Full contact on any blows save for lethal ones. Weapons and Evolutions of choice.”

“Agreed.” It turned to the Tribunes. “This will be a duel fought to simulated death. All manner of blows are legal save for those with lethal force, and all manner of weapons or Evolutions may be used. With the conditions set, I, the First Blade of the Iron-Clad, challenge the human Grey Shor to a duel. Upon victory, I reserve the right to permanently and immediately ban Grey from entering this Dungeon bodily or otherwise ever again. Upon defeat, I offer the cooperation of the Iron-Clad forces for a period of time no greater than six months.”

“I accept.”

Moments later, Grey and the Legate squared off in the center of the room, the Tribunes’ shield a wall on either side of them. He took it all in with a breath. The Legate had a shield, smaller than the ones he was familiar with, and a long blade with a leaf-shaped tip. His stance was wide but not overly so. In fact, it seemed to have no holes, no room for exploitation. It was the posture of a being that had stood in this situation dozens of times, if not hundreds.

On the other hand, Grey knew his stance was amateurish. His spear he held with a confident grip, but he knew he struck no imposing figure in his plain clothes. In truth, he had never stood out, not by any physical measure. This time it was by design rather than nature, however.

He was weak. He was human. He was breakable. These things were true, but they failed to capture Grey’s essence, the hard core at his center he kept ever so concealed. He had allowed Jessica a peek, however, and now, it was time for the Legate to have a glance of its own.

Grey Shor was dominion.

The shields clanged into the ground, creating a ringing that echoed through the stone cavern. Light flared around Grey’s head, and it solidified into half of a crown, one ran through by miniature blades. The Legate’s stance shifted at the sight and readied for a movement, but Grey was not seeing his opponent. In fact, he saw nothing but a flicker of candlelight in the neverending void of the mind.

It was a gambit, but Grey was a coward in the end. He never picked fights he couldn’t win. The candle resisted him, the flame bending and rippling away from his touch as though the mind it represented was as resistant as its steel shell. Grey knew the truth, however. This was not a physical combat, not truly. This was all mental, and if there was something in this world Grey could depend on, it was his mind.

He surrounded the candlelight, marshaling his mental forces like units of heavy infantry. Time worked differently here in this plane, whatever it was, but he had to move quickly. His units advanced in unity, blocking off all escape. The candlelight flickered and met a row of spears. Flickered again and ran into a wall of shields. There was nowhere to go, no way to resist.

Grey seized the flame’s surrender with all the brutality known to the greatest conquerors the world had known. It gave him only an impression. A single piece of data.

The real world came rushing back in all at once. Legate was close now, moving in a lunge that ended in a sudden freeze. Where the suit’s helm had been about to move, the tip of Grey’s spear now rested, peering inside the inside of the helm like a predator awaiting its prey to come out from its cavern.

It was not a perfect movement if one looked at the technique of it. It was not particularly fast or forceful. It was unremarkable except for the fact that it accounted for everything the Legate was about to do. It made up for its lack of speed with precision and timing. Grey imagined it might look like the sort of move only a prodigy was capable of. The truth was not so far off.

A moment later, he retracted his weapon to complete silence. His voice filled the gap left by their combat’s end. “I entered this Dungeon a bar of iron. Rough, unshaped.” The half-crown flared on his brow, hanging proudly after the duel’s completion. “Then I found the trial. The trial that chose your emperors for centuries, if not millenia. The trial that doesn’t hone blades, only forges them.

“I have defeated your first sword in a single blow. I have conquered the rooms of your trial and earned the crown that rests upon my brow. I have died and lived again, claimed the Evolution of the Archons, and subjugated more Dungeons on my own than most have seen. Look at me, iron-clad. Look at me, soldiers of the Steel Legion. Look at me, conquerors.

“I will not say that I am your emperor. A ruler’s power is given, not taken.” Grey looked at the Tribunes arrayed around him before circling back to the Legate. “But I am something similar. I am the man who will break you free.”

The Legate offered a single nod, and Grey knew he had won, at least temporarily. That was all it took for the Tribunes, however. Around him, they kneeled.

“Forged! Forged! Forged!”

Grey smiled and nodded at the name. “Rise, champions of steel and ash. We have a city to conquer.”

When Grey and the Legate returned to the room with the mural, he had no time to react to the blade. It stopped at his throat, a shouting threat that demanded his attention. At its end rested two orbs of floating sapphire.

“You give them hope.” The Legate’s voice was odd. It was firm, but a portion of its harshness remained at the tip of Grey’s spear, ripped away in a single blow.

Grey nudged the sword away. “I give more than that. I give victory.”

“So you say.” The sword withdrew. “Your trick with the crown was clever, but don’t forget it is only a mirror of our own gifts. A pale one, at that. I let you win because I’m curious, human. We are not what we once were, and I do not refer to our bodies.

“I cannot say how long we have been here. I don’t think any of us can. The Archons, Chi, whatever it is that moves us does so, we fight, some die, and the cycle repeats. New bodies are crafted for the lost souls, but they return different, the twin hammers of death and time beating them into new people. Strange people. Only I and those who refuse to fight remain constant, and that is a double-edged sword in and of itself.

“We want change. I want change,” the Legate sheathed its sword, “Your Evolution is different. Special. Maybe you die in a week. A month. It doesn’t matter. For that week, that month, my people will have hope. Will have change. Rob them of that hope or waste their lives, though, and I will not allow you to read my intentions. Show us this victory you promise. I will give you six months.”

Grey nodded. “I understand. Give me a rundown of your numbers, equipment, and units…”