**SCENE.** You pivot, ignoring the Warden's swing as it shears air inches from your ribs, and hurl your blade like a spear toward the nearest chain-maker. The weapon spins end-over-end through furnace-heat, a silver arc against molten gold, and punches through the smith's fused breastplate. He staggers, hammer dropping from nerveless fingers—the synchronized rhythm breaks. CLANG. CLANG. *Silence.* The other two chain-makers freeze mid-swing, their hammers suspended like clockwork wound too tight. **BEAT.** The Forge-Warden roars—a sound like tearing metal—and charges. His meteor-hammer comes down in a vertical smash aimed at your skull while you stand weaponless, your blade buried twenty feet away in a dying chain-maker's chest. The obsidian floor beneath you cracks with the force of his approach. Molten rivers surge in his wake. You have heartbeats to move or die.