**SCENE.** You roll beneath the descending hammer—the obsidian floor erupts where the meteor-iron strikes, spraying shards of volcanic glass that slice your cheek and draw hot blood. The Forge-Warden's weapon embeds three feet deep into stone, and for one crystalline moment he struggles to wrench it free, furnace-breath hissing through his fused visor. You scramble to your feet, boots skidding on slag-slick stone, and sprint toward your embedded blade. **BEAT.** The two remaining chain-makers drop their hammers in perfect unison and advance—their movements jerky, puppeted, inhuman. Behind them, the wounded smith collapses into a molten river with a scream that sounds almost relieved. Your fingers close around your blade's grip just as the Warden tears his hammer free with a roar that shakes dust from the vaulted ceiling. He turns, molten slag dripping from the weapon's face, and charges again—but now you're armed, and the chain-makers are closing from your flanks in a coordinated pincer. The forge-chamber narrows into a killing box.