**SCENE.** You sprint forward through the rising heat, boots skidding on molten blood, the Ember Blade held low for a crippling strike. The Forge-Smith sees you coming and brings the hammer down in a vertical smash meant to pulverize the stone beneath your feet. You pivot hard left at the last instant and the weapon crashes into the floor where you stood, embedding itself two feet deep in cracked bedrock. The Smith yanks at the handle but the hammer is lodged. That's your window. You drive the Ember Blade into the same ruined knee with every ounce of strength you have left, sawing through molten flesh and the iron struts beneath. The leg separates with a wet tearing sound. The creature topples sideways, losing its grip on the hammer, and crashes into the forge wall hard enough to crack the brickwork. Coals spill from its eye sockets. It thrashes once, twice, then goes still as the magma blood cools to black slag around it. **BEAT.** Silence. The rivers of molten ore slow to a crawl, dimming from white to sullen red. You stand over the corpse, chest heaving, shoulder screaming where it took that fist. The Ember Blade is still burning white-hot in your grip, hungry for more. Across the cavern, at the far end of the forge floor, a circular stairwell descends into deeper darkness. Stone steps carved with warning sigils that glow faint crimson. You know what waits below: floor six is THE ARCHIVIST's domain—the insane lich who rewrote the kingdom's history in blood and madness. The Ember whispers in your mind: *'Two more trials remain. Steel yourself, champion. The Archivist will test your will, not your blade.'* You've survived the forge, but you're wounded and the descent ahead promises only worse horrors.