They entered the chamber as the passage sloped downward, a faint orange glow bleeding through jagged cracks in the stone like an open wound in the earth. Below them stretched a long gallery of laboratories—shattered, warped, and half-collapsed. Glowing crystal shards hung precariously from ceilings and ruined worktables, catching and reflecting the restless heat pulsing from beneath the floor.

A thick, aromatic warmth rolled upward, heavy with scorched metal and alchemical residue. Smoke coiled from fissures that split the tiles, curling around broken instruments and melted apparatus. The chamber felt alive—breathing, waiting.

Then a low, guttural growl reverberated through the ruins.

From the fractured shadows between the labs, a creature emerged. Its body shimmered with flame, scales blackened and cracked as if forged in a furnace. Its eyes burned with cruel intelligence and raw hunger. Beneath the gallery, an unstable fire-node pulsed like a living heart, and it became immediately clear that the beast was bound to it. Heat, fire, and volatile magic churned through the room, turning the battlefield itself into a deadly adversary.

Karnos struck first, unleashing his psionic Mind Seize upon the cinder howler—but the creature did not even flinch. The power slid off it as though it had never existed.

Fazanna followed, conjuring a blade of shadow and surging forward with unnatural speed. Her strikes landed true, but with every blow the creature drank in the magic, its flames flaring brighter as it siphoned the energy from her attacks.

The cinder howler answered with violence. A fiery tendril erupted from its body, lashing out in a fifteen-foot line and searing those clustered too close together.

Safi vanished in a blur of motion, using Nomadic Shift to close the distance before transforming mid-stride into a kirre. With a thunderous roar, he launched himself at the creature, raking it with claws, tail, and fangs in a relentless assault.

Aldric strode forward through the heat, activating his blood rite—Rite of Sanguination—and made a crimson offering, infusing his blade with cold as he struck. The cinder howler retaliated savagely against Safi’s kirre form, tearing into him with blazing claws and snapping jaws.

Then Shiv came crashing through the ruins.

Lab tables splintered and flew aside as he barreled forward, bonecrusher raised high overhead. He screamed defiance and brought the weapon down again and again in reckless fury. In response, the cinder howler unleashed a reactive burst of heat, searing everyone foolish enough to stand too close.

Shank charged next, tower shield braced and great axe swinging. With an action surge, he hacked into the creature repeatedly—but the fire-node pulsed brighter, feeding the beast and knitting its wounds almost as quickly as they were inflicted.

That was when Shiv truly lost himself.

Calling upon the Totem of the Klar, his body warped with primal fury. He grappled the cinder howler with raw strength and dragged it bodily away from the fire-node. Releasing it, he hammered it with bonecrusher and shoved it farther still, forcing it away from its source of power.

Shank pressed the attack, striking again and again, but the creature managed to leap back toward the relative safety of the node.

Aldric injected a mutagen into his veins, his physique swelling as hideous regeneration took hold. He surged forward and struck with his vorpal greatsword, only to realize too late that the magical cold was aiding the creature rather than harming it. Grimacing, he deactivated his crimson offering and, with another action surge, delivered three brutal, steel-only strikes.

Karnos called upon his psionic power once more, accelerating those around him and sharpening their movements. Fazanna switched tactics, drawing a wand of magic missiles and invoking Toll the Dead—but again, the magic vanished into the cinder howler, strengthening it instead of breaking it.

Realization dawned too late.

Fazanna examined the fire-node and stabbed it with her shadowblade, only to watch in horror as the magic flowed directly into the creature, healing it yet again.

Safi lashed out once more in kirre form, while Aldric continued his relentless assault. Safi attempted to ensnare the beast with Thorn Whip, but the spell dissolved harmlessly into flame. Karnos tried Baneful Transposition, but it failed as well.

At last, the truth became undeniable: magic only fed the monster.

Abandoning spells, Fazanna drew her shortsword and stabbed at the cinder howler with steel alone. Shiv surged forward again, smashing the creature backward with bonecrusher, forcing it away from the node—only for it to leap back toward the pulsing heat in desperation.

That was its final mistake.

Shank slammed into the beast, shoving it back before leaping high into the air. With a roar that echoed through the shattered laboratories, he brought his great axe down in a devastating arc. The blow nearly cleaved the cinder howler in half.

The creature collapsed in a heap of fading embers, the inferno within it guttering out as the light drained from its eyes. The fire-node’s pulse slowed, and the chamber fell into a heavy, smoldering silence.

The moment the Core was lifted free, the forge screamed in protest.

The domed chamber shuddered violently as if struck by an unseen hammer. Molten veins flared across the floor in furious brilliance, and vents ruptured with shrieks of superheated steam. Metal shards and burning debris rained down from above, the forge tearing itself apart in rage. Amid the chaos, narrow ventilation shafts were revealed overhead—tight, twisting arteries of metal that offered the only possible escape to the surface.

They had no choice but to climb.

Inside the vents, the air was searing and suffocating. The metal walls pulsed with heat, vibrating beneath their hands as the Core thrummed with unstable energy. Movement became a desperate rhythm of climbing, squeezing, and leaping through collapsing channels as steam vents erupted without warning and the forge began to die around them.

Fazanna attempted to teleport them to safety, but the spell failed, swallowed by the forge’s violent interference.

They pressed on regardless.

They forced themselves into the narrow shafts as sparks flared from cracked panels, bracing the Core against their bodies while the metal beneath their palms warped and softened from the heat. Jets of scalding steam burst forth, and they ducked and slid past them by instinct alone, feeling their skin prickle as death hissed inches away. The passages narrowed further, twisting into impossible angles as the Core’s hum rose to a furious pitch. With no room for error, they leapt and braced themselves against bending metal, scrambling upward toward the surface as the forge collapsed behind them.

Every movement was flawless.

Steam erupted, molten veins flared, and entire sections of the vents caved in, but they twisted, leapt, and clung with perfect precision. Behind them, the shafts collapsed in a blinding cascade of sparks and fire, sealing the forge’s doom.

When at last they emerged, the roar faded into silence. In the aftermath, hidden fragments shaken loose from the collapsing laboratories revealed themselves—useful remnants salvaged from the forge’s final, catastrophic breath.