Episode 7
It began with a tremor.
Minerva’s garden trembled at dusk, the wind standing still like it was listening. In the workshop, a cabinet that had never opened before creaked wide on its own, revealing a brass key, warm to the touch and carved with the Maker’s sigil: a circle broken by flame.
Kito stared at it, eyes narrowed. “So… she’s finally letting you in.”
“Letting me where?” Rudolph asked.
“The Below.”
The Descent…
Minerva led him to the basement—not the small cellar he’d known, but a second hatch, hidden beneath a false floorboard, protected by wards only a true-blood Maker could break.
As the door opened, warmth hit Rudolph’s face, followed by a scent—smoke and metal, old wood and earth. The stairs spiraled down like roots under the world.
Torches lit as he walked, one by one.
At the bottom, there it was.
A vast underground chamber, carved into the bedrock. Walls inscribed with runes that pulsed like breathing skin. And in the center—
—a massive, circular forge.
No fire.
But heat pulsed from it like a heartbeat.
The Forge Speaks…
Rudolph stepped toward it. His staff pulsed. Kito didn’t follow.
“Some things,” said the cat, “you face alone.”
When Rudolph’s palm touched the forge, a rush of visions slammed into him—his father, standing in this very chamber, younger and scared. Minerva in her youth, forging a crown of thorns. A boy in war paint calling lightning with a whistle carved from bone.
The forge remembered them all.
A voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere:
“What you make here remakes you. Will you bear the burden?”
The heat seared into his veins—not burning, but awakening. All the things he had built with his hands… now, the forge offered to build him.
He could choose:
- The Hammer, symbol of power—commanding creation, bending matter to will.
- The Lantern, symbol of wisdom—unveiling truth, even painful ones.
- The Chain, symbol of sacrifice—binding himself to protect others at great personal cost.
Rudolph didn’t hesitate.
He reached for the Lantern.
The forge flared, searing light into his skin and soul.
The Change…
When he rose, something was different.
His eyes shimmered faintly with forge-light. He could see the hidden patterns in objects, hear the faint echoes of intent in things people built or broke.
He knew what someone had meant, even if they lied about it.
And more than that, he could sense the cracks in reality now. Where the veil was thinning. Where the Foundry might strike next.
Minerva’s Tears…
She met him at the top of the stairs, silent.
“You chose truth,” she whispered. “Just like your father did.”
Rudolph said nothing. The forge had shown him something else—a fleeting image of Major, cloaked in veil-light, alive… but trapped.
There was still hope.
But there was also a path through danger he could no longer avoid.
To be continued…
Brufay 
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