The Door That Opened for the Forged

The abandoned Emrysian shrine rose from the stone like a wound.

Red granite and drake bone showed through failed glory. Thorny vines pierced collapsed arches. Half-buried statues of Dragonborn priests stared blindly toward the road. The wind carried sulfur, grease, and something chemical under the dirt.

Mechanical debris marked the approach: shattered bomb plating, discarded wire, and a single boot with a goblin foot still inside it.

At the entrance, the raid nearly lost momentum to a door.

One half of the massive fifteen-foot structure looked broken and loose. The other would not move at all. A new sigil had been carved into the ground at the threshold, small but active. When Dhaz approached, it glowed faintly. When Ash approached, nothing happened. The pattern pointed toward Void or forged bodies, but not in the way the party first feared.

Maine kept his distance, worried that he and Dhaz might trigger an explosion together. Unseen Servant did nothing. Pushing did nothing. Knocking politely did nothing except make the situation more embarrassing.

Jonah solved it by changing the kind of knock.

He used earth-speaking force to shake the stone beneath the entrance. The broken side of the door finally gave way and fell backward.

Then Maine and Dhaz crossed the sigil.

The sealed side opened.

The temple had not been warded to keep forged bodies out. It had been changed to recognize them.

Inside was a goblin workshop-forge: fire in the center, guards around the heat, bomb debris and void-tech scrap scattered through the space. Slogans had been worked into the room like a doctrine: men make fire, feed the furnace, become the spark, and no morals, only momentum.

The party had found one of Grease Tooth's workshops.

The door had only been the first test.