Fireball in the Forge Hall

The forge hall gave the party no more time for caution. Goblins clustered around the central fire. Bomb packs and scrap constructs filled the room. The spider-like things were not living creatures so much as junk animated by void energy, held together by force, metal, and someone else's ugly idea of invention. The Ex Force opened from range. Dhaz fired into the room. Maine pushed one of the constructs into the wrong place at exactly the right time. Nick finally found the spell he had been waiting to use and filled the forge hall with his first Fireball. For a moment, Grease Tooth's workshop became its own doctrine made literal: fire, furnace, spark. The blast tore through bomb-carrying goblins and spider scrap. Jonah answered with sacred flame. Ash and the others pressed the advantage until the first cell was cleared, leaving behind bodies, bent metal, scorched pieces, and void residue that looked more like a failed experiment than treasure. The room itself explained almost as much as the fight. Black and red goblin marks crawled across the walls beside void-script slogans. Men make fire. Feed the furnace, become the spark. Enemy says no morals, only momentum. This was not the Flesh faction's anti-forged crusade. This was Evil: Grease Tooth's side of the larger Maine-variant problem, a movement led by Enemy and built out of bombs, goblin labor, and void-tech momentum without conscience. Near the entrance, the party found a crushed goblin in a makeshift tech suit, something like a broken child's idea of armor made from stolen machinery and bad magic. It had once been meant to run, leap, or hit harder than a goblin should. Now it was only a warning. There was little worth taking from the constructs. The magic dissipated. The metal fell back into junk. Ash still found spices near the cooking fire and took what was useful. The party had won the first room of the temple, but the room made the larger truth clearer: Grease Tooth's people were not building clean artificer craft. They were turning void scrap, bodies, bombs, and belief into weapons.