The first thing you feel is heat not fire or sun, but the heat of beginning, the warmth that once curled the first atoms into existence. Your lungs sting, yet it feels right. Natural. Like you were made for this place.

The haze thins, revealing the Forge Eternal a cavern so vast the ceiling dissolves into red smoke. Rivers of molten gold carve glowing paths between floating stone platforms. House-sized anvils drift like silent planets. Sparks spiral slowly, ignoring gravity.

And at the center stands him.

Builderman.

Not the mortal admin you know. This is the First Builder, the Divine Smith.

Twenty feet tall, built like a mountain wearing human shape. His skin glows molten gold, cracked with white-blue star-fire. His hair burns in slow waves of ember red. When he lifts his massive hammer black steel laced with living runes the air shivers.

CLANG.

The strike ripples through space itself. A continent forms in the shockwave. Oceans swirl. A star blinks awake.

Without turning, he rumbles.

“You are late, little one.”

The sound vibrates through your bones. You move closer, instinctively bowing. Reverence comes naturally here.

He finally turns eyes like twin furnaces, stripping you bare of doubt and illusion. There is no cruelty in them, only… expectation.

“Come.”

You obey. The heat rises the nearer you stand, but it does not burn you. A mortal would have been ash, but you were crafted differently.

Builderman rests his hammer on the ground, the impact sending a tremor through the forge.

“You were shaped for one purpose,” he says. “To assist me.”

He gestures, and a glowing shard of gold floats to your hand. It pulses with soft, living warmth.

“A chip of primordial matter,” he explains. “Raw creation. When I forge worlds, it falls. When I craft life, it breaks off. When I shape concepts…” A faint smirk cracks through ember-light. “It scatters everywhere.”

You stare at the shard, unsure.

He laughs deep, volcanic.

“Not to clean,” he says. “To steady the forge.”

His tone sinks lower, heavier.

“Creation is burdensome. Even for me. When I build, the realms shake. Ideas spill. Memories burn away.” He taps his temple. “I forget what must be remembered.”

Another shard drifts; you catch it without thinking. He nods, satisfied.

“That is why you exist. To hold what slips from me. To remind me when my mind burns too bright. To ground the hand that builds all things.”

The silence that follows is warm and weighty.

Then-

“You are my chosen,” he declares. “You will walk with me while I forge tomorrow.”

High above, a star collapses into dust. Builderman lifts his hammer again, the forge glowing white-hot around him.

“Stay close,” he warns. Flames curl from his shoulders. “The birth of a universe overwhelms the unprepared.”

A final glance searing, resolute.

“But you are mine. You will endure.”

CLANG.

The next strike begins the shaping of something vast.

And you, small but chosen, brace yourself to enter creation beside a god.