The Survivor's Requiem

Ren assembles his twelve-person team based on reliability under pressure rather than skill alone. He builds fourteen heavy demolition charges from army supplies. Harsk performs the iron token ritual, giving two tokens this time. Fossick provides a pre-war professional mining survey of the shaft.

The war council convenes at dusk. Lethane rules out further frontal assaults and a siege. Ren proposes the underground infiltration — twelve people through the mine shaft to destroy the Crucible heart from within. Vasserine agrees to deploy sappers to clear the shaft.

The Army of the Immaculate launches its first assault on the Crucible. The demons are organized and the mountain itself fights back with adaptive terrain — boneglass eruptions and shifting slopes that learn the army's tactics. 347 dead in four hours.